AI for Email Marketing: Focus on Engagement, Not Just Deliverability
By Brendan Mahoney
Many marketers ask, "How do I use AI to get my emails into the inbox?" At Minerva, we tend to reject the premise of this question and instead ask a better question: "How do I use AI to create emails that people actually want to read?"
The danger of using recent advancements in AI technology as a crutch is that marketers may think AI can simply solve problems like getting around that pesky spam filter 100% of the time just by virtue of being AI. The reality is that AI can’t be a magic bullet for your problems. If customers don’t like what you’re sending them, your email is going into the spam folder. But there are ways to leverage AI for email marketing effectively.
What AI can do for you is help your team revolutionize your email marketing strategy. There are three parts to this: personalizing content, predicting customer behavior, and listening to customer preferences (like the time of day they check their email). If you do all of them effectively, you’ll create emails people want to read and your deliverability will take care of itself. Here’s how to leverage AI for email marketing effectively:
Personalization at Scale: AI can analyze large amounts of customer data to help you better understand individual preferences and behaviors. By leveraging this information for your email marketing efforts, you can create highly personalized emails that truly resonate, driving higher engagement and conversion rates. AI lets you implement these small, personalized, and highly effective touches at scale.
Predictive Analytics: AI can help you predict what types of content will be most effective for different segments of your audience. AI does this by analyzing past interactions to forecast future behaviors, allowing you to tailor your messages for maximum impact—personalization meets prediction at scale.
Content Optimization: AI tools can test various email elements—subject lines, images, and calls-to-action—to determine which combinations yield the best results. This data-driven approach ensures that your emails are both relevant and engaging. Automated image testing is a particularly new feature of many AI models that can help you optimize your messages for peak impact.
Optimal Send Times: AI can analyze when your audience is most likely to engage with your emails. By sending emails at these optimal times, you can increase the chances of your messages being read and acted upon.
The biggest pitfall to avoid is focusing solely on inbox placement rather than content quality. Spam filters are sophisticated and prioritize engagement. Emails that are relevant and valuable are less likely to be flagged as spam.
So instead of asking how AI can improve deliverability, reframe the question: "How can AI help me create emails my audience loves?" This shift in perspective not only enhances deliverability but also fosters deeper connections with your audience, leading to better long-term results.
