Crowning the Email of the Year EMOTY 2023

Speaker A: Which is a major failure. But all interactive content in email is not accessible.

Speaker B: Oh, just all of the center lined text. I mean it isn't surpassing three lines. However, when I see that I'm like, no.

Speaker C: Oh, we have a tie between espresso and uh, are you guys ready for Pokemon?

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Always.

Speaker C: Welcome back. Welcome to another episode of Inboxing. I'm your host, Hillel Berg. This is the finale of the Emoti series that I've done thanks to the amazing people at ah, Combi. Over the last four episodes I reviewed 12 emails. Three emails in each episode with four fantastic guests. And tonight I'll be reviewing all 12 with a different three incredible guests. Uh, at the end of the episode we'll be reviewing all the scores from all the different emails in order to finally crown the winner of the emoti 2023. That's email of the year. Please welcome tonight's guests, Emily Ammon, Lifecycle marketing manager at Lifeforce. Sarah Gallardo, lead email developer at Oracle Digital Experience Agency, and Rahi Jain, founder and thought leader at Retainup Retention agency. As always, if you enjoy this content, please subscribe and rate us on Apple podcasts and Spotify. Uh, your support means the world to me. This episode is also available view on YouTube and if you want to see the designs that we're discussing, I put all the links in the show notes. And welcome back to another episode of um, Inboxing. I'm your host Hillel Berg. Please welcome the three amazing judges and uh, let's welcome them in. First off is Emily Ammon. Welcome to inboxing.

Speaker B: Hey. Hello.

Speaker C: Thank you. Where are you from? Where do you work? What do you do?

Speaker B: I'm in Denver. I'm in the Denver area but I work for an LA based preventative and personalized healthcare company called LifeForce. I'm our lifecycle marketing manager.

Speaker C: Woohoo. There you go. You have it right there. All right, next up is Sarah, uh, Guilardo. Welcome, welcome. Tell us a little bit where you are and where you work.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: I'm in Denver. I work at Oracle Digital Experience Agency and I'm a lead email developer.

Speaker C: All right, and finally we have Rahi. You have your own business, right? You don't work for someone else?

Speaker D: Yeah, so I run my own email marketing or retention marketing agency. So uh, we have been doing this for like four years and earlier I was running my own e commerce firm. So I've been like into e commerce for last like 10, 15 years. 15 years. So, so. And uh, excited to be Here. So.

Speaker C: Amazing. Amazing. All right, well, here we go. I'm going to be, uh, sharing my screen. You guys all see that there is no sound. It's an email.

Speaker B: So I was surprised when this one popped up because it seems like there would be sound. And I was like, what am I even looking at right now?

Speaker C: Right. You can almost hear it in your head, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker C: Right. I mean, I think this email was. Because it's so not an email.

Speaker B: That's.

Speaker C: I think what is so amazing about this is like you don't think of an email as like a 30 second experience before you actually get to the email.

Speaker D: Like it's an interactive email or like how this like is happening is when

Speaker C: it's done, it looks better than it does right now. I'm not sure why it's not looking nice. You know what I mean by that?

Speaker D: Um, maybe in the dark, because I've

Speaker C: loaded this email a bunch of times, but, uh, there's no way to, you know, maybe I'll change it to Code View.

Speaker B: So my first thought is if this is happening here in this situation, like, how is this rendering across the board?

Speaker C: Across? Well, uh, I think there is a fallback, you know, like if this isn't your experience, I think there's a way, you know, a quick way to click the view and browser. You know, like, I've done stuff like that and I'm sure they did the same thing here. It's also interesting that as it gets towards the end of this words, it kind of, you know, skews, um, but it depends on the screen. Okay, now let's see if it does better. I think something might have broken.

Speaker A: Yeah. When I look at the code, I don't see any of the standard shell that we would see normally. I'm curious. I don't know if that's a parcel thing. I don't spend enough time in parcel. But I'm curious what's going on.

Speaker C: Right. Uh, you have access to this link so you can take a look yourselves. Um, it's in the document. Yeah, in the doc. I shared it. You should have this link. What's strange is that I've had this open all day and it looked nice. It didn't look like this looked much better. You could see there's white text or there should be white text or it's probably a background image that's not loading. I think that's probably what's happening.

Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Um, I just sent, uh, myself a test using the little parcel test thing, and it doesn't look good in email either. And I know when I got this email, it looked great.

Speaker C: Right now, that's it. I mean, something maybe broke between, like, now and now and today. Like, yeah, like, it's really strange, but, yeah, just. I mean, it's upsetting because, like, I want you to see how it's supposed to be seen, but just, you'll have to trust that at this point, it just looks really nice. And it's really just a shame that you can't see it the way it's supposed to be seen. All right, now we're moving on to the next one. This is BBC's, uh, Planet Earth 3, which, if you haven't seen, I recommend. Yeah, they have a nice gif to open it up. And it's really nice to see. What's really cool about this email is this whole interactivity thing, and it follows all the way through. Like, check out this. That is really, really cool. And then they have this. Each one has this section, Dessert and Grasslands. You know, like, about that episode. And then, like, a little.

Speaker A: Did you know none of it is accessible, though?

Speaker C: Oh, um, yeah. I don't know how accessible it is. I mean, it is all real text.

Speaker A: It's not at all what. But it's beautiful.

Speaker C: What part of it is not accessible? I mean, this is.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So if you start tabbing at the top, uh, you can get those CTAs, and then it just jumps right down to the extraordinary scenes. So it totally bypasses the entire interactive section. So it's not keyboard accessible, which is a major failure. But all interactive content in email is not accessible by default.

Speaker C: You can't have something interactive that, uh, is accessible.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, well, uh, for everyone else, there's this email. Um, it's cool. Also, what I liked about this, a lot of the content is about, like, experience they had filming the episode. And the do youo Knows, that was kind of cool. And this design is, like, so cool. Like the way it's, like, popping out at you and, like, this monkey's, like, coming out of the bar sort of. And then I have, like, uh. Like a great scene from that episode, I think. Does it go all the way through? I think it does. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: If I go. I know this is. That.

Speaker A: That.

Speaker C: That's static. That's not changing. I thought maybe because it was the monkey. Was the monkey, but. Yeah, no, it's not. That's static. But these are really cool. And this part is, you know, specific to what you just clicked. So that's. That's Some well done guys. Yeah, yeah. Good job. Way to go guys. All right, um, are you ready for Planet Earth 3?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Even this GIF is like, I really appreciate that it's light. You'll see some of the other emails that we look at like have GIFs that are like five megabytes. Yeah, I feel like I didn't clock this. I don't know exactly how big it is, but you can just tell it's not like HD sharp, sharp video. It's probably as light as could be. All right, I'm going to stop the share and we can open up our ranking and um, yeah, I don't know if you want to give it a point off for accessibility. I didn't put accessibility as uh, a metric, but if we do this again next year.

Speaker A: It was absolutely beautiful though. It was very well done. Obviously well coded. Uh, the GIF is technically accessible. Not looking too far into it, but it doesn't rotate. It seems to just animate once. That's great. It meets a lot of accessibility requirements, but not the big one. Did this have personalization?

Speaker C: I didn't give it a high mark for that, but I think it's their list. People that signed up for Planet Earth emails, like they're interested in Planet Earth and like this definitely that means they, they're very excited when they get this email, you know, like showing lots of different animals and the types of things and types of content they'll be seeing.

Speaker D: And it's mostly personalized on the like their interest type. So maybe like uh, it's uh, like it's not personalized for a single person but it's like uh, uh, they will have their favorite episode or like some kind of interest.

Speaker C: Right. Like I'll tell you, even the last one, you know the, the, you know, the Star wars one, like it's so tailored to the audience, the email geek community that I think like if there's a personalization, like it's speaking so strongly to them, like if you're like a five like that in that sense. I thought it was really very personalized. Uh, but we'll see some other examples where they hyper personalized it as much as possible.

Speaker B: I am curious to know um, what that subject line is though for that email because I mean can it be as compelling as the email itself? There's a good chance I might see that and just not open it just because I have too many other emails and that would be such a shame.

