Beefree blog

Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement

Beefree team
Beefree team
Jul 5, 2023
Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement
Email Marketing Design Best Practices to Boost Engagement

Email marketing is one of the marketing techniques with the highest potential for revenue - for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect a return of $42. But that word “potential” is important - some email marketing campaigns will rake in the big bucks and others will flop. It largely depends on one thing: skillful and strategic email design.To thrive and cook up a campaign that’s worthwhile, you have to keep up with the ever-changing email design best practices. As long-standing experts in the email marketing field, we’re here to help. We’ve created this guide of the top email design best practices for 2023.

What is email design?

Email design is the development of an email through strategic designing that ultimately engages and resonates with your business’s target audience. Your email design should be eye-catching and optimized for all email subscribers. Effective email design can be the difference between an email that wastes away unread in inboxes and one that compels readers to click and make a purchase. At the risk of sounding dramatic, the revenue potential of a well-designed email is practically limitless.

Benefits of effective email design 

Strong email design has the ability to significantly impact your email marketing metrics. An engaging, attention-grabbing email brings plenty of benefits to your business including:

  • Increasing audience engagement and excitement
  • Building brand awareness and recognition
  • Establishing credibility with the audience
  • Boosting conversion rates

Strong email design is a win-win, bringing your audience a more engaging and useful email and bringing your business more revenue. But how do you make your email design effective, exactly? Let’s dive into practical tips you can start using today.

Email design best practices

Expert graphic design skills aren’t needed to create impactful email designs and templates, simply follow along with these best practices, and you’ll be on your way to reaping the benefits that we shared above.

Choose an email layout that suits your email’s goal

The way you lay out your email will depend on what type of message you’re sending. A transactional email, an email newsletter, and a DEM email (direct email marketing) are all very different, and your layout for each one should create a visual flow that leads readers toward the goal of that email.While every email’s layout will be unique, there are several common types of layouts that can each suit specific purposes and goals. These include:

  • Inverted pyramid layouts
  • Gutenberg diagram email layouts
  • Z-pattern email layouts
  • F-pattern email layouts

There’s no singular email layout that’s more effective than the others; it all depends on the situation and what you’re trying to accomplish. Let’s talk about each of these layout types and what they can do for your email design.

Inverted pyramid email layout

An inverted pyramid email uses an upside-down triangle as its guide: It grabs your attention with a broad headline, explains more with a few lines of copy and then narrows in on the main CTA. This MealPal email showcases an inverted pyramid layout.

Subject line: STOP waiting in line and get 40% off

inverted pyramid email layout

Gutenberg diagram email layout 

The Gutenberg diagram divides your email layout into a grid with four sections — primary optical (top left), strong fallow area (top right), weak fallow area (bottom left) and terminal area (bottom right). People’s eyes generally move in this pattern as they read, so using the Gutenberg diagram can ensure your email is easy to skim.

Gutenberg diagram
Source image

Z-pattern email layout

The Z-pattern email layout is effective because the zigzag pattern follows the path most readers’ eyes will take. Z-pattern messages are a great option for simple emails without much copy where you’d like to highlight the CTA. Here’s an example of a Z-pattern:

Subject line: Load up on all your grooming essentials

z-pattern email layout

F-pattern email layout

Another common scanning pattern is the F-pattern, in which readers’ eyes move across the page in the shape of an F. With this pattern, people tend to catch the top headline, any bullet points on the left side of the page, and subheadings across the page.

Subject line: New arrivals | Sets to love

f-pattern email layout

Email layout is an essential step in email design best practices. Choosing the right layout can make an enormous difference in how likely your customers are to convert.

Additional layout tips

Here are a couple more tips to keep in mind as you consider your email layout options:

  • Modular structure. An email with a modular structure is mobile responsive and adaptable. It ensures that recipients can view the message on any device.Pro Tip: Your email should also be no more than 600 pixels wide so people don’t have to scroll horizontally.
  • Rule of three. Another way to keep your email layout simple and skimmable is to focus on three main email design elements.

Coordinate each element of your email structure

Each element of your email’s structure will play a part in how effective your email design is. They need to all coordinate with each other to create the on-brand, compelling effect you want. Let’s look at each element in a well-structured email and how to optimize them.

