50+ Expert Email Conversion Tactics to Exponentially Crush Your ROI

Are you wasting a lot of time sending your email campaigns only for it to get two non-relevant leads? Or maybe your campaigns are not hitting the right ROI that they should.

Well, just two weeks ago we had the same problem!

In this short article, we’ll exactly show you tactics that experts use to go from a “low ROI campaign” with emails to a 5-6 figure ROI.

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Note: SaaSwrites is a curated growth marketing hub and resource built to help SaaS founders grow their products. We sincerely thank all our experts for their constant value addition to this world.

Sharia shares 45 email tactics he curated from experts.

1. Send more emails

A lot more emails.

More emails than you believe are acceptable.

2. When emailing during a promotion, resend to non-buyers

This will include all the non-clickers and non-openers

3. Stop assuming metrics and email analytics

Never assume a subscriber read, opened, or even saw your email in their inbox.

Always assume email subscribers don't give a f*** about you.

4. Think mobile first

When composing or designing an email, think mobile-first.

Short sentences.

Short paragraphs.

5. Email Deliverability is personal

Email deliverability is as much behavioral as it is technical.

Ask subscribers to add your email address to their contacts, move you to the primary inbox, and mark you as important.

Show them how to do it with gifs & screenshots.

6. Start selling early

Ask new email subscribers to buy something as soon as they subscribe.

They will never be more engaged or primed to buy.

Do this on the thank-you page and in your follow-up email.

7. Stop relying on discounts

Only use discounts to reward your customers and your most highly engaged email subscribers.

Doing this deepens your relationship with your best people.

Doing the opposite–discounts for non-customers and non-subscribers–devalues your brand.

8. Know your subscribers

Send a survey email before a big promotion and ask your subscribers what they want.

The flood of replies will prime your list for the promotion.

And their responses will give you endless ideas for your promo emails.

9. Seek replies from customers

Ask subscribers to reply to your emails.

When they reply and you respond, that conversation and all future emails from you move to the primary inbox.

10. Plan text emails work

Send true plain text emails from time to time. It's a plain text email if you can't hyperlink.

Some big ESP's like Klaviyo cannot send true plain-text.

In Klaviyo's "plain text" template you can hyperlink but not attach images (this is bizarre.)

11. Send Subjects with clarity

Don't try to be clever in your email subject lines.

Clarity is the source of all your sales.

12. Have a common subject formula

The best email subject lines are comprised of:

Benefit + specificity + curiosity

I call this the Perfect Subject Line™ formula.

13. Keep preview text character in check

Keep your email subject lines and preview text under 30 characters.

This is impossible with every subject line but you must try.

That's what fits on a mobile screen. Most people read emails on their smartphone.

14. Think of a subject that you send to a ‘cold’ audience

Don't copy the subject line or email style of gurus or big brands.

They rely on their brand or their relationship with the subscriber and assume the open.

You should assume every email is going to a cold audience.

15. Always use preview text

Always use the preview text when sending an email.

Use it to amplify your subject line following the Perfect Subject Line™ formula.

16. First line as preview text

If your ESP doesn't have the preview text feature use the first line of your email as the preview text.

This is optional but you can change the font color to match the background so the faux preview text is invisible.

17. Have a good CTA

Don't just say click here or buy now. Re-state the benefit in your email calls-to-action.

Instead of "read this thread" say "boost your email response now"

This is a CALL-TO-VALUE.

18. Write a good hook!

The first line of your email must grab the reader by his or her throat.

This is true of all writing.

19. Write for the end user

In the first few lines, let the reader know why they need to read your email.

Throughout your email you must answer the question:

"What's in it for me?"

20. Delete your introduction

Delete your introduction. 99% of the time it's waffle.

Start your email in the middle of the action.

Movies and TV shows do this all the time.

21. Have persuasuive images

Images in your email should be persuasive and move the sale forward.

Don't just include them to make the email look nice.

22. Optimize your images

Resize and compress your images before adding them to your email.

Again, most people read emails on their phone.

And most people don't have the latest smartphone or the fastest internet connection.

23. Your offer is everything

For email conversion rates the offer is everything

You don't need design or copy to sell 50% off storewide.

24. Add urgency

Embed countdown timers in your emails near the end of a promotion when you want to create urgency.

Sendtric has a free one that's easy to use.

25. Send more emails during the promotion

During a promotion, email at least twice a day.

Once in the morning, then resend that email to non-buyers in the evening.

Change the subject line, preview text, and even the body copy so it looks like a brand new email.

26. Use promotion closing emails

On the last day of a promotion send an 18-hour and 4-hour cart-closing email to everyone.

27. Help buyers buy again immediately

Immediately ask buyers to buy again.

Upsell, cross-sell, or give them a discount on their next purchase.

Do this in your post-purchase funnel and emails.

28. Personalize your emails

Send your email from a person rather than a brand.

Nabeel Azeez > Nabeel at Dropkick Copy > Dropkick Copy

29. Have a picture in the signature

Include a photo of the email sender in the sign-off.

Link that image to your product/service/lead generation.

People are naturally inclined to tap/click on images in emails.

30. Add links later in the email

Don't add links too early in your email.

You're wasting an opportunity to persuade them as to why they need what you're offering.

31. Segment after 10k subscribers

Email list segmentation is a waste of time until you hit 10k subscribers.

Use that time and energy to send more emails and make more offers.

And you’ll make more money per email.

32. A/B Test after 6k subscribers

A/B testing your emails is a waste of time until you hit 5-7k+ subscribers.

Statistical significance.