Speaker C: Right. Well, it's. Are you ready?

Speaker A: Emails can't beat me now that you know that that can happen. You got to be. You got to watch all of them.

Speaker B: I know, I know, right.

Speaker C: But something also about this email is that, uh, to access all, you know, they very clearly put it on top. To access all the interactive elements view online at the very top of the email.

Speaker B: I appreciate that. I've seen other brands put that in their alt text. And so when I view it without images, that is what I see. And I'm like, this is terrible alt text. And this is like, you know, a terrible experience. I would rather see that at the top just like they did. I definitely can appreciate that.

Speaker C: All right, you guys ready for Pokemon?

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Always.

Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. Did I say it right? Uh, I was bastardizing Pokemon in the original episode by calling him Pokemon.

Speaker A: Okay, I'm sorry, I have to go back. Huh. Because I didn't pay attention to the access all interactive elements view online. So just because you want me to

Speaker C: go back to it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker C: I can. No problem. I just closed it. So hold on. All right.

Speaker A: I'm just more curious if they actually mean access in an accessible way because it's still not accessible. Right? The view and browser link doesn't make something accessible. You still go to a browser view it the same way.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, no, it doesn't make it accessible. It's saying, yeah, if you're not seeing cool stuff in this email, like, then you're seeing it in the wrong place.

Speaker A: Ignore me. Thank you.

Speaker C: Right. Yeah, no, definitely. Look, you can't swing for that home run. And you know, you know, that's not going to work for everyone. You know, I mean, like, the only way to make things, I think, amazing and super accessible is, you know, with, like, incredible copywriting. You know what I mean?

Speaker A: Totally agree.

Speaker C: Yeah, but, yeah, but just in general, like, yeah, like, I didn't see that easily to find in the, um, in the Star wars email. I didn't see, like a quick, you know, like, if you missed. If you just saw this without all of that, like. Yeah, then click here. So anyway, yeah, let's go on to the next one. All right.

Speaker B: Uh. Such a winner.

Speaker C: They did a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like this whole aurora effect. Like, even the way this is, like, drawn, like, the background is moving, but the foreground is not. So it really pops. I thought that was really cool. You know, I'm not a huge Pokemon guy. I imagine if you were like, this is, you know, you're loving this email. And it's just design wise, they did a lot of Cool stuff. Like. Yeah. With this gradient button that. That has a cool hover effect.

Speaker B: Oh yeah.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, a lot of use of GIFs.

Speaker D: Like this is um, from the layout perspective, this is like run of the mill. Like uh, the previous two were like more like uh, edgy or like more uh, like cutting edge. This is like uh, a regular email you would expect and.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I just think that there is a general like hero image, but even the hero image itself is a really cool gif because they just, you know, added an aurora effect in the background of a static image. I thought that was pretty neat.

Speaker D: Also like uh, in the GIF, like once the two GIFs comes, like I like personally don't prefer like if two things are moving like down, uh, in the.

Speaker C: You're talking about here, bias over here.

Speaker D: Like two chips, like two elements are moving. So I prefer like uh, one element at a time, sort of like in a single view. So. That's right.

Speaker C: You can't, you can't control that.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Like what, you know, what works when. I mean unless you get a little carried away. But I think what they're trying to do is because, you know, it's a holiday gift guide.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: So trying to like show like they have a lot of different products, uh, for the Pokemon lover in your life.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's something I can appreciate. Despite there being two moving images. Like I'm kind of with you, Rahi. It's like it's a little much. However, I do want to see the options and I don't want them taking up the entire email. So it works for me.

Speaker C: Yeah. Right. It's also cool. I think they're showing like different age groups. You know, socks and pajamas and then also Lego and T shirt.

Speaker A: I feel like as a parent who's shopped for Christmas gifts before, like the specific stuff your kids want, like the exact image of the thing your kid wants is super important. So I agree, like it is critical. But I'll also agree that it annoys the crap out of me. Like I just sitting on my screen over here and I'm just like stop. But yeah, uh, no, it's. It's a gorgeous email. Very well done.

Speaker D: Sometimes you want to read the text and you like. I typically tend to like, because GIF distracts me with the reading text. So like I tend to move the scroll up and like remove the uh, GIF from the view just so I can focus on the text. Otherwise like something is.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's cool. I used like a solid background color throughout Here. But then brought back that, like, Aurora effect background on this band, on this picture. Like without, you know, like, sort of in a natural way.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, that's a good call.

Speaker A: It definitely is. Like, a nice repetition. Like, it carries you through pretty well.

Speaker C: Yeah. They're also, like, pitching different stuff, right? Like, they're, they're pushing the website. There's a bunch of CTAs here. Like, they got the gift guide. They're pushing you to Amazon. They're pushing you to, like, watch together. That's like, over here they have a marathon of Pokemon. Uh, Pokemon, Pokemon.

Speaker B: I'm just gonna keep letting different iterations.

Speaker A: It really is like a smorgasbord of, uh, CTAs. Like, there's just so many. And I, I, I feel like it could feel a little heavy, but I feel like for Pokemon for Kids stuff, it totally works in ways where, like, if this was like the New York Times emailing me with these many CTAs, I'd be like, no, stop.

Speaker C: Right, right. Yeah, for sure. It's a really. Yeah. And then even, yeah, you have, like, all these different channels to engage with, um, Pokemon, so. All right, uh, start your review process.

Speaker A: Can I be a punk and give my accessibility notes?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, go for it.

Speaker A: All right, uh, so all of these images do not have alt text, and they are linked images, which means that they have to have alt text. So screen reader users, when they're getting to these images, are going to get like that entire posted image URL spread out or the link uh, URL. And they are tracked emails, so they have super long, like. So it's pretty awful from that standpoint. And the animated gifs have some accessibility issues as well. But it really is really nice saying

Speaker C: these images don't have alt tags. Most of these images or all the images don't have alt tags.

Speaker A: I don't see a single image with alt text in it. I haven't gotten all the way down. Like, maybe the socials do those tend to get.

Speaker D: Ah.

Speaker B: It surprises me when someone makes such an incredible email, but misses some of those, like, seemingly very basic things.

Speaker A: Like, huh. Yeah, it's a have to in my book. Also, all of these, uh, headlines are paragraph tags and they should be heading tags. So I mean, they're like, I'm not going to say they're minor, but they are easy to make.

Speaker C: Yeah. Like, I was impressed that, uh, well, this is not real text. And, um, I think it is.

Speaker A: No, it's live.

Speaker C: This is real text, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's all yeah, it should be heading. Yeah, the headline looks like a headline.

Speaker C: This should be a heading tag.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's paragraph. Yeah. All right, so like, okay, yeah, I mean they're minor things but easy to change.

Speaker D: Like for mobile we also uh, like there uh, are large cta, like a long cta, like four alpha, uh, like four word cta. So in mobile that becomes little bit like will it fall down? Like I don't know but like that's a uh, area where the things can go wrong. So something. And also I would add it like Amazon link or like a logo or something. Like uh, uh, I didn't knew like Amazon was there. Like that's from a performance or conversion perspective that like it's taking me to Amazon.

Speaker C: Okay, we're ready for the next one. All right, so the next one I have to show you guys in like two tabs. Okay. So the reason why. Yeah, there's two here. You can see all my stuff. Um, yeah, because for some reason the background and some of the gifs broke in the original email. Yeah. But this is actually what the email looks like. But this functionality is broken on email. Love. Oops, what did I do here? Okay, and so we'll go back here because here it does work. Ta da. So yeah, what that does is basically if you follow uh, formula one, the course has lots of sharp turns and it tells you about the track and the special corners of this uh, Japanese racetrack.

Speaker B: Oh, I see. That's super cool.

Speaker C: Yeah, that is pretty cool. Uh, but I broke the email here. How do I revert this? Try we'll save m my. There we go. All right. Yeah. So this is how the email should look with the cool Ferris wheel and the flag and um, gets design points for that. And I think that's pretty cool. And this is all real text.

