11 of the Best Email Design Examples and Strategies

Allbirds places a creative GIF within the frame of a mobile phone to show how the virtual shoe try-on feature of their app works. The brief description below the GIF explains to the reader what they’re seeing and is followed by a single clear CTA. The whole email sticks to a black and white color scheme, making the real-life colors of the GIF stand out even more.

In this Modern Citizen product promotion email, the brand features white and cream clothing items and pairs those items with complementary background colors and matching model pictures. The color combinations create a blocked layout, with the hero image displayed in one big block at the top of the email. This color consistency aids in the flow of the email while adding an interesting composition instead of just featuring product images one after the other.
The result? A beautiful email.

Using an email template like the one above from Modern Citizen can be time-consuming. Mejuri proves that a simple one-column design can work just as well. The email follows a steady pattern of big image > short description > call-to-action. The CTAs each link to a different landing page and serve to drive traffic to popular categories on the Mejuri store. This approach is more interesting than just doing a product feature and gives subscribers a lot of opportunities to click through.

This email is a great example of how you can create a design element with just text. Adidas sends this email to recent buyers in order to get them to buy more and complete their look. It uses big and bold typography in combination with a ‘fill in the blanks’ approach to draw attention to its headline.

The headline is followed by dynamic content that recommends other products based on the purchase the recipient just made.

Raised Real uses on-brand icons throughout this email campaign to explain how easy their subscription process is. It’s highly relevant content aimed at turning leads into customers and guides recipients straight to the bright discount offer and the call-to-action at the bottom of the email.

It’s a great example of how you can use icons to take subscribers through a step-by-step process.

This Monica + Andy email focuses on just one product: their lounge robe. Doing this allows the brand to highlight the product’s key features with text and close-up images of product details. Using arrows to explain what the recipient sees in every photo is a more fun way to provide information than simply listing a bunch of features.

We tip our hat to the email marketer who came up with the concept for this hers email. It is unlike any other in our inbox. The brand incorporated a fun flowchart about its hair product. This is a great way to engage recipients instead of just talking about the product.

Venus Fleur takes social proof to another level with this email. It contains an animated GIF that shows how two top influencers rave about their brand on Instagram. Did Venus Fleur pay these influencers to promote them? Probably. Does this provide the brand with crazy social proof? Definitely.

Displaying the brand mentions as if they’re shown directly on a mobile phone adds to the realness of the social proof, not to mention that the phone with the moving images instantly grabs the recipient’s attention.

GIFs offer an entertaining way to announce a promotion or share a message. In this email, home decor store Josh&Main uses a GIF that opens up to display a 10% discount. The brand also does a good job at repeating its message in simple text for those subscribers whose email client doesn’t render GIFs well, and for accessibility purposes.

The discount message is followed by six calls to action that all lead to different store categories, making it easy for the recipient to start shopping for what they’re interested in. Note how the color of the CTAs is the same as that of the discount offer text and the coupon code, yet stands out against the softer pink background of the GIF.

Shipping confirmation emails and other transactional emails are usually quite uninteresting in terms of design, but they are an opportunity to improve the post-purchase experience. This example from Kendra Scott directs purchasers to their package tracking and follows the same branding as their marketing emails. This creates a more seamless experience for purchasers, even though these emails aren’t necessarily revenue-driving.

When emailing about a promotion, incorporate countdown timers to create a sense of urgency. In this example, RadioShack uses a countdown timer as part of their cart abandonment email to drive people back to their carts before it expires. The bright red border of the timer against the plain grey background literally highlights it and the animation itself is an eye-catching element as well. The red is repeated further down the email for the link and the call to action button that both lead to the recipient’s cart, as well as for important parts of the copy such as “free shipping” and “hassle-free”.