33. Customer service matters

The most likely email subscriber to buy from you is someone who has already bought from you.

Treat your customers better than you treat everyone else.

34. Put focus on customers that engage and buy from you

Pay more attention to the email subscribers and customers who engage with and buy from you.

Don't waste your time on unengaged subscribers and non-customers.

35. Segment your list by recency, frequency, and monetary

Segment the customers in your email list by:

Recency - when did they buy last?

Frequency - how often have they bought?

Monetary - how much have they bought?

36. Use your best-performing emails upfront

Take your best-performing email campaigns and add them to your welcome/nurture sequence.

They will continue to make you money.

37. Have long automated email campaigns

Make your automated email sequences longer.

90 days > 60 days > 30 days.

Nurture sequence, Post-purchase, Abandoned cart, Etc.

38. Use Video Landing Pages

Use video landing pages as a bridge between your email and the product page.

Perfect for testimonials.

And you control the user experience.

39. Optimize your product pages

The weaker your product page (conversion rate) the longer your email needs to be and vice versa.

This is because, depending on the product page, the email has to do all the selling or no selling.

40. Sell the click over for a high converting product page

When you have a high-converting product page, sell the click-over selling the product.

In this case, by writing a longer email you're only reducing your click-through rate.

This will lead to fewer sales.

41. Optimize your page load speed

Make sure the page you're sending email subscribers to loads in less than 3 seconds.

Slow-loading pages lose more sales than bad copy ever could.

42. Send a brand new resend email

When resending an email, make it look like a brand new email.

Change the:

Subject line/preview text

Email copy or style (text vs. design)

From name (optional)

43. Warm up a new domain

When emailing from a new domain, follow a warm up schedule.

100 emails on day 1, 200 on day 2, 400 on day 3, etc.

44. Prune your list

Regularly prune your list of unengaged and inactive subscribers.

Send a re-engagement email first, then delete with extreme prejudice.

45. Add Google Workspace using a naked URL

When you add a Google Doc or YouTube video (or any Google Workspace product) to an email using a naked URL, it appears as an attachment in Gmail desktop.

This makes your email more visible in the inbox.

And it increases click-through rate (not reflected in your stats.)

Nikita shares that 95% of brands he works with leave THOUSANDS of $$ on the table...

Why?

Because they’re missing these 5 crucial elements in their email marketing.

Here's what they are and how to fix them:

46. Image Alt Text

Including alt text improves accessibility to people that can’t load the image, or might be visually impaired.

Fix: Fill out a basic description of the image in the alt text section under image settings.

picture showing how and where to enter the alt text on image settings

47. Segmentation

This is necessary to categorize customers and send them the right emails.

Rough Example: Sending an email about sandwiches to someone interested in pizza.

Fix: Create automated filters based on subscriber engagement, and buying behaviors.

How to create lists and segments with name, tags, and properties.

48. Cleaning your lists

This drops tech stack costs (fewer subscribers), improves engagement, and deliverability.

Fix: Go through list settings, and clean out unengaged users. We delete users that haven’t opened, clicked, or bought in the last 6mo.

Cleaning your lists and segments with multiple definitions and filters

49. Have consistent branding

Some brands we’ve worked with had pretty websites, but not emails.

It’s crucial to keep the brand design consistent during the customer journey.

Ads > Website > Email

Fix: Create 3-5 email templates, so all that’s left is to replace content and images.

Have multiple email templates with consistent branding for your email marketing conversions

50. Have short flows

Brands need to educate their customers via long-form email flows, instead of only sending sales emails.

Educational content will increase retention and sales.

Fix: Expand on flows beyond sales emails, and provide value to the customer within the email.

A case study on how one email campaign brought $19,035.59

Reejan shares a case study on how he earned $19,035.59 From 1 Email Campaign from a DTC brand. You can apply this for your SaaS tool as well.

Backstory:

We had to send this email out as soon as we onboarded this store, as they were running a once-a-year sale at that time.

Usually, we'd want to have a sequence setup towards the end of sale, to drive more revenue.

An ideal Sequence would be:

announcing the sale

building an early-access list

building hype

countdown towards the sale

sending the sale email

AOV:

The store was pretty high ticket,

12 orders = $19,035.59. AOV = $1,586.30.

Sales Cycle:

A product that takes time to make a buying decision, and involves lots of measurements, options and complexity.

The sale attributed to this email is a lot higher considering the sales cycle involved.

Metrics:

Open Rate = 27.6%. Click Rate = 2.0%.

Unsubscribe Rate and Spam Rate were pretty high as we didn't have a chance to introduce the brand to the subs, and warm them up beforehand.

Offer:

They were doing an " UP TO 60% OFF", smoke-and-mirrors discount where prices remained same for most products.

Email Layout:

Web view block.

Text banner creating urgency.

GIF image to get attention & clicks.

Contrasting CTA button in the image.

Offer deadline is mentioned in the image.

Countdown timer.

Short-form copy.

Mention the recipient's name.

CTA button with offer mentioned.

Highlight products that you want to sell.

Price anchoring (before & after)

Clearly display images

Subject Line/Preview Text:

Subject Line: {Brand Name}: UP TO 60% OFF

Preview Text: Prices go up soon!

Sender Name:

This is where we did things a little different, instead of writing the brand name or a person's name,

we wrote [SALE] as the sender name.

This was done to stand out in the inbox and cut through the noise.

Conclusion

A big part of your email marketing is to optimize them for conversions. With a great email campaign strategy and putting in some of these tactics, your SaaS can leverage a great marketing tool that can work wonders for you!