Why email tricks don't work long term

I got a marketing email last week with this subject line: "FRAUD ALERT: Immediate action may be required." Inside? A Black Friday sale extension. Between the fake fraud alerts, the fake "oops we ordered too much" apologies, and the fake scarcity countdown timers, I need brands to bring different energy in 2025. Because this is... trash. Consumer trust is already in the basement. Some brands are actively digging to see how much lower they can go. After 16+ years optimizing digital experiences, I've watched this pattern repeat. Brands chase a short-term conversion bump. They torch their customer lifetime value in the process. The math never works out. Hidden checkout fees? Statista research shows 56% of shoppers abandon carts when hit with unexpected charges. Confusing unsubscribe flows? You keep the email but lose the customer forever. Misleading button labels? Every tricked click erodes years of brand equity. Harry Brignull coined "dark patterns" in 2010. Fifteen years later, brands are still choosing manipulation over persuasion. Real optimization removes friction. It helps people find what they want faster. It builds experiences worth returning to. Dark patterns take something from people without consent. That's not optimization... it's theft dressed in conversion metrics. Your customers know the difference even when your analytics don't show it yet. The brands winning long-term? They're competing on experience, not deception.

Success in email marketing isn’t about gimmicks—it’s about patience, consistency, and trust. Yet when metrics dip, even experienced marketers can fall into the trap of making rash decisions that do more harm than good. I've seen this pattern play out countless times over my 20 years in email marketing. A key metric falters, panic sets in, and changes are hastily implemented without proper analysis or vetting. This reactionary approach often backfires, creating a vicious cycle of poor decisions and worsening results. The reality is that success is built on long-term relationships and consistently delivering value. Let me be clear... There. are. no. overnight. fixes. A strong sender reputation isn’t built (or repaired) overnight, and neither is your relationship with your subscribers. Take David Perrell, for example... He has 45,000+ subscribers on his list, and he told me that his average open rate hovers around 50%. He must have some pretty amazing subject lines, right? What if I told you that every single one is either “Monday Musings” or “Friday Finds?” That's it. Simple, straightforward, and nondescript. People don’t open David's emails because he’s found some magical formula that you haven't figured out yet. They open because he's spent years consistently publishing content that is both relevant and valuable to them. No hacks, no gimmicks, just years of building credibility and earning trust. So, when problems arise, resist the urge to make immediate changes. Here's what to do instead: → Analyze the root cause thoroughly → Get a second opinion from an expert → Develop a list of potential solutions → Set clear KPIs to measure success →Test changes slowly over 2-3 months → Focus on long-term averages, not individual campaign metrics This patient, data-driven approach may feel slow and ineffective, but it's far more likely to yield sustainable improvements than giving in to knee-jerk reactions. As a founder or marketer, you can probably attribute most of your success to being action-oriented. But sometimes the best action you can take is to make note of something and continue observing to see if it's a "sticky" trend, or just a blip on the radar. The most successful email marketers I know play the long game. They don't hop on hypetrains, they don't run around putting out fires, and they don't get stuck in comparison traps. Instead, they focus on delivering consistent value, and make decisions based on careful analysis rather than emotion. It may not be as exciting as testing out the latest "hack," but it's the surest path to building a truly valuable email program that stands the test of time.

Retention Isn’t Sexy - Until You’re Broke Brands chase growth. But when the faucet turns off and the market tightens, email becomes your backbone. So why do we treat it as a short-term fix rather than a long-term asset? I hear this conversation replayed to me all the time from CRM and Brand Managers: Their Manager: Targets are down. Budget’s gone. Just send more emails. CRM: We already sent one this week with a promo. Manager: Send another. Bigger discount. CRM: Unsubscribes were high last time… Manager: Send to everyone — even non-engagers. Add urgency. And so it begins. 📉 Deliverability drops. 📉 Clicks tank. 📉 Unsubscribes rise. 📉 The database - your only owned audience - starts eroding. But the revenue target stays the same. This is what happens when you treat email like a faucet you can turn on and off — instead of a system you build and respect. 💡 Want to break the cycle? Here’s how smart brands avoid the spiral: 1. Build an acquisition engine, even when times are good. Don’t just chase sales. Chase subscribers, on all channels, not just site pop-ups. If 2% of traffic buys, aim for 20% to subscribe. That’s your future revenue. 2. Agree on discounting guardrails. Not every campaign needs a percentage off, even if times are tough. Consider other conversion tools like: - loyalty perks - free gifts - tiered basket incentives - competitions - outlet-style categories 3. Treat non-converters as humans, not dead weight. Reduce frequency, but stay visible. Try to understand why they’re lapsing e.g gift buyers? Promo-only? Seasonal? 4. Use peak trading to re-acquire, not just sell. Black Friday can re-engage lapsed customers. But the follow-up can’t be more noise. Build a new journey. Reset the relationship. 5. Track long-term metrics. Not just revenue-per-send. Show your management week on week how these are growing: -LTV - Repeat purchase rate - AOV - Site visit frequency from consumers on your database 6. Invest in content, not just campaigns. Nurture a community. Give them reasons to stay subscribed. Boost engagement before you ask for a sale. Remember nobkdy going to buy daily and weekly, you need more to keep them engage. Think weekly style tips, news Roundup, podcast drops, games, polls etc Email can be your safety net — but only if you protect the list, grow it intentionally, and stop burning it out with knee-jerk sends. Want to find out our playbook for growing your subscriber base rapidly. (like how we grew out base to 17m). DM me. Build it right. Because when things get tough, it’s your email list that keeps the lights on.

