Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #229 of All About Email!

Last week was about turning your emails into a live experiment. 🧪

This week is a little bit of rare self-indulgence, but I know you will find it valuable. How I am growing my newsletter organically with LinkedIn being a primary channel.

Let’s go! 👇

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Growing a Newsletter Organically is Hard!

Last week, I talked about your emails becoming a live experiment as you look to improve:

• The emails themselves.

• Customer/audience relationships and engagement.

• ROI (whatever that means for you).

In the same way, my email growth strategy has been one big experiment, growing my newsletter organically.

🤑 No paid acquisition in sight. No paid subscriber referrals, no paid ads, and definitely no purchasing lists.

That makes growth hard and slow, at least in my experience, and I'm fine with that. It keeps me on my toes and helps me find new ways to grow my newsletter without paying for that growth. 🧪

Social Media as a Growth Channel

💡 Social media is a great way to grow your newsletter organically. However, you can be on all platforms at once, so you need to:

1. Find which platforms your audience is on and focus on those (rather than all of them).

2. Test, test, test.

3. Monitor your analytics and engagement (audiences change).

🧪 That last one is very important, as you can then build cool dashboards to help you make accurate decisions, more on that later.

I currently focus on three social media platforms for growing my newsletter:

• Twitter (X)

• Bluesky

• LinkedIn

After an initial bump, Bluesky has quickly died off, and most of my engagement there happens around SEO and WordPress or WooCommerce.

🚨 Twitter (X) used to be brilliant for me, but over the last two years, most of my email audience and peers have gone, and engagement has dropped off a cliff for my email-related posts (again, my posts about WordPress or WooCommerce thrive).

🎉 Then there’s LinkedIn, which did the exact opposite of Twitter (X). Now my email-related content performs best there, and my overall engagement across all social media platforms is best on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn for the Growth Win!

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first:

• LinkedIn is much maligned (and to an extent, rightly so, lots of AI slop).

• It's a closed platform (you can’t really see people's content without an account)

• Twitter-like “bros” have moved in (to an extent), and there are more hot-takes than the Hot Ones. 🌶️ 🥵

However, here’s the thing: for all the negatives, LinkedIn has an incredible email community!

✅ My strategy is not earth-shattering; it's simple, it works for me, and it could work for you (I use the free version of LinkedIn). It’s a weekly cycle of rinse and repeat:

1. I post every Monday morning before All About Email goes out that the next issue is coming soon, and include a subscribe link in the post (not the comments).

2. The post gets pinned to my “Featured Posts”, so it’s the first post someone sees on my profile.

3. After a couple of hours, I will "like" and “repost” the original post, like the self-indulgent algorithm-ignorer that I am. 🤣

4. If I’ve got any comments on the post, I will engage with those too.

5. When the newsletter is published, I remove my original post from the “Featured Posts” section and share a post with a link (again, in the post itself) and a nice, optimised description to gain attention.

6. 🚨 Everyone I feature in that newsletter then gets tagged in a comment to help increase reach and engagement.

7. After a couple of hours, I give myself some love and "Like” or “Celebrate” the post if I’m feeling particularly happy with myself. 🥳

8. A couple of hours later, the post gets "reposted” by me.

9. After my natural engagement window closes (yeah, I’m a geek and worked that out 🤓), which is 48 hours, I’ll make a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, sharing the Top 3 links from the newsletter, along with a link to the newsletter and the link sources tagged in a comment.

10. You guessed it, after a couple of hours, I “Like” the post and comment and a couple of hours after that, it gets reposted.

 💡 I am also active on LinkedIn regularly (apart from the weekends), building connections, engaging in industry-related conversations, and that has an impact, too.

Consistency and patience bring results.

My Newsletter Growth from LinkedIn

After two-ish years of doing this consistently, the results speak for themselves.👇

LinkedIn is my highest-quality channel. It makes up 25.3% of my total base but outperforms across every engagement metric:

• +8.9% higher engagement rate and a full 9.2 percentage points lower unsubscribe rate than the overall average. 🤯

• The in_profile source is the strongest driver. My LinkedIn profile link drives 68% of all LinkedIn subs (210/309) and has the lowest unsubscribe rate of any major channel at 24.2%, well below the overall average of 40.6%.

• The weak spot is linkedin[dot]android. Mobile LinkedIn referrals have the worst unsubscribe rate of any LinkedIn source (41.7%), slightly above the overall average, and a notably lower open rate (49.8% vs 65% for desktop LinkedIn).

• The embed: linkedin: social source, though small (12 subs), has an exceptional CTR of 30%. More than double the overall average.

🎉 All the LinkedIn sources combined make it my biggest newsletter growth driver, ahead of my own website (which is quite, not sure if that’s relevant), and in_profile stands as my number 2 growth channel on its own.

❤️ It’s hard not to love the type of subscribers LinkedIn is sending me:

• Large volume

• High engagement

• Lower churn

• Strong opens

🐝 If you would like to dig in a little bit more (it’s fascinating), I had Claude build a dashboard using the JSON data from Beehiiv.

💡 LinkedIn might not be the platform for you, {{first_name|friend}}. That’s fine, and takes us back to the point at the start of this email about finding the social media channel(s) that work for you and focusing on them.

But, whatever social media platform(s) you choose to focus on to grow your newsletter, the key is consistency; you’ve got to show up and invest the time.

That’s it for this week. 👋

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• 🎉 Announcing Preflight! - Preflight checks accessibility, rendering, and delivery before you send. (Preflight)

• Prove Your ROI - The Beginner's Guide To Using UTM Tracking in Newsletters. (Beehiiv)

• A Practical Example - SPF macros can silently break authentication in multi-ESP environments if order is not controlled. (Hagop Khatchoyan)

• NCSC DMARC Changes - Mail Check Alternatives for UK Organisations. (dmarcian)

• 20 Question Diagnostic - HubSpot CRM Health Assessment. (42 Agency)

• Values - We need more humanity in email, especially at unsubscribe. (MarTech)

• Expert Insights and Predictions - Email Deliverability Trends 2026. (Bouncer)

• Part Three - Data tables in email. (Sarah Gallardo)

• Trusted Platform Abuse Escalates - Scam Email Delivered via Xero Infrastructure Passes SPF, DKIM and DMARC. (Emailexpert)

• Inboxing Issues? - Ignore the LinkedInfluencer and review your strategy. (Alison Gootee)

• RGE Survey 2026 - Every answer helps the email industry see the real challenges you face, giving you the ammunition to advocate for better tools, support, and resources at work. (Really Good Emails)

• Google Forced Dark Mode - Some tips on how I like to try and work with it, without having to send lots of test emails. (Mark Robbins)

• RCS for Business is here - Branded, interactive messaging in the text inbox. (Klaviyo)

• Tried & Tested - Email Preview Text Examples. (Beehiiv)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #228 of All About Email!

Last week was about messaging (content) and how the wrong message can cause unnecessary headaches for your audience and even do some reputational damage.

This week, it’s about experimentation. 🧪

Let’s go! 👇

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Experimental Emails

You might not know this, but my newsletters are a constant experiment.

🤔 The question is, should your newsletters and email campaigns be too?

Sometimes I’m testing one thing in my emails, sometimes it’s more. Sometimes it’s hidden in the code or hidden in plain sight.

We all want our emails to perform better, subscriber habits change, and inboxes are changing faster than you can say 88mph 🏎️ 🔥 🕰️.

Our emails can’t stay static, and if you aren’t regularly testing and iterating, you are missing out on the best version of your email and doing a disservice to your subscribers.

Subscriber loyalty is so important; if your emails stagnate, don’t expect your audience to stick around.

Healthy Tension

💡 Email Experiments should “live in tension” between the needs of the email’s author(s) and the expectations/relationship with their audience.

• Experiments need to be intentional, not random.

• Experiments need to be measurable in some form.

Different brands, organisations, and people will have different goals for their email campaigns or newsletters (whatever we call them, though semantics matter 😉), but ultimately, experiments in your email marketing should improve your ROI or meet set goals (e.g., engagement, sales, conversions) without negatively impacting the relationship you have with your subscribers.

That’s why we have A/B testing, Multivariate testing, or just plain old singular experimentation and data analysis over time. 👇

An Example of a Singular Experiment

❓I started “Curiosity Corner” just over 5 months ago with the following purposes:

• Engagement - Clicks (good for deliverability and other such things).

• Understanding - Learning more about my audience.

• Better Content/Value - Creating content based on audience answers.

All of my subscribers see Curiosity Corner in both the email and the web version.

When Experiments Become Features or Not

Here’s the thing: the average poll received 11.5 responses, which accounted for only 1.92% of my audience.

🧠 Now, that’s not exactly a guiding light, but it does indicate a very engaged and loyal subset of my audience.

So I need to weigh up the cost of keeping the Curiosity Corner experiment against the benefits.

Unfortunately, the current Curiosity Corner format adds a bit of code weight (the joys of clipping) and takes more time than you might think to pull together, so:

• Curiosity Corner is taking a break (but it will be back).

• The format will be different (less code and maybe a sprinkling of automation).

• Asking better questions (I had a run of 4/5 weeks with a good volume of responses).

💡 Sometimes an experiment doesn’t work, and that’s OK… that’s the point, but sometimes the experiment needs to be modified and tried again.

Experiment Resources

🧑‍🔬 It’s time to get all sciencey (yes, I’m making “sciencey” a word). Experimentation requires resources.

Some of our ESPs and (more importantly, the plans we are on) give us more tools to experiment with than others, but in general, these are the human resources required:

• Thought - we need to be intentional about our experiments (you and your subscribers will benefit)

• Time - how long should an experiment run for? (Impacted by factors such as sending frequency, seasonal activity, etc.)

• Analysis - we need to be critical in our thinking and decision-making.

• Potential Iteration - If an experiment doesn’t end (either by removal or bybecoming a feature), it might need a tweak and be analysed again before a final decision is made.

Experiments To Try

You might be inspired, scratching your head or daunted by yet another thing to try in your campaigns and newsletters (if you aren’t already testing), so here are some examples to get you started:

• Not using Annotations for Promotions? - Try now and compare to your previous campaigns.

• Emails not being summarised correctly in the AI inbox? - Make sure your images have Alt and Title text, and you use a semantic HTML structure in your emails. (I’m looking at you in particular, Apple Mail!)

• Engagement lacking? - Add a regular poll, survey or quiz. (Just like Curiosity Corner 😉)

• Email Summaries - Give your subscribers (and the AI inbox) a defined overview of your email (see how engagement changes and whether the inboxes ignore your summary).

…And Remember

🚨 If you are going to experiment, make sure you can measure it as accurately as possible, whether that be in your ESPs data, a connected CRM, or an analytics integration; shots in the dark are useless and a waste of time.

And, don’t feel pressure to announce every experiment (although you might have to on occasion); some are subtle, and some experiments should be silent (you don’t want to bias your data).

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, ”Do Your Email Campaigns take a break”?

So far it’s a tie with 3 out of 8 votes (37.50%) 👇

🚨 This week, there is no question, and Curiosity Corner is taking a little break (I’ve already explained why 😉).

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

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Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• 🧠 Nobody Agreed - We Asked Email Deliverability Experts About Soft Bounce Handling. (Engagor)

• AI Inbox Insight - Your GAL Score™ Analysis. (emailexpert)

• Huge Potential - How to Run a Great Local Events Newsletter. (Inbox Collective)

• Migrating ESP? - 5 tips that will keep your warmup plan from dissolving like wet toilet paper in a hurricane. (LoriBeth Blair)

• Dormant, Not Dead - How to Revive Email Subscribers and Drive ROI. (Donna Morton - Zeta Global)

• Email in 2026 - Evolving Technical Requirements, Individualised Filtering, and AI Integration. (Laura Atikins)

• ❤️ I Love This - Do Not Disturb! (Kyle Adams)

• Carry On - How To Handle An Email Deliverability Crisis Calmly. (Bento)

• Relentless by Design - Des Brown on Ambition, Community, and Building in the Margins. (EmailBoutique & Des Brown)

• Support Needed - Urgent call for community support to secure Mautic’s financial future. (Mautic)

• 🤔 Do You Agree? - Email Welcome Flows Are Dead, and Orientation Flows Are In. (Beth O’Malley)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #227 of All About Email!

Last week, we revisited the Email Love Figma plugin, which is becoming an essential tool for many freelancers, agencies, and small teams.

This week, it’s about messaging (content) and how the wrong message can cause unnecessary headaches for your audience and even do some reputational damage.

Let’s go! 👇

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Yahoo Got It Wrong (In My Opinion)

Even the big players get things wrong, and on February 3rd, 2026, a poorly worded email did just that.

I received the following email and promptly shared it on social media. It was shared on Twitter and Bluesky, and reactions were negative (as expected), but on LinkedIn, the situation escalated.

We need to take a look at the email first to see what the problem was. 👇

How Did Yahoo Get It Wrong?

