Beefree blog

Summer Sales Emails: 13 Ways to Turn Up the Heat

Beefree team
Beefree team
Aug 1, 2018
Summer Sales Emails: 13 Ways to Turn Up the Heat
Summer Sales Emails: 13 Ways to Turn Up the Heat

This summer has been so hot, it's almost too toasty to even think. So let's take a moment to cool off with these stunning summer sales emails. This season's email campaigns are all about light-hearted GIFs, inspiring photography, and bold color. Scrolling through these inbox beauties is like taking a dip in a cool pool! So kick back, relax, and get inspired for your next campaign...

1. Hem

Subject:the FLORAL SUMMER SALE continues! — Green Chrysanthemum

Hem summer sales emails

Hello, beautiful hero image! The stunner caught our eye—and we love how the rest of theHememail continues the green-tastic vibe. There's always something visually satisfying about going monochromatic and arranging images by color. This is a perfect trick for the doldrums of summer. Just line up an HTML-colored content block alongside the perfect photo, then curate the rest of your art by color. Tada!

2. Equinox

Subject: Your exclusive summer offer.

Equinox summer sales emails

The first thing that caught our eye about this Equinox email was the sweet lil' animation in the logo header:

The GIF is unexpected and playful. A nice touch! Plus, we're a sucker for an ultra-focused message with a sleek design. If you ask us, simplicity is always the way to go.

3. Flywheel

Subject: Here’s 3 months of FREE WordPress hosting!

flywheel summer sales emails

Flywheelkept its email fully responsive, even as it stretches the span of our inbox, which makes an especially big impact on a desktop screen. That hero image totally screams summer, and the spot illustrations help convey a lot of information elegantly.

4. Trade

Subject: Cool for the summer

trade summer sales emails

Tradeopens with a gorgeous photo that grabs our attention as soon as we tap. It's so big that even the header is enveloped by it. That gives the email a real energy—almost as if you're outside with that iced coffee right in front of you. Yum. And if you're going to go big, just situate your live text and bulletproof CTA button over top of your image—it's possible with our tutorial!

5. West Elm

Subject: Goodbye spring, hello summer savings: Pillows starting at $9.99!

west elm summer sales emails

Okay, this is a pretty typical West Elm email (which we had to trim because it kept going, and going, and going), but check out the animation in the hero image:

west elm summer sales emails

No doubt, thisWest Elm email is playful and beautiful. And it's a great example of getting creative with your art. This GIF has nothing to do with theproduct; it's just about glorious summer (in the form a juicy watermelon)—and that connects to the main takeaway: shop the sale before it's too late!

6. Rent the Runway

Subject: Looking for a new summer dress? We found it.

rent the runway summer sales emails

We love this carousel GIF from Rent the Runway. What a fun way to display dresses and have a little fun. Plus, the simplicity of the entire email is admirable. There's one head, one line of text, one image, and one CTA button. Only a few words—but a big, effective message. The only thing we'd recommend is upgrading to live text and minimizing the size of the GIF to be more inbox-friendly!

7. ClassPass

Subject: Inside: Your free trial for summer workouts

classpass summer sales emails

Simple, summery, smart. Looking at this ClassPass email, you can almost feel the fun the designer had making this illustration. And that's the way it should be, right? The double CTA approach is interesting here, too, and we'd be curious to know if they A/B tested it against another email with a single CTA. Overall, we're digging the sleek, playful vibe.

8. Brit + Co

Subject:???? Ready to Create the Most Memorable Summer?????

brit+co summer sales emails

We had to share the opening content block from this Brit+Co email because it's just so darn summery. Talk about vacation envy. One thing we noticed is the subject line and thefirst header contain the same text. We're so curious to know if you've tried this technique and what you think of it! So let us know in the comments.

