Interactive content will open up new areas of application for email

With interactive content, email marketing is taking another important step into the future. Email clients are now increasingly allowing to the email what is already standard in other areas of the internet. This opens up new areas of application for email and might challenge email marketing (possibly in a technical way).

In apps, on websites and in social networks: interactivity is standard in digital media. This has not been the case with email, which has been inferior to websites in terms of technical design options. This is finally changing. More and more email clients allow interactive content to be displayed in emails. At the same time, the creation of interactive content in email marketing technologies is becoming increasingly user friendly.

These developments also provide email marketing with new areas of application:

• In-Mail Shops: Online stores are integrated directly into the email. Selection of articles, shopping cart functionalities and further steps of the purchase process take place in the email instead in the separate online store.
• Configurators: Shoes in different colors, the car of your choice or a suitable insurance policy: Products can be configured directly in the email.
• Surveys: Multi level surveys with different question types, including free text answers, are carried out in the email.
• Menus: Nested menu structures, sliders and other elements taken for granted on the web can finally be mapped in the email.
• Forms: Registrations for online services or inquiries can be carried out via in mail forms.
• …

Good reasons for interactive emails

Already 55% of marketers use interactive emails or plan to do so (See Litmus State of Email). Above all, two reasons drive the increasing use and benefit of interactive emails:

• The tracking limitations of iOS15 and Gmail mentioned in Email gains a new value in the business modell can be partially circumvented or offset with the tracking options of interactive content, as user responses can be tracked within emails.
• Interactive content increases response rates. On the one hand, this is because interactive content encourages users to interact more with the email (as the name suggests) and still has a certain innovative novelty value. On the other hand, interactive content in emails also eliminates media breaks, which are common reasons for bounces, especially when the customer experience between different channels does not appear clean and seamless.

This type of communication is primarily a technical challenge for email marketers. Marketing automation is a must. Real-time capable processes, even across systems, enable fast response to triggers. The consistent collection of zero and first party data enables ever better individualization.