15 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid

Mistakes are not that bad; everyone makes them. And that's ok; we are only human, after all. But, what's not ok is making the same mistake twice.

As an email marketer, you might be making several mistakes in your marketing journey, and it's ok as long as you diagnose it and do not repeat the same mistake.

This guide will discuss some common email marketing mistakes you might be making. And, we will tell you what you can do to avoid them in the future.

Table of contents

• 15 deadly email marketing mistakes you must avoid
• 1. Not making your emails accessible
• 2. Not authenticating your sender domain and IP address
• 3. Not warming up your domain
• 4. Not complying with email laws
• 5. Using a no-reply email id
• 6. Sending bulk emails to the entire list without any strategy
• 7. Not making your emails responsive for all devices
• 8. Not sending welcome emails when they join your email list
• 9. Not sending emails consistently
• 10. Not segmenting your email list
• 11. Not personalizing your emails
• 12. Not proofreading your emails before sending them
• 13. Not being inclusive in your emails
• 14. Not optimizing your subject lines
• 15. Not A/B testing your emails
• And that's everything you might be doing wrong

15 deadly email marketing mistakes you must avoid

Here are some email marketing mistakes you might be making that harm your email marketing campaigns.

1. Not making your emails accessible

Email accessibility is the process of ensuring that people with disabilities can read and understand the content of the emails you create.

One of the main reasons people use email marketing is to connect with their audience and build trust. And when your emails are not accessible, people with reading disabilities will not be able to decipher the message in your email.

So, how can you connect with your audience if they can't understand you? Make your emails accessible by implementing these suggestions:

• Avoid relying heavily on images in your emails.

• Use a minimum font size of 16px for the email copy and 18px for the heading.

• Make sure there is decent color contrast between the foreground and background colors.

• Include an alt text for the images in the emails so that a screen reader can read them.

2. Not authenticating your sender domain and IP address

Email authentication is a process using multiple methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to confirm a genuine person is sending the email rather than any spammers or spoofers.

So, if you don't authenticate to confirm your identity, you might be perceived as spam, and your emails can be stopped from reaching your subscriber's inbox.

Related guide: 9 Reasons Why Emails Land in Spam and Tips and Tools to Avoid It

Avoid all the complications by:

• Authenticate your sender server with SPF.

• Set up DKIM to protect your emails from being tampered with.

• Set up DMARC to verify your email and safeguard against email spoofing. But do know that for DMARC to pass, you need to have passed SPF and DKIM.

3. Not warming up your domain

You log in to an email service provider, upload your email list, and send thousands of emails immediately. But, ya, well, email marketing doesn't work like that; it's not a plug-and-play process.

You need to warm up your domain by sending emails to a small group of people and slowly increasing the number daily. Domain warm-up helps you have a good domain reputation which helps in the emails landing in the subscriber's inbox.

Related guide: What Is Domain Reputation and How It Affects Email Deliverability

4. Not complying with email laws

While it's obvious that not complying with email laws can get you in serious legal trouble, people still don't follow the rules. You will have to pay hefty fines if you don't comply with email laws. So, here are some guides on the email laws like CCPA, CPRA, GDPR, PECR, and what you need to do to acknowledge them.

5. Using a no-reply email id

If you use a no-reply email id, your subscribers can not communicate with you, making them feel like you don't care about their opinion. In addition, it weakens trust between you and your subscribers, which can lead to them not wanting to open your email, let alone read it.

Here are some of the alternatives for noreply@domainname.com:

• hello@companyname.com

• companydivision@companyname.com

• hello@fullname.com

• firstname@companyname.com

6. Sending bulk emails to the entire list without any strategy

When you send email blasts to your entire list without any strategy, most of your audience will likely not be able to relate to such a generic email. They could become annoyed and mark you as spam. Sending bulk emails can also raise a red flag to spam filters, leading to them categorizing you as spam.

Here's what you need to do to send email blasts the right way:

• Divide your list into segments and send them targeted emails.

• Make your emails personalized for your audience.

Related guide: Email Blast Guide – How to Do It the Right Way With Best Practices

Avoid this Email Marketing mistake:

❌ Trying to appeal to everyone

Do this instead:

✅ Dial in your target audience

✅ Talk only to them

✅ Actively alienate other people

If people unsubscribe, good.