Subject line and pre-header

Your subject line is the bold title of your email that readers see in their inbox, and the preheader (AKA preview text) is the text readers see below or next to that bold subject line. Depending on the email program a reader is using, it will look something like this:

optimized subject line and preheader

As you can see, the subject line and pre-header are the only pieces of information (other than your name) that a user has when they decide whether to open the email. These pieces need to be enticing and clear, grabbing readers’ attention and giving them a reason to click. Think about who your audience is and what appeals to them most.

Body

The body text of your email should be engaging and personal, accurately representing your company’s personality and making a connection with the reader. Be clear about what you’re asking the reader to do and stay focused on your main message.

Remember, your reader is bombarded with messaging all day every day. If you want to stand out in their memory, make your email body creative and relatable while keeping it concise and on-brand.

CTA

The header and body of your email should lead the reader straight to the CTA button. Create a sense of urgency if you’re having a sale, and prep a specific landing page for this CTA. When you design your CTA button, make sure it’s bulletproof so it will render correctly in any inbox.

As much as possible, stay focused on the message you want to send with your CTAs. Multiple CTAs in an email can actually hurt your conversion rate — having too many choices is overwhelming. Think about your primary goal for conversion (is it most important to you that people visit your website or social media?) and use that as your CTA.

Keep in mind that using descriptive CTA text instead of a generic phrase (“click here”) can encourage readers to act. Moleskine uses the words “Personalize now,” which helps the reader envision themselves purchasing the customized product.

Subject line: Unique notes

email cta example

Footer

For brands, an email footer usually includes social media links and the business’s physical address, as Groove Life does here. Solopreneurs or CEOs might craft their footer as more of an email signature with personal contact information. The footer of your email is also required by law to include a visible unsubscribe link.

optimized footer for emails

Learn more helpful footer tips in our blog post outlining best practices for email footer design.

Be strategic with visual design elements 

When the structure of your email is ready to go, it’s time to consider what design elements to include.

Typography

Typography is an important part of your company’s visual branding. For the body of your email, use a font that’s easy to read. Consider font color, spacing, and size. Don’t use more than two fonts in order to keep it on-brand so customers read it as professional. If you decide to use a custom font, make sure to preview the email on multiple devices. We love the simple but effective typography in this Tuft & Needle email.

Subject line: Save 10% on new sheet covers

email font design idea

Color

Color is essential when it comes to how your customers view your brand. Use a non-white background color to make your email look like one cohesive image. Then choose accent colors (such as the shade of your header or CTA button color) based on your brand colors and the email’s overall color scheme. For example, MealPal uses a pale blue background and adds a pop of color with the orange CTAs (which match the company logo at the top).

Subject line: NEW: groceries for 40% off with MealPal Market!

email cta design

Animated content

GIFs and videos are popular when it comes to email design best practices. Animated GIFs can grab a reader’s attention with humor or they can demonstrate how to use your product. If you choose to include video in your emails, create educational content and post it on your website or YouTube. Many ESPs don’t allow videos to play in messages, so sharing the video link in the email is best.

Optimize Your Email Design 

Your job doesn’t end once your email is structured and designed. You must also optimize your email settings, test your emails, and check that they are accessible to everyone.

Personalization

It’s natural for your customers to pay more attention to information that is more relevant to them, and you can signal that your email is relevant by personalizing the design. This doesn’t mean you have to hand-customize every email that goes out - there are ways to automate this in a practical way.You can use simple strategies like adding the customer’s name in the email and including suggested products in the email based on the customer’s purchase history. You can also create several versions of your email designed for different segments of customers, like one version for customers ages 18-30, another for those ages 30-45, another for those who are 45-60, and so on. Adjustments like these make your emails more personalized and relatable.

Responsive email template design 

A responsive email template design ensures that your message will change size to be viewed on any device. Since nearly half of all email opens, take place on a mobile device like a smartphone, creating responsive emails is essential. Here at BEE, we have hundreds of responsive email templates that you can use to make sure your email design is mobile-first.

Test emails

Don’t send your email without testing it first to make sure you catch any mistakes. Testing your email can confirm whether your message is mobile-responsive. It also gives you a final chance to take in your color choices, images, and text all together. When you design with the Beefree, you can easily test your email when you’re through designing by sending it to yourself or previewing it on mobile (both found under the “Actions” tab in the upper left-hand corner of the editor). Most ESPs have built-in testing options too.

