Despite Google owning both products, custom Google Fonts used on websites will not render correctly in Gmail. They will fall back to a standard system font like Arial or Helvetica. This is a common, disappointing limitation for brand-conscious marketers who expect consistency across platforms.
In an A/B test, simple text-based email automations beat complex, visually-rich HTML emails with dynamic content on both click-through and conversion rates. This suggests that for many use cases, simplicity and directness are more effective than investing heavily in elaborate design.
To get reliable A/B test results for an automated sequence like a welcome series, let the test run for an extended period, such as a full quarter. This ensures a healthy sample size and removes anomalies from seasonality or weekly fluctuations, leading to more statistically significant conclusions.
To get buy-in from brand-focused executives for unconventional tests like text-based emails, frame the proposal around business value. Highlight metrics like reduced design time (e.g., from seven days to one), faster QA, and the potential for higher conversion rates that directly impact the bottom line.
Instead of focusing only on typical marketing campaigns, build automated emails triggered by specific in-product user actions, such as enabling a new feature. These emails can congratulate the user, offer best practices, and solicit valuable, contextual feedback, turning marketing into a product education and feedback channel.
Since iOS 15, Apple Mail automatically pre-fetches email content, marking emails as 'opened' even if the user never viewed them. This inflates open rates, making them an unreliable indicator of actual engagement. Marketers should shift focus to more meaningful metrics like click-through and conversion rates.
The most valuable marketers are not defined by the tools they know but by their mindset. Key qualities include an openness to testing new ideas, a willingness to be wrong, and strong communication skills. These attributes are transferable across any platform and are more future-proof than any single tool certification.
Email marketers should avoid working in a silo by proactively communicating their campaign sends and results internally. Informing Sales and Customer Success teams about a major email launch allows them to amplify the message and helps the entire organization connect marketing activities to subsequent spikes in traffic or sales.