When done right, email marketing campaigns are still the best way to make money. The Financial Post says that email marketing could give you $42 back for every dollar you spend.

You may have made some common email mistakes if your campaigns aren’t working as well as you’d like. Don’t worry, though—we can help!

In this article we will discuss top ten email marketing mistakes. So in no particular order, here’s what you need to avoid.

1. Keeping Unengaged Contacts

It doesn’t mean that an email list is good just because it’s big. Adding more people to your email list without checking to see if they are still active is one of the most common mistakes people make.

Instead, keep your email list clean by getting rid of people who are no longer interested in your business. A re-optin or reactivation campaign is one of the best ways to do this.

First, make a group of subscribers who aren’t doing anything. For instance, people who haven’t opened your emails in at least six months (you decide what the exact criteria are).

Next, send an email to subscribers who aren’t responding to your emails and ask them if they still want to receive emails from your business. You could also try sending this group of people different kinds of content or changing how often you email them to see if that makes them more interested.

If you still don’t hear back from subscribers who aren’t interested, it’s time to delete. Long-term, old contacts who aren’t interested in your emails will hurt your deliverability rates.

2. Forgetting the Power of Segmentation

You should not send the same email to everyone on your list. This is another big mistake in email marketing.

When you segment your email list, you divide it into smaller, more focused groups based on interests or traits that people in those groups share. This is a way to get more people to interact with your messages by sending them specific ones.

You can send different types of content to different contacts based on where they live, their demographics, their past purchases, and their preferences.

Sending an email to your subscribers and asking them what kind of emails they want to receive from you is a simple way to get their preferences.

3. Sending Emails At The Wrong Time

Figuring out the best time to send an email campaign is another hard part of email marketing. Even though many studies have found a “perfect” time to send, there isn’t one that works for everyone on your list.

Send Time Optimisation is a feature that Emailcosmo users can use to send campaigns at the best time for each recipient based on data from past engagement.

If you send messages to contacts at the right time, they are more likely to open and click on them, which will lead to more sales and conversions for your business.

ALSO READ: Why Email Marketing Is Still King in 2025

4. Not Checking Your Analytics

You’ve been sending out regular email campaigns, which is great! But have you looked at your campaign reports to see how they’re doing?

Always keep an eye on what your audience likes and doesn’t like. It will help your email marketing ROI and keep you from wasting time and money on strategies that don’t work.

Look at the content and subject lines that get people most interested. To do this, find the marketing emails that people open and click on the most. Think about how you can use this strategy again in future campaigns.

It’s also important to keep an eye on the rate of unsubscribes. Why do people choose not to be on your email list? After you look at your analytics, use what you’ve learnt to make your email marketing better.

5. Not Being Consistent With Your Emails

As bad of an email marketing mistake as sending too many emails, being inconsistent is even worse.

Sending emails too rarely or randomly puts a wall between your business and its customers. Some people who signed up for your emails may forget about them after too much time has passed and mark them as spam. Your reputation as a sender and future campaigns are at risk because of this.

Consistently sending emails about your brand will help people remember it. Like always sending on the same day of the week. Whenever you share something, make sure it’s useful for the reader and has a clear call to action.

6. Forgetting To Send A Welcome Email

When a new user signs up, do you send them an automatic welcome email? You should if you haven’t already. People are four times more likely to open and five times more likely to click on welcome emails than on regular promotional emails.

Sending a welcome email to new subscribers helps build trust by showing that you will do what you say you will do when people sign up.

That’s not all. Along with telling new subscribers what to expect from future emails, you can get them to interact with your site even more by linking to other content on it. In this case from our welcome email guide, TravelSupermarket does the same thing.

7. Using Clickbait-y or Misleading Subject Lines

It’s tempting to use a catchy subject line that will get people to click through and open your email. But this is a bad email mistake. ‍♀️

Watch out: subject lines that aren’t clear hurt more than they help. False advertising will only make your subscribers angry and turn them off.

This is so true that 69% of users report an email as spam just based on the subject line. You should still use catchy subject lines, but make sure they show what the content is really about. Don’t trick your subscribers.

8. Skipping A/B Testing

It can be hard to think about making changes to your email marketing plan once it’s all set up. Remember, though, that strategies are meant to get better over time. Iteration and A/B testing will help you do that.

Not sure what to check? Change the time you send, the subject line, and the deals or offers you offer to get more people to open your emails. You can get more clicks by trying out different email designs and buttons that tell people what to do.

A/B test often to see what gets people to interact with your content, and then make more of the same content for better results next time.

9. Hitting “Send” Without Testing First

You spent hours making the perfect email campaign that you sent to all of your email list members. You want to send it out and may even be in a bit of a hurry…

Do not rush things. Before you send that email, you should make sure it works.

Send yourself a test of your campaign and read it carefully. Look over the text, fix any mistakes, make sure the links work, and make sure it works on mobile devices.

You could lose all of your hard work and the way people see your brand if you skip this step. People won’t like it if you have typos and broken links. Before you send that email campaign, make sure you’ve done everything on our email marketing checklist.

10. Missing Chances To Collect Email Sign-ups

One mistake people make a lot with email marketing happens before the campaign even starts. It’s when companies miss chances to get as many email addresses as possible at the different places where people interact with their brand.

Do you have valuable content on your website? Make an asset that people can only get to after they sign up for your newsletter.

Do you run an e-commerce site? Give a special discount to people who sign up for your newsletter.

Putting on a webinar with a friend? Get people to come by giving them a free ebook that they can only get by signing up for your email list.

Final Thought

It’s easy to make the same email marketing mistakes whether you run a small business or email programs for a big e-commerce site. The good news is that they’re simple to fix.

Follow the tips above and make the necessary changes to your emailing strategy. It won’t take long for your campaign to do better.