Speaker B: I know Sarah is probably thinking. I am.

Speaker C: What's that interactivity?

Speaker B: Oh, just all of the center aligned text. I mean it isn't surpassing three lines. However when I see that I'm like, no, this is gonna cause me too much eye strain to read. I'm not doing it left align it.

Speaker A: It's not, ah, three lines each. It's three lines total. Like that's too much your text, uh,

Speaker C: for one section saying this should be left aligned. That's, that's the argument.

Speaker A: And, and the hotspots aren't accessible either. But that's not right.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: Obviously the challenge becomes that the whole email is like center line. So like if you take the just the hero text on the left then it Will break the, like, uh, um, the symmetry. But that's the challenge. Like, uh, if you make it left aligned, then, uh, rest is whole. Email is like center line. So, like, for last text, you need left aligned.

Speaker C: Right. I'm going to show you the weather for the. Yeah, that's. That's hella hot for the Fahrenheit people here. 38 is like 100 degrees.

Speaker A: Um.

Speaker B: Oh, gosh.

Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah, I didn't. Yeah, you don't think of, like, Japan as being particularly hot, but apparently it can be really hot. All right. Hey, Oracle, did you code this? No, no, but you're responsible.

Speaker A: We're in everything.

Speaker C: Yeah, I like that they have View browser right prominently in the bottom there. And it's also. Also everything's colored. Right. You know, looking matching colors and all that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I really like the design of this. I mean, it's. It's maybe a little over the top, but I think that that kind of works for what they're doing with it. Like, I don't, uh.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's Red Bull, you know, so, yeah, it's definitely intentionally over the top. That's their. That's their brand is super over the top, so it works for them. Good job, guys. Um, stop the share. Okay, good. And let's rank it. All right, you guys ready? All right, I'm going to open this up. Um. Okay, here we go.

Speaker A: My daughter loves Bluey.

Speaker C: I've watched a little bit of it. I have some little kids and we've watched a little bit of Bluey. So much so that when we got two fish a few months ago and my 3 year old wanted to name them two characters. I don't remember the names, but two bluey characters. It was that time.

Speaker A: To be fair, my daughter's 21 and she still likes Bluey, so.

Speaker C: Well, that came up actually, when I recorded the original episode, that it's a very beloved show by people of all ages. Here it is. So what's beautiful about this? I thought it was beautiful that this is looking. The idea is that it looks like a fridge, like with the magnets, you know, holding stuff on the fridge.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's cute. I originally thought it was like a desktop, like someone like, you know, what you're looking down at on your desk, but. Fridge.

Speaker C: Fridge works. Yeah, it's a fridge. And then, uh, you click the open. You know, that's, uh, how it works. And there goes the confetti and boom. All right. And yeah, I was pretty cool with the confetti in your face kind of thing. But yeah, 14th of April. Yeah, apparently it was a big Bluey wedding on the 14th of April. And, um, this is what they sent. But, um. Yeah, so they have like a preview, a trailer they put into it. Yeah, they got. And I assume if you're a watcher of the show, like all these. There's a lot of jokes here that I'm not getting. But, you know, the duck cake pavlova and the, uh, edamame.

Speaker B: Even though I'm not. I just love this. Like they took it all the way with like a, A wedding invite.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, A million percent. Like they did a great job. Uh, yeah. And if you didn't watch the episode, me and uh, Ben Clay, he designed it, but they do it very hand in hand with the BBC team. And yeah, like, they just did it. Great.

Speaker D: And if you click on vote, like it will show the numbers. Like if you click on vote. Uh, of course. So, uh, yeah, so that was also.

Speaker C: Oh, very cool. Um, very cool. Do you know if that's static or if it's real, Mike? Is it like.

Speaker D: It's uh, like, uh, real time or.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You know, if I would have clicked it a few months ago, it had different numbers. But I mean, if you're a bluey fan, like, this is just the greatest thing ever. I think what we're seeing with a lot of these emails. But just. Yeah, it also has a save to date link, uh, which probably works. It doesn't work in this. This is in parcel. But I imagine in the real one, um, they probably use that save the date functionality that you can get in, uh, parcel. Yeah, we're cool. But then you gotta show the, um, different calendar links.

Speaker A: But anyway, is it weird to anyone else that there's not a footer? Like I wonder if this is like a, uh, parcel thing or like just.

Speaker C: It's crazy long. I didn't. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, there is no footer. I imagine there. Yeah, there had to be a real footer in by default. But it's really cute that it's so long. M and M. You got all this and I don't know if this goes anywhere. Yeah, it took me to watch that episode. That was pretty cool. I mean. Yeah, you guys seen that? So that was pretty cool. Everything you know about the sign, that's cool. I didn't know if, like I can actually watch it, um, on VBC without a vpn.

Speaker B: These are always the types of emails that I would love to see in my mobile and just see if, you know, is that performance matching this desktop view.

Speaker C: I think if you notice everything is very central aligned.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it looks like it would probably function well. And it seems like they've really considered a lot of different scenarios here. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: I think you'd lose out on like maybe like these elements or, you know, they just like stick out a little bit, which are cute and they add to the whole effect.

Speaker D: But really committed to the idea. Like, so they went like, uh, aesthetics wise.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's, um, great.

Speaker B: And I appreciate the brevity too. Like, no, there's no huge paragraphs. There's like, not an excess of reading to do, which always makes me happy because I'm not. I'm not opening my email to read very much.

Speaker C: Right, agreed. And they. Yeah, they just did a great, great job. And so cute.

Speaker A: It's absolutely beautiful. And I love, um, like, I love how much of it is live text and that they're using like specialized fonts. Like, I, I really like that. Like. Yeah, that you're invited is not.

Speaker D: But.

Speaker C: Right, that's what I'm wondering. This is like what I'm checking here. Yeah. Like, this is an image to get that other.

Speaker A: Because you can't. But they do have alt text on that image, which is.

Speaker B: I'm sure.

Speaker C: I mean, um, I. I'd be shocked if anything coming out of, uh, Action Rocket didn't have alt text. Like, I feel like you guys.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: I think Jay would let that happen. Or any other coders there.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think my only real kind of pain point is that the CTAs are, uh, text only. So like that entire. Wait, no, it's working on yours. I'm sorry I was looking at this earlier. Okay. Now it's a real button.

Speaker C: It has a nice little even on, like. I don't know, I don't use hover effects much, but they're nice.

Speaker A: So if you're, if you're slow over it, you can only click on the text. You can't click like below the text.

Speaker C: Okay. You can. That's not clickable.

Speaker A: So that whole CTA is not clickable. But I mean.

Speaker C: Right. Because the anchor is on the text and it's just padding around it.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah, well, it's not padding. It's like a table with the anchor text inside. But. Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. Actually, you know, my entry point into email marketing was as, uh, lead developer. But when that company closed, I had to turn myself into a marketer because development wasn't really. So the opportunities weren't really there for me. Like development here was really mostly gaming and things I didn't want to be promoting M. So yeah, if Bluey was an option, maybe I would have kept at it.

Speaker B: But anyway, let's few years.

Speaker C: We gotta keep it moving. Yeah, we gotta keep it moving, guys, because like, yeah, uh, we're 45 minutes and we've done. I think this is the third or the fourth. This might win for me if I'm the only one voting. This one scored really highly.

Speaker B: Same.

Speaker C: All right, all right, so now we got this one. Okay. Yay. All right, cool. All right, so this was a, you know, Dreamforce starts tomorrow. This was in September, um, and I think in San Francisco. But anyway, everything, you know, this is. You registered for this event. You got this email, you know, and it's of kind getting you ready to go and make sure you have your ID with you and where you're going. Um, I wonder if they made sure this didn't become clickable. You know what I mean? Like, or at least visibly. I mean, I didn't just turn into a blue address and mess up the design.

Speaker A: I don't see anything.

Speaker C: This is on email low, so I don't know exactly how genuine it is. You know what I mean?

Speaker B: If you.

Speaker C: The code behind it is like the actual code. That's what got sent.

