Through a mix of event- and segment-triggered emails along with recurring campaigns, I continually exceed and average unique open rate of over 50 percent. Traditional A/B testing and newer practices like predictive time optimizations and dayparting have become essential to furthering program success.

With recent changes to iOS, downstream events, such as clicks, are critical KPIs to email marketers. This requires extensive testing with CTAs including button text, style, and placement. In addition to these A/B tests, I continue to experiment with playful CTAs such as social contests, mystery sales, and more.

The key to successful email marketing is to first grow a subscriber list and then turn it into a healthy, nurtured community. An important part of my strategy is to understand who are customer is and how to get them to opt-in and remain opted-in. Content is king, but context is everything — requiring the proper segmentation for customers to receive the appropriate email along their journey and to prevent churn.