A/B test

In addition to testing your email with an internal review, consider running A/B tests where two groups of subscribers receive slightly different emails. By doing this, you can see which variations of the message get the highest open rates, conversions, and other performance metrics.A/B testing is a powerful strategy because no two audiences respond the same way to the same emails, so these tests can show you what works best for your specific audience. You can conduct A/B tests on nearly any element of your emails: the subject line, the preheader, the body, the CTA, and so on. Just be sure to only have one differing element in each A/B test so you know what caused one version to perform better than the other.

Accessibility

Many people consume online information in different ways due to varying physical, mental, or developmental abilities. For example, someone might use a screen reader that verbally reads the text on the screen. To make your emails accessible to everyone, use real text instead of images and structure the layout of your message so it’s simple and easy to read. Use these tips to ensure accessibility:

  • Size all text to 14px or larger
  • Add alt tags to your images to accommodate anyone who might not be able to see the photos or graphics; this text describes your images and is visible when the image cannot be shown (as shown in the image below). 
  • Keep your contrast high so it’s easy for readers to distinguish the elements of the messages. Who Can Use, a tool that shows you how people with visual impairments view different colors can be a huge help in making your emails accessible.

One other email accessibility best practice is to keep your image size small (around 600px). You don’t want your email to be too “heavy,” with large images that might not load on all devices and ESPs. Small images are best.

Enhance inclusivity in email design

An inclusive email is one that takes into account the many ways in which your audience is diverse — from gender and race to ability, culture, age, and more. Your customer base isn’t made up of just one type of person, so your marketing emails shouldn’t address only one type, either. Do your photos show people of different races, genders and abilities? Does your language reflect the reader’s location and any potential cultural differences?

If you’re not sure, find someone who can look over the emails and let you know.

Your company can also focus on hiring people with diverse backgrounds to help create content that’s truly made for everybody. In addition to testing your email with an internal review, consider running A/B tests where two groups of subscribers receive slightly different emails. By doing this, you can see which variations of the message get the most opens.

Optimize your email design with Beefree

Ready to create effective marketing emails? Try Beefree. Our thousands of drag-and-drop, customizable email templates can give you a launchpad. Or opt for a blank template to design your own email from the ground up — no coding knowledge required. Put the email design best practices you’ve learned into action and start designing today.

Editor’s Note: This post was updated on July 2023 to ensure accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Email strategies you’ve likely heard of but haven’t implemented yet

While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 
Kruti Shah
Feb 5, 2025

How to Leverage Email Campaigns to Gather Sincere Product Reviews

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns. Keep reading to learn how!
Beefree team
Jan 22, 2025

How Beefree is Helping Email Makers Scale Their Production

2024 was a banner year for email markers everywhere. From sleek newsletters to interactive promos, you flexed your creative muscle to new heights and did it with a level of speed and efficiency that made crafting award-worthy emails look easy. Let’s dive into the numbers, trends, and stories that made this year unforgettable for email makers like you.
Beefree team
Jan 6, 2025

Email strategies you’ve likely heard of but haven’t implemented yet

While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 
Kruti Shah
Kruti Shah
5 Feb
2025

Now, let's be honest—you’ve likely heard about all of these rotating for the last few years. While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 

Let’s get into it.  

#1. Unique, tailored experiences 

Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder and growth marketer of PetLab Co., says, “We faced the challenge of connecting meaningfully with an audience that expects more than one-size-fits-all communication.” 

When we speak about crafting tailored emails we mean going beyond the recipient's first name in the subject line. We’re talking about optimizing your entire email strategy to design multi-stage touchpoints to nurture leads across the customer lifecycle. As well as, leveraging data to send hyper-personalized, relevant, and engaging emails that feel less like a broadcast message and more like a conversation. 

Many are using AI machine learning algorithms and AI automation to analyze customer interactions, past purchases, browsing habits, website visits, and even social media behavior to curate engaging email content that resonates deeply with the real-time needs of recipients.

For PetLab Co this looked like including content such as an individual’s pet health history or product usage timelines. Damian Grabarzyk expands, “This approach transformed the conversion rate and strengthened customer loyalty. As we look ahead, I see brands in 2025 moving beyond generic personalization to adopt strategies that make customers feel truly understood and valued.”

On the other hand, many are leaning into user-generated content (UGC) for crafting tailored experiences. Customers today are more likely to trust the opinions of peers over branded messages. UGC like customer reviews, testimonials, videos, and photos are the best form of social proof depicting real people using and benefitting from your products or services. 

