10 email marketing myths busted

As an eCommerce agency specialising in email marketing management, we’ve seen a lot of myths floating around online…

… Email marketing is dead… It’s only worth doing if you have a large mailing list… One false move, and you’ll end up in the junk mail folder.

The truth? Email marketing isn’t as tricky as you might think!

Join us as we take a look at ten of the most regularly repeated email marketing myths and share what the truth actually is.

Article topics

1. Myth 1: People don’t read emails anymore
2. Myth 2: There are certain days and times when it’s best to send your emails
3. Myth 3: Using certain words will mean your emails automatically go to spam
4. Myth 4: The more subscribers you have, the better
5. Myth 5: You can’t use emojis in your email subject lines
6. Myth 6: If customers have bought from you, you can’t send them marketing emails unless they consent
7. Myth 7: Sending daily emails is a bad idea
8. Myth 8: Automation is only for big companies that send a lot of emails
9. Myth 9: Open rates aren’t important anymore
10. Myth 10: You should make it as hard as possible for people to unsubscribe from your emails

Myth 1: People don’t read emails anymore

The myth: Some people think that email marketing is a lost cause, especially with people spending more and more time on marketing channels like social media.

Plus, with the average person receiving a staggering 120 emails in their inbox a day, they haven’t got the time to read every single message they receive… Right?

The truth: People are still opening, reading, and buying from emails.

In fact, email marketing still has one of the best returns on investment around. For every £1 you spend, you can expect to receive £36 back.

However, it is true that email marketing has more competition these days. As well as social media, people are spending more time on chat platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and Discord.

This means that if you plan to send marketing emails, they need to be highly personalised and targeted, with a stand-out subject line.

Our top tip – using SMS messaging alongside your marketing emails can make it easier to get people’s attention.

Myth 2: There are certain days and times when it’s best to send your emails

The myth: There are lots of different reports available online which tell you the optimal time to send your emails.

The problem is… They all suggest completely different days and hours.

The truth: The right time to send your email depends on a variety of factors, including:

1. The type of email you’re sending
2. Your target audience and when they’re most active online
3. The country or region you’re sending your email to
4. The industry you’re in
5. The products and services you sell

The best thing to do is to experiment. Try combinations of dates and times and see which leads to the best results.

A/B testing can make finding the right time for your specific business easier. This is when you send your email to batches of customers with one small difference. In this case, on a different day or at a different time.

Myth 3: Using certain words will mean your emails automatically go to spam

The myth: Mentioning certain trigger words in the subject line or body of your email, for example, ‘free,’ ‘urgent,’ or ‘limited time,’ will automatically mean your email lands in recipient’s spam filters.

The truth: Your sender reputation has more of a say in whether your emails reach your customers’ inboxes or not.

Sender reputation is a grade that your internet sender gives you – the higher it is, the more trustworthy your emails are deemed to be, and the more likely you are to avoid the spam filter.

Sender reputation is based on a variety of factors including:

• How many spam complaints you receive
• How people engage with your emails
• How consistently you send emails
• The trustworthiness of the IP address you use
• Whether your emails use language or images that could be regarded as ‘spammy’

So if your overall sender reputation is high, using trigger words to get customers’ attention won’t have much of an impact on your score. However, if it’s low, using spammy words could pose a problem.

There are tools online you can use to find out what your sender reputation is, like Sender Score.

Myth 4: The more subscribers you have, the better

The myth: Email marketing is a numbers game.

The more subscribers you have, the more people will see your emails, and the more sales you’ll get.

The truth: Good email marketing is all about quality, not quantity.

It’s far better to send messages to a small, engaged group of subscribers than to a large, uninterested one.

Rather than sending the same email to every subscriber on your marketing list, consider segmentation. This is when you split subscribers into smaller groups based on what they’re interested in and what they’ve bought.

While it may sound counterproductive, regularly cleaning out your email marketing list and getting rid of unengaged subscribers is a good thing! Check out our guide to email hygiene to see how to do this.

Myth 5: You can’t use emojis in your email subject lines

The myth: When emojis first started becoming popular about 15 years ago, many marketers were told not to use them in their email campaigns, particularly in subject lines.

Back then, emojis were considered too casual to use in professional communications. Plus, some phone operating systems couldn’t handle emojis, meaning they were represented by an unsightly rectangle instead.