If someone says “I’m not interested,” believe them And no one in sales wants to admit: A lot of follow-ups don’t happen because the buyer is interested. They happen because the seller is afraid to lose the deal. Real persistence means you are following up because: - There was genuine curiosity. - There was a specific problem discussed. - There was timing friction, not rejection. - There was budget talk, but no final decision. That’s professional follow-up. But when there is no reply after 8–10 thoughtful touch points, and no signal of interest, what you’re chasing is hope. And hope is not a strategy. Here’s what actually works in 2026 outbound: 1. Ask for the no. After 6–8 touches, send a clean breakup message: “Should I close the loop here, or is this still relevant?” 2. Track signals, not emotions. Opens mean nothing. Clicks mean little. Replies, calendar bookings, and specific questions those matter. Build your follow-up system around signals, not assumptions. 3. Qualify early. If you are getting ghosted repeatedly, it’s usually because you didn’t qualify hard enough on: - Problem intensity Decision authority Timeline Budget ownership Unqualified leads create long email chains with zero revenue. 4. Respect attention. Every inbox is overloaded. If your value is not clear by email 3 or 4, sending 43 more won’t fix that. Instead of increasing volume, increase precision. Tighter targeting. Sharper positioning. Stronger problem framing. Here’s a simple rule I personally follow: If there is no positive signal after 8 structured follow-ups across different channels, I archive and move on. Not because I gave up. But because time is leverage. — When you keep emailing someone who has already disengaged, you’re not being persistent That is insecurity disguised as effort.

10 things I stopped doing in email marketing that everyone else still does I've been doing email for nearly 13 years, long enough to do it the wrong way, work out why it was wrong, and change 1. Reporting on open rates as a performance metric (ovbs, right?!) Apple inflates them, Outlook suppresses them, people open to delete. "40% open rate" is not a result 2. Using industry benchmarks You're comparing yourself to everyone else just because they sent emails too Your benchmark is your own history 3. Using double opt-in Invented in 1993 because we couldn't validate emails. It's 2026, we can and it's not required by GDPR and it breaks the promise you made at sign-up 4. Building journeys based on time elapsed Day 5 is not a signal. What someone has DONE since they joined is 5. Adding more into your list because it feels too small For some reason we are ingrained to think that if we send to more, it will get better results 6. Trying to "capture" attention in the inbox You can't capture it - you already have it. Their brain processes your email in under 2 seconds. You're competing for a positive response, not the attention itself 7. Calling it & treating it like a welcome flow A welcome flow welcomes. An orientation flow establishes the entire relationship. The first email is the highest-engagement moment you'll ever get and sets you up for a lifetime of engagement/disengagement 8. Treating email as a performance channel measured per campaign Email is an impact channel, "did this email generate sales?" is the wrong question "What is email contributing to across the whole journey?" is the right one 9. Setting best practice as the standard Best practice is largely BS (as Jay Schwedelson says!) It's optimised for nobody in particular; instead, a principle tells you what to think about Remember a rule just tells you what to do 10. Writing subject lines to maximise opens The inbox brain isn't looking to be intrigued, it's just triaging Write the subject line that's most relevant - not the one most likely to trick an open Email works best when it's built around the real human, in their real inbox, at their real moment of encounter Measured by what it actually contributes over time, overned by principles, not rules Most of these are the DEFAULTS. What your ESP suggests, what the last team normalised, what every industry guide repeats (ERGH) Which of these are you still doing?

I keep seeing posts that claim to “break down a brand’s email strategy,” and it’s just a compilation of screenshots. That’s not strategy. That’s a gallery. Looking at what a brand sent tells you almost nothing about why it was sent, who else it was sent to, or whether it worked. You don’t know what segment qualified for that campaign. You don’t know what exclusions were applied to that flow. You don’t know if it was part of a larger test, what the control was, or what revenue looked like. You don’t know if that email was optimized for margin, inventory pressure, retention, or list reactivation. Without that context, you’re reacting to creative, not analyzing strategy. The same thing happens when someone redesigns an email for a major brand and confidently declares their version “better.” Better based on what? Aesthetic preference? A hunch? If you don’t have performance data, you’re not optimizing. You’re speculating. Real email strategy is segmentation logic, testing frameworks, deliverability tradeoffs, and long-term retention impact. It is deeply contextual. What works for one brand, with one audience, price point, and promotional cadence, may actively harm another. Strategy is not one-size-fits-all. It is built around a specific customer base, specific financial constraints, and specific business goals. Sometimes the “uglier” email wins. Sometimes the heavier promo protects lifetime value. Sometimes the smartest decision is not to send at all. Screenshots are outputs. Strategy is the system behind them. If we’re going to talk about performance marketing, we should actually talk about performance.

