How GOOD Uses Illustrations and Typography in Email

A few weeks back, we kicked off the first-ever 2024 Really Good Email Awards (cue the confetti). The “award show” was paired with downloadable resources sharing the ins and outs of what made these emails winners. Today, we’re taking it one step further and sharing how you can build award-winning emails in Beefree.  

But first, what is an award-winning email? 

Winning emails like Miro’s welcome series and the AllTrails x Calm collab didn’t just meet expectations—they redefined them. Besides being the most loved by the RGE community, the winning emails beautifully balanced creativity, trends, and best practices. They gave us insight into the future of email design and how to break the rules intentionally. 

While each email was different in its own unique way, we noticed a consistent pattern in them all: On-brand, but never boring. Let’s take the emails by Sundays as a really good example of staying on brand. Everything from their Black Friday emails to their order confirmation emails follows the same brand guidelines, ensuring a cohesive experience at every touchpoint. 

This realization was validating! As marketers, we know how important presenting a cohesive experience is for brand recognition, awareness, and loyalty. But as passionate designers, we're always looking at the next cool design trend. This pattern of "on-brand, yet never boring" pushes us to explore new and creative ways to showcase our branding and spread our message.

Designing on-brand, never-boring emails with Beefree

Beefree makes balancing creativity with your brand guidelines seamless. Its combination of brand management, productivity solutions, and a no-code drag-and-drop editor enables everyone to create beautiful designs that inspire people to action and drive results. 

Step 1: Set your brand guidelines

Your brand, your rules. Lock in colors, fonts, and logos so your emails look like you —even if Greg from accounting gets a little too creative with the copy. 

There are several ways to set your brand guidelines in Beefree, but our favorite is to use our “Get Brand Styles” feature, which can be accessed in your workspace’s style settings.

Once you’re in your settings, click on “Get brand styles” and input your website’s URL. From there, Beefree will retrieve your brand’s colors, fonts, and social links. You can learn more about this feature here. 

Once you import your brand’s essentials, you can continue to add brand elements. You can get as granular as you’d like. From a predefined width for emails and pages, to the appearance of your CTAs. 

With our Advanced Style Kit, you can even set predefined background colors, set the appearance of lists, and tables. 

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Once you add your style settings, every email your team creates with Beefree will have the same brand colors, icons, links, fonts, and whatever else you decide to assign. Now, let’s say you want to take things one step further. 

Step 2: Create re-usable content blocks 

Beverage brand and winner of our Endless Cheer Award, “Athletic Brewing,” is a great example that following a template doesn’t have to be restrictive. 

All of their holiday templates follow a similar layout: A hero section with a standout image, a large title, body text, and a CTA followed by a similar content block below. 

Beefree’s Saved and Synced Rows are an easy way to build out templated layouts for your emails. Most users turn frequently used content blocks, such as headers or footers, into Saved Rows so they can easily use them in other designs. You can also save rows as “Synced” when you want to apply any changes made to a row to all of your other email templates. 

You can find all of your Saved and Synced Rows in the builder's Rows tab by selecting “My Saved Rows.”

Templates and re-usable content blocks aren’t just made to help you speed up creation time; they’re about allowing you and your team more time to be creative. The less time you spend worrying about what layout to create, the more time you can spend coming up with clever messaging or taking high-quality product shots. 

Let’s get to the fun stuff.

Step 3: Bring your visions to life 

In our downloadable resource, we shared the characteristics of each email that made it stand out. We highlighted key elements such as persuasive copy, value-driven content, actionable CTA’s, interesting layouts, and so much more. 

We could spend hours sharing tips and tricks to emulate the award-winning characteristics of an email, but for now, we’ll share some of Beefree’s features that can help take your emails from “meh” to “Why didn’t I think of that?” 

Display conditions

Why settle for one-size-fits-all when you can design emails that feel like a direct DM to each recipient? Beefree’s Display Conditions feature allows you to pick a condition (or write one from scratch if you are technically savvy), apply it to a row, and thus show different content based on the recipient. 

We can see a great example of how Display Conditions could be used in Rael’s award-winning email below: 

The “Hook, Line, and Sinker” Awards goes to Rael for its charming abandoned cart email that feels like a warm reminder rather than a hard sell.  Instead of just pushing one product, the thoughtfully curated product suggestions make it easy to explore complementary items. 

Interactivity

Throughout all winning emails, we saw brands bring their message to life with movement. Whether they used videos, gifs, icons, or crafted visually interesting layouts – making their emails interactive was crucial in getting our attention. 

