If you’re running an eCommerce brand in Europe or selling to EU customers, this isn’t a “nice to have” update. It’s actually a legal necessity.

So, what does this all mean for email marketers?

Defining the European Accessibility Act

The EAA mandates that key digital services must be accessible to people with disabilities. The deadline for compliance is 28 June 2025. This includes websites, mobile apps, e-readers, and electronic communications like marketing emails.

That means your email marketing channel needs to comply in order to avoid penalties. Email marketers are now responsible (even more than they were before), for ensuring every campaign they send is accessible. And accessible doesn’t just mean mobile-friendly. It means every email must be usable by people with visual, cognitive or physical impairments.

Email Accessibility 101: What Does an Accessible Email Actually Look Like?

Here are 5 important standards every email needs to pass in order to be accessible in terms of the European Accessibility Act.

1: The Text is Readable

Use clear language, short paragraphs, and logical formatting. Your email should be easy to scan and understand for as many people as possible.

2: The Images Have Alt Text

Every image should have a descriptive alt tag. This ensures screen readers can interpret your content for visually impaired users.

3: The Colors Are High Contrast

Make sure your text has sufficient contrast against its background. This helps users with low vision or color blindness to navigate the email.

4: The Semantic HTML Structure is Sound

Use proper HTML tags like headings, paragraphs and lists to give your content structure. This helps assistive tech to interpret your emails correctly.

5: It’s Easy to Navigate by Keyboard

Interactive elements like buttons and links should be easy to access using a keyboard alone. This is critical for users who don’t use a mouse or touch screen.

For Hustler Marketing Clients, Email Accessibility is Baked Into Every Template

Accessibility is already baked into our email design process. That commitment includes all the creative processes that go into a high-converting email, from initial strategy to A/B testing.

But with the new rules coming into effect this month, we’re raising the bar even further, across all of our teams.

Email Copywriting

• A renewed focus on simplifying language and removing jargon to make every email as readable as possible.
• Adding headings to reinforce clear information hierarchy: <h1> for main titles, <h2> for subheads, and <p> for body copy.
• Every image with text or meaning gets a text alternatives, to eliminate unlabelled graphics.

Email Design

• Fonts at a minimum 14-16px for legibility.
• Avoiding the use of color alone to communicate meaning.
• Layouts are all mobile-responsive and clean, with no flashing or autoplay content.

Implementation

• Our email technicians now tag content semantically using headings and paragraph formats.
• We make sure all the key parts of the email are keyboard-navigable, so users can tab through links and buttons with ease.
• Alt text is now a required step on all meaningful images, icons and buttons.

The internal processes and cross-team collaboration we’ve implemented are keeping our clients’ emails compliant without compromising on creativity or performance.

How to Prepare for Tighter Email Accessibility Standards (Without Losing Your Mind)

If you don’t have a dedicated email marketing service team handling your Klaviyo or Yotpo account, there are some things you can do to achieve some quick wins for email accessibility.

1. Start by auditing your email templates for accessibility. You can use tools like Email on Acid for critical pre-send checks.
2. Train your team on accessibility standards, with a special emphasis on the European Accessibility Act. Spot gaps in your email marketing strategy and email design process that you can address using the advice in this article.
3. Built alt text, contrast and semantic HTML into your design process (if they’re not there already).

Email Accessibility, the Hustler Way

Some brands will wait until the last minute to clean up their email accessibility, treating it like another box to tick. Others (like you, probably) already understand that accessibility is really just about respect, reach, and ultimately, performance.

At Hustler Marketing, we’re here for both. Whether you need to overhaul your approach, or simply sharped your email accessibility strategy, we’ll help you build email campaigns that are always compliant, creative, and conversion-worthy.

Book a call with our email marketing experts to talk about future-proofing your entire retention marketing strategy. 

Part 2 of 6 in the Tariff Survival Guide for eCommerce marketers.

See Part 1 here.

Tariffs have eCommerce brands in a (justifiable) panic: how deep should you go with discounts?

But there’s a question that should be asked long before all of those: which email campaigns convert when times are tough, and how can you double down on those to reduce the impact of price hikes?

So How Do You Drive Sales Without Overdoing the Discounts?

It’s only natural to reach for the discount button when prices go up. But it’s not a sustainable strategy, and it will cut into profitability in the long term.

So sure, customers are cautious, but bigger and bigger discounts aren’t the only way to win their confidence. You don’t have to resort to ever-growing discounts. You just need a smarter strategy based on proven types of email campaigns that convert at scale.

The right email blasts and newsletter campaigns can keep your audience engaged and clicking. They can keep their focus on value, rather than price. And they can nudge customers toward conversions, all without burning out your margins.

In this article, we’ll walk through both short-term campaign plays for quick wins, and long-term brand strategies for loyalty and growth. Putting them together in one strategy is the best way to keep your inventory moving and keep customer relationships strong in the face of tariff-induced price hikes.

Email Campaigns That Convert in the Short and Long Term

A winning email strategy isn’t just about firing off promotions. That was true before tariffs took over the news cycle, and it’s even truer now that they have. After all, the relationship between your brand and your subscriber list has to be one that benefits both. As competition for their dollar intensifies, customers are more mindful of what benefits them, and what’s just cluttering their inboxes.

If you approach this creatively, there’s a lot you can do to improve your strategy and emphasize email campaigns that convert over promotional noise that triggers unsubscribes.

Short-Term Campaign Plays: Quick Wins That Don’t Rely on Manipulation

1: The “Last Chance At This Price” Campaign

What it is:

This is an email campaign that lets customers know prices are about to change. It gives them one last shot to grab their favorites before tariff adjustments kick in. You’re not shouting “SALE”, and you’re not talking about tariffs. But you are driving urgency in a transparent, honest way.