🚨 First context. Yahoo doesn’t set it, and in light of a large reduction last year for US customers, many people thought their 20GB inboxes were being reduced again to 15GB.

😤 Users were not happy. Chad S. White, Alison Gootee, and many others shared my original post and wrote posts of their own based on it.

🫠 Across my LinkedIn post (mostly), shares, comments, and reposts, many people were confused, had questions, and expressed negative sentiment.

Not good for Yahoo, and my post got the attention of Marcel Becker (Senior Director Product Management), who said:

“Simon's reporting or framing is inaccurate.“

💡 However, my reporting and framing were accurate; the issue was the content of Yahoo’s email.

Marcel then proceeded to clarify the situation in some comments:

Could This Have Been Avoided?

👩‍🚒 Marcel added some other clarification points, which I included in my LinkedIn post; however, this confusion, negative sentiment, and firefighting could have been avoided.

The email simply needed to include “UK” or “United Kingdom” somewhere, and it would have been fine.

I’m not sure of the QA (review) process for email campaigns at Yahoo, but this should have been flagged.

How It Could Have Been Fixed?

✅ It wasn’t my responsibility (and I wasn’t required) to update my posts with further clarification or correction, but I did.

I wanted my reporting to be accurate, and for my audience to trust me.

We all make mistakes in our emails, but what do we do when we make them?

Do we own the mistake and try to fix it, or say nothing and move on?

Yahoo should have sent another email, in my opinion, maybe two:

• One for UK users, clarifying that the reduction in inbox storage was only for UK users.

• An email to all other regions clarifying that there was no further reduction to their services.

Mistakes In Content Are Opportunities

🫠 Our audiences often expect us to be perfect at all times, especially for big brands or highly respected individuals, but the fact is, we aren’t, and we never will be.

Nor will the email creation and review process.

🧠 Here’s the thing: when we make a mistake, confuse our audience, or let them down because of it, own it.

Acknowledging the mistake and making the correction can help restore trust, increase loyalty, and rebuild reputation.

🤷‍♂️ To Yahoo, this probably isn’t a big deal, but it’s a perfect example of why email content:

• Needs to be carefully planned and written.

• Needs to consider context, not just for the individual campaigns/segments but for any other campaigns/segments that could be impacted.

• Needs to be reviewed as part of the QA process before hitting send.

💡 We never know who will read our emails, and we can’t account for everyone.

Yes, we can segment and target, but audiences forward emails, screenshot and share emails, and read web versions, so we need to be as critical in our thinking and clear in our writing as possible.

🤭 And remember, don’t blame others for your mistakes.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, ”Do You Struggle to Keep Up with new Email Tools?”

We have a tie, and whilst there weren’t many votes, the answer won’t surprise you. 👇

This week’s question is:

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

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Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Why Replies? - How to Get More (and Better) Replies. (Growth Currency)

• Real Data You Can Follow - A Guide to Email Click-Through Rate Benchmarks. (Beehiiv)

• CAN-SPAM and PO Boxes - Clearing Up the Confusion. (Bento)

• Email Peeps 74 - Lee Munroe. (Email Love)

• Introducing GAL Score^TM - A free tool in open beta to give you visibility into how AI "sees" your campaigns before you send them. (EmailExpert)

• A New Focus? - Intuit Mailchimp Unlocks a New Era of Profitable Ecommerce Marketing with Advanced, Data-Driven Capabilities. (Business Wire)

• Part 2 - Data Tables in Email. (Sarah Gallardo)

• Keynote - The Future of Deliverability Recipient Rules. (Laura Atkins)

• Dreaming in Systems - Building Toward Freelance Independence - Megan Boshuyzen. (Email Boutique)

• Why It Breaks Email - The SPF 10 lookup limit problem. (Valimail)

• BIMI Alternatives - How to Get Your Logo to Show Next to Your Emails. (Bento)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #226 of All About Email!

Last week, we took a deep dive into BIMI, which was a big hit with you, lovely readers, and I gave a brief Campfire update.

This week, we revisit the Email Love Figma plugin, which is becoming an essential tool for many freelancers, agencies, and small teams (this is not a sponsored or affiliate post).

I just love the plugin!

Let’s go! 👇

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Email Love for Figma - Design Once, Export Anywhere

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

A while back, I ran a four-part mini-series on the Email Love Figma plugin:

• Part 1 - Issue #151

• Part 2 - Issue #153

• Part 3 - Issue #157

• Part 4 - Issue #158

In that series, we discussed in detail how it works (components, MJML, exporting, etc.).

The plugin has had numerous updates since that original series (over 18 months ago), so today I want to follow up to discuss a real problem the plugin solves. 👇

The Template Trap

💭 Imagine this, and going by the results of my last poll on the subject, not everyone is happy with their ESP:

• You’ve outgrown your ESP.

• You want to move.

• But the thought of rebuilding 50+ flows and 100+ templates in a different drag-and-drop editor makes you want to lie down in a dark room and stare at the ceiling.

🫠 And that’s how “we’ll migrate later” becomes “we’ll migrate never”.

What if your ESP were like a Delivery Layer?

The more time I’m spending on LinkedIn, the more conversations I’m seeing where freelancers, agencies and small teams are using Figma to design all their emails:

• Figma becomes the primary email design tool, not your ESP.

• Your design system lives in Figma.

• Your ESP becomes the place you deploy (not the place you build).

💡 If you’re juggling multiple clients, or you’re in-house and mid-migration, this is where the Email Love plugin starts to feel less like another “builder” and more like an essential tool.

1) The “Export Anywhere” Strategy

When I first explored the Email Love Figma plugin in detail, the focus ESPs were Mailchimp and Klaviyo (a big focus on Klaviyo).

However, Email Love has now pivoted their messaging and is clearly aiming for platform independence (or “platform agnostic” if you will).

Email Love’s export options now cover a much wider stack, including platforms like:

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud,

• Braze,

• HubSpot,

• Iterable,

• Customer[dot]io,

• …and more.

✅ That makes the plugin not just a “nice to have”. It changes the risk profile of switching ESPs.

🎉 You’re no longer migrating templates. You’re simply switching your export to a different destination.

2) Quality Assurance (QA) Earlier

One of the most expensive parts of email production for some isn’t building the email, it’s the QA process:

🫠 Export → test → find weird spacing issue → go back → tweak background images → re-export → test again → repeat until Outlook is haunting your dreams.

Email Love is pushing hard on “QA inside the workflow”. The plugin now includes additional QA steps in Figma to help you catch issues before exporting to your ESP.

Including:

• Previewing across device sizes,

• Sending test emails,

• Hooking into proper rendering QA tools like Litmus / Email on Acid.

🎉 This allows you to verify rendering across 90+ email clients and devices.

3) Dark Mode - Control What You Can

💡 Dark mode is still a headache (my own emails in dark mode need work), but I like Email Love’s framing:

• On Apple Mail (iOS / macOS), you can actually choose dark mode colours.

• On Gmail / Outlook / Yahoo, etc., you’re mostly dealing with auto-inversion, and you can’t fully override it.

✅ Email Love has a great tutorial on their Figma plugin that explains how Dark Mode is handled.

So the goal isn’t “perfect dark mode everywhere”. It’s to ensure your email still looks good when inverted and to take full control where clients allow it (e.g. Apple Mail).

4) Gmail Clipping Detection

💡 I’ve talked about Gmail Clipping before; Issue 186 was dedicated entirely to it.

Beehiive has built-in Gmail Clipping detection for years, but ESPs like Mailchimp have only just added this feature.

Having this detection built into the Email Love Figma plugin is one of those “small things” that subtly improve workflows or add a feature that is still missing from some ESPs.

✅ ✅ For me, it’s also a double-check, as I don’t find all email code weight detection accurate, and I like to compare how my ESP (Beehiiv) weighs emails with another tool, whether that be aboutmy.email, Parcel or Email Love Figma.

5) Localisation Workflows

🧠 I have limited experience with this, but I know for many of you, Localisation can be a headache.

If you’re sending in multiple languages, your current process might look something like this:

Copy → paste → translate → paste back → break layout → fix spacing → repeat.

Email Love has started documenting workflows that connect exported templates to localisation tools, so translation becomes a proper process rather than a last-minute scramble:

• How to Translate Iterable Email Templates Using Lokalise.

• How to Translate Braze Email Templates Using Smartling.

Closing Thoughts

🤔 Maybe you haven’t outgrown your ESP, but “maybe” you don’t have to move.

Maybe you don’t have a “platform problem”, you have an “ownership problem”.

Does your ESP own your email design system, or do you?

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, ”Do you use BIMI”?

“Yes” is leading with 5 out of 8 votes (62.5%) 👇

This week’s question is:

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

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Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• A Hard Goodbye - No more waiting till deliverability is burned and asking a hard sell to management. (Travis Hazlewood)

• 🤖 Useful AI - How I’m Using AI With My Newsletter. (Inbox Collective)

• Expert Predictions & Tactics - The 2026 tactical marketing guide. (Dotdigital)

• Design & Experience - Email Design Trends for 2026. (Designmodo)

• 😎Valimail DMARC Pro - Expanding what MSPs can deliver with DMARC. (Valimail)

• Patreon Launches Newsletters! - Top Substack writers depart for Patreon. (NiemanLab)

• 🎉 Part 1 - Data tables in email (accessibility). (Sarah Gallardo)

• Unpacked 2026 - A free two-day digital conference where channels collide, and practitioners share what's actually working. (Customer[dot]io)

• Free Download - The 2026 State of MailOps Report. (KumoMTA)

• 🤔 Food for Thought - What do you think is the next move for a Senior email marketer that gives more money but is safe from AI? (Travis Hazelwood)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #225 of All About Email!

Last week, Substack became the focus of this newsletter for the first time following a surprise announcement.

This week, we take a deep dive into BIMI, which has changed slightly since we last reviewed it, and I have a brief Campfire update.

Let’s go! 👇

What makes a great ad in 2026?

If you want to know the core principles of high-performing advertising in 2026, join our educational webinar with award-winning creative strategist Babak Behrad and Neurons CEO & Founder Thomas Z. Ramsøy.

They’ll show you how standout campaigns capture attention, build memory, and anchor brands. You’ll walk away with clear, practical rules to apply to your next campaign.

You’ll learn how to:

• Apply neuroscientific principles to every campaign

• Build powerful branding moments into your ads

• Make your ads feel relevant to your audience

Master the art of high-impact campaigns in an era of AI-generated noise and declining attention spans

Save your seat

It’s BIMI time!

🚨 BIMI is only supported by 27.78% of inbox providers, but don’t let that stop you from reading any further, as some things have changed recently.

(Check out who supports BIMI, who’s “considering” supporting BIMI and then )

Many of you will know what BIMI is, but for those who don’t, think of it as social media’s blue checkmark for email.

💙 If you want the blue checkmark in Gmail, you will need a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate). Gmail’s recent update to support CMCs (Common Mark Certificates) won’t display the blue checkmark when you use a CMC.

With a CMC, the sender's brand avatar will be displayed instead.

OK…time for a little refresher or maybe something new? 👇

What is BIMI?

BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is an emerging email protocol that displays your branded logo next to your company’s emails in inboxes.

💡 If you’re not sure whether you are using BIMI or if your records are working correctly, there are several free tools you can use to check, including the BIMI Group’s tool.

Check out my result. 😃

How does BIMI work?

To quote the BIMI Group:

💡 So for BIMI to work, you need:

• Be DMARC compliant,

• Have a DMARC policy of “Reject”,

• A compatible BIMI logo in DNS (hosted securely using HTTPS),

• A certified ownership of that brand logo. **

** That’s the CMC and VMC stuff we spoke about earlier, {{first_name|friend}}. 😉

Additional Info You Should Definitely Read

• If you’re not quite sure about how to become DMARC-compliant (or why you need it), Lauren Meyer has a brilliant blog post about it.

• If you want to know how to set up DMARC monitoring easily, then I have you covered in Issue 120.

How Do I Set up BIMI?

The BIMI Group offers an official implementation guide and a convenient tool to help you build your own record, to which I’ve made a quick video. 👇

Watch the video on Loom.

💡 If you aren’t sure of the criteria for an SVG of your brand logo/image, the BIMI Group outlines them in these handy guidelines, and you can use a free tool like Affinity Studio or Adobe Illustrator.

🚨 Converting an SVG to a compliant version can be challenging. While the BIMI Group offers helpful advice and a beta converter, it may still be difficult for some.

 Instead, this free converter from EasyDMARC is perfect, and it’s the one I use.

What’s Changed about BIMI?

Since we last covered BIMI in detail way back in October 2024 in Issue 161, some things have changed:

• You can’t use Entrust VMCs anymore (but there are other options).

• Microsoft has discontinued support for inline SVGs, which doesn’t directly affect BIMI (for a couple of reasons).

• We now have a new AVP tag. Avatar Preference (optional; default: "brand") lets the domain owner specify whether to display the BIMI logo or the sender’s personal avatar, where both are supported. If not present, treat as avp=brand.