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With Beefree, you can turn your designs into playgrounds. Easily add videos, GIFs, countdown timers, surveys, hover effects, and more. To see what’s possible, we recommend browsing through our template catalog! 

Mobile design mode 

Part of crafting a truly on-brand experience is ensuring that your brand looks good anywhere. Beefree takes responsiveness and dynamic design to the next level by allowing you to create custom mobile experiences. With Mode Design Mode you can re-arrange, re-size, and remove elements for smaller screens. 

Step 4: Let AI take care of the little things 

Creating award-winning emails takes vision, creativity, and time. But let’s be honest—sometimes, the little tasks, like tweaking ALT text or sourcing the perfect image, can slow you down.

With Beefree’s AI-powered solutions, you can let your eager intern handle the busy work while you focus on making your emails unforgettable.

AI Image Generator

Struggling to find the perfect image? Beefree’s AI Image Generator lets you create custom visuals that enhance your email’s message. Just add an image block to your email and in the Content Properties panel on the right, click “Create with AI,” then fill out the details. For additional prompt suggestions visit this support page. 

Alt Text Generator

For us, alt text isn’t just a best practice—it’s essential for creating accessible emails. But crafting the perfect descriptions for every image can feel like a chore.

 Beefree’s AI ALT Text Generator takes care of it for you, automatically generating accurate and descriptive ALT text for your images, gifs, icons, and stickers. 

AI Copy Assistant 

When Greg from accounting gets a bit of writer’s block or when you need a little help writing a catchy CTA, AI is here to help generate bold and fresh ideas. 

Ready to start designing? 

A really good email involves a balance of best practices and bold moves. The winning emails didn’t just make an impact; they set the standard for what’s possible in email marketing. Now, it’s your turn to take the lessons, insights, and inspiration from these campaigns and channel them into your next great idea. Start designing with Beefree for free!

If you’re looking for even more inspiration or tactical takeaways, don’t forget to download the deck or watch the Award ceremony replay! 

We live in a mobile-first world. We shop, socialize, work, and create on our phones, expecting seamless, intuitive, and frictionless experiences. As email marketers, we often rely on educated guesses and hard-to-win feedback to improve campaigns. But mobile analytics can revolutionize this process.

Mobile analytics unlock valuable real-time insights into user behavior, preferences, and engagement,  accelerating how fast we can make improvements to our email marketing campaigns.

Let’s discuss the role of mobile analytics in UX and how you can use it to boost satisfaction, sales, and loyalty.

What is mobile analytics?

Mobile analytics is gathering and analyzing user data and behaviors specifically on mobile websites, apps, and devices. This insight comprises of qualitative and quantitative data, such as:  

• How long readers interact with your email or landing pages
• Which elements (like CTA buttons) get the most clicks or which don't get interacted with at all
• The navigational path that users take through your email.
• The path users take after clicking an email link.
• Points of friction such as poorly optimized layouts or broken links.
• Performance issues like slow-loading images or inaccessible designs.

Key differences between mobile analytics and traditional analytics

While traditional analytics might measure desktop-based metrics, mobile analytics reveals how factors like responsive design, mobile-friendly layouts, and load times impact engagement.

From interactions like swipes, clicks, to even orientation changes (landscape vs. portrait). For email marketers, this means deeper insights into how users engage with your content on mobile.

Key email metrics in mobile analytics

These are commonly measured because each gives you important information about user engagement and your email's performance. Collectively, they give you an overarching view of what’s working well and what isn’t so you can improve your campaigns.

• Open rate: Helps you assess whether your email captures interest at first glance. Low open rates on mobile may signal that your subject lines or send time isn’t aligned with user preferences. For mobile users, shorter, punchier subject lines often perform better, as they’re fully visible on smaller screens.
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• ‍Device-specific click rates: Analyzing clicks segmented by device type (e.g., smartphones vs. tablets) can help you understand how different mobile experiences affect engagement. . For example, smartphone users may prefer more streamlined layouts, while tablet users may enjoy more detailed content.

• Scroll depth: Tracks how far users scroll through your email on mobile devices. If users don't scroll past the top of your email on mobile, this may guide you to add the most important content above the fold.
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• Bounce rate: Measures how often users exit or leave your linked pages immediately after clicking through from an email. On mobile, high bounce rates might stem from slow-loading pages, confusing navigation, or unresponsive design.