9. Cook Smarts

Subject: Summer sale! 20% off a season of delicious dinners

cook smarts summer sales emails

Who needs a real pool when you can have an illustrated one?

cook smarts summer sales emails

Like Flywheel, Cook Smarts uses what we'll call "swimming pool blue" in this evocative, sunny email. There's something joyful and refreshing about it. We'd be curious to see how a version of this email would perform without a paragraph of text, too. Like Rent the Runway, sometimes super streamlined simplicity is the way to go.

10. Warby Parker

Subject: Summer + Fridays =

warby parker summer sales emails

Warby Parker sends emails that always look sharp, and this one is no exception. It's also another lovely example of how text can be arranged atop a background image—and in the best case scenario, it's live text with a bulletproof button. What do you think of the side-by-side CTA buttons?

11. Havenly

Subject: Summer surprise! Free Shipping for 1 more day

havenly summer sales emails

Bold color—this time the color of a sunset—carries this Havenly email. While we love the stunning photography we've seen in a lot of summer emails, a design approach like this is still eye-catching and effective.

12. Everlane

Subject: The Popover Shirt

everlane summer sales emails

One of the things we love most about Everlane emails is the way their text and images play together. The copy is always bold and spot-on, and the images do the rest. Line breaks and ample padding between content makes the email easy to read and beautiful to look at. All told, it's just so pretty!

13. Blind Barber

Subject: So Fresh, So Clean

blind barber summer sales emails

We love the classic design Blind Barber used here, with a spin on the hero image: four photos instead of one. The look is evocative of Instagram and feels modern and approachable. The custom text on the main CTA button is fun, too.

Send Your Summer Sales Emails

Feeling inspired? Start creating your own summer sale emails now! Make sure to sign up for a freeBEE Pro trial. We havedozens of tutorialsto help you get started (and inspired!), and the drag-and-drop tool is super easy to use. Give it a try!

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We’ve all been there: You craft the perfect email, hit “send”, and just as you settle into the satisfaction of a job well done, someone slacks you: “Hey, something doesn’t look right with that campaign.” 

If this sounds familiar, you should know that you’re not alone: According to the 2025 Really Good Email Survey “90% of email marketers say they have a history of noticing mistakes in their emails after they’ve hit the send button.

This becomes especially common when your team constantly juggles multiple campaigns or makes edits until the last minute. Sadly, even the smallest mistakes don’t just slip through the cracks; they cost you.

Luckily for us all, mistakes can be avoided. And no, not by lighting a Pre-Send Protection Candles™ and hoping for the best. But rather by equipping your team with the right tools that work with your team – not slow them down. Let’s talk about it!

Building your team’s safety net for mistake-free emails with Beefree 

When everyone involved in the email creation process is aligned and supported by smart systems, executing mistake-free emails becomes second nature. Instead of scrambling to do damage control, you’ll want to set up the tools and processes that help your team focus on what they do best: creating emails that connect, convert, and confidently represent the brand.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can use Beefree to: 

  • Reduce human errors 
  • Implement systems of checks and balances 
  • Establish guardrails & frameworks for on-brand email design

1. Catch mistakes before they happen with Smart Check

Missing links that lead nowhere? Forgotten subject lines? HTML emails that get clipped in Gmail? It’s easy to make little mistakes that derail your campaign’s performance. 

Learn more about Smart Check → 

Beefree’s Smart Check automatically checks your designs and alerts you of any red flags so you can fix them before they cost you opens, clicks, or conversions. Think of Smart Check as your built-in QA partner who will catch:

  • Missing links
  • Heavy images that could slow down email load times
  • Missing subjects & preheaders that impact engagement
  • Missing alt text on images that hurt your email’s accessibility
  • Large HTML files that might affect deliverability (or get clipped in Gmail)

2. Keep every email on-brand with built-in guardrails 

Most of us don’t nail the perfect campaign on the first try. Great emails are a team effort. However, when multiple teams are involved in the email creation process, branding can quickly go off the rails. 

A misused font, clashing colors, or buttons that are too small to click don’t just make emails look disjointed—they can damage your brand’s credibility.

