31 Mistakes That Will Ruin Your Email Campaign

Email campaigns can be highly effective, but like anything else, you really have to know what you’re doing. If you can avoid all of these mistakes, your campaign should be a great success.

Making it hard for people to unsubscribe
Emailing without permission
Buying lists
Having no process to build the quality and size of the house list
Having no process to maintain the data integrity of the house list
Having no campaign goal
Having too many campaign goals
Having no KPIs to measure performance versus goal
Having the wrong KPIs to measure performance versus goal
Not having a mobile-friendly design
Failing to split-test subject lines
Using poorly composed subject lines
Using subject lines with offers too good to be true
Using subject lines that are too personal or weirdly personal
Using content that is overly personal or inconsistently personal
Using content that is cold and impersonal
Using content with errors in grammar, usage or clarity
Failing to test formatting, functionality of links and calls to action before sending
Using an impersonal or automated “from” email address
Failing to segment the house list for campaigns with multiple goals and messaging strategies
Failing to split-test offers
Having too many offers
Not having an offer
Failing to split-test titles, greetings, images, calls to action and other elements of the design and content
Failing to give users a plain text formatting option
Emailing on an inconsistent schedule
Emailing too frequently
Emailing too infrequently
Not testing frequency to determine the most effective frequency
Not testing days and times of email delivery
Not reviewing analytics data, especially open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, unsubscribes, bounces and email sharing/forwarding

Over to You

What mistakes have you seen cause email marketing campaigns to fail?