• ‍Conversion rate: This is the percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or clicking on a landing page. It offers insight into how effectively your emails are in achieing the intended goals whether it is a traditional campaign or experiential.

Whatever metrics you prioritize, make sure to integrate a robust, accurate data processing pipeline. This guarantees real-time insights, so you’re always making decisions based on the latest figures. 

How mobile analytics can help you improve user experience

1. Identify gaps and friction early on

Delivering a smooth user experience is crucial for high engagement. If users encounter barriers that prevent them from taking action, it's best to know the root cause sooner rather than later. 

Mobile analytics uncover navigational and performance issues like confusing layouts, unresponsive buttons, or poor readability.

For example, if a significant portion of users drop off after opening your email, analytics might reveal slow-loading images or unclear CTAs as culprits. You can also pair your website's mobile analytics to inform your email campaigns.

For example, let’s say that a high volume of users is churning during your in-app checkout process, which according to the Baymard Institute study might happen for varying reasons.

On your website you may integrate a solution like Vonage Cloud PBX to enable users to contact your customer support team directly from the checkout page. Or proactively offer support via live chat (just make sure to follow TCPA compliance). But then you can go one step further and set up abandoned cart campaigns to re-engage users. 

In short, mobile analytics can provide helpful insight into your users' actual experience, allowing you to explore new and creative solutions. You can use tools like a Kanban board to plan your approach, create visualizations of the user journey, pinpoint priority areas for improvement, and assign tasks to relevant teams.

2. Analyze user flows

Mobile analytics shares valuable insight on your user journey-- from opening and to become a customer. For example, if users abandon your landing page after clicking an email, it could signal that the page design or content isn’t aligned with their expectations. This could mean your page needs to be simplified or your emails need to be a lot more clear.

Again, you can pair your website's or apps mobile analytics to then guide your email campaigns. A recent survey by Newstore found that 60% of shoppers prefer mobile apps over mobile websites. Mobile apps are easier to use, leading to better UX, increased sales, and higher retention.

If you're noticing that users are not as active on mobile app, this could mean your app interface needs to be simplified or that folks may need more guidance. You could send a series of onboarding emails to help customers use your product effectively.

Along with understanding where the friction lies, mobile analytics tells you what motivates consistent engagement. Analytics opens and conversion rates on mobile vs. desktop can uncover the drivers behind engagement and retention for mobile users. It might be that certain types of notification emails encourage repeat interactions.

Overall, understanding what drives loyalty can help you optimize user journeys at scale to drive repeat engagement and long-term retention, making sure you get a good return on your email marketing efforts and app development cost.

3. Create personalize experiences

Mobile analytics offers a deeper understanding of user behavior and preferences. This can be used to segment users and create personalized experiences. You can feed mobile analytics into your CDP and CRM to help you accurately segment customers according to their preferences, user behavior, demographics, and stage in the customer journey. One way to personalize the experience is to tailor the timing of email notifications to when they are most active or recommending solutions to users based on their preferences.

From there, you can then A/B test multiple versions of a personalized email to asses what actually turns leads into customers. For example, you might test two different layouts or calls-to-action.

Design seamless mobile experiences with Beefree

Whether you're crafting emails for E-commerce, SaaS, or B2b, creating convenient, seamless experiences for mobile users is crucial. Mobile analytics keeps your business attuned to the unique needs of your mobile customers. From streamlining journeys to personalizing experiences, the valuable insights gleaned from mobile analytics help you drive sales and retain customers.

Beefree’s Mobile Design Mode eliminates guesswork, allowing you to design with confidence for the fastest-growing segment of email users: those on mobile devices. Our Mobile Design Mode feature allows you to preview and edit emails specifically for mobile devices, ensuring that your design elements—such as images, text, and buttons—adapt perfectly to smaller screens.

Start designing with ease now.

Ten years, thousands of emails, countless "ooohs" and "ahhhs." Since their inception, our friends at Really Good Email have been curating the most mind-blowing emails to save you from “meh” campaigns. Meanwhile, we at Beefree have been busy helping you turn that inspiration into inbox gold.

Now, we’re taking it up a notch with awards for the best of the best with the first-ever 2024 Really Good Emails Awards. Think of it as email’s version of the Oscars—minus the long speeches.

These emails didn’t just meet expectations—they redefined them. Selected from thousands of entries in the RGE collection, the winners embody:

• Community favorites: Campaigns you searched for, saved, and clicked on the most.
• Innovation and trends: Designs that pushed boundaries and set new benchmarks.
• Strategic brilliance: Perfectly balancing email marketing fundamentals with bold creative risks.