Why it works:

This email campaign is a great way to encourage sales without getting specific about economic or political reasons (yawn) behind price changes. It’s not a scare tactic. In fact, it’s not a tactic at all (as long as you’re honest about the fact that this is the readers’ last chance at this price). It’s a helpful heads-up. They’ll remember that. You looked out for them while everyone else was just cranking up prices.

Tip:

Use language like “We wanted you to know first”. Because you want to sound thoughtful and transparent. And because, hopefully, it’s true.

2: Flash Sale to Move Slow Inventory

What it is:

A mini party in the inbox: celebrating the last hurrah for slower-moving stock before tariffs nudge prices up. Flash sales are a classic promotional strategy, of course. But if you frame them thoughtfully, they feel less like a fire sale and more like a curated goodbye tour.

Why it works:

If it’s low-pressure and fun, this is an email campaign that converts and moves stock. Your customers get a deal, and they don’t feel rushed or suspicious. They just get to snag something special before it’s gone.

Tip:

Put the focus on the “last” angle: “last of its kind” or “won’t be back”. That adds excitement without being pushy.

3: The Rewards Campaign

What it is:

Referral email campaigns like this one get your customers talking about you, and in the best way. Subscriber A invites a friend, and that friend scores a discount. Subscriber A gets rewarded, too. This is a win-win-win (and who doesn’t love looking like the hero who found it first?).

Why it works:

Referrals tap into trust, because they put the customer in the driver’s seat. You’re giving them a reason to share some love and come back for more. It’s organic growth that feels good on every side of the checkout process.

Tip:

If you use this email campaign type, lay the process out clearly and step by step. If it’s easy, readers will be more likely to participate.

Playing the Long Time: Email Campaigns That Build Momentum

1: The Product Quality Campaign

What it is:

This email is promotional, but actually contains value for the reader. It pulls back the curtain on what makes your products worth it: the craftsmanship, the intentionality, the durability – whatever it is that customers can count on when every dollar matters.

Why it works:

Right now, people aren’t just looking for more stuff (if they ever are). They’re looking for smart investments. This email is an opportunity to show them that your products are that smart investment.

Tip:

Tell a behind-the-scenes story, whether it’s about materials, process or mission. Whatever makes your brand stand out – let that shine here.

2: The Letter From the Founder

What it is:

A piece that your founder writes themselves. The founder letter email should share thoughts, encourage the community, or express gratitude. It can even give a little behind-the-scenes perspective on the day-to-day life of the business.

Why it works:

Nobody really cares about brands. They care about people. A heartfelt founder letter reminds your customers that there are real people and real stories behind the brand they’re choosing to support.

Tip:

Stay real and don’t over-explain. Forward-looking and honest beats polished and corporate every time.

3: The Loyalty Program Growth Campaign

What it is:

A nurture campaign inviting your best customers to join your loyalty program, unlocking perks like exclusive offers, early access to new offers, and VIP-only rewards.

Why it works:

If you get it right, a loyalty program feels less like a marketing tactic and more like an invitation to belong. It shifts the conversation from “buy because it’s cheap” to “buy because you’re part of something special”.

Tip:

Make VIPs feel like VIPs from the get-go, and keep it going throughout their journey with you. Early access, secret sales, points – whatever you can offer, be consistent and make sure that the treatment you’re giving your VIPs lives up to the hype.

4: Value-Driven Bundle Campaigns

What it is:

Curated product bundles that give more perceived value, but without relying on discounts. Starter kits, essential sets, limited-edition collections – these can all feel thoughtful and exciting.

Why it works:

Bundles make shopping easier. Everyone loves getting a deal and discovering new favorites. Plus, they naturally boost AOV, helping your bottom line without undercutting your pricing power.

Tip:

Give bundles fun, lifestyle-oriented names like “Weekend Essential” or “Self-Care Starter Kit”. It’s a good idea to take your cue from customer behavior data to figure out what kind of bundles they’ll want.

Using Email Campaigns to Reach Tariff Sustainability

Email campaigns that convert are your springboard to stability in strange times. With the right mix of quick wins and deeper brand-building plays, you can keep your customers close and your margins healthy. You can also keep moving your business forward, whatever tariffs or the market throw your way.

What’s Next in the Tariff Survival Guide?

Check in for our next post: Clean Lists, Clear Messaging: Why Deliverability Matters More Than Ever. (Because even the best email campaign in the world won’t help if it never reaches your customers’ inboxes).

Btw, if you missed it, be sure to check out previous entries:

Part 1: Flows That Fight Friction.

Tariffs Are Tough. Your Email Strategy Doesn’t Have to Be

If you’re not sure where to start with creating email campaigns that convert through the tariff disruption, you’re in the right place. In our experience, the best results come from pairing strong email content with the right tools. In the hands of a knowledgeable email marketing services provider, the right email campaign software can help you execute high-impact strategies without overloading your team.

We’ve helped eCommerce brands deal with:

• Unexpected price shifts
• Supply chain disruptions
• Market stress

And we can help you, too.

Book your free consultation with an email marketing expert.

For more insights and strategies, keep reading through the next articles in this series:

• Part 3: Email Deliverability & Email List Hygiene
• Part 4: Email Segmentation
• Part 5: Email Design & Email Copywriting
• Part 6: Customer Loyalty Programs

Costs, Conversions & Tariffs: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do tariffs affect eCommerce email campaign strategies?

A: Tariffs raises costs. That makes endless discounting unsustainable. Instead of a race to the bottom, brands need to focus on building trust and showcasing value. That approach has the best chance of driving revenue without giving away margin.

Q: What’s the best email marketing strategy when costs rise?

A: A mix of short-term promotions (flash sales, last-chance offers), and long-term brand-building (quality storytelling, loyalty programs). This combination creates a balance between cash flow and brand equity.