💡 If you have any questions about BIMI or feedback on this newsletter, {{first_name|friend}}, please reply to let me know. 

Campfire Email 🔥🪵

I last gave an update on my seemingly eternal “soon to be launched” email community back on December 1st, 2025.

Not much has changed since then, and I was hoping to launch an unfinished version (that’s what we call “beta”) at the end of January… well, it’s February 1st, and guess what?

I’m still not ready. 🤦‍♂️

I am closer than I’ve ever been, and I am now aiming for the end of February. Hang in there {{first_name|friend}}, and if you’ve never heard of Campfire Email, you can read more in the initial announcement post.

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, ”Do you use Substack”?

“No” leading with 8 out of 11 votes (72.73%) 👇

This week’s question is:

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.

Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Classifieds

Free cheat sheet (by EmailTooltester): Essential Ecommerce Workflows: step-by-step setup, tool tips, cart recovery and more. Download now

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Fresh Start - Top Designs for January. (ActionRocket)

• 🚨 Gmail’s Blind Spots - How to stop AI-powered phishing attacks. (Valimail)

• How to Fix It - Samsung Email’s auto-fit is breaking your emails. (Mark Robbins & Customer[dot]io)

• 💡 Rant Time! - Phishing scammers and cousin domains. (Travis Hazlewood)

• From and reply to - Routability and matching domains? (Spam Resource)

• What marketers should know - 2026 email deliverability predictions. (Braze)

• Looking Back - What are some things you wish you had done differently? (Emily Ryan)

• Camille Geeter - When Your Email Career Refuses to Fit a Box. (EmailBoutique)

• 🎉 Best Practices - Are still in charge. (Alison Gootee)

• Customer Appreciation - The Best 125 Customer Appreciation Email Examples & Designs in 2026. (Really Good Emails)

• !important tips - Is now also on LinkedIn - Multi-channel ≠ orchestrated. (Customer[dot]io)

• Built, Not Bought - Email can create Communities, not just Customers. (ActionRocket)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #224 of All About Email!

Last week, we looked at an announcement from Google and Gmail about changing email addresses and its potential impact on email marketing.

This week, Substack becomes the focus for the very first time in this newsletter after a surprise announcement.

Let’s go! 👇

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Is Video bad for email?

Introducing Substack TV

🤔 “Taking subscriber video to the big screen”… for most Substack users in the comments of the announcement post, it’s a “no thanks!”

To quote one of my favourite comments on the announcement:

💡 …the idea that platforms broaden, chase engagement, and eventually degrade the user experience to monetise.

TLDR;

The comments reveal less a debate about whether video “should exist” and more a trust issue about incentives.

💡 People fear that once Substack optimises for watching, it will inevitably optimise away from writing through the feed, the Product roadmap, Creator Economics, and Culture.

The comment thread suggests many users want explicit guardrails:

• Better writing tools,

• Less feed noise,

• Clearer opt-in controls,

• Stronger “human” support.

🤔 Some commentators ask for evidence that paying subscribers want this, or they reject it outright as a mismatch for a reading platform.

What are the concerns of Substack users?

Substack’s TV app announcement sparked an intense comment thread questioning what Substack is and who it’s for.

💡 The dominant camp, writers and writing-centric readers, interprets “Substack TV” as more than a feature. It’s a signal that Substack is moving from a writing-first platform toward a broader creator/influencer model.

The core argument is that Substack originally felt like a refuge from algorithmic, video-heavy social media. Turning it into a “TV” destination risks collapsing that distinction and reintroducing the very incentives users were escaping.

Dustin pleaded, “Please don’t do this. This is not YouTube. Elevate the written word.” Others echo that Substack’s early promise was “a place for writing,” and the TV app feels like dilution in pursuit of scale.

Several commenters frame the TV app as venture-capital logic in product form. David I. Adeleke says it “reminds me of Medium,” while others predict the next steps:

• Increased algorithmic push,

• Ads,

• Paid Recommendations,

• A feed that favours celebrity publishers and high-output creators.

That anxiety ties into a practical worry about power dynamics:

• Independent writers believe they’ll be drowned out as the platform optimises for bigger names and more “watchable” formats.

• Firm Foundation Media explicitly fears “celebrity” publishers flooding the space and pushing small publishers into the abyss.

A Priority Shift?

Multiple commenters point out that Substack is shipping a brand-new TV surface while creators still lack basic quality-of-life improvements, with the following requests:

• A better editor (including dark mode),

• List formatting control that would let writers create more distinctive experiences,

• Real human support.

• Mike Noble complains about indexing, and others ask for categories and fundamental UX polish.

This “fix the basics first” theme suggests the TV app isn’t merely unwanted, it’s seen as proof that Substack is investing in the wrong problems.

“Read-alouds” become a flashpoint because they’re repeatedly raised in Matt Klein's replies, which position them as support for text-based creators.

🤔 Some commenters appreciate the accessibility angle (and the discussion around text-to-speech, which frames it as assistive tech). Still, many react as if “read-alouds” are a rhetorical patch rather than a commitment to writing-first product work.

April Smith pushes back, stating readers can “read much faster than we can listen.”

Minority Support

Still, a minority view defends the move.

Bill Bishop argues that Substack has always been additive, and creators can ignore video if they don’t want it.

Mikala Jamison makes a pragmatic case: non-writing features can act as discovery channels that ultimately drive readers to written work, and video appearances could support book sales or author visibility.

💡 Supporters tend to frame TV as an optional distribution rather than an identity replacement.

My Thoughts and the Impact of Change

😬 Change is often hard, especially when it’s unexpected.

As you can imagine, commenters trade alternatives like Beehiiv, Ghost, WordPress, and “own your site,” while others argue video is optional and may help writers reach audiences.

Whether users leave in droves remains to be seen, and it's unlikely. If Substack can pull this off without degrading the writing-first experience or burying it under algorithmic noise, then it might work.

In some ways, I don’t care about what Substack does, and you maybe don’t either {{first_name|friend}}, but since Substack is ultimately VC-funded, they need to please investors and increase revenue.

So do they really care about their users and their subscribers? 🤷‍♂️

🐝 I use Beehiiv for writing my newsletters, and they are also VC-funded. The platform is constantly changing, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but (so far) the focus has remained on newsletters, writing, building communities and distribution.

How we consume content is constantly evolving, and sometimes that evolution is forced on us.

💡 No platform is perfect, but sometimes we have to change when the platform we use no longer serves its original purpose, and that change doesn’t align with our audience/community or goals.

🤔 I don’t know how much research Substack conducted among its users or how wide and public the beta test was (if any), but it seems this announcement has come as a shock to most.

What I do know is that you can’t please everyone, nor should you. However, alienating your subscribers and audience is another thing; don’t do this with your newsletters or email marketing campaigns.

Instead:

• Constantly engage with your subscribers.

• Engage beyond the superficial.

• Build a passionate community.

• And when it’s needed, communicate change clearly.

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, Will you be turning on Google's "Personal Intelligence"?

“Hell, no!” and “Maybe - let’s see what others think”, tied with 2 votes each (40.00%) 👇

This week’s question is:

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

AI-native CRM

“When I first opened Attio, I instantly got the feeling this was the next generation of CRM.”
— Margaret Shen, Head of GTM at Modal

Attio is the AI-native CRM for modern teams. With automatic enrichment, call intelligence, AI agents, flexible workflows and more, Attio works for any business and only takes minutes to set up.

Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.

👉 Start for free today

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Classifieds

EmailTooltester helps small and medium businesses pick the right email marketing tools with honest reviews and guides. Compare tools now.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• The Lifelong Freelancer - Simon Harper on Finding His Way into Email. (Me & Email Boutique)

• 6C’s - The 6 BEST ways to monetise your audience in 2026. (Matt McGarry)

• Balancing Act - Email Marketing Frequency Best Practices for Higher Engagement and Sales. (Beehiiv)

• True Personalisation - How to Personalise Your Website with RightMessage + Bento. (Bento & RightMessage)

• 😬 Oh wow! - Salesforce had a very bad day. (James Lamb)

• Beyond the Inbox - The Secrets Behind Assistants vs. Agents? Content, Community, and a Newsletter with Priceless Intel. (Inbox Collective)

• SPF - Deliverability Fundamentals. (Email Karma)

• Without being “sleazy” - He's sold over $1M via his newsletter. (Growth In Reverse & Matt McGarry)

• Identifying Phishing Lesson - Don't send customer-generated content. (Word to the Wise)

• Reading Email Headers - Decode SPF, DKIM, and DMARC like a pro. (Valimail)

• 🤦‍♂️ Saturday was bad! - Gmail’s spam filter went down, emails were delayed (some reports 10 minutes) and email misclassification. (Google)

• Gmail + Gemini - When the Inbox Stops Delivering and Starts Deciding. (Dela Quist)

• More than a Subscriber - How To Grow Faster Through Community-Led Growth. (Beehiiv)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #223 of All About Email!

Last week, we discussed Google’s latest AI announcement for Gmail, the integration of Gemini, and where Gmail is going in 2026.

This week, it’s another announcement from Google and Gmail, this time, the ability to change email addresses.

Let’s go! 👇

Help us make better ads

Did you recently see an ad for beehiiv in a newsletter? We’re running a short brand lift survey to understand what’s actually breaking through (and what’s not).

It takes about 20 seconds, the questions are super easy, and your feedback directly helps us improve how we show up in the newsletters you read and love.

If you’ve got a few moments, we’d really appreciate your insight.

Take the survey.

Quick Note!

In last week’s newsletter, I included some expert thoughts from the email community on the changes Gemini is bringing to the Gmail inbox.

Since then, Natalia Zacholska-Majer has added her thoughts, along with a change in Google Postmaster Tools, both of which are well worth a read.

Google Allows You to change your Gmail address.

Rumours surfaced before the New Year that Google would allow users to change their email addresses, and 9to5Google published this article.

We’ve now had confirmation from both Google’s help docs (including instructions on how to do it) and a new 9to5Google article that this rumour is true.

🚨 Some things to note:

• Once you change your address, you cannot create another new Gmail[dot]com address for that same account for 12 months.

• You are prohibited from deleting the new email address during this initial 12-month period.

• You can perform this action up to 3 times per account.

• Your old address is converted into an alias, meaning it remains tied to your account. This prevents anyone else from claiming your old username (email address), and you will continue to receive emails sent to the old address in your new inbox.

💡 You might also have to update third-party services and reauthenticate some Google Services.

The change is gradual and slowly rolling out to all users, so you might not have this ability yet.

Al Iverson shared his initial thoughts on Spam Resource before Google confirmed the change, and it’s worth a read. I’m going to add my thoughts below, too. 👇

What could this change mean for Email Marketing?

There are a few things to consider here, and of course, time will tell, as the rollout continues, what adoption rate might be, which will also determine the level of potential impact:

• There is no risk of bounces due to an address change, as the original email address remains an alias and continues to receive email.

• “Potential” duplication (sending the same email to the same user) and impact on segmentation and personalisation if the subscriber signs up again with their new email address instead of updating their email address or removing the original (before signing up again).

• You “could” experience some false churn.

• Subscribers can “potentially” look inactive due to the original alias address still receiving email (the real inbox activity may happen under a different address you don’t know about).

What can I do when sending email Campaigns/Newsletters?

🎉 If you’re following email marketing best practices, in some ways, nothing changes, but you might need to adjust the frequency of some list hygiene practices.

Not quite sure what I’m talking about? These are just some things to consider:

• Send preference update emails (once every six months should be OK).

• Use a re-engagement/sunset flow (if you’re sending emails weekly, consider a 90-day window).

• Create specific segments in your ESP that monitor engagement interactions for Gmail[dot]com addresses.

• Re-evaluate list hygiene and segmentation, and make sure it’s based on engagement metrics (don’t blindly remove subscribers).

• Once Google completes the rollout, you might want to send a specific email to Gmail [dot]com subscribers.

🚨 These are just some tips; if you think I missed one, let me know, and I’ll include it in next week’s newsletter.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}! 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, “How are you feeling about the AI Inbox from Gmail?”

“Let's see how it goes...” leading with 7 out of 14 votes (50.00%) 👇

This week’s question is:

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

AI-native CRM

“When I first opened Attio, I instantly got the feeling this was the next generation of CRM.”
— Margaret Shen, Head of GTM at Modal

Attio is the AI-native CRM for modern teams. With automatic enrichment, call intelligence, AI agents, flexible workflows and more, Attio works for any business and only takes minutes to set up.

Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.

