6 Most Clickable Email Campaigns of 2023

The month of December always feels like a time of reflection. The holidays are coming up, the New Year is around the corner, and Spotify Wrapped just exposed how embarrassing your music habits truly are.  

Thankfully, our list of the six most clickable email campaigns of 2023 won’t call out your true level of Swiftie fandom—it will only offer inspiration to bring to your campaigns in the New Year.

Each example from the MailCharts index demonstrates email best practices in action, powerful design choices, clever calls-to-action, and more hacks for increased engagement.  

ModCloth  

Let’s start with a bright and shiny email that welcomes readers into a rewards program. ModCloth is the LA-based online retailer of size-inclusive vintage-inspired women’s clothing. As a company that prides itself on building a “close-knit” community, their welcome email is perfectly on brand.  

Following email best practices, ModCloth immediately welcomes the customer to their rewards program after they sign up. This reminds the customer they opted in. The email continues by showcasing their beautiful products alongside quick blurbs about how their program works. The layout is easy to scan and provides information in short, digestible bites.  

Both ModCloth’s navigation bar at the top of their email and call-to-action at the end entice readers to click through to their site.

This email is the perfect balance of colorful, concise, and convincing. 

Spotify/Universal Music Group 

Okay. They may have exposed your music taste, but credit must be given where credit is due. Spotify, in partnership with Universal, created an appealing email with an enticing offer that persuades readers to click and builds trust.  

Customer data is the lifeblood of Spotify’s business model. In this email, they plainly ask customers to complete their profile and tell them exactly how their information will be used. With multiple options, the customer can choose which question/offer appeals most. If they’re a frequent concertgoer, they’ll offer their zip code for tour date info. 

The minimal design makes it easy for customers to digest and offers a sense of trust by eliminating any distractions that feel like Spotify and Universal are hiding their true intentions. Simple, straightforward, and honest are three often underrated approaches.

Mizzen+Main 

An abandoned shopping cart is frustrating, but following up can be a tricky task. American clothing company Mizzen+Main attacked this problem by leveraging dynamic content and a little humor. 

Mizzen+Main took advantage of their customer data to create a dynamic campaign that shows the exact items the customer left in their cart. This acts as a personalized reminder of their buying journey and encourages the customer to complete the sale.

What if the customer just didn’t want to purchase that item? Mizzen+Main answers this question with recommendations of other products based on the customer’s shopping history, keeping them bound to the brand and informed on product offerings. They also placed the full list of categories after the recommendations in case the customer wants to navigate elsewhere.

Pairing their dynamic content approach with a funny cart graphic at the top makes for an effective campaign moving abandoned carts through to checkout.

Office Depot  

A customer marking your email as spam hurts your email deliverable significantly more than an unsubscribe. The key is to make it easy for people to unsubscribe—so they don’t mark your emails as spam out of frustration. Office Depot found a way to create a compelling win-back program that included this philosophy and combated unnecessary spam labels.  

Office Depot’s cute office supplies character greets the reader at the top of this email and offers four simple options: Customers can choose a coupon and reignite their relationship with Office Depot, snooze emails for 15 days, fully reduce their frequency, or unsubscribe. This makes it easy for customers to choose the plan that works best for them while removing any opportunity for subscribers to mark emails as spam out of frustration. 

This campaign may seem simple, but its benefits will positively impact Office Depot and all their future campaign deliverability rates as well.   

Dolls Kill 

It’s tough to stand out in a crowded inbox. That’s why email marketers need to get creative to break through the noise. Dolls Kill, the popular online retail brand out of San Francisco, understood this assignment and hopped on a trend that fit best with their brand.  

It’s impossible to talk about the year 2023 without talking about Barbie. The Margot Robbie box office smash dominated the cultural space and Dolls Kill took full advantage of this in their marketing. This immaculately designed email takes the Barbie meme to the next level, showcasing their products while encouraging readers to identify with the different outfit ensembles.  

When it comes to capturing the readers’ attention and taking advantage of trends, Dolls Kill’s email was MORE than Kenough .

Zumiez 

A strong call to action is crucial for any marketing campaign, but the best CTAs meet customers where they are. The folks at Zumiez, the clothing/skating brand, did a fantastic job tailoring their approach to their audience in both design and CTA.

With a target demographic that skews younger, Zumiez understands that they need a way to grab attention at lightning speed. Their CTA to download the app is front and center, pushing their audience towards their preferred way of shopping. The rest of the email is designed to mimic a game with big buttons that lead directly to the rewards their audience is interested in. It’s as simple as open, press, win.

There are plenty of general email best practices that can help you engage your audience, but a tailored approach will bring your campaigns to the next level.

Savvy senders know the importance of bringing these email best practices and inspirational examples into the New Year, as well as preparing for upcoming trends.

In our upcoming State of Email webinar, our email experts will have a retrospective discussion on 2023 and share our predictions for 2024. Topics will include privacy laws, AI, Gmail/Yahoo’s new sender requirements, and more.  

Save your spot today!