We see the benefits of using both AI and UGC to get the most out of your email conversions ;). 

#2. AI tools as an addition, not a substitution

Experts at NordPass state, "AI-powered content generation tools are not here to replace email copywriters and marketers. These tools make us more efficient. The smarter the tool is, the better equipped we are to create high-performing email content that drives results." 

AI tools can support us by significantly enhancing the speed, precision, and effectiveness of your emails. For instance while traditionally A/B testing has required a lot of time to analyze small variations with AI you quickly implement and test multiple email elements and make adjustments based on real-time engagement data. There are AI algorithms that can even predict which variations are most likely to resonate with different audience segments, leading to more accurate targeting and faster optimization.

In short, AI tools are revolutionizing the way we craft and optimize our email’s deliverability. There are many different types of AI solutions so we suggest finding the right one for your needs. 

#3. Even more transparency around data

With AI continuing to rise, folks are more and more concerned about where their data is going. That’s where zero-party data collection becomes a key strategy in email marketing, allowing you to gather data directly from customers rather than relying on third-party sources. 

Zero-party data includes information that consumers willingly share, such as preferences, interests, and purchase intentions. This data is often collected through surveys, preference centers, quizzes, or interactive content and is highly valuable because it is shared explicitly, ensuring accuracy and deeper personalization without privacy concerns associated with third-party tracking.

As privacy regulations tighten, zero-party data will empower you to deliver hyper-personalized email experiences while respecting user privacy. This approach will help you build trust, as customers feel more in control of their data, and you gain insights that lead to more relevant and engaging email content.

#4. The death of static emails

With attention span getting shorter day after day, digest-format emails are expected to rise in popularity in 2025. Presenting email content in an easy-to-scan, organized, and minimalistic layout will surely help deliver the most relevant information in a fraction of the time. 

Additionally, interactive emails will allow recipients to directly engage within the email without having to visit a landing page or website. Interactive elements like product carousels, polls, and quizzes create a dynamic experience that keeps subscribers engaged, especially in visually driven industries like fashion brands

So what now? 

You’ve heard these strategies before, but now it’s time to actually put them into action. The brands that win at email marketing in 2025 won’t just be sending emails—they’ll be creating experiences. Whether it’s hyper-personalized content, AI-driven efficiency, zero-party data collection, or interactive emails that break the mold, the key is to stay ahead of the curve.

So, what’s the first strategy you’ll finally implement? Your inbox (and your audience) are waiting.

How to Leverage Email Campaigns to Gather Sincere Product Reviews

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns. Keep reading to learn how!
Beefree team
Beefree team
22 Jan
2025

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns.

Email makes gathering authentic product reviews quick and easy. By collecting sincere feedback, you can build trust, increase sales, boost loyalty, and innovate product improvements. 

That said, requesting reviews via email requires precise timing, personalized messaging, and lots of engagement optimizations. But don’t worry—we’ll walk you through some key steps to create email campaigns that deliver the valuable feedback you need.

Why product reviews matter

Product reviews do more than confirm that you're meeting customers’ needs. Sincere feedback drives loyalty and sales, offers valuable customer insights, and helps you develop a strategic product development roadmap.

  • Fosters customer loyalty: Requesting and listening to feedback makes your customers feel valued and heard. It demonstrates that you prioritize customer satisfaction, which helps you build stronger, long-term relationships. Review requests also act as re-engagement emails by starting new conversations with customers.
  • Increases sales: Social proof drives sales. According to a recent survey by Power Reviews, 90% of potential customers use online reviews to make purchasing decisions. In fact, reviews have more influence over purchasing decisions than product prices. Turning product reviews into customer testimonials and encouraging reviews on third-party sites can significantly boost sales.
Image sourced from powerreviews.com
  • Builds Customer 360 insights: Customer feedback delivers insights into customer needs and sentiments, enriching Customer 360. Exactly what is Customer 360? It’s a unified, 360-degree view of customer data. It empowers you to tailor products and customer experiences to meet individual needs and preferences. 
  • Drives product improvements: Sincere customer feedback reveals what target customers like/dislike about your products. It provides key insight into their value, functionality, and usability, unlocking large-scale development opportunities.

How to create an email campaign to collect product reviews

Want to unlock the power of product reviews? Let’s explore how to create email campaigns that encourage customers to share their feedback.