The truth: As time has moved on, attitudes towards emojis have changed. According to Unicode, 92% of people now use emojis!

Technology has also moved on, meaning that phones are more likely to be able to show emojis.

However, it’s still important to determine if emojis are right for your business and target audience before using them in your subject lines.

You also need to make sure the emojis you use aren’t open to misrepresentation. For example, in the Western World, the waving hand emoji is used to say a friendly ‘goodbye’ or ‘see you soon.’

In China, it’s used disparagingly to mean a conversation is over or to tell someone to go away.

Myth 6: If customers have bought from you, you can’t send them marketing emails unless they consent

The myth: Email regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can be a minefield, and many businesses worry about getting in trouble or being fined.

GDPR says that customers must explicitly opt-in to receive emails. No exceptions.

The truth: While customers must opt-in to receive marketing emails, there is a workaround known as a ‘soft opt-in.’

The soft opt-in allows you to send marketing emails or texts using data gathered when a customer buys a product or service. However, there are strict rules for implementing this:

• You can only send marketing messages to offer similar goods or services
• You must give the customer a chance to opt-out at the time you collect their data (in this case, at checkout)
• You must make it easy to unsubscribe from all communications

We recommend updating your privacy policy to explain what data you collect, what you do with the data, and how you store it.

Myth 7: Sending daily emails is a bad idea

The myth: People don’t like to be harassed by businesses.

Sending emails to customers every single day is the easiest way to stop them from engaging with your online store.

The truth: It depends on who your target audience is and what you sell.

As a rule of thumb, if you sell affordable products that get consumed on a regular basis, your customers are more likely to appreciate frequent emails.

One of the best things to do is to give customers control over how many emails they receive. For example, if daily emails are too much, give them the option of weekly or monthly emails instead.

Whatever you do, it’s best to be consistent and steady. Suddenly moving from one email a week to three emails a day can cause customers to tune out, as well as hurt your sender reputation.

If you want to ramp up the number of emails you send (for example, for a Black Friday sale), do it gradually.

Myth 8: Automation is only for big companies that send a lot of emails

The myth: Automation, where you set up pre-written emails that are sent automatically to customers, is expensive and time-consuming.

If you’re a small eCommerce business, it’s not worth doing.

The truth: Automation isn’t as hard to set up as you might think.

Most email marketing platforms offer pre-made templates you can get started with, and if you have a little experience, you can also build your own.

While automation may take a little time to get started with, it saves you time in the long run, as you don’t have to create these emails manually.

Myth 9: Open rates aren’t important anymore

The myth: While open rates were useful at one point in time, they’re no longer helpful in determining the success of your email marketing campaigns.

The truth: It’s true that email open rates aren’t as accurate as they used to be.

Some privacy tools, like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), automatically preload email content, including the tracking pixels that tell email marketing platforms that the email has been opened. As a result, open rates can be artificially inflated.

However, while open rates aren’t 100% reliable, you can still use them to get a rough idea of how your email campaigns are doing.

The best thing to do is to combine them with other email metrics to get the full story. For example, a high open rate coupled with a high conversion rate means that people are not only opening your emails, but are reading and taking action too.

Some email marketing platforms use filtering to improve open rate accuracy. For example, you can set Mailchimp to exclude MPP and bot email opens.

Myth 10: You should make it as hard as possible for people to unsubscribe from your emails

The myth: When you make it harder to unsubscribe from your marketing emails, customers are more likely to read and engage with them, as you’re not giving them an easy way out.

The truth: Under GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), people have the right to unsubscribe from emails at any time, and businesses must make it as easy to unsubscribe as possible.

If you don’t provide a simple way for customers to opt-out of your emails, like an unsubscribe link, you could be breaking the law.

Not only this, but not providing an unsubscribe link can pose other issues. Marketing your products and services to customers who aren’t interested is a waste of your time and money.

Plus, if customers can’t easily unsubscribe, they may mark your emails as spam instead, which can harm your sender reputation.

Need help with your eCommerce email marketing?

The key to good email marketing? Treat your subscribers well.

Create quality content they want to engage with, personalise your messages so they’re highly targeted, and respect your subscribers’ wishes if they want to unsubscribe or receive fewer emails.

Happy email subscribers make for happy customers!

Want to create truly delightful emails? We’re here to support you – no myths, no buts.

Get in touch today, and let’s work together to build the ultimate email campaign.