With Beefree’s Advanced Style Kit, you can set clear, predefined guidelines for fonts, colors, spacing, and more—so every design starts on the right foot. Once configured, all new emails automatically inherit your brand styles, reducing the need for constant oversight and minimizing errors.

Advanced user permissions let you lock down specific design elements, giving you full control over what can (and can’t) be edited. That means anyone on your team—regardless of design expertise—can confidently create emails that look and feel like your brand.

3. Empower your team to create with confidence with reusable content

When your team isn’t bogged down by the cumbersome process of creating content from scratch (or fear of going off-brand), they can move faster—and with far more confidence.

With Saved and Synced Rows, you can provide your team with pre-approved content blocks—like headers, footers, and other commonly used design elements—that they can use in their designs without creating them from scratch. That ensures design consistency, eliminates redundant work, and makes email creation a lot faster.

Learn more about Saved Rows → 

4. Ensure your team is aligned with centralized reviews and approvals:

Creating the perfect email often takes a team of designers, copywriters, marketers, and other team members working together. But when multiple people are involved, endless back-and-forth and feedback scattered across multiple conversations and channels can slow things down, lead to miscommunication, and ultimately cause mistakes. 

With Beefree’s built-in commenting, your team can collaborate and share feedback where the work is actually happening—right inside the builder. And if you’d like to involve external reviewers into the review process, you can do that as well. 

Learn more about commenting → 

Plus, with Beefree’s built-in Approval flow, you can ensure your designs are reviewed and approved by the right stakeholders. Stay aligned with real-time notifications on design changes, lock edits on approved content, and get a clear view of project status for smoother team collaboration and high-quality results.

Learn more about Approvals →

5. Need an additional pair of eyes? Use the power of AI to support your team

Take some weight off your team's shoulders and use AI to support them in the final stretch. Whether it’s catching typos, flagging inconsistencies, or suggesting optimization, AI can be a saving grace when deadlines are creeping in.

For those times when you can’t remember the difference between “there, their, and they’re,  Beefree’s  AI Writing Assistant is there to help. This eager-to-learn helper can  review your copy for grammatical errors, tone of voice, and even share suggestions for making it just a bit more compelling. Our AI Writing Assistant can also seamlessly translate content or automatically generate ALT text for images to enhance the accessibility of your emails. 

Learn more about AI-powered content creation in Beefree →

The tangible cost of email mistakes

Mistakes don’t just impact performance; they slowly erode credibility. What starts as a small oversight can be a massive inconvenience for your readers, sending them straight to the unsubscribe button. As for your team, mistakes chip away at their confidence. Instead of brainstorming for the next campaign, they’re scrambling trying to figure out how to do damage control.   

When done right, email is a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. But a single mistake can unravel that connection and undermine trust.

  • A missing or broken links can interrupt your subscribers’ journey to conversion, negatively impacting campaign performance.
  • A missing subject lines means your emails won't stand out in the inbox, hurting your open rate
  • An awkward typo might signal a lack of attention to detail
  • An off-brand design can make your brand look disorganized
  • An email that gets clipped in Gmail because it’s too big means some subscribers might never see the full email content.

Design error-free emails and send with confidence with Beefree 

Beefree helps teams of all sizes create polished, on-brand emails—without the risk of costly errors. With built-in safeguards, streamlined approval flows, and collaboration tools that keep everyone aligned, Beefree acts as your team’s system of checks and balances. From first draft to final sign-off, you’ll have everything you need to send with confidence, build trust, and get results.

Try Beefree's Business for free for 15 days and get access to all of Beefree’s tools that help you catch mistakes, streamline collaboration, and send with confidence every time. Or schedule a call with one of our experts to discover everything Beefree can support your team.

Using Beefree with Marketo Engage 101

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Marketo Engage is a powerful tool for marketing automation, but when it comes to email design flexibility, many users find its built-in editor limiting. Creating visually compelling, mobile-responsive emails often requires custom coding or workarounds, slowing down workflow and making it harder to execute high-quality campaigns efficiently.