Q: How can we reactivate disengaged customers during times like this?

A: A smart reengagement email series can bring back customers who haven’t purchased in a while. This works really well if you pair it with incentives like loyalty perks or limited-time bundles.

Q: What’s an example of a good promotional email during tariff disruptions?

A: A well-timed “Last Chance at This Price” flash sale is a strong move. Other promotional email examples include curated bundles and loyalty-exclusive offers that emphasize value over deep discounts.

Q: Should we still invest in interactive email campaigns right now?

A: Absolutely. Interactive email campaigns like referrals or loyalty point trackers deepen engagement and keep customers connected to your brand, even when they’re spending more cautiously.

There’s a difference between ideas and good ideas. And not all “marketing holidays” will work for your eCommerce brand. Before you commit email copywriting and email design resources to a campaign, you need to sift “that’ll work” from “that’ll do”.

In this article, we outline a lean, result-driven approach to the month of May, including some strategic tips and engaging May newsletter ideas you can use to generated some pre-summer hype.

May: Your Pre-Summer Power Play

May sits in that strange in-between zone: Q1 is over, summer hasn’t started, and there’s no “tentpole” retail event dominating inboxes.

That’s what makes it a good time to experiment and clean house. Smart brands are using May to:

• Re-engage subscribers who didn’t bite in Q1.
• Test new content formats and A/B angles without the pressure of big sales goals.
• Warm up audiences for upcoming summer drops or promos.

Basically, now is the time to do everything you can to soften the blow of that summer sales slump. Many brands experience a drop of between 20-40%, so every effort you make right now will count in the long run. And relevant, engaging May newsletter ideas can soften the blow by increasing revenue in the run-up to the summer slowdown.

May the 4th Be With You: Lean Into the Cringe

Even if you don’t sell light sabres or have a single Star Wars reference in your brand guide, May 4th is too fun to ignore. It’s a pop culture moment with built-in share-ability. And you don’t need to force a tie-in. You just need to embrace the playfulness.

Think interactive: let your audience “choose their side” in a product quiz, or spotlight items that are “rebellious” vs. “classic”. You could even build a one-day campaign around “galactic” bundles or drop a time-limited discount that vanishes at lightspeed.

• “Choose your side” product quiz: Let subscribers pick between products or collections framed as Jedi vs. Sith. Bonus points for follow-up flows based on their choices.
• Lightspeed flash sale: A one-day-only deal with a cheeky Star Wars reference. Add a countdown timer for urgency.
• Customer costume contest or themed UGC: Ask for photos of customers using your product in full space-nerd glory. Feature them in your next send.

If your brand does have a Star Wars flavor, then this is a chance to engage loyalists with fan-favorite products, nostalgia, or UGC. Of course, if your audience overlaps with cult fandoms, they’re probably expecting this email. So it’s a good idea to go slightly off script, and to include a good offer in the email.

Small Business Week (May 5- 11): This One Can Actually Be All About You

Consumers love supporting small brands. They just need a reminder of why it matters.

Use this week to share a behind-the-scenes look at your operations, or celebrate some major milestones in the story of your business. You can also lean into the “why” behind your business, whether it started as a one-person passion project or a 20-person team. These stories may stick out as self-promotion at other times of year, but here they make perfect sense, which is why they should be central to your May newsletter ideas.

But remember: overproduced storytelling isn’t the goal. Instead, focus on genuine human. moments:

• Those late-night packaging marathons
• The first customer review that made you cry (for better or worse)
• The way your team makes big things happen on small budgets

If you’re not a small business yourself, partner with one. Curate a special collection or limited-time offer that celebrates makers, creators, and underdogs. This really deepens brand credibility with audiences who care about values.

Mother’s Day (May 12): Emotional Revelance, Not Generic Gifting

Mother’s Day doesn’t just belong to florists and jewelry eCommerce brands. Any brand can show up with care, as long as the message is thoughtful and authentic. That might mean featuring a founder story about lessons you learned from your mother, or spotlighting real customers and role caregivers play in their lives.

But proceed with caution: Mother’s Day can be a difficult time for some. Including a thoughtful opt-out in your emails before Mother’s Day is a great way to show that you really do care:

If you’re selling physical goods, don’t just push a gift guide. Try positioning it as a curated solution for last-minute shoppers or a way to honor someone non-traditional:

• Stepmoms
• Aunties
• The friend who always remembers your birthday

Even digital brands can use this moment. A campaign around mental load awareness, or self-care for caregivers. This all shows genuine awareness of your audience’s day-to-day challenges.

Memorial Day (May 27): Respectful Storytelling

Memorial Day is a big retail moment. But it also holds emotional and cultural weight. So leading with “50% OFF” headline can feel tone-deaf. The brands that win here are the ones that balance commemoration with value.

Start by acknowledging the value of the day with a short note, a moment of silence, or by highlighting a cause that your brand supports. Then transition to the promotional angle with thoughtful positioning:

• Helping your customers prep for a long weekend
• Getting summer-ready with appropriate deals
• Simply enjoying a small moment of ease with the people who really matter

If you’re running a sale, consider building in a charitable tie-in. Donating a portion of proceeds to a veteran organization, or spotlighting veterans in your customer base adds depth to the message.

Smart, right?

Well, maybe not.

Depending on how your setup works, you might be excluding real customers across your campaigns. Even worse, you could be misattributing revenue in flows, while those same profiles still enter the automation. Either way, you’re getting an inconsistent picture of performance, and you may be losing out on real revenue.

In this blog, we’ll break down how inbox security systems can skew your email data, and what that means for your revenue attribution. We’ll also look at why some filters might be doing more harm than good.

So What are Bot Clicks, Really?