Segment your audience

Like promotional emails, product review requests shouldn’t be sent to every subscriber.

If subscribers haven’t had the chance to try your product, product review requests will feel irrelevant and may trigger unsubscriptions. So, only send review email requests to customers recently trying your product.

You can do this by segmenting your email list based on where customers are in the buying cycle. Target loyal customers, recent purchasers, and first-time buyers with tailored email campaigns. This ensures that you’re sending emails to customers most likely to respond with insightful feedback.

Write a compelling email subject line

According to Superoffice, 33% of people open an email based on the subject line. 

Image sourced from superoffice.com

To get the click-through rates you want, your email subject lines should be personalized, relevant, and engaging. Here are some examples:

  • Did you love [product]? Or hate it? Let us know!
  • We value your opinion — help us improve!
  • We want YOU to help us make our product better!
  • Up for a discount? Share your feedback for 10% off! 

Learn more > Tips for writing open worthy subject lines.

Optimize for customer engagement

A successful email marketing strategy relies on customer engagement. Here are some key email elements you need to encourage interactions.

  • An attractive email design: With the right layout, color scheme, typography, and images, you ensure easy readability and promote interaction. Use these engagement-boosting email design best practices to help you create a design that boosts conversion rates.
  • Gratitude and value: Thank customers for reading the email and explaining why their feedback is so important. Also, consider including a personalized Gmail email signature with your content details to build trust and encourage customers to engage with your review request. 
  • Personalized, relevant content: Personalized email content motivates engagement. Use customer data platform (CDP) data to tailor messages to individual customers. What is a CDP? It’s a centralized platform that collects and unifies customer information, building comprehensive customer profiles. 
  • Incentives: Offering a small discount can motivate customers to leave reviews, especially first-time buyers. That said, incentives can (sometimes) generate insincere reviews, so stress the importance of honesty. 
  • A strong call-to-action (CTA): Your CTA should direct readers straight to the reviews submission page. Use clear CTAs with bold buttons and typography to make it stand out.
  • Mobile responsiveness: If your emails are slow to load or don’t display correctly on mobile devices, your bounce rate will spike. Leverage solutions that offer advanced mobile optimization features — such as Beefree— to create responsive emails every single time.

Ask specific, concise questions

Complex, drawn-out questions that are too open-ended can disengage customers. So, get straight to the point with concise, direct questions. Here are some examples:

  • What did you think of [specific product feature]?
  • How often do you use our product?
  • What are your favorite/least favorite features?
  • How likely are you to recommend this product?
  • What could we do to improve our product?

Use a mixture of closed and open-ended questions to increase your chances of receiving meaningful responses.

Make it easy to respond

The easier it is for customers to leave a review, the more responses you’ll receive. So, make the process as seamless and convenient as possible. One way to do this is with survey emails.

Email surveys have high response rates. They can be completed within the email with minimal effort, which is a big plus for busy customers. And, they can generate a wealth of quantitative data and metrics that are quick to analyze, leading to faster improvements. BeeFree has an extensive collection of email survey templates to suit every need.

For longer review requests, include a CTA that directly links to the review submission page. Review forms should use simple, clear language, be optimized for mobile, and have a progress bar. 

You could even provide your telephone contact details to allow customers to leave a review via telephone. It’s the preferred communication method for 55% of Baby Boomers according to Hubspot, so it’s worth considering. 

Leverage small business telephone services from Vonage to access call center capabilities like virtual receptionists and CRM integrations, streamlining processes.

Also consider directing customers to leave reviews on popular review sites, such as Google and Amazon.

Optimize email timings

If you send product review requests too early, there’s a chance your customers won’t have tried your product yet. But if you send them too late, your customer might have forgotten their experience. 

So, when’s the best time to request reviews? 

Aim to send review requests within 7-14 days post-purchase. This gives customers a chance to try the product a few times, leading to more sincere, meaningful reviews. Plan for seasonal surges such as Black Friday and incorporate them into your schedules.

Key takeaways

Do email campaigns work for gathering valuable product reviews that drive improvements, boost trust, and increase sales and loyalty? 

Absolutely — but they need to be strategic.

To generate sincere reviews and valuable data, ensure your marketing emails are personalized, engaging, and optimized for convenience. And, use email list segmentation and marketing automation to ensure they’re sent to the right customers at the right time.

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