| name | email-marketing |
| description | Use when planning email campaigns, building automation flows, optimizing deliverability, writing email sequences, segmenting audiences, or analyzing email performance. Covers campaign strategy, list management, automation (welcome, nurture, re-engagement, abandoned cart), A/B testing, email design, compliance (CAN-SPAM, GDPR), and analytics. |
| user-invocable | true |
| allowed-tools | ["Read","Write","Edit","Grep","Glob","Bash"] |
Email Marketing -- Campaigns, Automation & Deliverability
1. Campaign Types
| Type | Examples | Delivery Target |
|---|
| Transactional (user-triggered) | Confirmations, receipts, password reset | 99%+ -- separate infra, no unsubscribe needed |
| Automated/Lifecycle (behavior-triggered) | Welcome, nurture, re-engagement, abandoned cart | High |
| Broadcast (scheduled) | Newsletter, product updates, promotions | Standard |
| Operational (system-driven) | Maintenance, policy changes, security alerts | High |
Frequency: 4-8 emails/month max per subscriber (excluding transactional). Use frequency capping.
2. List Management
Growth: Double opt-in always. Never buy lists.
Hygiene: Weekly remove hard bounces (<0.5%). Monthly suppress 90-day inactive. Quarterly re-engagement campaign. Annually purge 12+ month inactive.
Health targets: Growth >2%/month, unsubscribe <0.3%, spam complaints <0.05%.
3. Segmentation & Campaign Map
| Dimension | Examples |
|---|
| Behavioral | Product usage, email engagement, purchase history |
| Lifecycle | Subscriber, trial, customer, at-risk, churned |
| Demographic | Role, company size, industry, geography |
| Intent | Content consumed, pricing page visits |
| Segment | Campaign | Cadence |
|---|
| New subscriber | Welcome sequence | 5 emails / 10 days |
| Active trial | Onboarding tips | 3 / 7 days |
| Stalled trial | Re-activation nudge | 2 / 5 days |
| New customer | Success onboarding | 4 / 14 days |
| At-risk customer | Re-engagement | 3 / 10 days |
| Churned | Win-back | 3 / 30 days |
4. Automation Flows
Welcome Sequence (5 emails / 10 days)
Email 1 (immediate): Thank, deliver promised content, CTA: first action
Email 2 (day 1): Core use case walkthrough
Email 3 (day 3): 3 features relevant to their segment
Email 4 (day 7): Case study with specific metrics
Email 5 (day 10): Offer support, ask for needs
Branching: Skip ahead if first action done. Activation variant if no login by day 3.
Nurture Sequence (6 emails / 6 weeks)
1. Educational pillar content 2. Problem awareness (cost of status quo)
3. Actionable how-to 4. Case study with results
5. Buyer's evaluation guide 6. Direct offer (demo/trial)
Exit: Demo booked -> sales. Trial signup -> onboarding. No engagement -> monthly drip.
Re-engagement (3 emails / 21 days)
Trigger: 90 days no opens OR 60 days no login
Day 0: "Here is what is new" (3-5 updates)
Day 7: "Your account is waiting" + offer help
Day 21: "Should we stop emailing?" explicit stay/leave choice
Post: Engaged -> return to campaigns. No response -> suppress 6 months.
Abandoned Process (3 emails max)
+1 hour: "You are 2 steps away from [benefit]"
+24 hours: Offer help, address common abandonment reason
+72 hours: Final reminder with social proof. Optional incentive.
Stop immediately if process is completed.
5. Deliverability
Authentication (setup in order)
- SPF: DNS TXT listing authorized sending IPs
- DKIM: Cryptographic signature per email
- DMARC: Start
p=none -> p=quarantine -> p=reject
- BIMI: Logo in email clients (requires DMARC enforcement)
Checklist
- SPF/DKIM/DMARC passing; separate IPs for transactional vs marketing
- Double opt-in; hard bounces removed immediately; inactive suppressed
- Text:image ratio 60:40+; no link shorteners; clean HTML under 100KB
- Consistent volume; business hours in recipient timezone; unsubscribes honored <24h
IP Warming (new dedicated IP)
Ramp over 5 weeks with most engaged subscribers: 500 -> 1K -> 5K -> 15K -> 40K -> 80K -> full. Monitor bounces <2% and complaints <0.05% daily.
6. Email Design
<body style="margin:0; padding:0; background:#f4f4f4;">
<div style="display:none; max-height:0; overflow:hidden;">Preview text here</div>
<table role="presentation" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr><td align="center" style="padding:20px 0;">
<table class="container" width="600" style="background:#fff;">
</table>
</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
Rules: Min 14px body font. Inline all CSS. Retina images with alt text. Test Outlook + dark mode. Use <meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark">.
7. A/B Testing
| Element | Min Sample | What to Test |
|---|
| Subject line (highest impact) | 1K/variant | Length, personalization, format, tone, emoji |
| Send time | Full list over 4+ weeks | Day of week, time of day, timezone |
| CTA | 2K/variant | Button text, color, placement, count |
| Content | 2K/variant | Length, format, imagery, personalization |
Test one variable at a time. Send winner to remainder after 2-4 hours for subject lines.
8. Compliance
| Requirement | CAN-SPAM (US) | GDPR (EU) | CASL (Canada) |
|---|
| Consent model | Opt-out | Opt-in | Opt-in |
| Double opt-in | Not required | Recommended | Not required |
| Unsubscribe time | 10 days | Immediately | 10 days |
| Physical address | Required | Not required | Required |
| Consent records | Not required | Required | Required |
| Right to erasure | Not required | Required | Not required |
Best practice: Follow GDPR globally. Double opt-in + immediate unsubscribe + consent records.
9. Analytics & KPIs
| Metric | Good | Great | Investigate |
|---|
| Delivery rate | >97% | >99% | <95% |
| Open rate* | >20% | >30% | <15% |
| Click rate (CTR) | >2.5% | >5% | <1.5% |
| Unsubscribe rate | <0.3% | <0.1% | >0.5% |
| Spam complaints | <0.05% | <0.01% | >0.1% |
*Open rate unreliable due to Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Use click rate and conversion as primary indicators.
Attribution: UTM params on all links (utm_source=email&utm_medium=[type]&utm_campaign=[name]). Track email click -> landing -> conversion. Report revenue per email sent.
10. Personalization Tiers
| Tier | Approach | Example |
|---|
| 1 Basic | Merge tags | "Hi {{first_name}}" |
| 2 Segmented | Content blocks per audience | Admin features vs user features |
| 3 Behavioral | Action-based triggers | "You have 12 draft invoices" |
| 4 Predictive | ML-driven timing/content | Send before churn, not after |
Start at Tier 1, progress to Tier 3 before investing in Tier 4. Use conditional content blocks (2-3 max per email) with fallbacks.