👉 Start for free today

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Classifieds

EmailTooltester helps small and medium businesses pick the right email marketing tools with honest reviews and guides. Compare tools now.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Looks right, reads wrong - Making email accessible. (Mark Robbins & Customer[dot]io)

• 😮 Google launches “Personal Intelligence” - It connects Gmail, Photos, YouTube and Search in a single tap. (Google)

• The 2026 Guide - How to prevent spam emails. (Valimail)

• Introducing Mailuminati Guardian - An open-source service for high-performance spam and phishing detection. (Simon Bressier)

• 🎉 Guru is Acquired! - Constant Contact acquires; GURU Conference, SubjectLine[dot]com and Certified GURU. (Jay Schwedelson)

• Cold, dry, global January - The data cleanse. (Alison Gootee & Mailgun)

• Would You Do This? - Send new subscribers a personalised welcome video. (Growth in Reverse)

• UTO - The extraordinary insight hiding in Klaviyo’s 2025 Email & SMS benchmark report. (Dela Quist)

• 🐒 🍌 Is Mailchimp’s Free Plan Useless? - Mailchimp is making changes to its sending volumes on the Free Marketing Plan. (Me!)

• WTF is deliverability? - It is being confident on Monday, confused on Wednesday, and debugging a new “edge case” by Friday. (Hagop Khatchoyan)

• Inbox Optimization - Why the Future of Email Belongs to Humans and Machines. (Alison Gootee & Mailgun)

• 🎉 One Lookup - A small Google change that makes email a little less brittle. (MV Braverman)

• Email Breakdown with Emily Oberman - The newsletter 700K female entrepreneurs love. (Vicky Smith)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #222 of All About Email!

Last year, (it’s a terrible joke, I know…🤣) I expanded on my sunset automation so you can put something in place for 2026 or maybe tweak an existing automation.

So, if you’ve not read the last issue, it’s perfect reading for the start of the New Year.

This week, we discuss Google’s latest AI announcement for Gmail with the integration of Gemini and where Gmail is going in 2026.

Let’s go! 👇

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It's not about working harder — it's about having a CRM that actually thinks ahead. HubSpot Smart CRM learns how your team operates and adapts to make everyone more effective. Streamline day to day tasks and track the activity that actually matters to your business. The result? Your team gets back hours every week to spend on growth instead of admin work. Start free. See the difference.

Get Started Free

Quick Note!

💡 Before we go any further, these new Gmail capabilities are already rolling out in the U.S. to Gmail users and to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

Google is starting with English and is excited to roll out more languages and regions in the coming months (no defined timeline for the rollout to other regions).

Gemini in Gmail’s New Features

🚀 Gmail is getting a major AI upgrade. Let’s take a look.

AI Overviews

(Yes, like the ones in search results) - Now summarise long email threads and answer questions about your inbox. **

💡 ** (AI Overviews in Search Results are terrible and not to be confused with the excellent AI Mode from Google, so it will be interesting to see how good AI Overviews are in Gmail.)

AI (Gemini)

Can help you write better emails with features like:

• Help Me Write,

• Suggested Replies and Proofread.

New AI Inbox

Will filter out unimportant emails, so you see what matters most.

My Thoughts

I’m actually not going to share my thoughts on this issue (yet), controversial…I know. 🤭

That’s not an easy out either (or me being lazy); I’ve just not had time to think and reflect to give an answer that would be worthy of you lovely readers.

The other issue is that, being in the UK, I don’t have access to this new feature yet, so I can’t test it, but my thoughts will come (maybe even as soon as next week 🤷‍♂️).

However, I don’t want to leave you without some expert insight. 👇

Community Thoughts

Google made the announcement on January 8th (2026), so there has already been a flurry of thoughts from the community:

• Travis Hazlewood - See the announcement as a turning point.

• Jaina Mistry - Three things to consider.

• Al Iverson - Do better, and you will be rewarded.

Make sure you read the comments for Travis and Jaina; they contain additional insights.

What are your thoughts, {{first_name|friend}}?

Please reply and let me know.

That’s it for this week! 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question is the last of 2025. 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Classifieds

Free cheat sheet (by EmailTooltester): Essential Ecommerce Workflows: step-by-step setup, tool tips, cart recovery and more. Download now.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• A World First - Introducing The Email Inactives Benchmark Survey. (Dela Quist)

• 28+ Billion Emails - The state of newsletters 2026. (Beehiiv)

• Changes - January 2026 Microsoft SNDS Updates. (Spam Resource)

• 90+ Pages - The Email Design Handbook. (Beth O’Malley)

• Inbox Optimization - Why the Future of Email Belongs to Humans and Machines. (Alison Gootee & Mailgun)

• Semantics? - Newsletters ≠ Email Marketing. (Dylan Redekop)

• First Issue Out Now! - “Content™” made to make HTML email accessibility accessible, achievable and affordable. (Paul Airy)

• Referral Programs - The Strategy That 2x’d The Dink’s Daily Subscriber Rate. (Growth in Reverse)

• Staying Relevant - What I Learned About Newsletters in 2025. (The Inbox Collective)

• DMARC RUA - What it is and how to use it. (Valimail)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

The web version of this issue contains a screenshot taken from a video published by Google as part of its official launch announcement for Gemini in Gmail (source).

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #221 of All About Email!

Last week, I shared an update on my long-gestating email community, Campfire Email.

This week’s issue is one of my favourite newsletters of the year, and it only happens twice per year.

Let’s go! 👇

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Your Top Ten Emails

⚡️ The last time we did this was back in Issue 170 (six months ago).

💡 If you are new, {{first_name|friend}}, every six months, I look back at the “Top 10” newsletters based on your engagement and that of the rest of my lovely readers.

The criteria used are as follows:

• Open Rate

• Verified Click-Through Rate

• Web Views

• Web Click Rate

(There were no tie-breakers needed.)

🎉 So, let’s look at your “Top Ten” from January to June 2025 in order of the most engaged across the above metrics. 👇

1. Issue #218 - Campfire Update 🔥🪵

2. Issue #207 - When is a Link Not a Link?

3. Issue #215 - 🤔 Design Emails Worth Opening?

4. Issue #199 - 🔘 I Like Big Buttons (and I Cannot Lie) **

5. Issue #212 - Elementary dear Watson 🕵️‍♂️

6. Issue #211 - Yahoo launches Insights 🎉

7. Issue #205 - The Ultimate Guide to Typography & Accessible Fonts **

8. Issue #202 - Easy Carousels & New Tools!

9. Issue #200 - Celebrating 200 newsletters! 🎉

10. Issue #206 - 🔍 Behind the Clicks: What You Loved Most in All About Email

Did one of your favourite newsletters make the list, {{first_name|friend}}?

** These newsletters are guest issues, so a big thanks to Emily Ryan and Jay Oram for their contributions.

All About Email in Numbers

🐝 This is my second year on Beehiiv, and I was pleasantly surprised to receive my “Beehiiv Wrapped”.

It was so cool, and you can check out the full details on my LinkedIn, but in summary:

• ✍️ 55.0k Words written

• 📄 51 Issues

• 👀 52.7k Impressions

• 📭 Avg. Open Rate 59.8%

• 📈 57% Audience Growth

• ⏩ Avg. CTR 12.7%

💡 If you’d like to compare to last year, you can check those out on last year’s announcement post.

Email(s) of the Year

🎉 Beehiiv Wrapped revealed the top newsletter of the year by engagement among you, {{first_name|friends}}, and my other readers…Issue #215 - 🤔 Design Emails Worth Opening?

However, using my criteria, Issue 218 is the email of the year!

Issue #218 All About Email

🔥🪵 Campfire Email is evolving. After delays and new tools, the community will launch in the New Year with a free beta and ongoing member-led development.

newsletter.allabout.email/p/issue-218-all-about-email

A Special Thank You

“All About Email” has had a couple of sponsors over the year, and without them, this newsletter would not be possible, so a special thank you to:

• EmailTooltester

• ZeroBounce

That’s it for this year! 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

In last week’s poll, I asked you, “Did you get a Wrapped this year?”

“Yes - I love it! 🎉” leading with 6 out of 9 votes (66.67%) 👇

There’s no question this week, just a big thank you to all those who’ve answered questions this year, and the questions will return in January!

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Professional Email Etiquette - What I’ve Learned From Running Campaigns (BBC)

• Making the Cut - How I Curate the Email Love Homepage. (Email Love)

• A Christmas Email Poem - Best practices are important the entire year! (Alison Gootee)

• InTwelve™ - Create accessible HTML emails, one piece of HTML email content at a time. (Paul Airy)

• Metrics that Matter - Impact of Apple MPP on Open Rates (And What To Track Instead). (Beehiiv)

• Built with Heart - An Email Christmas Carol. (ActionRocket)

• Best Practices - What I Wish I’d Known Before Launching My Newsletter. (Inbox Collective)

• Troubleshooting Checklist - Step-by-step to fixing DMARC. (Valimail)

• IPv4 and IPv6 - There are two Internets. (Word to the Wise)

• Mail Merge - A Complete Guide. (EmailLabs)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #220 of All About Email!

Last week, I shared some actionable tips to help you start 2026 with a cleaner, more deliverable email list.

This week, I will expand on my sunset automation so you can put something in place for 2026 or maybe tweak an existing automation.

Let’s go! 👇

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My Sunset Automation

Last week, in Day 5 of 7, I mentioned sunset automations and linked to Issue 212, which provides additional detail on my sunset automation.

By my standards, this blew up a little bit on LinkedIn, and people were very interested to know more, so here you go, {{first_name|friend}}. 👇

The Trigger

🏁 If a subscriber has not opened or clicked in 90 days, they are moved to the sunset automation.

💡 Conditional Re-entry: A subscriber may re-enter this automation once more with no cooldown period. This is important because a subscriber who repeatedly re-enters this automation is “not engaged”.

A re-entry of “one more time” (is a second chance, but also takes into account a potential for a subscriber’s personal/work circumstances that might impact engagement).

The Flow/Emails

I’m not going into the wording of each email or subject line in detail, but they should follow these basic principles as the subscriber in the flow is already unengaged:

• Keep the subject line and email content short and sweet.

• Personalise the subject line and content as much as possible.

• Make sure the email copy is on-brand.

Email One

• Address the subscriber's inactivity without being creepy or pushy.

• Share one or two links to popular content.

• Offer one clear above-the-fold CTA to stay subscribed.

💡 We then wait three days and branch:

• Click the CTA to remain subscribed, then exit the automation.

• Didn’t click? On to email two. 👇

Email Two

• Acknowledge that the subscriber is busy, as is the inbox, and they might have missed email one.

• Offer one clear above-the-fold CTA to stay subscribed.

• Let them know that if they don’t click the CTA, they will be removed in a few days.

💡 We then wait three days and branch:

• Click the CTA to remain subscribed, then exit the automation.

• Didn’t click? On to email three. 👇

Email Three

• Say goodbye to the subscriber and wish them all the best.

• Offer one clear, above-the-fold CTA to encourage resubscription.

💡 We then wait three days and branch:

• Click the CTA to remain subscribed, then exit the automation.

• Didn’t click? Remove the subscriber. 👋

The next part is important, so read the section below carefully, {{first_name|friend}}. 👇

Remember It’s About You & Your Data…

💡 It’s all about data, and your sunset automation is not evergreen; you should change things up based on:

• Feedback,

• Engagement,

• Testing.

For example, you might need only two steps rather than three (my third email currently re-engages 6.38% of users who enter the flow, so I need it).

You need to review your data and test.

Wait Time

Next is “wait time”, which will depend on when you send an email from your sunset automation.

If you’re sending on the weekend and the subscriber is B2B, it’s unlikely they will see it.

💡 Again, it’s about your data. Most of my engagement occurs in the first 48-72 hours, which is why I have a three-day wait before the next steps in the automation.

Final Tips

Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye, and sometimes it’s necessary for you and your subscribers.

Try to view it as a positive (“sunset party”) rather than a negative, and celebrate the time you and your subscribers have shared (especially in your email copy).

Multiple Sunset Automations

✅ Remember, I said about “personalising without being creepy”?

A great way to do that is to review your acquisition sources and tailor multiple sunset automation and their respective content.

💡 A subscriber from your social media is different from a subscriber who converted on your website or via a referral.

Depending on your ESP (and any integrations you might have), you could have a wealth of data to use to personalise and customise multiple sunset automations.

“Acquisition source” is just one example.

Note that sometimes a single flow is sufficient, and you need to keep things simple. 😉

Test, Test, Test…

💡 Lastly, check the automation triggers, links, and actions to ensure they work as intended (bonus points for re-checking periodically, because you never know what an ESP can do).

That’s it for this week! 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question is the last of 2025. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked you how long is too long?

