5 Email Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2024

Are you curious about where email marketing is going in 2024? Here are our predictions on what to look out for in email in 2024

An exciting time for (strategic) email marketing

Before we whip out the crystal ball, it's good to be back and we've missed sharing our knowledge about all things email with our friends and fans.

After a good dose of rest, reflection and sea air, we're pretty excited about what's to come in 2024, and it's good to be back!

There's already so much happening in the email space already.

• Google and Yahoo's changes announced last year are taking effect soon

• Gmail is launching a quick unsubscribe button for Android

• 3rd-Party cookies are being phased out on Chrome

There's also a whole lot more going on behind the scenes.

This may be cause for concern if you're not following a sound (and ethical) email strategy, but these are all fantastic developments for the world of email!

With this in mind, here's what we suspect is going to become even more prevalent in email this year 🔮

Prediction 1 - Getting to the inbox

With Yahoo and Google's new requirements for bulk email senders being implemented on the 1st of February, it should be IMMEDIATELY if this isn't already on your radar.

Unless you've been under a rock, you've probably heard about these changes, but in case you haven't, here's a quick summary: If you send to more than 5000 Gmail/ Yahoo (numbers for Yahoo not confirmed) recipients daily, you're going to need to have a DMARC policy set up.

In case you're wondering what DMARC is, here's some quick help:

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (in case you were wondering). This technical standard in the email world helps protect email senders from being impersonated or "spoofed".

And if you're curious about what getting spoofed means: Spoofing is a type of attack in which the from address of an email message is forged. 

You can see the impact of this happening, right? The last thing you need is money being taken from your subscribers, or having their details stolen due to phishing.

This is where having DMARC and improving your policy level over time can help you in a big way. This is also why Gmail and Yahoo are starting to protect their inbox users from such attacks.

To help you get this right, our friends at TouchBasePro have put together a few resources and suggestions you can use to comply with these standards and you can check those out here. There's also a great article by Mathew Vernhout from Netcore Cloud that you can read here.

Remember, you have until 1 February 2024 to get this right or you might start seeing some bounced emails to Gmail and Yahoo email addresses.

Prediction 2 - Email accessibility

With stricter requirements being put in place, and more senders accommodating for broader reach, email accessibility is going to become a priority for many email senders.

While marketers out there create amazing campaigns that look great, not many sit back and think about visual and cognitive impairments that many of their readers may be living with.

In pursuit of creating beautiful & engaging emails, we can't overlook the importance of email accessibility. Designing emails with accessibility in mind is not just a nice-to-have, it's a MUST-HAVE.

A survey by WebAIM, an NPO dedicated to web accessibility, found that 86.3% of respondents with disabilities use screenreaders to access digital content.

That's massive! This emphasizes the importance of creating emails that enable screen readers

to accurately convey information to those who rely on them.

Last year, we put together 8 simple yet effective best practices you can implement to ensure can access and engage with your campaigns right now. Give those a read here to give yourself a head start in this area.

Your audience will thank you for it.

Prediction 3 - AI in the email world

AI technology is advancing rapidly, isn't it? Email senders and ESPs that embrace AI will stay ahead of the rest in the coming months.

Now, we aren't merely talking about generative AI, but also AI technology that many email systems and senders are going to begin using to bolster the efficacy of their email strategy.

These include AI tools, uses and features such as:

• AI content clustering: By installing scripts on websites that feed data into the email realm, data about audience interests and preferences is being clustered in AI engines to create dynamic client segments and feed relevant content based on interests. This technology uses data points outside of the email realm to analyse audience behaviour and feed content aligned to their interests into email campaigns, while omitting content that has already been consumed.
  

• Optimised email serving: To drive higher engagement with email audiences, predictive algorithms are going to be used to send emails based on the behaviours exhibited by readers. This includes optimising sending times to match when readers in in their email inboxes, as well as serving emails based on engagement behaviour to win back disengaged, or potentially disengaging subscribers.
  

• Dynamic and personalised email content serving: There’s also a growing trend in the email space to use dynamic and personalised content serving, which equates to email templates adapting content sections and personalisation fields to the various segments within an email audience. Email is fast including and moving past the generative content space, and into the realm of AI-led, data-driven insights. More and more marketers are relying on AI algorithms to identify patterns and trends to help them segment their audiences in a far more customised way.

We are still, however, in the infancy of generative AI. To help you use AI prompts to their fullest potential, our dear friend, technical writer and all-around go-to for all things writing, Matt Thomas, runs a brilliant newsletter called Writing for Robots.

Matt shares some insane knowledge on creating prompts for AI that are going to take your AI content generation to new heights. Don't take my word for it, sign up for Matt's newsletter here.

Prediction 4 - Zero & 1st-Party data acquisition

With Google and other browsers doing away with cookies, many marketers are going to find ways to bolster the collection of 1st-party data. This means a focus on owned-audience growth, especially in email.

Cookies, especially 3rd-party cookies (which are essentially tracking codes placed on websites and adverts) have been on the radar for many data privacy and protection laws for a while now. As of this year, Google has started doing away with cookies and is already testing this on 1% of their Chrome users.

Along with the introduction of Traction Protection choices for browser users, a lot of the data that many marketers have relied on to get to know their audiences is going to fall away in the coming months.

This is where email is going to shine!

Not only do you "own" the data that folks have consented to you keeping in your email lists, but there's also a unique opportunity to use email to learn more about audience preferences, behaviour and other useful data.

Many smart marketers already know that email is one of the leading channels for zero and 1st-party data acquisition, so look out for clever tactics that are being used to grow email lists and enrich customer data.

We wrote a piece last year on growing your audience that can help get you going. Learn 12 practical ways to grow your email audience here.

Prediction 5 - Outsourced email marketing

With the constantly changing technical requirements around email, and the necessity to stand out in the inbox, many email senders are going to begin outsourcing their email strategy to stay ahead in the inbox.

Though this may not be practical for every email sender, depending on the complexity of your email strategy and the capacity constraints that many marketers face, outsourcing is becoming more commonplace.

One of the biggest advantages we see in this is expertise.

Marketers especially have so many channels to cover. From socials to paid ads and website maintenance in their digital channels to all the other marketing channels, there's a lot!

Outsourcing your email marketing gives you somewhat of an edge over other senders, especially if you choose the right email partner.

We've heard some amazing things about the team at TouchBasePro and the email services they offer. If you're looking for a high-value, low-cost option, they're definitely a partner to begin with. There are a ton of other great email service agencies, and we'll cover more on these to help you choose the right partner to choose in the coming months.

An exciting 5 email marketing trends to look out for in 2024

Now that you know what's on the email horizon, what do you think your top 5 email marketing trends to look out for in 2024 will be?

We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Look out for future editions of Email Advice in Your Inbox, where we'll be diving a little deeper into these topics and further emerging trends in the world of email marketing.

You can scroll down to grab a link to join a community of hundreds of email senders receiving tips, tools and tricks every two weeks. And, if you aren't going to scroll, hit this link to sign up today.

We're glad you're here and we're excited to learn alongside you into 2024.

Happy New Year!

Before you go, click here to grab a copy of our detailed Database Growth Playbook for Email Marketing to help you grow your database further and support your efforts 👇

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