That is where Beefree comes in. By integrating Beefree’s no-code, drag-and-drop email design platform with Marketo Engage’s advanced automation capabilities, teams can build professional, responsive emails without coding headaches and push them directly to Marketo in just a few clicks.

This article explores:

  • The challenges of designing emails directly in Marketo
  • How Beefree solves these pain points
  • A step-by-step guide to integrating Beefree with Marketo Engage
  • Common FAQs and troubleshooting tips

The challenges of designing emails directly in Marketo

Marketo’s built-in email editor is useful for basic templates but presents several limitations for marketers and designers.

  • Limited design flexibility – Customizing layouts, fonts, or interactive elements can be difficult without custom HTML or Marketo’s proprietary syntax.
  • Technical barriers – Advanced customizations often require HTML knowledge or an understanding of Marketo’s email template language, which may not be ideal for non-technical teams.
  • Time-consuming manual processes – Without a centralized style kit, teams may struggle to stay on-brand and often have to manually recreate headers, footers, and other reusable content blocks for each email, adding extra steps and slowing down production.

Due to these challenges, many marketing teams turn to external email builders like Beefree, FeedOtter, or Knak to improve design efficiency and automation.

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Why Beefree is the best email builder for Marketo Engage

While other external email builders like Knak and FeedOtter also integrate with Marketo, Beefree offers distinct advantages.

  • No-code drag-and-drop builder – Enables teams to design professional emails without writing any code.
  • Advanced design features – Provides more customization options beyond what Marketo’s built-in editor allows.
  • Mobile-responsive templates – Ensures emails adjust automatically for both desktop and mobile devices.
  • One-click export to Marketo – Simplifies the process of moving email designs directly into Marketo Engage.
  • Ability to update existing templates – Allows quick updates without requiring manual re-imports of HTML files.
  • Team collaboration – Enables teams to work together in real time, with built-in guardrails and approval controls to ensure error-free emails before exporting.

By integrating Beefree with Marketo, marketing teams eliminate design frustrations and manual email imports, allowing them to focus on high-performing email campaigns.

Learn more about Beefree's integration with Marketo Enagage [https://support.beefree.io/hc/en-us/articles/24837761625618-Export-Emails-to-Marketo]

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How to update existing email templates in Marketo

Instead of manually editing HTML, Beefree allows users to edit emails in Beefree and update existing ones in Marketo Engage with one click.

  1. Open the email design in Beefree.
  2. Make changes and click “Export.”
  3. Select “Update Existing” to overwrite the previous version in Marketo Engage.

This feature ensures that emails and templates remain up to date without requiring complex HTML edits or duplicates.

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Frequently asked questions on using Beefree with Marketo Engage

Can I use Beefree with other ESPs besides Marketo Engage?

Yes! You can connect Beefree to any ESP, MAP, or CRM including Mailchimp, HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and others. To learn more about how to integrate Beefree to your sending platform watch the video below: 

For a full list of our native integrations visit [https://beefree.io/integrations].

Are there any limitations when exporting Beefree emails to Marketo?

Yes, there are a few important limitations to be aware of:

  • Charset emojis are not supported in Marketo. Including emojis in your email content may result in an error. To prevent this, Beefree automatically replaces unsupported emojis with a placeholder. For more details, refer to the [Marketo documentation on emoji support].

Preheader text is not a native field in Marketo. However, Beefree includes it by embedding the preheader directly in the email's HTML code during export.

Additional resources and links

Why you should use Beefree with Marketo Engage

By integrating Beefree with Marketo Engage, marketing teams gain a faster, more flexible way to build high-converting, on-brand email campaigns—while leveraging Marketo’s powerful automation and analytics to track performance and optimize results.

  • Design responsive, professional emails with ease.
  • Maintain brand consistency across every message.
  • Collaborate efficiently and gain insights to improve campaign performance.

Ready to elevate your Marketo email marketing? Try Beefree today and streamline your entire email creation process.

Start your 15-day free Business trial today!

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