Speaker A: Yeah, like I've noticed just like poking at the code. Most of the links are. Well, some of the links are just like a hashtag instead of like a full link.

Speaker C: So I don't know, not a real link. Well, that just happened there. I think I clicked something and it just scrolled me to the top of the page. But it's nice that they give you your agenda. Like it's very timely and it's nicely laid out. And uh, I mean it would be really nice if these were like wavelengths, you know, like. Yeah, but if I could click that and know exactly where I'm going, um, that would be really cool. I don't know if they're doing that in real life, but, um, I assume if you're at the event you can find, you know, these different places to go.

Speaker A: This email hits so many accessibility pluses for me. Like, I'm really excited seeing this. Right, we got one. Um, I have, uh, there are a couple of missing alt text on linked images, so that's a minus. Like most of these side by sides that you have, like that guide is linked but doesn't have an alt attribute. Uh, so that could be improved. But I mean, I like nothing else here is really, I guess There could be some color contrast issues without me going like super into it. But like perfect. I love it.

Speaker C: All right. Yeah, design wise, they did a nice job with it. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker D: No, I was just saying like from a copy and layouting I had some feedback like uh, on the banner and like uh. The copy is not like the hierarchy of the copy is not. Like it's not clear that what's the uh, purpose. CTAs are like a green and then orange. Uh, like green. And like the main banner, uh, this was like uh. The CTA was not there and it's like use the same color. Like if you go on the banner, like uh. It used the same green which is like a CTA color which should be a different. Like that's a banner, that's not a city. Like also the time mentioned over there in two column on the banner. Like those things like the hierarchy of the overall. Like uh, the how. I like uh, want someone to consume the content. So hierarchy of content is uh, a little bit off for me. Like especially in m. The banner area. Like just about this. About this.

Speaker C: Uh.

Speaker D: So that part, I had the same

Speaker B: feeling about that top banner. It seemed like it was meant to be a button or something. And I'm not sure still if it is or not.

Speaker A: Like, like this.

Speaker B: Should I click out to that or not? Is that a button? Am I going to say?

Speaker C: I don't think it's a button. I think it's just, you know, like they wanted to have it stand out. I'm not sure. Like this is dark color anyways. I get it was just the design choice, I guess of the designer that put it in like this oval which to us all looks like a cta. But I don't think it was meant to be a cta.

Speaker D: And this like pickup time and just like left, right location time. So like a how I go about that, like that was like this part, uh, the uh. In the lower area, like the layout has been done very nicely. Like left, right. And like the. The uh.

Speaker C: Uh.

Speaker D: I'm able to consume properly like keynote and like the uh, sessions and all those things.

Speaker C: It's also very actionable. You know, it's like important information like where do I pick up my pass, you know, or badge. Like when you get to a conference or like. Yeah, but you know, it's pretty much the first thing. It is the first thing like. Okay.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think uh, as someone who just did a conference last week, like I found myself at the taxi, like ordering a lift and having to like, look through, like, three or four different emails to try to find the hotel that I was at. Like, where am I going? Like, being able to have that information right there is just so super, like, important. And one of those minor things that you maybe wouldn't think of unless you were really thinking about your customer and your user.

Speaker C: Yeah, they did a really good job. I think there's like, yeah, like, if I'm going to a conference, I want an email like this. Exactly. Like, what am I doing on day one? What are the sessions? Where do I get my badge? Yeah. And don't miss the keynote. Like, that is. I've been at conferences where like. Yeah, like, I was talking to people. Then all the main. All there's, you know, the keynote going on. So. And obviously these are the sessions they want to promote. And here you could book meetups, um, and talk to product experts. And then they got. The design is really, really cute. And they're pushing their event, uh, app, I guess, which is really cool and, uh, cool. All right. Get, um, start ranking. Okay. You guys ready? All right. You guys know Graza?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I've definitely seen their packages. I always mean to buy some, but I haven't gotten any yet. It looks good.

Speaker C: Okay. It's squeezable olive oil for people that don't know. And I discovered this brand, you know, when I reviewed this email with, uh, Emily Ryan, she knew it, but we had a really good time going through this email. See why, first of all, it's beautiful.

Speaker A: It's a medium scale. It's images only.

Speaker C: Oh, I know it's totally images only, but I don't know if that's how it was coded. Like, I, you know, again, like, it could be. He. He took a screenshot and loaded up to his website. Um.

Speaker A: Oh, no, it's coded to be images only. Like, if you. Because there's a code tag in the email love thing where you.

Speaker C: Huh. You could look at the code. Okay. So you can see it's all images. Yeah, I know.

Speaker B: That's.

Speaker C: It's shocking to me. Like. Yeah, like, uh, what. What font is this? Like, it. It so easily could have been real text. So. Yeah, even this is like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I don't know what you call this text, but it's, you know, it's like that very old text.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, they definitely could have made this live text.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, all of it. And they did also a nice job, like, with the tree growing out onto the next, you know, section. Like, I understand why it's not true. Right. Like, they Just, they probably just don't have anyone on their team to code it. That's what I imagine.

Speaker B: That's the situation I'm in. And I'm very familiar with like you know, wanting to make an email that's beautiful but kind of having to do it this way definitely is a reality for so many small brands.

Speaker C: Yeah. That's not easy. It's a super informational email. Like, you know, like it's been low down on our labels and they go through like what does all this stuff mean? And they're basically two different kinds but they do a beautiful job of uh. Yeah. Our only ingredient is olives and. Yep. Extra virgin. And what is extra virgin? And that it's only cold pressed and there's no chemicals or heat and not every olive oil is extra virgin. So. Yeah. And then why. And then it's much more healthy and you, you know all the anti oxidants and all the vitamins and everything else. So. Yeah, it's the best.

Speaker A: It's super informative. There's a couple.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So that animation that's right there isn't just that headline, it's like that whole section. So like from a like um, kind of efficiency standpoint, like that's going to end up being a much bigger gift than it needs to be. Not that that's like a major gripe but.

Speaker C: Right. But if you're really reading it, it's, you know, it'll take you a minute to get down there anyway.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, but I hear you. You know, but you see that a lot I think, I mean I don't, I don't deep dive on um, too many but I imagine you'll see. We'll see another example I think where you'll see text going with a GIF and it's like sort of silly.

Speaker B: I really appreciate this content that's like something that could be really dry and boring. But I think the combination of design and the fonts that they used and like you know, just some of the phrasing really like it's like, oh, I know, I want to know about the harvest date. Now that you've put it this way, you know it's like very fun.

Speaker C: Right. It's very engaging. Like this really kind of boring, dry information. But they made it really fun with the gif and also even just the highlighting with the different brand colors.

Speaker D: Yeah. In the uh, like uh, I like the ah, like labels also like uh, it's clearly visible on the labels as well. So it's.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think even if you thought of putting this in like if like Bertoli made this email or something, it would all be in like a horrible sans serif on white and you, you know, be snoozing. By the time you got past the first paragraph. It would just be like sloths. This is definitely way more engaging.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I think that's there. I think we're seeing that. And you know, you want to talk about D2C. Like I feel like, you know, if uh, a company's only selling, you know, olive oil and you need to, you're breaking into the market, like you need to be different and you need to be, you know, like more fun and doing something a little bit crazier, you know, to get noticed and um, become, you know, something that people will buy. So I think that's been, I've been

Speaker B: in that position a lot and it is, it's so hard to. I feel like it's just. Yeah, it's the ultimate challenge and they've just crushed it.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think they were all. Anyone. Yeah. Working for any small brand and trying to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Like, yeah, this is a. We see brands like this and I think of cereal as like another one that's just crushing it if you know. Cereal. Yeah. Um, yeah. DDC cereal. Yeah. Spelled with the best.

Speaker A: I just wish that screen reader users were getting that same experience because like the alt text is only giving the headlines, it's not giving any of that additional content and information. And I just feel like that's such a mission. Like I know if you have to do image only emails, at least try to make sure that all of that text is in the alt attribute.