They're not the droids you're looking for 😉 pic.twitter.com/iil3tDLbPe

— Email Marketing Geek 🤓 (@OnlineToolGeek) June 17, 2022

7. Not making your emails responsive for all devices

More people are using mobile devices for checking their emails nowadays, and data shows that if the email design is responsive, it can get 2.7 % to 3.1% more clicks from mobile users.

And if your email is not responsive, your subscriber will have a bad reading experience and will not want to read through your email. So, if they don't read your email, you miss out on engagement and conversions.

So, when you create your email design, take some time to test and ensure everything looks good on all devices like PCs, tablets, and mobile phones.

Related guide: How to Create Responsive Email Design For Better User Experience

8. Not sending welcome emails when they join your email list

Welcome emails are incredibly useful as they help you express gratitude, introduce yourself and your products, and initiate a conversation with your subscribers.

And, if you don't send one, there are chances that people will forget ever signing up for your email list. So, when you send an email to them later, they might mark it as spam.

And apart from introducing yourself, welcome emails can also help you find incorrect or invalid email addresses in your list. When you send welcome emails and get some hard bounces, the emails aren't getting delivered to their inboxes because those email addresses don't exist. So, you can remove them from your email list to keep it clean and avoid any potential spam traps.

9. Not sending emails consistently

When you send emails willy-nilly whenever you feel like it, you miss out on the opportunity to increase brand awareness and engagement.

When you have an email cadence and send emails consistently, you can put thought into it and create something meaningful for your audience. It'll help you connect with your audience and increase your engagement rate.

Also, sending emails at the right time increases the likelihood of your subscribers opening your email, thus improving your metrics.

10. Not segmenting your email list

When you send an email to everyone on your list irrespective of their age, gender, location, etc., it's highly unlikely that it'll be relatable for all your subscribers.

But, if you segment your audience and create campaigns targeted for those segments, you will better connect with your audience and their problems get more conversions.

11. Not personalizing your emails

Personalization is taking things up a notch and creating an email specifically for certain segments in your list that will be catering to their problems and needs.

Nearly 60% of consumers said they are more likely to buy from a brand when they've had a personalized shopping experience. And things are similar for the email experience.

So, check out our guide on email personalization to find out how to personalize your emails.

12. Not proofreading your emails before sending them

If you do not proofread your emails, there are chances that there might be spelling and grammar mistakes in your emails that can be easily rectified. There could also be cases where you have added the wrong link in the CTA or a broken link.

So, what should you do:

• Take time to go through it and double-check if everything is good to go twice before sending out the emails.

• Use tools like Grammarly to check for grammar or punctuation errors in the email copy.

• Ask someone else to check it as there could be something you might be missing.

13. Not being inclusive in your emails

If you are being exclusive in your emails, there are chances that people will feel disconnected and even offended by your emails. In addition, it can degrade your brand's credibility and reputation. So, be inclusive in your emails.

Here's a guide to help you understand how to make your email more inclusive.

14. Not optimizing your subject lines

The email subject line is one of the major factors that can influence a subscriber's decision to open your email or not. So, if you write lousy subject lines and do not optimize them, you will miss out on the opportunity to increase open rates and boost ROI.

Here are some ways you can optimize your subject lines:

• Make it personalized by adding your subscriber's name in the subject line.

• Add a call to action in the subject line.

• Use emojis in your emails to spice it up.

15. Not A/B testing your emails

A/B testing helps you experiment with slightly different versions of the same email to see which performs well with your audience. Before sending out your campaigns, you need to use A/B testing to determine what's working and what's not.

What should you do:

• Create variations of an element in your email

• Run A/B tests by sending the different versions to different audience subsets.

• Analyze the results to see which performed the best.

Never obsess on a mistake, just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Just move on

Iterate and improve

— Santiago Cruz | Email & SMS Marketing King 👑 (@SantiagoCruz02) June 18, 2022

And that's everything you might be doing wrong

We hope you were able to diagnose and fix your email marketing mistakes. Also, we addressed some of these mistakes in our State of Email e-book, where we surveyed 250+ email marketers to get their thoughts on email marketing mistakes with ways to overcome them.