Why these awards matter

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective ways to engage audiences and drive results. The RGE Awards serve as a benchmark for what’s possible, setting new standards for creativity, strategy, and impact. By studying these campaigns, you can:

• Stay ahead of trends: Understand the latest innovations shaping the industry.
• Refine your strategy: Learn how to balance creativity with proven marketing principles.
• Elevate your designs: Incorporate bold, eye-catching elements into your emails.

Not another boring resource: Here's what's inside

The Awards PDF is the ultimate cheat sheet full of strategies, free templates, and inspiration for designing award-winning emails. From standout visuals to innovative CTAs, every element of these campaigns offers a lesson in excellence.

• Winner highlights (duh): Why they stole the show and actionable insights you can steal to create your own magic.
• Easy access to all winning emails and categories: All of the best of the best in one place.
• The ultimate cheat sheet: We're done the heavy lifting for you and linked templates in Beefree similar to the winning emails 👀
• Exclusive Beefree deal: Black Friday came a little late, but we delivered.
• and so much more! 

A closer look at the winning categories

We've rolled out the red carpet for the crème de la crème of email design and strategy, competing across 11 categories. Handpicked from 17,000+ emails in our vault, they’re here to spark some serious 2025 inspiration.

• Welcome emails
• Product launch
• Re-engagement emails
• Pet emails
• Outdoor/travel emails
• Drinks emails
• Subject line
• Best CTA
• Quiz
• Seasonal email
• Most creative email

The competition also highlighted runner-ups like Lifesum, Google, and Ollie, whose campaigns showcased exceptional creativity and innovation. While these didn’t take the top spots, they serve as shining examples of effective email marketing that connects and converts.

Download the full Awards resource to access all the winners, runner-ups, and actionable insights.

A sneak peak

From sleek designs to impactful messaging, each winner showcased the pinnacle of what’s possible in email marketing. Highlights include:

🥇Best welcome email: Miro‍

First impressions matter, and Miro’s welcome email excelled with its clear onboarding steps, bold visuals, and action-oriented CTAs. 

Runner-ups like Lifesum’s starter kit email also showcased how to combine simplicity with effectiveness, turning new users into engaged participants right from the start. Welcome emails are more than a handshake—they’re the start of a journey that can shape long-term customer relationships.

🥇Best product launch: Volkswagen‍

Volkswagen’s email captivated audiences with interactive features and vibrant visuals. Its playful yet professional tone made the T-Cross launch feel both aspirational and accessible. 

Other brands like Freaks of Nature and Google stood out with innovative product announcements that paired sleek designs with compelling messaging. Product launch emails have the power to turn curiosity into action, driving immediate engagement.

🥇Best re-engagement email: Sometimes Always’

Sometimes Always redefined personalization and urgency with a campaign that felt tailored and compelling. Their email leveraged customer data to create a sense of exclusivity and importance. 

Honorable mentions include Tillamook and Nonny, which excelled at rekindling audience interest with humor, warmth, and timely offers. Re-engagement campaigns remind customers why they loved your brand in the first place.

🥇Best seasonal email: Touchland

Seasonal emails are an opportunity to tap into the zeitgeist while staying true to your brand identity, and Touchland does just that. Their Prime Day email turned a traditional sale announcement into a celebration of their brand. By combining playful design with clear value propositions, they created an email that felt festive and functional. 

These campaigns demonstrate that success in email marketing often lies in the details—from the strategic placement of a button to the tone of the subject line. By focusing on these elements, brands can create emails that not only look great, but also drive meaningful results.

Download the deck for the rest of the winners

What next? Turn inspiration into action

The 2024 Really Good Emails Awards celebrate more than just great campaigns—they’re about inspiring your next big idea. With tools like Beefree, you can bring these award-winning elements to life. Here’s how:

• Leverage pre-built templates: Use designs inspired by the winning emails to jumpstart your projects.
• Streamline collaboration: Work seamlessly with your team to refine your campaigns.
• Export effortlessly: Take your designs from Beefree to platforms like HubSpot, Mailchimp, and beyond.

Join the celebration

The email marketing community thrives on sharing and collaboration. Join us in celebrating the creativity and innovation that make email marketing such a dynamic field. Share your favorite campaigns with Really Good Emails and be part of the conversation shaping the future of email design.

Here’s to a future filled with creativity, connection, and campaigns that inspire.