Email Marketing. Some say underrated but do you agree?

Growing a brand’s email channel from <$100K to over $1M in three years was a good run. With that growth email became the brand’s #1 revenue generating channel quickly considering their ecom was <$500k when we launched their email marketing strategy.

Underrated for sure.

I learned a lot. A true testament to trial by fire.

My biggest takeaways were two fold -  understanding the value of 1st party data and knowing when to hand off your #1 channel over to an agency.

We double downed on email prior to COVID and it truly paid off as CAC’s with paid channel took off as fast as the pandemic did. Though rising CACs were part of the new reality we were still seeing positive results and began to set new baseline metrics while re-forecasting for the COVID curve.

Still underrated.

I quickly realized the real challenge was just beginning. In the coming months and years we saw nothing but change - change with algorithms, removal of  3rd party cookies and many more changes with the most recent update to Google’s email requirements.

Ok, maybe slightly overrated.

Many marketers didn’t see a viable path forward. Though these times were teaching us the value of “owning” your data, “owning” your leads and not becoming reliant on 3rd parties to be the sole driving force behind your ecommerce success.

But there is volatility in your “owned” channels as well. As COVID began to ease its grip we began to see for the first time our email KPI’s trend in the wrong direction. The trend became trends and inhouse resources we maxed. So we outsourced.

Yup, overrated for now.

We saw the trends move in the right direction with the help of the agency but we lost sight of our brand along the way and chased quarterly revenue through discounting and promotions. And they are right when they say it is hard to ease off the promotion throttle - hard for your top line and hard for your customer. Not their fault but they feel the pain. And so did we.

Where did we land while navigating this sea of volatility? Is email worth its weight?

Underrated when managed consistently and properly.