Speaker C: I feel like we're going to get to a place not too distant future. We might already be here. But like there must be like AI screen readers that can actually read, you know, images that are text.

Speaker A: Um, it's getting there for sure, but it's not very accurate. And like then they kind of get into this like. Well, you have quirky text. So how well is that going to be read, you know, by the OCR that's pulling that in. But I mean.

Speaker C: Right, I hear that.

Speaker B: I also have to say we're still, I'm still on the left aligned train. There's a lot of center aligned copy. You know, I can't not mention it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: All right. I mean here, this is left aligned, you know, so I'm not sure what you saw that like was. Oh, like these paragraphs.

Speaker B: Yeah. There's some other paragraphs that are A bit longer at the beginning, I think.

Speaker C: Oh, like all of this. Mhm. Oh, and all that. Yeah. Okay, you win. But also, I love the way they use. Yeah. Like that they have like two flavors and one's more for finishing and one's for. For cooking and. Yeah, we're all about that. Yeah. Nice job with the gif also again here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Even like on the bottle, if you look. What the heck am I looking at here? Yeah, like squirting it into the pan behind the back. That's. Yeah. It took me a second to understand what I'm looking at. But that, that's gutsy, you know, is also good.

Speaker D: Like, uh, I'm more stickler for the, like the header part and like, uh, uh, they missed like a CT on the top, like on the hero banner. So.

Speaker C: Right. Do you guys know what this is like, you know what you're looking at here?

Speaker D: Like cold press, like a wood press. This is more like.

Speaker C: That's a. Yeah, that's a millstone. Like that. I mean, they're. It's. It's enormous because they have what. I live in Israel, so. Yeah, there's. They have them, you know, all over the place. And they're enormous and they're used for crushing the olives. Um, but I kind of feel like I don't think they're doing that anymore. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker A: I was gonna say, like, I could totally see having this. Like this email just kind of almost makes me like pictures like dancing and cooking in the kitchen at the same time. Like it just has like this very, like, cooking can be fun. Like I've, um. Like my kids are grown, but like, uh, as someone who's had to cook dinner every night for the last like 20 years, like cooking dinner every night gets really boring and really annoying. Um, but this just kind of like, I don't know, just feels like.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, 100%. Like now you want to take the frying pan behind the back and squirt oil over your shoulders without making a mess all over the place. So. Yeah, with a squirtable oil, I guess that would be possible. And then. Yeah, even this, you know, like. Yeah, they're showing this like oil dripping onto ice cream. Like, you know, just not the normal, you know, like. Yeah, not what you think to put on ice cream.

Speaker B: Um, I'm so curious to know if this brand has their own internal marketing team doing this or if they're outsourcing this because I want to know who made this. It's so beautiful.

Speaker C: I always wonder that about like, Brands I love. And then, and uh, then sometimes I see brands I love like totally change and it's upsetting. And actually one of the, the brands I did love is Moose Jaw and Mountaineering.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. They were amazing.

Speaker C: They're amazing. So I had on Michael Johnston last year and I checked recently their emails on Milled or one of those and uh, it totally changed. Like the emails are totally different. Apparently Dick's, uh, fired the whole team and they work with some agency and now that agency is handling the emails for BoostJaw. And it's not nearly as fun. It's much more what you'd expect to see but without the fun. So I'm going to stop the share and um, let's review that Graza email. And here we go.

Speaker A: I'm actually, I have to cut in because I was like getting curious so I went to their website and I'm actually kind of mad to discover that they're using this live text font on their website. Why aren't they could do that on their email? Sorry, I'll stop complaining now.

Speaker C: You're right, you're right. But yeah, I know I'm a terrible judge because I feel like I'm giving like 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.

Speaker A: You didn't pick any bad ones. These have all been amazing, right?

Speaker B: Top evils of the year for a reason, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, I should have made it out of 10, you know, like instead of out of five that way we need more variants. Oh, actually this one scores pretty low on technical. No live text and all that, so. All right, we ready for Sky Sports? You guys ready?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Uh, all right. Okay. All right, let's, let's do it. Let me go to preview mode. Okay, here we go. All right, so it's a really nice gif and um, it's really short. Like what's interesting about this gif is like it's really only like maybe three seconds, but there's a lot packed into three seconds. Yeah, I mean, you're back over there again. So this, what you have to know about this email is this is a win back campaign. So these are people that were using Sky Sports, uh, and they had it, uh, and they canceled at some point. So they used a lot of data to super personalize this email. Yeah, like all of this, you know, you watch more than 95% of fans, which. We're joking. I said to Ben Clay that maybe that's why they canceled. It was taking over their life. But yeah, which was over, you know, 122 hours of sport and include 37 different events. You know, like, you're nuts. And this would show, like, their favorite player based on their past history and what sports they watch based on their past history. Um, and they're trying to give them a deal and they get all the stuff. Eight channels in one. Yeah. So sign up today. But yeah, the big thing they did here is really, uh, using all those different data points that they had to super personalize this email. And it was a very successful campaign, uh, from what I understand.

Speaker D: Definitely, like, these kind of emails, um, like, winback doesn't work. Like, the success rate is very low for winback emails.

Speaker C: Like, it's tough generally.

Speaker D: Like, these are. These are done very nicely. Like a lot of data points and like, they are all relevant and this thing. So.

Speaker C: Right. I think they give it their best swing, you know, like. Yeah, you're right. It's the bottom of the barrel. But whatever you can scrape out of there is, you know, is great. And they're sort of a warmish audience. Like, more. It's cheaper to, you know, to send this as a win back than to, you know, paid ads and look for new traffic.

Speaker B: So I will say my first, um, just some of the first things I noticed is that the. I have a m. Little bit more of a writing background. So some of the copywriting is just a little. It could be a little more clear, I think, and concise in. In very small ways that just make like the. As you're reading it, like, it just rolls a little better and makes more sense if. If that makes any sense to you. So there's like, um, I hear you.

Speaker C: Like, it's like, even like this. This text, I feel like it could be broken up more. Like, even though, like this. Check out your I was there sporting stats from your last year and get back into the action.

Speaker B: Like. That's exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just, uh, some ways that I. I don't know. As I was reading this, I was like, wait, what? What? Um, maybe I'm just getting tired or something. But yeah, uh, you know, um, I think that good copyright, you know, it's okay copywriting, and then there's sometimes great copywriting and it's not quite there.

Speaker C: Right. Should there be a comma here? Like, last time you were with us, Emily?

Speaker B: There's a couple places where there could be some commas or like, there's not a period at the end of the sentence, which is also interesting right there.

Speaker A: I was wondering how much of this could just be, like, from, uh. Like, different language culture kind of thing. Because Sky Sports British. Yeah, I think it's more like, uh, international. So I was wondering if maybe that could be part of it. But, yeah, reads funny to me also as an American. So I don't know, it could definitely

Speaker C: be the British thing. And it also could be for not. It could be not even Britain, you know, I mean, I don't know. Like, they might use this in India or somewhere else, you know, I mean, isn't sky like, the Sky Network is, like, all over the place?

Speaker D: No, like, this is UK heavy.

Speaker C: You think? It's uk, yeah. Sky, I think. Yeah. And the WS guy in Australia.

Speaker A: I think a thing that really bothers me about this is how everything is all caps. I get. I, uh, I really like that. Again, it's a screen reader issue. Assistive technologies are gonna. Might end up spelling a lot of those words out instead of saying them. And just visually, it feels like they're yelling at me in just a lot.

Speaker D: And also, like, the bullets, like that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They are like, uh, this is. At least they went, uh, like this five bullets was not like, aesthetically, they, like, they went in personalization direction, but they, uh, kept all the text, like, pasted over there. Like, it's not. Like, it's not. Yeah, like, the placement would have been, like, better.

Speaker C: And it's usually they didn't use any, like, interesting fonts. You know, like, everything to me looks very vanilla.

Speaker B: I think what I'm curious to know if they did this with for people over a certain, um, amount of watch time or sports watch, because it would be very funny if you received this email and maybe you didn't engage with them quite enough. And it's like you had 17 minutes that you watched. Don't you want to come back?