There's a clever subject line trick gaining traction lately. It's about adding "RE:" to your subject line. So, your subscribers will think they're actually getting a reply from someone. To be honest, I love how clever and smart this angle is to get your subscribers to click on your email. Even I, who knew it was a marketing trick, got curious and had to click on the email. But does that mean you should use it? No. Treating your readers like idiots and baiting them to open your emails won't help you grow. Actually, it will do just the opposite. Your customers will feel tricked; they will unsubscribe or even report you as spam. Focus on real fundamentals that will help you grow, not some quick, shady tricks.

Stop personalizing your cold emails. "I noticed you were hiring for X." "Saw your recent post about Y." "Congrats on the Series A." It looks thoughtful. But most prospects can smell it instantly because the "personalization" is just a toll you paid to get permission to pitch. Personalization is a tax on poor targeting. If you have to hunt through someone's LinkedIn for something to reference, you probably don't understand their problem well enough to be in their inbox. The real work isn't writing 47 custom first lines. It's finding 47 people who share the exact same pain so specific that a single message hits all of them like it was written just for them. A CFO at a 50-person SaaS company burning $400K/month with 14 months of runway doesn't need you to mention their podcast appearance. They need someone who understands that their board is asking hard questions about burn rate and they're weighing layoffs vs. fundraising in a brutal market. That's personal. Not personalized. The difference: Personalization = I researched you for 3 minutes and found a hook. Personal = I understand your situation so well that this message could only be for people like you. One is a parlor trick. The other is positioning.When your ICP is tight enough, your message does the targeting. Every word filters for fit. The people who don't have the problem ignore it. The people who do feel seen. Stop asking "what can I reference about this person?" Start asking "what problem is so specific that anyone who has it will stop scrolling?" Make your list the message. P.S. I put together a doc with 5 "personal" cold emails that booked meetings without a single line of personalization just tight targeting and problem-aware copy. Comment "PERSONAL" and I'll send it over. Personal = I understand your situation so well that this message could only be for people like you. One is a parlor trick. The other is positioning. When your ICP is tight enough, your message does the targeting. Every word filters for fit. The people who don't have the problem ignore it. The people who do feel seen.Stop asking "what can I reference about this person?" Start asking "what problem is so specific that anyone who has it will stop scrolling?" Make your list the message. P.S. I put together a doc with 5 "personal" cold emails that booked meetings without a single line of personalization just tight targeting and problem-aware copy. Comment "PERSONAL" and I'll send it over.

You think automation is saving you time.... .... But it might be silently killing your email performance. Here’s why: Most email flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase) are built once and left untouched for months or years. And that’s a problem. Because your audience, product, and market conditions are constantly changing. What worked six months ago might be tanking your engagement today. • Your welcome series might be promoting a best-seller that’s now out of stock. • Your post purchase flow might be sending review requests too soon, before customers have fully used the product. • Your abandoned cart emails might be offering a discount, when most customers were already willing to buy full price. Solution? Set a 30 day calendar to review and optimize key flows. Look at: • Click rates (Is the CTA still relevant?) • Unsubscribes (Is the timing too aggressive?) • Conversion rates (Is the offer still compelling?) • Revenue Per Subscriber (How is it trending?) • Open rates (Is the first email still grabbing attention?) Automation is powerful. But “set and forget” is just lazy marketing.

The industry average for email marketing is $36 back for every $1 spent. So why is yours barely breaking even? I've audited 100s of email accounts across seven and eight-figure e-commerce brands. Usually the channel works fine. The problem is five things that look like normal email marketing, so nobody questions them. 1 - Chasing open rates with clickbait subject lines ↳ "You won't believe this" gets the open. Then the subscriber feels cheated, and the next time your name shows up they ignore it. ↳ It takes a long time to build trust and about 3 seconds to lose it. ↳ Fix: write subject lines that are honest and SPECIFIC. The right people will open. 2 - Writing like a corporate brand ↳ The moment your email reads like a legal team wrote it, the brain checks out.  ↳ Your subscriber's inbox is full of texts from actual friends, and then your stiff announcement lands in the middle of it. ↳ Fix: write like you're talking to one of your best friends. 3 - Cramming multiple CTAs into one email ↳ More options just freeze the reader. Psychologists call it the paradox of choice, and the brain's response to a decision it didn't ask for is to do nothing. ↳ Fix: give each email one job. Two buttons max, both pointing to the same place. 4 - Blasting your entire list ↳ Your list isn't one audience. Engaged buyers, one-time buyers, VIPs, and lapsed subscribers are all sitting in the same place. ↳ Sending all of them the same email tanks conversion, and the unengaged ones drag your sender reputation down for the people who actually buy. ↳ Fix: segment into those four groups and send accordingly. 5 - Treating email like a microphone instead of a conversation ↳ When every send is "buy now," you train your list to only open when there's a sale. ↳ Mix in educational, community, and behind-the-scenes emails and they open everything, because they don't know which one is the discount. ↳ Fix: email when you have something worth saying, not only when you want money. Clean these up and email becomes the most reliable revenue line you have.