On most email platforms (like Klaviyo), a bot click is a link click that appears to come from a non-human interaction, like a script or automated process.

But not all “bot clicks” come from actual bots.

Some inbox providers, like Gmail or corporate email servers, use security filters that automatically click every link in incoming emails. This is a safety measure to scan for malicious content.

The problem is that email service providers (ESPs) can’t always tell the difference. If a security system clicks a link on behalf of a human user, Klaviyo still logs it as a bot click and flags the profile. That usually leads to removing the profile from the list.

So, even if that real customer opens, reads, and purchases later…you might never email them again. They’re on the bot list, and they won’t get future email marketing campaigns and email marketing flows.

When Bot Clicks Exclusion Goes Wrong: Real Revenue Horror Stories

We recently helped a store who had changed their attribution model from 3 to 5 days. They had also begun to exclude bot clicks, which they had not done before.

A couple of totally predictable things happened:

1. Email-attributed revenue dropped. This is inevitable, because Klaviyo was now linking less revenue to emails.
2. Engagement also dropped. Again, this was not surprising: at least some of the opens they had been getting were genuine bot clicks and machine opens.

But then we noticed something far more important: website sessions coming from Klaviyo also dropped.

After digging in, we found that the majority (yes, MAJORITY) of these profiles were real customers. They had been engaging and shopping with the brand before the change. But the bot clicks exclusion had cut them out of all email communication.

These exclusions were cutting valuable (human) subscribers out of the loop. These were profiles who had:

• Opened multiple emails
• Clicked multiple links (beyond the security auto-clicks)
• Completed purchases

They weren’t bot clicks. They were buyers.

Here’s an example of a profile that ended up on the exclusion list, even though there was a purchase history for the profile.

Okay, that looks like a pretty small order. Maybe the data clarity we got from excluding bot clicks was worth it?

Not quite. Here’s another example, but this time a loyal customer whose profile had triggered clickbot=true.

Imagine the impact of this kind of thing at scale. Excluding hundreds or even thousands of active profiles based on inaccurate bot identification could wreck your attribution model and flatten your revenue.

We even found a new customer who had converted via the welcome flow. After entering that flow, the system misidentified it as a bot click. This customer wouldn’t get any more future communication. And the brand would have cheated itself out of repurchase revenue.

Apple Privacy Opens: The Other Silent Revenue Killer

It’s not just bot clicks that brands need to worry about.

Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) makes a complex picture even messier. It preloads email content on Apple devices, even if the recipient never opens the message.

That means:

• Opens appear as “machine activity”
• Klaviyo (and other ESPs) can’t always tell if the recipient actually read the mail
• Some marketers choose to exclude Apple Privacy opens from email flows and email campaigns

But again, this can be dangerous.

It’s possible for a recent customer to end up in the “machine opens” category. So, if you exclude Apple Privacy Opens from your sends, you could be excluding active customers and losing out on revenue.

Here’s an example of a one-time customer that the system thinks is a machine open, even though they have placed an order.

At the end of the day, it’s better to have slightly noisy data than to lose out on revenue opportunities.

One of our expert email marketing strategists, Liana Mouradian, puts it like this:

“Consistency is more important than precision. If your metrics stay stable over time, even with some inflation, you’ll still spot the trends that matter.”

So Should You Ever Exclude Bot Clicks?

Yes, but only strategically.

In some rare cases, filtering might be necessary:

• During a list bombing attack
• If you notice a surge of invalid or junk profiles
• If a deliverability consultant recommends it for list hygiene or domain health reasons

But even then, proceed with caution. Flagging a security filter as a bot is a blunt tool. Unless you’re pairing it with additional signals, like no site activity, no purchase behavior, or hard bounces, you could be throwing out valuable profiles.

How to Check if You’re Excluding Real Customers

Here’s what we recommend for every Klaviyo user:

1: Audit your bot clicks regularly

Go into your database and identify any profiles triggering the bot classification. Check if they:

• Have a purchase history
• Engaged with multiple emails
• Revisited your site

You can establish this by segmenting these profiles. For example, filter for profiles that met “clickbot=true in the last 30 days” AND have ever placed an order. Those are customers, so keep them.

For active subscribers, you can segment further by digging into engagement levels like “active on site,” and “viewed product”.

We recommend having these botclick+MPP segments in place, and monitoring them regularly.

2: Don’t panic over inflated open/click rates

It’s a trade-off. Yes, some metrics may appear inflated. But excluding too aggressively can cost you more than just some messy data.

• Use engagement and conversion data: Look beyond opens and clicks. Track sessions, add-to-carts, and purchases to get a fuller picture.
• Validate before excluding: If a profile is flagged but has a recent purchase or strong behavioral signals, reconsider excluding it.
• Adjust segmentation logic: For example, instead of excluding all Apply Privacy Opens, exclude only those with no other engagement for 90+ days.

Don’t Let “Clean Data” Kill Your Conversions

Email marketing is messy. Between bots, privacy tools, and engagement filters, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s noise.

But we’ve learned that over-correcting is just as dangerous as under-analyzing. The best move is a balanced, evidence-based segmentation strategy that combines behavioral signals, clear exclusion logic, and ongoing monitoring.

If you’re not sure whether you’re excluding the right profiles (or the wrong ones), Hustler Marketing can help you audit your lists, segments, attribution settings and engagement filters to make sure you’re not ghosting your best customers.

Talk to our expert team about how to clean up your email data without sacrificing revenue.

With Christmas, New Year, and everything in between, your email strategy needs to go from turbo deals to festive feels. That’s easier said than done, and it calls for careful strategy.

Here are 7 tips we’re using to keep our clients ahead of the competition all the way through December.