“The Middle - I like around 500 words” is leading with 9 out of 13 votes (69.23%). 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• The Future of Newsletters - Experts’ Predictions For 2026. (GrowLetter Media)

• 😎 Reserve Your Seat - Really Good Emails Awards 2025. (Really Good Emails)

• Best Practices - 7 Big Mistakes People Make When Selling Newsletter Ads. (Inbox Collective)

• ‘Tis the season to - Pretend your subscribers suddenly have psychic abilities? (Alison Gootee)

• Ortto MCP - Most AI assistants today are powerful but blind - they don’t know your customers, your marketing history, or your data. (Ortto)

• Daily Deliverability Tips - Your deliverability shouldn't rely on a Christmas miracle. (Florent Destors)

• How Real World Emails are built - Announcing the Email Markup Database. (Email Markup Consortium)

• 6 Best Stripo Alternatives - Tools to Improve Your Email Design. (EmailTooltester)

• MTAs 101 - Everything You Need to Know About Mail Transfer Agents. (EmailLabs)

• Meet ZeroBounce MCP - Bring Email Validation into Your AI and Automation Workflows. (ZeroBounce)

• Email Security - Solving the seven biggest DMARC challenges. (Valimail)

• 🧠 Think Again - Your Data Isn’t Personal Enough for a Wrapped Email? (Email Love)

• Growth Levers - How ByteByteGo Grew to Over 334k Subscribers in Under 2 Years. (Growth In Reverse)

• Ad Strategy - Make 2026 Your Best Ad Sales Year Yet. (Inbox Collective)

• 📢 Call for Speakers - Submit to speak at Unspam 2026. (Really Good Emails)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #219 of All About Email!

Last week, I shared an update on my long-gestating email community, Campfire Email.

This week, I wanted to share some actionable tips to help you start 2026 with a cleaner, more deliverable email list, and yes, this email will clip…🫠 😭

Let’s go! 👇

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Is List Health Going to Matter More than Ever in 2026?

🚨 Before we get started, these seven repeatable tips are not a one-time thing; it’s a behaviour and an ongoing effort to be a better sender.

You can run these tips this week, and again every quarter if that works for you (you might need to adjust for your particular situation).

If you follow these tips, you’ll start 2026 with:

• Better deliverability,

• Fewer cold subscribers,

• Fewer spam complaints,

• And a list that feels significantly more alive (engaged).

Day 1: Know Your Risk Segments

Before improving your list, you need a baseline.

Create four segments, as this will help tell you where the decay is happening:

• Engaged: opened or clicked in 30 days

• At-risk: opened or clicked in 31–90 days

• Unengaged: no activity in 90+ days

• Risky: role accounts, typo domains, low-quality lead-magnet signups, serial re-subscribers.

Remember, with Apple MPP and bot opens and clicks, replies are very important, whilst opens and clicks need to be treated with caution.

💡 (I talk more about Apple MPP, and bot opens in Issue 189, Issue 190, and more about engagement and segmentation in Issue 212.)

Day 2: Fix Your Inputs

Check your:

1. Forms

• Add real-time address validation.

• Use double opt-in.

• Remove gimmicky incentives.

• Ensure sending + tracking domain alignment (DMARC ❤️)

2. Subscriber Sources

• Label every source: YouTube, Twitter, referrals, landing pages, paid ads (etc).

• Bad sources are always visible once you tag them appropriately.

💡 Your ESP will often do this for you, but you can add UTM links or use tracking software on your website to help with this.

This has been particularly helpful for me as I know of one referrer in particular who consistently sends excellent subscribers and one who sends not-so-engaged subscribers.

Day 3: Reset Expectations

💡 This could well be a very underrated list-health tactic.

Send a short email titled "Here’s what to expect from this newsletter in 2026" (that’s just an example; you should personalise it and make it on-brand).

Inside, make it simple:

• Why they subscribed.

• What they’ll receive.

• How often.

• Where to manage preferences.

🚨 Spam complaints drop dramatically when you set expectations clearly. Bonus points for doing all of the above in every email.

Day 4: Re-Engage the 31–90 Day Readers

These people aren’t “cold.” They’re just fading.

Send something short and human:

Give them one link to click. That’s it.

A small bump in engagement here protects your sending reputation.

Day 5: Warm the Cold Segment Carefully

💡 Your 90-day+ inactive subscribers need gentle handling.

Don’t keep blasting them; instead, consider a sunset automation (more on that next week).

• Keep the email clean and straightforward.

• Ask: “Do you still want to receive this newsletter?” (you’ll need to flesh this out a bit)

• Let them answer with a single click.

If they engage: great. 🎉

If not, then Day 6. 👇

Day 6: Remove Inactive Subscribers

💡 Saying goodbye can be painful, but it’s necessary, and your inboxing, engagement and sender reputation will thank you.

Remove or suppress:

• Hard bounces (ESPs should automatically do this).

• Repeated soft bounces.

• Anyone inactive for 180+ days (this depends on your sending frequency, and I do this every 90 days).

• Spam Complaints.

• Obvious bad addresses (role accounts, malformed domains).**

** You could use a tool like ZeroBounce to help with this.

Day 7: Build Your Long-Term System

💡 A sprint is great, but a system is better.

You can make things even easier for yourself and better for your subscribers with automation.

Put these in place:

Monthly

• Prune bounces and complaints.

• Check sign-up sources.

• Monitor engagement shifts.

Quarterly

• Run this sprint again.

• Send another expectation reset.

• Run a deliverability audit.

Annually

• Review list decay.

• Re-evaluate incentives & opt-ins.

• Assess ESP performance.

Further Reading

If you want to go deeper, I’ve included some links in the sections above, but here are some more to help you in 2026 and beyond:

• Your Treasure Map to the Inbox - Issue 170.

• Tips & Best Practices for Data - Issue #166 and Issue #167.

• Deliverability Basics - Issue #168 and Issue #169.

That’s it for this week! 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question is about newsletter length. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked you about Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers. “Yes” (for a client[s]) leading with 7 out of 14 votes (50.00%). 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Newsletter Advertising Cost - What I’ve Learned From Running Campaigns (Beehiiv)

• Nuance of Engagement - Let's Talk Reengagement. (Word to the Wise)

• Transactional vs Bulk Email - Delivery Differences Explained. (Bento)

• Events - Emailexpert Announces Two Major Email Industry Events in Spain for 2026. (Emailexpert)

• New Feature - How to Create a Newsletter in Outlook. (Emailtooltester)

• Using Bolt or Loveable? - How to Validate Emails Automatically in Bolt.new and Lovable Signups Using ZeroBounce. (ZeroBounce)

• Wrapping Up - The Best 42 Year In Review Email Examples & Designs in 2025. (Really Good Emails)

• Something Special - 2025 Black Friday Emails that Stood Out. (Email Love)

• Newsletter Q&A LIVE [replay] - Ask Us Anything About Growth & Monetization. (Growth in Reverse)

• 🧠 Updated - Email Client Feature Support Rankings. (Email Markup Consortium)

• What About BIMI? - Microsoft is pulling support for inline SVG images. (Spam Resource)

• Pre-send Testing Tools - Unboxing Inbox Monster's Rendering Tool. (Inbox Monster)

• Tips for Success - 5 Practical Ways To Monetise Content in 2026. (Beehiiv)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #218 of All About Email!

Last week was a thought piece, and it’s one I’ve been thinking of writing for a while, but keep putting off. “Is Email Marketing Too Hard”?

This week, carrying on the theme of “it’s been a while”,…I’m talking about Campfire Email.

Let’s go! 👇

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Campfire Email Update

It’s been seven months since I first announced Campfire Email and four months since I gave the last update and announced beta testing.

Well, the beta testing never happened. 🫠

However, that turned out to be a good thing, as the software I’m using got a significant update, and I’m integrating a new payment system that didn’t exist when I announced Campfire Email.

🥺 Honestly, I’ve felt a bit down about Campfire Email. It’s a huge effort to get it ready (much more than I thought), and my friend Dave Foy recently started trialling something which I might do myself (whether that sits alongside Campfire or is part of it, I don’t know).

🎉 Last week’s poll results (more on that later) re-inspired me, and whilst Campfire Email is not going to be ready this side of Christmas, I’ve decided to launch it in the New Year.

🚨 It won’t be finished in January, but by its very nature, I don’t think it ever will be, and that’s the point. It’s meant to be an evergreen community.

This will be a paid community, but for the first few months, while in beta testing, it will be free, as I will be relying on you lovely people to provide feedback, help develop features and help shape the communities direction.

(If you haven’t heard of Campfire Email before, {{first_name|friend}}, give the announcement post a read. I would greatly appreciate it.)

That’s it for this week! 👋

Quick Follow-Up

Last week’s email was big; I got lots of comments, reposts, quotes and replies. ❤️

Although Emily Ryan’s post about my newsletter was bigger, it’s worth reading the comments and reactions.

A lot of you identify with or can empathise with my thoughts.

So if you missed last week’s issue, make sure you give it a read.

Last week’s email got epically clipped (and I know why), so this week was much shorter, but it’s still gonna clip. 🫠

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question is about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you were a member of an email community and “Yes” led the way with 10 out of 17 votes (58.82%) 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Smarter frameworks. Bigger results.

The playbook for modern marketing leaders. Learn how to adapt, realign your goals, and lead teams ready for 2026.

Subscribe to the Masters in Marketing newsletter for twice-weekly insights to keep your reset going.

Download The Playbook

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Quiz Time! - How good are your email strategy skills? (Samar Owais)

• Stop playing catch-up - How proactive alerting prevents email failures before they happen. (Valimail)

• December & January still to go - The Five Signals Your Holiday Email Deliverability Is About to Tank… and How to Fix It Fast. (Lauren Meyer)

• Challenge & Opportunity - Gmail’s New “Manage Subscriptions” Feature. (EmailLabs)

• All about Status - “Accepted vs Delivered”. Understanding Email Status. (Bento)

• A Look Inside Email Code - Design Systems and Ghost Tables. (Let’s Talk Email)

• 🧠 DNS Detective - For that “one person” from last week 😉. (Al Iverson)

• RAM - Capturing (and keeping) your audience's attention. (Des Brown)

• Best Email Marketing Services - Choosing the Right ESP for Your Business. (Bento)

• Hot Take - Image-Only Emails Are a Bad Idea (But it's not because of deliverability). (Email Love)

• Brands Are Addicted To THIS - A new ten-part Retention mini-series from Matt Lady & Samar Owais. (KlientBoost)

• Placeholder Image Generator - Create custom placeholder images for your designs, mockups, and prototypes. (Email Postman)

• 💡 Growth & Monetisation - Six of the Best Newsletter Tips We Heard All Year. (Growth in Reverse)

• Comparing Stats Over Time - Are open rates useless in 2025? (Spam Resource)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #217 of All About Email!

Last week, I shared a huge announcement from Beehiiv.

This week, it’s a thought piece, and it’s one I’ve been thinking of writing for a while, but keep putting off. “Is Email Marketing Too Hard”?

Let’s go! 👇

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

Is Email Marketing Too Hard?

It’s been a while since I wrote a “thought piece”.

🚨 This time, it’s more of an observation, “an awareness” if you will, it’s not me complaining or even remotely thinking of packing in email marketing.

The last time was back in Issue 209, when I discussed “Critical Thinking”.

I often get asked by colleagues, “How do you know so much about email marketing?” and my answer is twofold:

1. I read…a lot.

2. I’ve a pretty good memory (which I’m very thankful for).

Sometimes, I get pushback on the first point, “Where do you find the time?”…in the email world, I find that very ironic. 🤭

Believe it or not, I don’t use AI (currently) to read all the articles I link to in these emails; I read them, and that takes a lot of time (and that doesn’t include articles which don’t make it into these newsletters), so it’s a legitimate pushback.

🤔 I think if you work at an email agency or a full-service agency that has a dedicated email team, this might not be a question you ask much, but for me, a company of one, I find myself asking it more and more.

Rethinking Processes

This year, I’ve seen myself move more toward a consultancy level, and I’ve no issues with that, but I love the practical work:

• Authenticating a domain.

• Fixing a DNS issue.

• Creating a strategy.

• Building out campaigns and automations

• Please give me all of the above and then some…❤️

However, what has become very apparent in replies to this weekly newsletter, conversations around it in Email Geeks, on social media channels, and IRL (remember that one!🤭), is that I can help many more people than just my clients by doing less work in the trenches.

The Conflict

The problem with everything becoming pure consultancy is that it can become purely theoretical, and I start to lose my technical marketing skill set that can actually “do the stuff”.

And like I said, {{first_name|friend}}, I love “doing the stuff”!

Doing It Solo

😮‍💨 I know a lot of people in this list work in teams, but I know there are a lot of you who, like me, are doing it solo, and it’s hard.

To make things more manageable, some of you might have a specific niche, perhaps you don’t code, or you only work in a particular platform, or maybe you are like me and try to do it all? 🫠

It’s Not Impossible. But Is It Too Much?

This isn’t an exhaustive list (and I’ve probably missed something as I’m late sending this 🤦‍♂️), but here’s a list of things that I think an email marketer needs to know to various degrees and in no particular order:

• Email DNS - SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI.

• Subdomains and Domain Reputation.

• AI and the AI inbox.

• Understanding major inbox providers and their different deliverability guidelines.

• Understanding the major providers' delivery/insight tools.

• How to write good copy.

• How to design and/or code engaging emails.

• Which tools are good and which are hype (or do more damage than good)?

• Client communication (or team/stakeholder communication).

• Understanding the major ESPs, how they work.

• Email as part of omnichannel and not a silo!

• Creating an email marketing strategy.