Speaker C: Right. I think they definitely segmented, but it was interesting when I had a conversation with. I'm forgetting her name. But yeah, one of the pitfalls of personalization is if you don't do that segmentation. You said something that makes no sense, uh, to somebody. Uh, so, all right, let's, um, let's rank up. Um, the Spice Sky Sports. And yeah, I'd say for a win back, this was, you know, pretty good job. But compared to, I think some of the stuff we've seen, it's not. It's not quite that level.

Speaker A: But yeah, I could definitely imagine if you were like, really, really in the Sky Sports, that you would find it more appealing than I do. Like, it probably has that level of personalization to it like, because it is personalized, because it is sports focused. Like, sports people tend to really like their sports.

Speaker C: Yeah. All right. Um, okay, here we go. As this next one. Not. It's not my favorite. I shouldn't slam everyone out of the gate. But you'll see. I mean, it's an Apple email for their iPhone 15, titanium, which is only a thousand dollars or $41.62 a month for two years. When you buy a plan, maybe. But yeah, and they're Apple. They, uh, they're showing you, you know, this incredible profile of the phone with the three cameras. And it's Titanium, so you could drop it probably.

Speaker B: I always think their emails are a little funny because they have all of these specs. So there's just a lot of numbers that you start seeing showing up, like, on your screen. And as I'm scrolling and I see like, you know, numbers like 48 MP. And in my brain I'm like, okay, well, MP can mean a lot of different things. So when I see like, little acronyms and numbers, I just kind of start to lose interest and, like, disengage a little bit. I don't know if anyone else does that or if that's like a me

Speaker C: thing, but I feel like this email, like, it's for the Apple file, you know, it's for that person. And if you're not. Yeah. If you're not gonna spend a thousand dollars on your phone, then, yeah, this is not the email for you.

Speaker D: But on their website, they have like, nice images with the content. Like when they are talking about these specs. So they have like, uh, uh, cool images over there. Like, uh, in this, it's like one image is there and then it's like overload of attributes, like, uh, the specs. So, yeah, I would also, like, add more images to this, uh, little bit. Like, make it more digestible.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, like, that's. In terms of pictures of the product. Yeah, that's basically three pictures. Interestingly used an emoji, which seems like off brand a little bit, but it is.

Speaker B: But that's like the. I'm like, now more entertained than I was.

Speaker C: Right, Exactly. Yeah, I, Yeah, they became people like, yes.

Speaker B: I'm like, oh, I use that emoji all the time. And like. Yeah, right.

Speaker C: Uh, like with @t and you trade in your old phone and.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, so that's pretty cool. Is it 60 cents? Like, what are they trying to say here at that point?

Speaker B: That's where I find it confusing, where you just start seeing all of these Little numbers and sub. Or like maybe it's not a subtext, but you know, something like that. And, and those things sort of like catch my eye and throw me off. I think that's kind of what I mean about like seeing all these numbers and.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Things.

Speaker C: Yeah, you're not gonna like that.

Speaker A: I, I feel like to the like tech bro who's like super, super into Apple stuff, like, they're gonna be like, oh, look at that new titanium design. Like they read all those little bits and that's really important to them. So I can, I feel like it's kind of like the sports email. Right. Like, this is to a very specific audience who like is looking at all of the specs of every new Apple product, you know, with like drool coming on the side of their mouth. So like, I feel like, uh, does that. You know what I mean, for those people. But I agree with you that I don't like, I don't like it. I have some accessibility notes related to color contrast on some of these. I assume because it's Apple that they're probably right. But like especially like on the black, I feel like that gray is pretty light. But this is also screenshot, so there could be some. Um, but. So yeah, I have a couple of questions on that. But Apple in general does a pretty good job, um, with accessibility. I did notice because. So this is just a screenshot. So I just went to really good emails and grabbed a different Apple email and I did look and like some of the alt text is kind of weird. Like there's some that just have spaces in them, which is generally not good. So I don't know why they would do that. And it also has a lot of vml. Uh, but it is at least meeting some pretty baseline accessibility requirements. So that's great. But yeah, it's so boring for those of us who are not super excited about iPhones.

Speaker C: M. Right. Like we got so excited seeing an emoji.

Speaker A: Well, and how far did we have to scroll before we were like, oh, that's interesting.

Speaker C: Like that's there's something. And then realize like, did you see how much, you know, footer their legal

Speaker B: team chokehold on their marketing?

Speaker C: Um, it's tough to be a marketer.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, they are at least full paragraphs, like actual enclosed in paragraph tags, which is great. A lot of times companies with giant walls of text just use line breaks in between each of those paragraphs and then that makes screen reader users have to read that entire block of text instead of being able to just Go to each one. So that's great.

Speaker C: Give them points for that.

Speaker A: Yeah. If you're gonna have a positive, that's it.

Speaker D: I like the header part. Okay, thank you.

Speaker C: Sorry. The very top of it.

Speaker D: Yeah, like, uh, so I like the. It started like the CTA was very prominent and like it stood out. Like, so compared to other emails, like, that was one, um, positive for this one.

Speaker C: Right. Like in the first, like right away is a nice cta and blue. It really stands out.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And what they're selling you is obvious in the first second. Right.

Speaker D: And that's something.

Speaker C: All right, cool. All right, I'm going to stop it. We're going to move on to the next one after we review that one. But we're wrapping up here.

Speaker A: I feel like I'm getting more critical as time goes on.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker C: Okay, we're ready for. Here we go. All right, so this one's fun and you'll find out why in a second. All right. So, yeah, they're trying to sell you a car. It's Acura. This, uh, so this is like a very heavy. I think it's like four megabytes. Two second clip or a three second clip. Yeah. And this is part of that. Yeah, this is what I was telling you before. I think this text is part of that. Yeah, it's part of the video. So how weird is that?

Speaker A: I don't mind it too bad when it's a headline. Uh, I mind it when it's like the entire section. But I mean, plus that like. I mean this is kind of an alt text hack. But like having text in an image does give you alt text. Um, that otherwise would be maybe hard to write. I mean, I don't think it would be too hard to describe driving a car, but. Yeah.

Speaker C: Right. Yeah. There's also like this hover effect, like when you mouse over the video.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I keep seeing that. And on the next image, like why, what is that hover effect for? It's not doing anyone anything.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker A: It feels like an old. Like they reused this template and somebody wasn't paying attention is the way it feels like from, um, someone who's in the production.

Speaker B: But okay.

Speaker A: I, I assume.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's also. Yeah, I don't even know why, like why turn the lights off here.

Speaker D: Taking off from the experience. Yeah. And the text, like text.

Speaker C: I think darkening something with on mouse over is like not a great experience. Yeah. And this is a big block of text that's totally centered, aligned, and this

Speaker D: could have been like Apple. Like the bullets could have m. Been taken out and like, uh, with the. Shown with the icon, like they have shown, I think.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I mean, it's a big thing. Like they made a deal with Tesla, so all the Tesla superchargers are available and, you know, they're doing what they can, um, promising that there will be places to charge.

Speaker B: So, uh, without reading that, all of that copy, I would not have known that. And yeah, I feel like Rahi's right. Like some other indicator of that might have drawn my attention a little bit more to the fact that like, oh, you're gonna have a place to charge because of this.

Speaker C: Right. Like you needed a headline. Like. Yeah.

Speaker A: Like a Tesla logo would have been helpful.

Speaker C: Yeah. Easily adaptable. All right. I mean, they really try to grab you, I guess, that video.

Speaker B: And they have just, uh. This is a sort of random note, but they just have a couple different hover effects. Like some of these buttons go lighter, some of them go darker. Same with the images. I think it's based on the background color, which is like just an interesting choice for the most part.

Speaker C: Everything gets darker. This video gets lighter. Or this image gets lighter. That gets lighter. This gets darker. It's kind of random.

Speaker A: Yeah. I'm trying to find what's actually causing it, and I don't see it immediately,

Speaker C: but it's all over the place. So it must be somewhere.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker C: We're ready, uh, to move on.