1. Know Thy Audience (And Their Festivities)

Before you start jingling bells in every subject line, pause. Not everyone on your list celebrates Christmas or even the holidays in the same way. So, keep it inclusive. General holiday campaigns often hit the right note, so think along the lines of:

• Boxing Day Blowouts
• Countdown to New Year’s
• 12 Days of Gifts
• The Broke Santa Sale (Relatable, right?)

If you are running Christmas-specific campaigns, segment smartly to avoid alienating your audience. Inclusivity equals sales AND good vibes – the recipe for success when it comes to post Black Friday sales.

2. Audit Engagement Post-BFCM

Black Friday/Cyber Monday can be brutal on email lists – and by extension, bad for post Black Friday sales. Some people clicked, some ghosted, and others may have marked you as spam (ouch). Now’s the time to clean house. Focus on metrics that matter:

• Open Rates: Did they even see your email?
• Click Rates: Are your CTAs irresistible?
• Bounce Rates: Clean up those bad email addresses.
• Spam Rates: If this is climbing, reassess your content and cadence ASAP.

By reevaluating your engagement data, you’ll keep your segmentation strategies sharp and your email deliverability thriving.

3. Post Black Friday Sales: a Chance to Personalize

Remember all that juicy customer data you harvested during BFCM? Time to put it to work. Use shopping behavior, preferences, and demographics to craft ultra-personalized content. Think:

• Curated product recommendations based on past purchases.
• Exclusive deals for repeat customers.
• Special offers for segments like “last-minute shoppers” or “early gifters.”

Laser-focused segmentation isn’t just cool; it’s necessary. Don’t miss the chance to turn that data goldmine into a festive conversion spree that boosts your post Black Friday sales. 

4. Focus on Gifting (And Giving Back)

Holidays are the season of giving, whether it’s to loved ones or the community. Let’s hit both:

• Gifting: Promote stocking stuffers, smaller collections, or shiny new launches as perfect holiday gifts. This is also prime time to launch (or hype up) a gift card system. Easy, no-stress gifting? Sold.
• Giving Back: Highlight philanthropic initiatives. Donating a portion of sales or supporting a local cause resonates deeply this time of year. Feel-good purchases = feel-good sales.

5. Fix Your Deliverability Game

If BFCM threw your deliverability into the red zone, don’t panic. Here’s how to bounce back:

• Template Balance: Mix image-based emails with plain-text ones. This reduces spam flags while keeping things visually appealing.
• Avoid Spammy Triggers: No more capitalizing every word (SERIOUSLY STOP) or using excessive links in your templates. Simple, clean, and focused wins the inbox.
• Test Religiously: Use tools like G-Lock to run spam tests and diagnose sending reputation issues before hitting “send.”

Deliverability matters more than ever when every email is competing for attention during the holidays.

6. Get Creative With Content

Nobody’s here for the same old holiday recipes or generic gift guides. Think outside the (gift) box:

• Unleash “crazy holiday cocktail recipes” that promise to save family gatherings (and sanity).
• Craft unhinged gift ideas for “that one cousin.”
• Lean into playful, cheeky, or nostalgic vibes to stand out from the cookie-cutter campaigns flooding inboxes.

Your audience will appreciate the humor and originality, especially if they’re drowning in a sea of “10% off” emails.

Your subject lines need to sparkle, not scream. Avoid spam triggers like excessive punctuation (!!!), clickbait phrases (“Buy Now!!!”), or anything too gimmicky. Keep it genuine and engaging. Free online tools can help you fine-tune subject lines for deliverability without sacrificing flair.

7. UGC: The Holiday Content Goldmine

User-Generated Content (UGC) is the ultimate cheat code for creating authentic, relatable campaigns that convert. Here’s how to make UGC work its holiday magic:

• Turn Shoppers Into Storytellers: Highlight real customer experiences with your products. Feature UGC in emails, social media, and even paid ads to build trust and hype.
• Gifting Inspiration: Showcase UGC as gift ideas! A customer rocking your product = “Oh, that would be perfect for Aunt Karen.”
• Repurpose Everywhere: The beauty of UGC? One piece of content can go far – ads, emails, website banners, you name it.

Placing high-performing UGC ads is a powerful way to beat that post Black Friday sales slump.

…But Don’t Forget the Fine Print

Before you share UGC, secure usage rights. A quick DM or email request ensures you’re in the clear while maintaining customer goodwill. When done right, UGC becomes a cost-effective, high-impact strategy for your holiday campaigns.

This season, let your customers do the selling for you.

Final Thoughts: Keep It Festive, Keep It Fun

Post-BFCM campaigns are all about pivoting from the frenzy to the feels. By focusing on gifting, community, and smart segmentation, you’ll keep the holiday magic alive while driving revenue. Just remember: authenticity beats gimmicks every time.

Now, go forth and sleigh those holiday campaigns.

Better yet: let’s do it together.

Your Klaviyo dashboard is your best friend when it comes to figuring out what your customers are up to, what they care about, and how you can reach them more effectively.

Tracking key email marketing metrics is essential to knowing whether your email marketing is working – or if you’re working with an agency, figuring out the ROI on the email marketing services you’re getting. 

Here, we’re looking at need-to-know email marketing metrics, what they mean, and how you should be tracking them to maximize retention revenue. 

Email Marketing KPIs to Keep an Eye On (all the time, basically):

Once your email marketing channel is big enough, it will generate a LOT of data. There are many ways to slice that up, but here are the email marketing metrics to prioritize on the daily.

Let’s start with the easiest: how many people are opening your emails?

1: Email Open Rate

This might be the simplest (handiest) of email marketing metrics. Your email open rate (OR) is the percentage of subscribers who opened your emails. A bad OR could show that your subject lines work. It could also suggest problems with deliverability. 