• Developing complex automations and simpler ones.

• Integrating multiple applications into email (or vice versa)

• How to fix everything when the 💩 hits the 🪭

• Don’t be shady (see M³ AAWG in the News & Tips section)

• I could go on, but this email will get “clipped”. 😉

• And breathe…🧘

😄 I would love to hear your thoughts, especially this week, {{first_name|friend}}. Just reply to this email and let me know.

That’s it for this week. 👋

Before You Go

Now, {{first_name|friend}}, I can’t let you go away without a BFCM tip. I was recently asked to contribute to Jordie van Rijn’s annual article (in the news section below).

💡 My tip for this year:

Beehiiv’s Offer Is Over - But MINE Isn’t 🎉

I do have a special offer for my readers, and it’s the last time I will be posting about it for a while!

I started on Beehiiv’s free plan, but I’ve been on the Scale Plan for a year now, and I’m delighted! However, after last week’s email, I am now tempted by the Max Plan.

Anyway…here’s that special offer. 👇

Get a 30-day trial + 20% OFF for 3 months.

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way… not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question is about Email Communities. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you were happy with your ESP and “Yes - Very happy and Yes - Mostly happy” led the way with 35.29% of the vote each! 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• 😎 40% Bonus Credits - Use code: SAVE40 on ZeroBounce ONE™️/Custom Monthly Plans. (ZeroBounce)

• Email Deliverability - The Seventh Age. (Chad S. White & Zeta)

• It’s Not Your Fault - Your newsletter click rates might be inflated. (Dan Oshinsky)

• 🎉 Featuring Me! - 65+ experts’ email marketing strategy for Black Friday and Holiday Season (emailmonday)

• BFCM Offers! - The 113+ Best Black Friday SaaS Deals in 2025. (Email Vendor Selection)

• ❤️ This Is So Good! - Why you need an Email Design System. (Email Love)

• A BFCM Recipe - The Thanksgiving Dinner Guide to Not Ruining Your Holiday Sends. (Alison Gootee)

• Best Email Marketing Services - Choosing the Right ESP for Your Business. (Bento)

• Email Deliverability - A checklist for staying out of trouble. (EmailKarma)

• It’s Not Me… - It’s you. Confessions of an unsubscriber. (Action Rocket)

• Folding Email Headers - Why are my DKIM signatures failing at Microsoft? (Word To The Wise)

• Inbox Visibility in 2025 - What Gmail, Yahoo & Microsoft Reward Now. (Lauren Meyer)

• Goods Transactional Email - Order Confirmation Emails, Welcome Email, Abandoned Cart. (EmailLabs)

• Cold Email - Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group Position on Cold Email. (M³AAWG)

• Email’s Not Dead - The best and worst of 2025 and what we’re excited about in 2026. (Mailgun)

• New Year Success - Eight Things You Should Do Now to Set Up Your Newsletter. (Inbox Collective)

• What is an email spammer bot? How to detect, block, and stop email spam attacks. (Valimail)

• Image Caching - The Vanishing Accuracy of Open Rates. (EmailKarma)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #216 of All About Email!

Last week, I took a look at Canva’s latest addition to their Design Suite, the Email Designer! Safe to say it is not ready to be used in the wild. 🤦‍♂️

This week, I share a huge announcement from Beehiiv.

Let’s go! 👇

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Important Context

🐵 I switched from Mailchimp to Beehiiv 18 months ago, and I’ve never looked back, but this announcement is a massive deal for creators, journalists and media publications.

Some of Beehiiv’s features aren’t entirely new (most are), and Beehiiv isn’t perfect (e.g. deliverability reporting). No ESP is.

But the rapid changes on the platform over the last 18 months have been incredible… then the latest announcement happened!

🚨 There are affiliate links in this email which unlock a discount, but I only refer to products or services I’ve tested or use myself.

🐝 The Beehiiv Shift: From Newsletter Tool to OS

Beehiiv just announced one of the most ambitious platform expansions I’ve seen in years, signalling a major shift in the content economy. 🤯

What started as a newsletter platform is now positioning itself as the operating system for creators, publishers, and modern media businesses.

Watch the full presentation or read my highlights below! 👇

Here Are My Highlights:

If you don’t want to watch the video above, there are individual videos for each feature on Beehii'v’s YouTube. Here are my personal favourites:

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Build a fully interactive website by chatting with AI. Upload a screenshot of a site → Beehiiv generates a near-identical version. Then finish with drag-and-drop.

🎙️ Native Podcast Hosting

Your podcast, website, and newsletter now live in one place. Automatic episode syncing. One unified feed.

📊 Built-in Website Analytics

Real-time visibility without external tools. Clear traffic and behaviour insights. Historical imports coming soon.

🔗 Link-in-Bio Tool

A premium, mobile-optimised link page, automatically matching your brand. Integrates with your products, podcast, analytics, and website.

🎨 Website + Newsletter Templates

Dozens of new professionally-designed templates to help creators ship faster.

🎯 Dynamic Content

Personalise parts of every email based on reader data, interests, location, subscriber type, and more.

⚙️ Automation Upgrades

Full subscriber journeys with better triggers, clearer logic, and deeper analytics.

💰Ad Network + Advertiser Tools

A “Facebook Ads Manager for newsletters.” Publishers get curated weekly offers. Advertisers get dashboards, attribution, and real-time performance insights.

🔒Paid Subscriptions (0% fee)

Beehiiv becomes the only major platform that takes 0% of your subscription revenue.

For creators, publishers, and brands, this is unbelievably exciting! 🤯

The whole stack under one roof:

• Creation,

• Distribution,

• Monetisation,

• Analytics.

It’s safe to say the media have picked up on this platform shift and its potential.

As you might have guessed, I’m very excited, especially since many of these new features are already available in my existing plan and there's been no price increase yet (though I imagine that’s coming).

That’s it for this week. 👋

Special Offer

I do have a special offer for my readers, and it’s never been a better time to check out Beehiiv!

I started on the free plan, but I’ve been on the Scale Plan for a year now, and I’m delighted! However, I am now tempted by the Max Plan.

Get a 30-day trial + 20% OFF for 3 months. 👇

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way… not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question (no ESP is perfect). 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you used Canva. “Yes - Free Plan and Pro or Business Plan” led the way with 33.33% of the vote each! 👇

I guess the one person who has considered using Canva should check it out (just not for emails…and probably websites.) 🤭

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

A free newsletter with the marketing ideas you need

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Thanks, Google! - “Thanks to helpful sender feedback, we're postponing the deprecation of the legacy Postmaster Tools web interface…” (Alison Gootee)

• It’s A Delay, Not A Pardon - Marketers, you can exhale… for now! (Lauren Meyer)

• SpongeBob Marketing-Pants - The difference between sending emails and being an Email Marketer lies in understanding what makes email stand apart. (Travis Hazlewood)

• Rounded Corners - Do rounded corners affect accessibility? What’s the best way to round corners in an email? (Mark Robbins & Really Good Emails)

• Following Patterns - Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? (Jesse Hanley & Bento)

• Preferred Channels - Infobip Predicts Record 3.9 Billion Brand Messages This Shopping Season as RCS Soars 269% and Email Grows 50%. (emailexpert & Infobip)

• Generalist World - How Milly Tamati Added 27k Subscribers in 8 Months. (Growth In Reverse)

• Undisclosed Recipients - Should you use this in 2025? (Word To The Wise)

• Step-By-Step - How to set up and rotate your DKIM keys in 2025. (Valimail)

• Engaging Readers - Eight Engaging Content Ideas For Non-Profits That Aren’t Fundraising Asks. (Inbox Collective)

• The New Metrics - Understanding Yahoo Sender Hub “Insights”. (EmailLabs)

• Strategic Heresy - The holiday inbox is about to look like the mall parking lot on Black Friday. (Alison Gootee)

• EML to HTML - Drag n' drop, or select an .eml file to upload. We'll extract the HTML. (Mark Connell)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

The screenshot is taken from the official Beehiiv YouTube channel. All trademarks, branding, and visual assets depicted are the property of Beehiiv.

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #215 of All About Email!

Last week we were back on track! We had an open discussion about the cost of running a newsletter and why you need to know your costs! It was my most popular email of the last ten weeks! 🥳

This week, I’m taking a look at Canva’s latest addition to their Design Suite, the Email Designer!

Let’s go! 👇

A free newsletter with the marketing ideas you need

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it.

That’s what this newsletter delivers.

The Marketing Millennials is a look inside what’s working right now for other marketers. No theory. No fluff. Just real insights and ideas you can actually use—from marketers who’ve been there, done that, and are sharing the playbook.

Every newsletter is written by Daniel Murray, a marketer obsessed with what goes into great marketing. Expect fresh takes, hot topics, and the kind of stuff you’ll want to steal for your next campaign.

Because marketing shouldn’t feel like guesswork. And you shouldn’t have to dig for the good stuff.

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“Design Emails Worth Opening”

Canva’s latest introduction to Visual Suite is the new “Email Builder”.

🤣 Let’s say the keynote was hilarious. Canva’s keynotes are known for their OTT and humorous presentations, and this year was no different. 👇

The “Email Designer” - What Do We Know?

If you didn’t watch the video, here are the essential bits:

• It aims to modernise email design, moving away from outdated, clunky builders - using the same drag-and-drop simplicity that Canva users already know.

• The focus is to make email design easier, faster, on-brand, and visually consistent with the rest of your marketing materials.

• Enables mobile and desktop previews to ensure consistent rendering across devices (ummm…🤔).

• Design using headers, icons, buttons, images, and videos directly from Canva’s content library.

• Use the Brand Kit to lock in brand fonts, colours, and logos for visual consistency.

• Canva’s email designs can be exported as HTML, allowing users to:

  • Import into platforms like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot, or custom ESPs.

  • Review and tweak code for performance, accessibility, or dark mode compatibility (more on that later). 🤦‍♂️

• Canva currently has direct integrations with Gmail and Mailchimp.

• Canva does not yet support ESP-specific merge tags.

• Any unsubscribe link you see in Canva is placeholder text only. Canva does not currently support unsubscribe links or merge tags.

Like anything in Canva, your Canva plan will depend on what access you have to features that are used in some of the templates, and features (like AI), but there are lots of free templates to get you started.

You Can’t Use Canva Emails in Production

Now, this may not come as a surprise to you, {{first_name|friend}}, but you can’t use Canva emails without a lot of work.

There are currently 164 templates to choose from, and in my testing, I picked the Education & Training in Purple, which looks nice, but I then ran the HTML through Parcel. 🫣

• 8 HTML warnings (although no errors).

• 6 Critical, 106 Serious, and 1 Mild accessibility issue - lack of attributes, colour contrast, missing alt text, dark mode issues and semantic issues.

You name the accessibility issues, and this email had them. 😬

Some of the email designs are terrible, and others are pretty good, but you can’t use an email generated in Canva in production unless you know how to code and fix all the problems.

💡 This isn’t just a Canva problem (other “Drag & Drop” builders have similar issues).

🚨 Still, given Canva’s user base (240 million active users) and how the new “Email Designer” has been marketed, it concerns me that users will think these emails are suitable for real campaigns (even though Canva knows they are not).

Final Thoughts

I’m not hating on Canva here, {{first_name|friend}}; they have had an “Email Marketing Guide” for 5 years (which would have been used for SEO, since Canva didn’t offer an email design system until now).

🤔 However, I am surprised they’ve not updated the page since the keynote announcement (you can view the page history).

I could say a lot more, but then my email will clip. 🤣

Instead, you can read the links below and read some of Beth O'Malley’s thoughts and the comments in her post.

Further reading:

• Detailed guide to Canva Email features.

• Design your email in Canva (remember, the FAQs are worth reading on their own).

• Two new Canva Design School lessons for “Email Made Easy”.

• Sending your Canva emails to Gmail.

• Sending your Canva emails to Mailchimp.

Before You Go

My friend Samar Owais is running the latest cohort of her famous eCommerce Email Bootcamp. Samar is incredibly well-respected, not just by me, but by many in the email community.

This special admission will automatically get you 20% off the bootcamp:

• One-time Payment: $2394 ($600 off the full price of $2994)

• Payment Plan: $399/month for 6 months ($100 off the $499/month plan)

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way… not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you knew the costs of your newsletter/email marketing. “Nope - never thought about it.” led the way with 45.45% of the vote! 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Your Boss Will Think You’re an Ecom Genius

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Sign up now

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Congratulations! - Email Weekly wins two awards at the 2025 Lovie Awards. (Action Rocket)

• 🤣 Brilliant! - Senders getting ready to reignite their mailing lists. (Alison Gootee)

• Design meets Strategy - Introducing the EmailBoutique YouTube Channel. (Annett Forcier)

• Sort of - Google’s Postmaster Tools v2 API is live. (Brian Sisolak)

• Gmail Ramping Up! - What does it mean for anyone sending email to the universe of Gmail inboxes? (Al Iverson & Valimail)

• 🔥 Send It Right - Wear It Proud. Because Good Deliverability Deserves Good Merch. (Lauren Meyer)

• It’s now free! 😱 - Email Love Pro has been discontinued, and all of the features are now available for FREE. (Email Love)

• First Guest Alert! - From In-House to Agency with Megan Boshuyzen. (Let’s Talk Email)

• Some Gems - Gmail Updates Sender Requirements and Bounce Codes. (Email Karma)

• Industry Dive - Building a $100M Newsletter Empire with Sean Griffey. (Growth in Reverse)

• 2025 Guide - Email Welcome Series Best Practices. (emailtooltester)

• Top Designs - October 2025. (Action Rocket)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

This screenshot of the Canva Email Templates dashboard is used for illustrative and educational purposes only. All design templates, interface elements, and trademarks shown are the property of Canva Pty Ltd. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #214 of All About Email!