Speaker A: Uh, I had a couple notes too, I wanted to call out. So none of this text is semantic. It's all just text load into table cells. And the CTAs are even images, which I am also not cool with. Um, but they have really great alt text. All of the text on all of their images exists on their alt text. So that's great.

Speaker C: Good job.

Speaker A: Yeah. And loads of centered text. I mean, this is too much centered text by a lot.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker D: I am just taking notes for technical performance. So my whole answers are influenced by Sarah. Uh, and this is in the end.

Speaker C: So, uh, uh, for me, you lose a lot of points for using a 4 megabyte or 5 megabyte GIF. Because for most people, you just open this email, what do you see? You start. If I see this paragraph of text and maybe that loads before that loads.

Speaker A: Well, I feel like it's so big too. You're going to be reading through half of the email before that images load. Image load.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Sometimes you come back to the top.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Or at some point, like the text you're Reading gets pushed down.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and you're like, oh, something loaded. Um, all right. Okay. So this is into a turbotax.

Speaker D: Never been a fan of like, uh, menu in the emails. Like, now it is. This was like, uh, earlier. This used to be the trend. Now it's.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And the welcome. Also, like the heading, like, three tips. So I didn't catch that. Like, three tips. Like, they started with the tips and then it's fine. But adding should have been a little

Speaker C: bit right on the face. I think this was a lead cap, you know, lead gen campaign. Like, I assume they saw an ad to sign up to get your text guide. And so, you know, first they want. Basically they want you to sign, you know, to go on YouTube and subscribe to their YouTube channel where they actually invest a lot. They do. No pun intended. But yeah, they do a lot of content on YouTube about how to save on taxes and stuff. So that's like a big goal of the email. And then, yeah, there's another one. Latest inflation adjustments, blah, blah, blah. Um, and getting organized and six ways to write off your summer, which is really good to do. Okay, should we go back to the top or should we go through it again slowly?

Speaker B: I guess I don't feel like I have much to say to this because it's like, it's all just very straightforward. Like nothing.

Speaker C: It's very straightforward.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: There's no. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it is what it is.

Speaker D: This is nicely done. Like, tip part was, uh, a little bit different, which is like in the middle of the email. But that's, uh, like a, uh, cool way to show a tip also.

Speaker B: Yeah, I thought that was interesting too.

Speaker A: So it took me a really long time to actually notice the carousel.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I just came across it too.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I. Which I kind of appreciate that they. Because I feel like anytime any email marketer uses an interactive element, they, like, put it at the very top and they're like, look at this amazing thing we have. So I kind of like that they made it a little more like, uh, supplemental instead of like, look at this, um, even though it's still not accessible. But that's a different problem. They actually did a really good job with the semantic text here. Like, I'm not seeing any major accessibility failures. Um, aside from the keyboard on the carousel.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is action, uh, rocket. And I think they. One of the first things I noticed is they code semantically. Jay looking at his code was super semantic. So they did. Yeah. It's a nice job.

Speaker A: Yeah. And A lot of these images are not linked and don't have alt text, which is great because they're all decorative images and should not be, uh, linked or have alt text. So this is great.

Speaker C: Nice.

Speaker B: Did you notice the, um, carousel we were just talking about that. We'd kind of glossed over that. Um, where's our carousel?

Speaker A: Yeah, Further down the bottom in blue background. Yeah, right there.

Speaker C: Ah, okay. There we go. That's nice.

Speaker B: Aha.

Speaker C: Uh, dei. Oh, interesting. It. It's interesting. It scrolls back that way. It doesn't loop.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: On that third press, it just. It scrolls back to one.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think something that speaks to me with this email is that, um, they clearly have a brand voice that's very like, you know, they are, um, the informers. They are very, uh, professional. Um, but it's not overly dry. Like, I'm like, it's very compelling. Yeah.

Speaker C: Even the, you, uh, know, I mean, it's. I don't know what font this is, but, like, it's very, you know, like, you know, San Serif, you know, like nice text. And even, like, I like the use of, um, GIFs. Like, it's very subtle.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and there's there also here.

Speaker A: M. We were saying hello. We. We liked that the carousel wasn't like, at the very top, because that's so like, any email marketer is going to put their interactive stuff at the very top. So you make sure you see it. And I feel like they like, with all of their kind of interactive elements, like the gifts and everything too. It's more like supplemental. It's not like, it's not the main message.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Right. Like they want their messages to come through and not, you know, just show you, uh, carousel.

Speaker D: One thing in carousel is. Was like CTA was changing. Like, that was, uh, like CTA is changing. Like, the lower part is also changing. Like our programs. The CTA will change in this. Like, I didn't catch that in the first group. So if you move forward, like scroll up or scroll down, like in the browser, like, if you, uh, move to the next slide. So the lower part of the CT is so. So I missed that in the first.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, that's interesting. Okay, I'm seeing that more.

Speaker D: Yeah, that's more likely to get missed from the user also.

Speaker C: But then each slide, it's not just slide the image, it's really the whole thing.

Speaker D: Yeah, the whole thing.

Speaker C: So that's pretty cool. All right, Nice email. I appreciate it more and more as we're getting into it. So I'm glad we gave um, it the extra time. All right. Okay. All right, so next one up next and last. All right, so this, you have to know about the timing of this email. Um, there's no Brits here, but um, this was sent as part of a series of emails from Nespresso. Is Nespresso enough America? Like not really. Right.

Speaker B: Uh, I think it's here, but it certainly doesn't have as much of a stronghold as it does in Europe.

Speaker C: In Europe. Okay. Yeah, so it's huge in Europe. And um, yeah, so this was for Britain and during the coronation of uh, King Charles, uh, so they did a whole series actually of these like limited edition pods, jewels of Nespresso coffees. So like, yeah, special select type of thing. And they use this, this effect which they use, you know, we've seen it in a few places. Yeah, they have a special mug. Like they're selling all these different accessories so people can make their carnation parties with uh, their edition mugs and coasters and the edition and all these different, you know, classic a tote bag. So this effect lets them show. And this is real imagery, you know, they made for this, you know, campaign, I assume not only email, but yeah, the towel, they really went a little nuts. Um, and then they have this thing. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker D: I was just saying like, ah, from technically and like from interactive perspective it's like a cool effect. But uh, as a user it's like um, uh, to see all the products I have to click five times or even I have to cross also. So it gets 10 clicks to see all five products. Um, I would prefer a B testing with the Open Products showcase also because I have to. Nothing against it, I'm just saying that from interactive versus to see all the five products I have to click ten times.

Speaker C: Yeah, I hear you.

Speaker B: I'd be curious to know a heat map of um, of um, this email,

Speaker C: how this was used. Yeah, yeah, this was actually a really cool thing that they did. Um, but the whole point here is like plan your coronation, ah, party, you know, like how many people are coming to your party and then you know, what kind of smooth and balanced or both lively or fruity and whiny, you know, so then when you click the show me button, they'll tell you that you need four sleeves of Master Origins Columbia to ensure that each guest gets at least two cups of coffee over the course of the day. Left a little leftover for the morning after, of course.

Speaker B: I'm so impressed by all of the options that someone had to write out for this, like, all the possible options. But that's just such an overwhelming task to me as a, you know, this single email marketer on my team, I would be like, sounds great, but we're not doing it. So props to them for doing all of that.

Speaker C: Yeah, 100%.

Speaker A: I definitely feel like the copywriting really shines in this piece. Like, you're very engaged with copy. I can't help but wonder, as an American, of the headline at the very top. Arise. We are now a copy nation. Like, I want to know how that landed. Um, but I. I definitely. I mean, it's really gorgeous. I love all the interactive elements. Like, what I really like about them is that they're, like, very beautiful interactive elements. They're not, like. I think a lot of times, like, I think, uh, the Grand Prix one, um, had, you know, the same hot spot, but this is, like, a very elegant, classy hot spot. It's not, you know, in your face.

Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with that. Like, it's. It's regal feeling through the whole email.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, well, I think it's not accessible,

Speaker B: but this is, like, something that we are familiar with, too. This is like, you know, magazines or catalogs kind of have this same style where with the Grand Prix thing, it almost took a minute to be like, oh, that's a map of the course, and they're showing us something. So there was, like, maybe a gap in understanding, like, what is the action that I'm about to take by clicking this button or even knowing if it's clickable, I think.

Speaker C: Right. I think the implementation was also different. It seemed to me like when you click that something, it wasn't as instantaneous. When I click, it's like, boom, it opens. And in that email, it took a second. I don't know what they're doing because it's email.

Speaker A: I think there's just so much visual noise on that one where this is almost like the exact opposite. Like, this is nice and calming. Even though we're drinking coffee, it's like, you know, we're just super chill this whole time.

Speaker C: You know, I think for what they're doing, like, they did a great job. Like.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, I don't know if there's a way to do this email better. I think they. They crushed this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: As well as, like.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely agree. Yeah.

Speaker C: Even this was pretty cool. Like, they have, um, Espresso Coffee Nation is, uh, hashtag. You know, it's taking some pictures from there and I assume their Instagram page. I don't think it's other people's stuff,

Speaker D: but

Speaker A: I always like it when brands do something more interesting with their social shares than just, like, blocks. And I think that's just. Just a really nice way to tie that together. I did also want to call out that even though the interactive elements are not accessible, most of the rest of this email is. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how accessible the rest of the email is, but at the same time, it is as accessible as it can be given those parameters. I think that's great.

Speaker C: Awesome. Uh, also just a note. This, like, this was moving, like, till, like, apparently, like when you were, I don't know, two days before, three days before, you know, I was moving towards the crown. That's excellent. Yeah, yeah, it was cool that way.

Speaker B: Uh, I will say I searched hashtag Nespresso Coffee Nation on Instagram just now, and, um, it came up with nothing. So kind of a funny side note,

Speaker C: it's a fake out. Maybe it was a Twitter hashtag. I don't know. That's weird. Yeah.

Speaker A: Maybe they took it down because the coronation is over. I don't know.

Speaker C: It could be. I mean, I feel like it was a really long time ago. I don't remember exactly when it was.

Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't that long ago.

Speaker C: When was it? When did the king become the king?

Speaker A: I feel like it was this year, maybe in the spring.

Speaker C: Uh, I'm googling it. Um, May 6th.

Speaker A: No. Okay. May 6th, 2023.

Speaker C: Yeah, it was a full year ago.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Um, all right. I'm, uh, m glad we dug back into, you know, April, I guess, to find the best emails of the year, but. Yeah. All right, let's rank that email.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker C: That's it. We did it. I mean, I did it. I don't know if you guys are done. I'm going to go good.

Speaker A: Here.

Speaker C: Take a look at our results.

Speaker A: I'm also done.

Speaker C: All right, now, how do I do this? There are eight responses. That's pretty good. I have to work on this. Who's really good with Excel? Or any of you guys consider yourselves, like, a super pro.

Speaker B: I feel like I typically am, but on the spot, probably terrible.

Speaker C: Okay, well, I'm gonna have to add in. What happened is I think there's no way to see which emails. 1, 2, 3. So I have to, like, break it up. Like add a column.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, good. Now I know I'll insert a column here. Okay. And then I'll write here, the first email was Star Wars. Okay. Star Wars.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: And then the second email we looked at was what do you remember? And looking at the response of BBC, uh, BBC Earth. Okay, thank you. All right, BBC Earth. Okay. Then Pokemon was the next one.

Speaker D: Third one. I'm looking at the results, like, on the submit. After the submit, there is, like, C responses. So there is a chart.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker C: Uh, okay.

Speaker D: Blue one.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Okay. What was after Pokemon? Louie.

Speaker D: Uh, after Pokemon. That was like Red Bull racing.

Speaker C: Ah, Red Bull. Okay.

Speaker D: Then Bluey was there.

Speaker C: And, um, then Bluey.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. I could show you guys, you know, so it's not boring. Just see what I'm doing. So this. We just said this was Bluey.

Speaker D: PPC is. I think, uh, there. Blue is there. And last one is Nespresso. Is there, like, these three?

Speaker C: Uh, who's after Bluey, though?

Speaker D: I'm just like, by looking at the numbers, I just say, like, by looking at the charts, like, I'm just.

Speaker C: Okay, yeah, I was just looking. I got PVC and then Pokemon. Dreamforce. That was the Dream Force email. Yeah, Dream Force. Okay.

Speaker D: Um, then it was Browser. Hollywood. Sky Sports. All right, Sky Sports.

Speaker C: This is Sky Sports.

Speaker D: IPhone.

Speaker C: IPhone. Okay, after that, what do we have next?

Speaker D: Acura.

Speaker C: That car one. Yeah. Nike. Whatever it was called. Oh, shoot. There we go. And then TurboTax. TurboTax.

Speaker A: And then Nespresso.

Speaker C: Okay. And then Nespresso.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, so now equals sum, um, of, um. All right, that's our first score. All right. And then equals the sum of base two.

Speaker D: I think it would work.

Speaker C: Espresso is in the lead. Yeah.

Speaker D: And Espresso is in the lead.

Speaker C: Equals even this base. What's that?

Speaker D: Uh, you can just paste the record. Like, uh, if you copy 146 and paste it over here, it will pick up. If you copy 100 and just paste it over.

Speaker C: You're saying just copy this and then paste it over there?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, nice. Okay, second would be.

Speaker D: Bluey would be close.

Speaker C: Oh, Bluey is in a way, for sure.

Speaker A: Oh, that's so close.

Speaker D: And BBC.

Speaker C: Oh, I believe you see, it's very close also. All right, so I think we have a winner on the. Yeah, right. 162. Nothing is better than 162. Right.

Speaker D: And, um, tied up.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's, uh, 146. Oh, we have a tie between Espresso and. Wow. I don't believe it. Really? Should we have a vote off, like, three to crown one. One winner ballot? You know, I can have a question, you know, like, it's just between them to. Who would you vote for? I'll do I'll set that up. All right, so give me a minute. Well, uh, um, I'll stop the share for a second and set it up.

Speaker B: I do wish our tiebreaker could be like, um, how is this coming through in mobile? A little bit.

Speaker A: They both look so good in mobile too. Um, they were both, um, mobile and managed to work correctly. Mhm. I'm really torn on this. They're both good.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: All right, we got Bluey and then, um, 355. It's a hell of a score. Oh, uh, wait a second. Did I just do the entire thing? Oops. Yeah. Okay, my mistake. I'll have to redo that. Um, insert one left. And this is an espresso 179. Okay. And then we just take that. And over here. Whoa. That's a close result. You guys see that?

Speaker A: Daring. That is so close.

Speaker C: That is crazy. All right, well, congratulations. Let me remove that. Uh, congratulations to Bluey and uh, the entire team at Action Rocket for creating, uh, the, the emoti. The email of 2023 with, uh, Bluey's wedding invitation email. Yeah. So thank you to all our guests, Emily Ammon, Sarah Gailardo and Rahi.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker C: It's a pleasure hosting all of you. Thank you for, you know, your patience with this whole thing. And um, we wrapped it up in just two hours. So, uh, thank you very much. Very, very much. Really, really appreciate it. Uh, it's been great working with you guys. So I hope, um, can have each of you on, um, inboxing the next few months. I hope to record a bunch of episodes, so definitely love to hear more about what's going on, um, in each of your, your work. So, yeah, that's it for sure. All right, guys, yeah, it's 11 o' clock here and it's 12 o' clock in Dubai, so we're gonna go to sleep. And you guys are watchful Thursday, y' all too.

Speaker B: Good night, guys.

Speaker C: Have m a good one. Bye. That's all, folks. Congratulations to Ben, Clay, Bex Osborne, the be BBC Bluey team, and to the entire team at ah, Action Rocket. You can find links to all the email designs in the show notes. Uh, thanks again to our incredible sponsor, Kombai. If you enjoyed this content, please share it, rate it, and review it on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much. Bye Bye.