How to Boost Your Email Open Rate

• Test different subject lines, preheaders, and sender names.
• Segment your list to target more relevant content to specific groups for better engagement.
• Regularly clean your list to ensure you’re sending each profile the type of content they’re most likely to care about.

2: Click Through Rate (CTR) & Click Rate (CR)

Click Rate (CR) is an important indicator that helps you avoid the spammer label. It calculates the percentage of people who open an email and click on a link, relative to the total number of emails you deliver. 

Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures the percentage of clicks received compared to the total number of views or impressions. (In email marketing, these are essentially opens). CTR provides insight into the effectiveness of your email’s content after that initial attention grab. This helps you understand how compelling your email content is.

Here’s the formula for CTR:

CTR = (Total Clicks / Total Emails Delivered) * 100.

How to Interpret Click Rate and Click Through Rate

A high CR may indicate that your email subject line or preheader text is enticing enough to encourage recipients to click through, while a high CTR may indicate that your email content is engaging and relevant to your audience.

Check in on these daily, because sudden drops could be a bad sign. By tracking both metrics, you can identify areas where your email campaigns are performing well and areas that need improvement.

3: Revenue Per Recipient (RPR): Digging Deeper Than OR & CTR

Open rates and click-through rates don’t directly tell you if a campaign generated revenue. To figure that out, you need to dig a little deeper. RPR is is a key email marketing metric that measures the average revenue that comes from each person who receives an email. It helps you understand how effective your campaigns are at the individual recipient level.

Let’s imagine a Black Friday early bird sale opener email to demonstrate the calculation.

• Total Email Sends: 50,000
• Total Bounces (to exclude): 2,000
• Total Revenue: $150,000

Your RPR is is the total revenue divided by the number of valid recipients. In this case, that gives us an RPR of $3.13, meaning each recipient contributed an average of $3.13 to the total revenue.

How to Use RPR to Improve Campaigns:

1. Segment your audience: Calculate RPR for different customer segments to see where your strongest ROI lies.
2. A/B test: Compare RPR across variations of subject lines, offers, or CTAs.
3. Timing: Analyze RPR across send times and days to determine optimal email scheduling.
4. Content Optimization: Identify emails that had higher RPR and replicate what worked—whether it was specific product recommendations or scarcity-driven copy.

4: How Do You Check Email Deliverability?

None of what we have just said matters if your emails aren’t landing in primary. Email deliverability is the bedrock of an effective email marketing service. One of the easiest ways to track it is to watch average ORs and CRs. If you notice a notable decrease on either of these, it’s a good idea to check in on deliverability, and dip into other email marketing KPIs that you probably aren’t checking daily.

Let’s look at those next.

Email Marketing KPIs That Deserve a Weekly Check-In (or a deep dive when you notice anomalies)

Spam Complaints

It hurts when people don’t open your emails. But it’s even worse when they mark them as spam. If your spam rate gets too high, inbox providers may block your account or take some other action against you. Here are some mistakes that can spike your spam complaints:

• Irrelevant content that doesn’t match the interests of the readers in each segment of your list.
• Spammy email copywriting: words like “free,” “act now,” “guarantee,” or excessive capitalization and exclamation marks.
• Clickbait subject lines that don’t match the offer in the email itself.
• High sending frequency: people don’t like to receive too many emails in a short space of time.

Number of Unsubscribes

Although a high number of unsubscribes can be discouraging, it can actually be a good sign. If people are able to find the unsubscribe option and remove themselves without friction, you’re doing well in terms of email design and format. A trustworthy eCommerce store will generally get more unsubscribes than spam complaints, as consumers choose to leave the sales funnel. 

List Growth Rate

Your email list is the backbone of your email marketing efforts, and tracking its growth over time is crucial. The list growth rate shows whether your efforts to attract new subscribers and retain current ones are paying off. A stagnant or shrinking list indicates it’s time to re-evaluate your acquisition strategies. By focusing on growing your list through engaging content and smart lead generation tactics, you ensure your campaigns continue reaching new and interested audiences.

Bounce Rate

For any email campaign, it is important to check and track the bounce rate, which measures how many subscribers did not receive your email. Tracking this metric helps identify soft and hard bounces, which is essential for assessing the quality of your subscriber list and maintaining the success of your campaigns. Ideally, you want your bounce rate to stay below 1%.

Some People Track Calories. We Track Email Marketing KPIs. Day In, Day Out.

A high-ROI email marketing service needs to be effective, transparent, and continually evolving to do better. That’s the model we have built at Hustler Marketing – and it’s how we have won major industry awards.

But there’s no secret: we just stay focused on email marketing KPIs that grow our clients’ businesses. That, and or exceptionally low account manager-to-client ratio, makes us the email marketing service of choice for eCommerce brands in virtually every niche. Alongside our expertise in email marketing KPIs, we also specialize in UGC ads, providing a potent combination of retention and acquisition tactics. Contact our team to learn more about how the one-two punch of KPI-driven email marketing and UGC advertising could help you exceed your goals for the next quarter and beyond.

So we won’t bore you with “top Black Friday statistics”. Instead, we’re going to help you to take a hard look at your Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) email marketing strategy to find potential flaws that could end up costing you in retention revenue. 

Black Friday 2024 is going to be the biggest one ever. And it’s not our first rodeo. It’s more like our fifth as an agency, and for some of our experts, that number is embarrassingly high…but so is the revenue we’ve helped our clients to achieve. For BFCM 2023, that figure topped $12.5 million. If there’s one thing we know how to do right, it’s BFCM. 

So we’ve come up with a list of misconceptions about this once-in-a-year opportunity. Under each one, you’ll find some practical steps you can ask your marketing team to take to course-correct. 

Black Friday Email Myth #1: Send Big, or Go Home

Black Friday is stressful. For everyone. 