Last week was about “The House of Dynamite”. Ironically, I messed up last week’s email with the send time and clipping (again), and it bombed (pun intended). 🤦‍♂️

This week, I’m having an open discussion about the cost of running a newsletter and why you need to know your costs!

Let’s go! 👇

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Last week’s newsletter, despite some lovely comments on LinkedIn and some encouraging replies via the inbox, didn’t land with the majority of you lovely people. 😢

And, that’s fine, I was on quite a roll and it had to come to an end…hopefully, this week will be more of a winner.

(I go to town with emojis this week, more on that later.)

Remember, if you aren’t running a newsletter but you are sending email campaigns, this week still applies to you. 👇

The Cost of Email Marketing

🚨 Context is very important! So, let’s set that now:

• These costs are for running my newsletter, “All About Email”; my other newsletter has different costs.

• This email is sent weekly.

• I have no employees or contractors; this is all me!

• If you’re an in-house marketer, you might not have access to all your costs.

• Agencies and in-house teams will face different or additional costs. **

** You will have staff costs, potentially sponsorship costs, product costs (COGS) and integration costs to name but a few.

🧠 Regardless of whether you send a newsletter or an email (marketing) campaign, someone somewhere should know how much it costs.

Some Learnings Along The Way

From running this newsletter, I’ve learned a few things that I wanted to share:

• Most people don’t want to pay a subscription fee to read a newsletter or email marketing (but I am slowly building a subscription-based community).

• It takes 3 - 4 hours (sometimes longer) to write these newsletters.

• I also run an open newsletter; you don’t have to subscribe, and I have an RSS feed.

A Little More On Monetisation And Sponsorships

After moving from Mailchimp to Beehiiv, I’ve monetised this newsletter in a few ways, as I’ve learned it’s not sustainable to write this newsletter for free.

So far:

• Beehiiv Ads (in-newsletter) has brought in only $320.07, and after currency conversion, it’s much less.

• Getting sponsors is hard when you are a small newsletter, although it’s been much easier for my other newsletter, Loop WP.

• Affiliate revenue has helped a bit, totalling $1,071.64 over the last year, but again, this is much less after currency conversion and fees (I’m based in the UK).

If I use my hourly rate, it costs between $450 and $600 per newsletter to produce, and that doesn’t include Beehiiv, Stripe, and bank fees, as well as domain and mailbox costs.

😬 That figure hits hard!

I knew this figure in the back of my mind, but when you see it written down, it’s huge, and because I write a weekly newsletter (with some breaks), let’s take the average (4 hours) time to write:

• 50 weeks x 3 hours per week = $30,000

🤯 $30,000 per year (not including other costs) to write this newsletter.

I’ve only covered 4.64% of those costs so far this year.

✅ Now, {{first_name|friend}}, I don’t necessarily want all my costs covered; otherwise, I would be writing this newsletter full-time, and I don’t want to do that at the moment.

Not Every Email Needs To Sell, But…

Last week, I said “not every email needs to sell”, and that’s true!

🚨 However, if you’re a business that relies on email as a sales channel, you don’t want it to run at a loss, like my newsletter does.

You will need to know your costs to make sure your emails work as part of your omni-channel efforts (that’s right, folks, email doesn’t sell on its own).

✅ At worst, you want your emails to break even over the course of a quarter; ideally, if you are a business, you want them to make money and get that “return on investment.”

However, if you aren’t selling a product or service like me, then you need to measure other goals against your costs:

• Subscriber churn.

• Subscriber growth.

• Monetisation growth (ads, sponsors and affiliate revenue).

• New clients.

• And whatever personal goals you have (perhaps to get that dream job).

BFCM Tips

Black Friday Sales have already started, and every year, Jordie Van Rijn runs a Black Friday & Cyber Monday tip thread on LinkedIn, and this year is no different.

There are lots of great tips in the link above, and here’s mine so you don’t have to go searching:

💡 Offer your customers a "Wish List". An easy place to see all their products, and if they are on offer. Bonus points for turning this into an email(s).

✅ If you don't already offer wishlists, make sure they integrate with your CRM/ESP (or can be connected via a 3rd-party, e.g., Zapier).

This makes the email automation much easier.

And of course, please be careful about how these emails are sent, in terms of timing and frequency, alongside your other holiday messaging.

🎉 If you want to hear more from me, join the Live Webinar with Paul Charlton of WP Tuts on Thursday. 🎉

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way… not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if and how you use AI in your inbox “No - Only humans here.” led the way with 44.44% of the vote! 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.

Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• 🤯 My Email of the Year! - How we conjured a personalised Halloween inbox experience. (Action Rocket & Multiplied)

• The Case Against Emojis - Say It Ain't So! Why Emojis Undermine the Science of Good Email Marketing. (CMS Wire)

• 🥁 😹 Bongo Cat! - Thanks to Emily Ryan for ruining my productivity, so I’m ruining yours. (Lots of people!)

• Examples & Strategies - How Much Money Can You Make From 1,000 Newsletter Subscribers in 2025? (Beehiiv)

• Building Tools Is Hard! - We launched Email Love Pro earlier this year… and honestly, it bombed 💥 [bonus link, watch the founders’ discussion]. (Andrew King)

• Gmail gets personal - What senders should know about “relevant promotions” and “purchase tracking”. (Alison Gootee & Mailgun)

• The Wake Up Call - Powerful Automations for Creators with Joe Casabona. (Growth in Reverse)

• Inbox Meets Ink - Why These Indie Newsletters Branched Out Into Print. (Inbox Collective)

• Email Credit Score - How to Monitor Your Sender Reputation and Keep Your Emails in the Inbox. (ZeroBounce)

• Marketing Mayhem Recap - What this game show taught us about email marketing. (Really Good Emails)

• 🔥 43 Pages of Data! - The State of Newsletter Growth 2025. (The Hustle/HubSpot)

• What is PII? - How to safeguard personal data in emails. (Valimail)

• 😂 So Funny! - Digital Communication - Bounce God [shout out to Florent Desters for the original share]. (Inbox Senders Club)

• Yahoo debuts “Insights” for senders - A clear view into complaint rates and deliverability trends. (Alison Gootee and Mailgun)

• Multi-language Emails - The Email Love Figma Plugin now automatically applies Braze translation tags to your email content with just one click. (Email Love)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #213 of All About Email!

Last week was about building a highly engaged audience. Whilst this might be harder for some to implement, the rewards can be massive.

This week, it’s about “The House of Dynamite.” Spoiler alert: if you haven’t watched it, you might not want to read on.

Let’s go! 👇

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Clippity, Clip ✂️

There was a lot in last week’s email, and I’m fortunate to have an engaged audience. 😉

Thank you to Des, Natalia, and Sonal for letting me know that my email was clipped last week.

To make matters worse, last week’s email in my testing did clip and I had fixed it, but then I broke it again. 🤦‍♂️

Anyway, maybe I should go back and read Issue 186, which is all about Gmail Clipping, as this week also clips. 🫠

On to this week’s topic. 👇

The Inbox of Dynamite 🧨

This week is inspired by Alison Gootee (link in the “News & Tips” section) and her storytelling of a recent concert experience.

If you haven’t seen Netflix’s “The House Of Dynamite”, there are spoilers ahead!

I finally got around to watching the movie last night and loved it until the end. I didn’t hate the ending; it was clever, but many will not like it.

So what can “The House of Dynamite” teach us about email marketing? 👇

Lesson 1: Urgency Only Works If It’s Timed Right

In the movie, there’s an 18-minute “impact window.” Miss that, and well...

In email, the window is smaller…a few seconds (8.97) in someone’s inbox.

Try this (and be aware of the impact of Apple MPP):

• Send when your audience is most receptive; for me, that’s 1:00pm UTC (yes, I massively missed my window today 😂). Use open-time data or local time zones.

• If you’re using countdown timers (Apple broke these), make them real. False urgency erodes trust (no black-hat marketing tactics).

• Pre-announce, remind, recap. Don’t rely on a single “blast” (or two in the movie).

🧠 Think of your send time like launch coordinates. Get it wrong, and it’s just noise.

Lesson 2: Clarity of Command — Who’s Actually in Charge?

In the movie, every layer, Radar, Command, and the President adds delay and confusion.

In email marketing, the same happens when teams aren’t clear on:

• Who owns segmentation?

• Who writes vs. reviews copy?

• Who signs off?

✅ Create an internal checklist: “Who approves what before it leaves the silo?”

😮‍💨 That’s how you avoid friendly fire (e.g. sending the wrong offer to the wrong list).

(If you’re a freelancer like me, this checklist is excellent! 😉)

Lesson 3: The Unknown Sender Problem

The film’s tension hinges on one mystery: who launched the missile?

In email, you don’t want that mystery. Your subscriber should instantly know:

• Who’s emailing them?

• Why are they on the list?

• What’s being offered?

🔍 Use a familiar From Name and friendly preview text (Bonus BIMI points).

If your reader has to scroll to figure out “who is this?”, you’ve already lost them.

Lesson 4: Trust Is A Fragile System

The film’s title says it all: the world is living in a “house of dynamite.” One spark, one miscommunication, and it’s chaos (my word is it tense)!

So is your email reputation. Deliverability depends on trust built across many moving parts:

• Authentication.

• Engagement.

• Complaint rates.

• Content and frequency.

🔥 Keep your house stable by:

• Regularly cleaning inactive contacts.

• Authenticating domains (SPF/DKIM/DMARC).

• Monitoring your domain reputation.

• Respecting cadence (don’t over-email).

🚨 (I cover all of the above in my “Email Beast” mini-series.)

When subscribers trust your next message, you can afford to take creative risks.

Without that trust, every send is a potential miss.

Lesson 5: Not Every Email Needs A Resolution

🤔 The movie ends without showing the explosion, leaving us thinking.

You can do the same. Not every email has to sell.

Instead of “Buy Now!” or some other CTA, some emails are about conversation.

💬 Invite replies (we spoke about this last week).

That’s how conversations (and community) start.

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way… not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you had ever created a Halloween-themed email. And here are the results, an even split! 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• The Hotmail Effect - Maybe that plumber’s Hotmail address is saying something else. (Jono Alderson)

• Forget Vanity Metrics - Here’s what’s actually working. (Email Love)

• Professometer - Professionalism…the biggest challenge humanity faces (/s) 😛. (Avi Goldman)

• Inbox Oracle - Predict how your emails will appear in every inbox before you hit send. (Bruno De Figueredo)

• Four Days To Go - The Halloween Special (it’s always epic). (ActionRocket)

• Yahoo Sender Hub - Now with Insights. (Spam Resource)

• The Sweet Spot - During BFCM, your subject line sweet spot is 5-7 words (data from Omnisend). (Jaina Mistry)

• 😂 Brilliant! - What going to a concert taught me about email marketing. (Alison Gootee)

• I’ve Experienced This - Ways Your Newsletter Can Pay Off - That Don’t Involve Reader Revenue or Ads. (Inbox Collective)

• Brevo vs. Klaviyo - The question of general-purpose vs e-commerce. (Email Tooltester)

• Email Hosting & Server Essentials - A Comprehensive Guide. (EmailLabs)

• Industry Voices - Beth O’Malley Wants Email Marketers to Stop Being Hard on Themselves. (ZeroBounce)

• Phishing vs. spear phishing - Why one attack is getting harder to catch (2025 update). (Valimail)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #212 of All About Email!

Last week, we took a look at a very welcome new feature from Yahoo: the “Insights” dashboard, which brings transparency to compliance.

This week, it’s about creating a highly-engaged audience. Whilst this might be harder for some to implement, the rewards can be massive.

Let’s go! 👇

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A Brief Note on the AWS Outage

Depending on your time zone, it’s been quite the start to the day and the week with AWS going down (at the time of writing, the issue was identified, and a slow resolution is taking place).