And you don’t have to be squaring up with your neighbor for a TV to feel it. As marketers, we all get that feeling around late August…

So it’s understandable that many email marketing managers want to throw all caution to the wind and blast their list.

This may generate a spike in sales. But it’s like a sugar high: it will wear off. When it does, you may be in a worse position, because your deliverability will tank. You may also burn relationships with VIPs: they’ll know if you add them to a generic blast, and they will not like it.

You need to take risks, but they have to be calculated. Every move you make needs to preserve your email deliverability. So you need to be tactical about this (keep reading for details in myth #3).

Black Friday Email Myth #2: People Don’t Want to Hear About Black Friday Until October (at the earliest)

Like all myths, this one contains more than a grain of truth. Nobody loves opening LinkedIn in September to see clickbaity posts about some influencer’s “Black Friday blueprint that earned $20 million”.

Now for the Nuance

Here comes the “but”. You don’t need to be in-your-face to start warming up your subscribers. And in fact, if you don’t warm them up, big-ticket discounts may not be enough to motivate them. 

This is why re-engagement is absolutely critical for BFCM success, and it has to start way before the sale itself. We always encourage the Account Managers in our team at Hustler Marketing to start in September, and definitely prioritize it through October. There are of course exceptions: if re-engagement is cost your deliverability too much, you may need to do this differently.

Get that re-engagement flow in ship shape, and start rekindling cold profiles, whatever you have to do. If your re-engagement segment is big (yay!), break it into smaller ones to protect deliverability and avoid hurting your main KPIs while you increase send volumes. 

Also: Focus on Acquisition

September is also the time to start aggressively building your list through paid ads – especially UGC. Subscribers who come in through that door are great, because UGC raises credibility and increases the likelihood of conversio like almost nothing else can.

Black Friday Email Myth #3: Size is All That Matters

Yes, your offer needs to be good.

No, it’s not all about the percentage.

Discerning buyers know that this probably isn’t really their only chance to save. They also want value for money – and they’re savvy about what those deals look like. Many are skeptical about how much they’re actually saving.

If you’re thinking “70% OFF” first, and “what do customers want?” second, you will lose out to a more strategic competitor who’s offering a smart bundle, or some other deal that really does stand out. 

You don’t need to rely exclusively on huge discounts if you’re getting people excited well in advance.

Warm-up Tips & Strategies

Here are some of our Account Managers’ favorites: 

• Early bird lists (with genuinely good offers to reward your VIPs)
• Mystery gift every week in october
• A gift card with in-store credit (we call this the “Willy Wonka”)

Pro Tip: Once the sale starts, exclude recent buyers. If you don’t, you might see a spike in returns as people return their recent purchases to get the discount.

You’re welcome.

Black Friday Email Myth #4: Design is All That Matters – People Aren’t Reading Your Emails, So Don’t Sweat the Copy

How often have you heard things like this in the past week?

• People have short attention spans. 
• They want their Black Friday email offers to get to the point. 
• A CTA must be visible at all times, in every scroll.

They’re all true. But like all generalizations, they don’t always hold up. Sometimes the things people actually do pay attention to aren’t the flashy or bite-sized things, but the stuff that speaks directly to them.

Enter: World Class Copywriters (we have a bunch of them)

That’s why you have great copywriters writing your emails (or if you don’t, you need to talk to us about ours – seriously). We’ve seen simple, but well written and personalized plain text emails skyrocket sales in this period – and at other surprising times of the year.

Plain text emails do 3 things at once:

• Give readers a break from sale fatigue.
• Tell your subscribers that you know who they are – and you care.
• Set you apart from your competitors, who are probably too scared to try this.

My advice: keep these fun, even sassy. If you’re doing the “letter from the CEO”, get the CEO (whether that’s you or your boss) to actually read.

People have a spidey sense for authenticity – and they’re craving it in their inbox.

Related Myth: Black Friday Email Design is all Black and Red

It’s almost always a mistake to drown your brand’s own visual language in “sale” colors. 

You need to strike a balance between pushing the sale with a strong palette, and preserving what makes your brand unique.

If you’re not sure what I mean, this gorgeously on-brand email sums it up:

Myth #5: Cyber Monday is Black Friday’s Forgotten Stepchild

Last year, Cyber Monday hit record-breaking sales, pulling in over $12 billion in online purchases. That makes it the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history. 

Unlike Black Friday, which often goes with a physical store presence or hybrid approaches, Cyber Monday is all about digital. If you’re an ecommerce brand, that gives you an open field to compete with top-tier retailers – and WIN. 

And it’s not just for tech brands either: check out our Cyber Monday email design guide to learn more about how non-cyber brands can actually make this day all about them.

The Black Friday 2024 Hustle Starts Now

I hope you’ve found these myths useful. There’s a lot more I could say about the biggest event in the eCommerce calendar, but I’ve kept you long enough (thanks for reading).

At Hustler Marketing, we really want to help you to make the most of your Black Friday 2024. But what we want even more is to be in the trenches with you, working alongside your team to explode your email revenue. 

How about that?

Approximately 1 billion promo emails went out during 2023’s Cyber 10 (the period from the Sunday before Black Friday to the day after Cyber Monday). That’s a lot of noise, and it’s getting harder for brands to get their message across.

The good news is that it is possible to win this Black Friday. But it will take innovative thinking to stay ahead of the curve. Here, we’re looking at some key tactics that online retailers need to adopt in the run-up to Black Friday 2024.

The Countdown to Black Friday 2024 has Begun

Every year, that countdown starts a little earlier. In 2023, around 27% of shoppers reported trying to get their holiday shopping done as early as October.

Why? Because people love discounts – but they don’t love risking site crashes, out of stock notices, and the FOMO that comes with having one day to snag great deals.