It’s too early to write about what “the AWS outage can teach us about email marketing” (also, I wouldn’t do that). 😂

However, it has been on my mind as it has impacted some of my colleagues here in the UK quite significantly this morning. For some, their day is on hold, and for others, it’s ruined as they play catch-up. 🫠

The incident has reminded me of “email horror shows” and one of my favourite emails from a couple of years ago (I’ll be asking a question about that link later). 😉

Gif by pudgypenguins on Giphy

Curating a Highly Engaged Audience

If you’ve been reading my newsletter long enough, or followed me online, you’ll know I don’t want a huge newsletter (yes, that can be beneficial)…I want the most engaged audience for my newsletter. ✅

In Issue 210, we discussed how “asking questions” is a great way to have an engaged audience, for both clicks and replies.

As a newsletter operator, you’ve got to ask yourself questions:

• Issue 206 - What content is generating the most clicks? What do I need to change?

• Issue 208 - Is my content having an impact on spam reporting, or is there more to it?

Are you seeing a pattern above, {{first_name|friend}}? Email marketing can often feel like a detective’s investigation.

🤔 You need to be constantly evaluating your content, analysing shifting subscriber behaviour and adjusting accordingly.

Your newsletter isn’t a stagnant piece of copy, {{first_name|friend}}; it’s a conversation that someone has opted into having with you, and sometimes they no longer want to talk with you…and that’s OK (more on that later).

Creating Engaged Segments

🫠 Never mind Apple MPP, with changes over the last 18 months to Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft deliverability guidelines and their reporting tools, it has never been more important to segment your audience and focus on engagement.

🚨 Before we continue, you need to be aware of and reflect on:

• Your industry (e.g. eCommerce, hospitality, professional services, etc.)

• Your newsletter/campaign(s) purpose/goal/KPIs.

• Your ESP and any potential limitations.

• Your current list hygiene and practices.

In part response to the recent changes to Google Postmaster Tools, Alison Gootee said:

🧠 If you want to dig further into segmentation, Mailgun have an excellent article on segmentation best practices (and in this week’s “News & Tips” section, there’s an article from Email Advice In Your Inbox worth reading).

If you aren’t segmenting your newsletter, it’s time. 👇

How Do I Segment?

About a month ago, I removed 121 people (18.36%) from my newsletter who no longer engaged, as they were hurting my deliverability, and I was cluttering up their inboxes.

✅ “Engaged” contacts in my newsletter don’t have a designated tag; instead, I have segments based on:

• Opens (these are still important to an extent).

• Clicks - this is a biggy for me.

• My expertise (because no one knows my community like I do).

With the criteria above, I then divide my audience into three segments

• 30 days - for my own awareness.

• 90 days - entered into an automated sunset segment.

• 150 days - no longer used (this was part of an A/B test alongside the 90-day segment). **

☀️ My automated sunset flow then offers three chances for a contact to stay on my list until they are automatically removed.

Since removing those 121 people (and more since), it has worked out pretty well and has continued to do so!

** (Yes, I love a good test, and it’s so important you run tests in your own email campaigns/newsletters.)

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question (remember to check out my Halloween-themed email). 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you used Yahoo Sender Insights, and here are the results. 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment, creating an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Marketing ideas for marketers who hate boring

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• B2B Spam - Strapi, Unstructured and Reo. (Word To The Wise)

• Email Security - MTA-STS policy missing? Here’s how to fix it. (Valimail)

• Clickable Features - The Best 118 Interactive Elements Email Examples & Designs in 2025. (Really Good Emails)

• Real-life Client Examples - 5 Winning Black Friday Promotions You Need To Try. (Peyton Fox)

• Stories of the Week - This newsletter sold for 9-figures—and why that matters. (Growth In Reverse)

• Email Segmentation - What is your “Why”? (Email Advice In Your Inbox)

• Seasonal Moments - The best Halloween emails are strategic. (Email Love)

• Inbox Nightmares - Tales from the spam side. (Mailgun)

• Al Iverson - Rapid-fire email questions. (Inbox Monster)

• Structured Data and Schema – A Way to Highlight Discount Coupons in Emails. (EmailLabs)

• Email Client Accessibility - Proton Mail rises up the accessibility rankings. (Email Markup Consortium)

• Hard-won Lessons - What I Wish I’d Known Before Spending $5,000 Promoting Newsletters Through Meta. (Inbox Collective)

• SaaS Brands - 15+ Cancellation Email Examples for SaaS: How to Get Feedback & Stay Friends. (Userlist)

• DMARC Tags - The only 3 tags you really need (rua, p, and v). (Valimail)

• Which Are You? - Unsubscribes done right. (Email Love)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #211 of All About Email!

Last week was about curiosity, and whilst it might have killed the cat, it does the opposite with your inbox.

This week, it’s about a very welcome new feature from Yahoo: the “Insights” dashboard, which brings transparency to compliance.

Let’s go! 👇

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*New* Yahoo Insights

🚨 This week’s “News & Tips” section might still be dominated by tips and “insights” about what to do in light of Google retiring Postmaster Tools v1, but there are “new insights” from Yahoo that are going to be our focal topic this week.

“Yahoo Didn’t Blink — It Just Defined Spamming“is an article published by Dela Quist, which I link to in the “Weekly News & Tips” section at the bottom of this newsletter.

Dela Quist's article is a must-read, framing the launch in light of recent changes from Google Postmaster Tools and what it all could mean for Microsoft.

Chris Miquel (Co-Founder of Audience Bridge) defines Yahoo’s new insights as “email transparency”, and in essence, that’s what it is and something we’ve not had before in Yahoo.

The image below is what that transparency looks like. 👇

💜 That purple line is me (or you), and it’s nicely below both the Recommended and Enforcement thresholds.

💡 We get filterable data based on the last 7, 30, 90 and 180 days.

Why Yahoo Insights Are Important

Natalia Zacholska-Majer (Product and Technical Insights Specialist at EmailLabs) takes things further in her LinkedIn post, and I encourage you to read it, {{first_name|friend}}.

I want to draw your attention to three critical points that Natalia mentions that are worthy of note (quoted):

✅ No Ambiguity - It finally separates messages “accepted by the server” from those that are truly “delivered to the inbox”.

✅ Direct Feedback Loop - It's an undeniable measure of whether your content is welcome. A high rate (approaching the 0.3% threshold) is a clear signal that your targeting, frequency, or value proposition is off.

✅ Greater Accountability - There's nowhere to hide. This metric puts the responsibility squarely on the sender to maintain a healthy list and send wanted mail.

Getting Started With Yahoo Insights

You don’t need to use the CFL (Complaint Feedback Loop) to get access to sender insights, and getting started is easy and free:

1. Log in/Sign up to Yahoo Sender Hub.

2. Add a domain and verify with a TXT record in the DNS.

3. Click the Insights activated button and wait for the data to flow in.

You do need to meet a minimum daily volume threshold for data to be displayed (but we don’t know what that is); otherwise, your dashboard will look like the one below. 👇

✨ Yahoo has a dedicated FAQ with everything you need to know about getting started with Insights, including more details.

Yahoo CFL

✅ If you are interested in the CFL, I made a video last year that can still walk you through the CFL setup process.

(The main difference in the video is that the CFL is now out of Beta.)

🚨 Setting up for the CFL is relatively easy; however, if you have a Google Workspace email address, the setup is more complex.

That's because:

• Google reserves the postmaster@ and abuse@ email addresses.

• This means you can’t use them as aliases and set them up.

✅ However, I’ve made a video to help you solve that problem too!

(Big shout-out to Sophia Willows and her original article on this solution.)

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you sent transactional emails, and here are the results. 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment, creating an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• SPF -all vs ~all - Which should you use in your DMARC record? (Valimail)

• Gmail’s Inbox Shake-Up - What Newsletter Creators Should Know. (Beehiiv)

• Skip These - 9 Things NOT To Do When Starting Your Newsletter. (Growth In Reverse)

• The Bottom Line - Say goodbye to Gmail's insight into your domain reputation. (Naomi West)

• Beefree MCP - Releases in Beta a rich MCP server for our builder. It provides access to dozens of content creation & editing features. (Beefree)

• Yahoo Didn’t Blink - It Just Defined Spamming. (Dela Quist)

• In non-Gmail News - The Washington Supreme Court just ruled that misleading subject lines can get you sued. (Alison Gootee)

• Momentum is Powerful - Dead Plants + Dead Silent Newsletters. (Growth Currency)

• BTS - Behind the build: The dial-up interactive Email Weekly. (ActionRocket)

• Unpacked 2026 - Call for speakers to one of my favourite conferences of the year! (Naomi West)

• Background & Next Steps - Updates to Google's Postmaster Tools. (Kickbox)

• 😂 😂 Microsoft - Deliverability unlocked! (Florent Destors)

• Where to Focus Now - What is reputation anyway? Monitoring among Google Postmaster changes. (Mailgun)

• Phishing - Why fake email senders still get through to your inbox. (Valimail)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #210 of All About Email!

Last week was a thought piece (it’s been a while) about “Critical Thinking”, and I introduced a new newsletter feature.

This week, it’s about curiosity, and whilst it might have killed the cat, it does the opposite with your inbox.

Let’s go! 👇

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Spooky Season is a Scary Time for the Inbox

We are into Q4 for many businesses, and if you’re a marketer like me, this could be your busiest time of the year.

😬 With BFCM (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) on the horizon, Amazon Prime Day(s) landing tomorrow, and Christmas/January sales rounding things off, our inboxes will be bracing themselves.

FOMO will be everywhere, with (not-so) “exclusive offers” and “last opportunities” as sellers swamp our inboxes faster than you can say “spam”.

Marketers will be walking the tightrope of annoyance and awareness as we prepare our customers long before each holiday offer drops, trying to warm our audiences, monitor deliverability, all whilst trying to avoid the spam folder. 🫠

Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Inbox

In this week’s “News & Tips” section, there is a wonderful article from Growth In Reverse about a key newsletter metric to focus on…replies!

A famous marketing strategist once told me, “Talk to your customers” (he would die by this). Andi’s absolutely right, and the same applies to your subscribers.

You are probably aware of the phrase “Curiosity killed the cat”, ** but that couldn’t be further from the truth for the inbox. I don’t think you can ever ask too many questions.

** (or the band.)

Ask Questions

🧠 Whether you are “talking to your customer” or your newsletter subscribers, you will inevitably ask questions, and questions are a great way to get replies, an important inbox metric.

These questions can take many forms depending on your industry and your email campaign’s purpose:

• Product feedback.

• Service Feedback (Hotel, Spa, Gym, etc.).

• Surveys.

Asking questions is an excellent way to:

• Improve a product or service.

• Identify pain points you may not be aware of.

• As well as opportunities for revenue growth.

• Gathering data for future marketing.

However, asking questions is great for more than just selling. 👇

Engagement and the Inbox

Remember, I briefly mentioned the Growth in Reverse article, {{first_name|friend}}?

💡 One of the best ways to get “replies” is to ask questions!

These replies also have a positive impact on your inbox. A reply (or answer) is an engagement metric that mailbox providers love.

🎉 It shows your inbox provider that not only are your emails worth reading, but they are worth replying to.

Anyone can ask a question, even if you are not trying to sell something or get feedback on what you are selling.

🧪 That’s why I’ve been experimenting with polls in my newsletter over the last six months.

These polls provide two important engagement metrics:

• Clicks

• Replies

✨ Not only that, but questions also provide me with an opportunity to build relationships and go deeper with those subscribers who engage, as well as provide valuable insights (data) on which topics to cover in future newsletters.

Since last week, “Curiosity Corner” has now become a regular part of my newsletter and an opportunity to ask questions.

Remember, {{first_name|friend}}, as Andi Jarvis says, “talk to your customers (subscribers)”.

That’s it for this week. 👋

Curiosity Corner

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

This week’s question. 👇

In last week’s poll, I asked if you sent transactional emails, and here are the results. 👇

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

Want to know what I'm listening to while I write?

Every week, when the newsletter drops, I'll share the track of the moment, creating an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

Explore the 2025 Marketing Operations Trends

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Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Cool tool - ESP Finder by Sendview. (Spam Resource)

• On-Demand Replay! - 2025 Email Design Trends: What works, what doesn't, and why. (Really Good Emails)

• Newsletter Ad Examples - How to Make Them Work (Whether You’re an Advertiser or Publisher). (emailtooltester)

• Stop Ignoring This! - The #1 Newsletter Metric To Focus On. (Growth In Reverse)

• Case Study - The Five Types of Automations. (Inbox Collective)

• Industry Voices - Jocelyn Hardy, Mailchimp, on Why Customer Obsession Should Guide Every Email You Send. (ZeroBounce)

• Save £75 - New course “The Buyer’s Mind” Harness the Human Brain and the

  Power of AI to Craft Emails That Convert. Use code: BUYERSMIND to get the course for free! (Kath Pay)

• Email Footer Design - 9 Examples That Actually Work. (Email Love)

• Email Improvements - Increase Webinar Registrations and Show Up Rates! 5 super easy things to test that actually work! (Jay Schwedelson)

• Don’t Panic! - Google Postmaster Tools v1 is gone. Instead of panicking, here is what you can do instead. (LoriBeth Blair)

• DELIVTERMS - Pre-header. (Spam Resource)

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