Reward Early Birds, and They Will Reward You

As an online brand, you understand the value of urgency. Consider this your own call to action: if you don’t start early, you will lose out to the competition.

That’s why we like to get started ahead of time, with custom Black Friday packages for our email and SMS marketing clients.

Last year, stores that had no early bird offer in November saw a 116% increase in email campaign revenue compared to their September-October average.

But stores who ran an early bird offer boosted their email revenue by 181%.

That’s 56% more email revenue, at the busiest time of the year. 

Getting the Most From Black Friday Early Deals: How to Engage Your Most Proactive Customers

Here’s how our Black Friday email packages enable brands to capitalize on the growing demand for earlier and better deals.

Early Bird Email Offers: Rolling Out the Red Carpet

People who sign up for your early bird list are already some of your most engaged profiles. 

You can ride that wave by offering a higher discount long before Black Friday. And it doesn’t have to be a discount. You can also send timely reminders that certain products are running out, or won’t be restocked, to get people to feel a sense of urgency. If it’s really a good deal (they’ll see right through it if it isn’t), a strategic early offer or promotion can generate hype and make your audience feel like they’re getting VIP treatment.

For some of our clients, these were the best performing campaigns of the entire BFCM 2023 season.

Plain Text Emails: Keep It Simple, Seriously 

Plain text emails are a great way to boost deliverability, especially during the busy season. 

And they deliver your message in a clear, straightforward way, which is exactly what your subscribers need when they’re receiving higher than normal numbers of emails. 

You can style these as a “letter from the founder”, with a friendly tone that feels real, honest, and conversational.

Early Black Friday Bundles to Activate Buyers

Consumers are on the lookout for anything that sounds like good value for money during sale season. Insights from neuromarketing show that strategies like bundling activate specific areas of the brain related to decision-making, emotion and value perception.

If a bundled offer really does seem to be value for money, consumers will take note. Combine that with some hype and FOMO, and you have a recipe for success.

Ladder Discounts: First Come, First Served

Another great way to warm up your buyers is to offer exclusive ladder discounts to your early bird list:

• The first 5 buyers get 70% off
• The next 50 get 50% off
• The next 100 get 35% off

These are clear and easy to understand, and they create that urgency you want subscribers to feel. 

Black Friday 2024: Go Big & Start Early With Hustler Marketing

Black Friday 2024 is just 101 days away. Brands who haven’t started preparing for the mother of all sales are cutting it fine, to say the least. Prepare to catch the sale wave early and ride it to unprecedented success with a Black Friday Early Bird plan that’s tailored to your audience – and built to skyrocket your email marketing revenue when it matters the most.

As a remote email marketing agency that’s been remote since before remote was cool, we get that, and we’ve learned how to be creative and collaborative across the digital divide. But we also love to connect in person. 

So we sent our rockstar Account Manager Paola Vasquez all the way from Peru to BlendJet’s California GQ to hang out, discuss email marketing strategy, and plan for the future.

BlendJet: “Big Blender Power On The Go”.

BlendJet is the OG portable blender. Their blenders are compact, efficient and convenient for on-the-go use. Their flagship BlendJet 2 features a powerful motor and battery for blending smoothies, shakes and other beverages in seconds. It’sUSB rechargeable, spill-proof and easy to clean.

Basically, it’s everything that the health-conscious professional or fitness enthusiast needs to whip up their favorite drink whenever, wherever. As a result, BlendJet is an eCommerce phenomenon, and one of the most successful stores on Shopify.

They’re also one of our longest standing email marketing clients. Paola Vasquez manages BlendJet’s account at Hustler Marketing. She is an experienced marketer pursuing a Master’s in Design from the London School of Design and Marketing. Her resume combines marketing expertise with a strong background in visual design, which makes her the ideal account manager for highly visual brands like BlendJet. 

She and her dedicated Hustler Marketing team have helped BlendJet to scale their email marketing channel, which now accounts for 40% of store revenue. And when the opportunity came up to join a strategy session to discuss email marketing strategy and brainstorm future growth plans, it was a no-brainer.

Meeting the Team at BlendJet HQ

After making the long journey from Peru, Paola drove from San Francisco to BlendJet’s headquarters in Petaluma. There, she got to see the offices, showroom, as well as a range of product models and prototypes. She especially enjoyed getting to spend time with BlendJet team members – both the ones she works with every day, and the ones she hadn’t met before. 

“I really loved meeting other members of the team, especially in roles like data analysis. It’s super helpful to get insights from them, because it helps us personalize emails more effectively and refine our overall email marketing strategy” said Vasquez.

A Deep Dive on Klaviyo AI Features

One of the most valuable parts of the session was a presentation by Klaviyo’s Principal Customer Success Manager Neil Gogate. Together with Paola and the BlendJet team, he explored Klaviyo’s new features for analytics, segmenting based on AI, and AI-driven subject lines. They also discussed ways to optimize BlendJet’s current email marketing strategy and boost key metrics like revenue per recipient. 

Strengthening Relationships for Long Term Growth

Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play. After the strategy session, Paola made a stop in LA to visit the Warner Bros Studios with BlendJet’s Daniella Reda. “We talk every day, but it makes a huge difference to spend time with your clients in person. It strengthens relationships and lays the foundation for even better collaboration”.

Hustler Marketing: the Preferred Email Marketing Agency for Brands With Edge

Hustler Marketing is a young, energetic email marketing agency that’s famous for our linchpin mindset and enviable company culture. We support awesome brands like BlendJet with a customized, award-winning email marketing strategy that boosts retention revenue and increases customer lifetime value – all fully managed and done-for-you.

Book a call with our team to find out how our unique combination of strategic account management, email marketing expertise and youthful vision could transform your brand’s email marketing agency.