Email marketing campaigns: how to create and run them

An email marketing campaign is a series of targeted emails sent to a specific audience with one clear goal, whether that’s driving sales, nurturing leads, or winning back inactive subscribers. Email marketing widely considered one of the most cost-effective marketing channels available — with an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent cited across most industry reports.

This guide covers everything you need to build one: what email campaigns are, which types exist, how to set one up, and what to track to know if it’s working. Whether you’re sending your first campaign or improving an existing one, here’s how to do it right.

What is an email campaign?

An email campaign is a sequence of marketing emails sent to your subscribers with a single goal in mind. This could be encouraging engagement, nurturing leads, promoting a new product or driving sales. 

Each email points readers toward one specific action: signing up for a webinar, claiming an offer, booking a call. That’s your call to action, and everything in the email should be built around it.

Types of email marketing campaigns

Different goals call for different campaign types. Here are the five most common ones and when to use each.

Promotional campaigns

Sales announcements, product launches, seasonal offers, and discount emails. The goal is direct: get the reader to buy, claim an offer, or act before a deadline. These work best when they’re specific — a clear offer sent to an audience that’s already shown interest in what you’re promoting.

Welcome campaigns

A series of emails triggered when someone joins your list. It’s your first real conversation with a new subscriber, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. A good welcome sequence introduces your brand, sets expectations, and ideally leads the subscriber toward their first meaningful action.

Nurture campaigns

Also called drip campaigns, these are sequences designed to build a relationship with leads who aren’t ready to buy yet. They deliver value over time — educational content, case studies, product comparisons — moving subscribers closer to a decision. Particularly effective for products or services with a longer buying cycle.

Re-engagement campaigns

Some subscribers go quiet: no opens, no clicks, sometimes for months. A re-engagement email campaign is how you find out whether they’re still interested or ready to move on. Two to three emails is usually enough: a “we’ve missed you” opener, a follow-up with a reason to come back (a discount, an update, something new worth seeing), and a final “stay or go” email that makes unsubscribing easy. Letting go of uninterested subscribers isn’t a loss. A smaller, engaged email list outperforms a bloated one every time.

Transactional emails

Order confirmations, shipping notifications, password resets, and receipts. They’re triggered by a user action rather than a marketing schedule, and they consistently get high open rates because recipients expect them. They’re worth optimizing; they’re often the most-read emails your brand sends.

How to run an email marketing campaign

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty of email campaigns. Email is not an exact science but there are a certain number of tips you can follow to create some of the best email marketing campaigns and improve your email marketing strategy. 

Identify Your Audience

Start by defining who you’re sending to: their demographics, buying behavior, and what problem they need solved. That’s the foundation of any campaign that performs. Here are the steps you need to follow:

• Analyze current customers: Start by examining your existing customer base. Identify common characteristics such as demographics, buying behaviors, and preferences. This information forms the foundation of understanding your audience.
• Use surveys: If you lack detailed information about your audience, consider launching survey email campaigns. These can provide valuable insights into what your audience wants and expects from your brand.
• Monitor engagement: Pay attention to who is actively engaging with your brand, both online and offline. This can include social media interactions, website analytics, or in-store behaviors.
• Segment your audience: Divide your target audience into smaller, more manageable groups based on shared traits, needs, or behaviors. Consider creating segments for existing customers and prospective ones.
• Personalize communication: Email marketing thrives on personalization. By understanding and segmenting your audience, you can tailor messages that resonate with each group. This ensures that you’re sending the right message to the people most likely to engage with it, maximizing the impact of your campaign. This is where email is the strongest – sending the right message to the audience most likely to engage with it.

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Set goals for your campaign

Every successful email campaign begins with a clear email marketing goal. This could be increasing website traffic, boosting product sales, or improving customer engagement. Align your goals with your overall strategy and audience to create a focused and actionable roadmap for your email campaign. This will provide a clear framework for evaluation success and learning from each campaign.

Have in mind that for a goal to be as effective as you need it to be, it should be SMART. This stands for:

• Specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve. Avoid vague or general statements.
• Measurable: Set quantifiable metrics to track progress and success.
• Achievable: Ensure that the goal is realistic and attainable with the resources available.
• Relevant: Align the goal with your overall business objectives and target audience’s needs.
• Time-bound: Establish a timeframe for achieving the goal to maintain focus and urgency.

An example for a SMART email marketing campaign goal could be: increase website visits by 20% over the next month. 

Choose your email campaign type

Your campaign type should align with your set goals. If you’re looking to promote a new product, a promotional email campaign would be fitting. If you’re seeking customer feedback, opt for a survey email campaign. 

So, to further improve our SMART goal from before, we can phrase it like this: increase website visits by 20% over the next month using a promotional email campaign.

Write a subject line worth opening

Now that we’ve identified our target audience, and set our goals, let’s dive into one of the most important parts of our campaign — the subject line. 

The subject line is one of the first things your audience sees, making it a crucial element. Based on just this one little detail of your email, subscribers can choose whether to open it or not. And it can cut the number of people who see your message by more than half of your recipients. In addition, it can also affect the deliverability of your emails.

That’s why it should be engaging, relevant, and give a hint of what’s inside. Here are some examples of compelling subject lines (that you can steal): 

For Black Friday campaigns: 

• 🚨 45% off our bestsellers — today only
• You’re early. Black Friday isn’t. (Up to 79% off inside)
• ⚡️ Our biggest sale ever. No, really. 25% off everything.
• Go on, treat yourself. 40% off, just because.

For Christmas: 

• Order by [date] and it’ll be there under the tree
• 🎁 Santa called. He left something for you.
• We asked the elves. They said to grab it before it’s gone.
• Your Christmas list just got a lot cheaper.

For win-back campaigns: 

• It’s been a while. Here’s $10 to catch up.
• We’ve been busy since you left — come see what’s new.
• Did we do something wrong? Here’s $10, no questions asked.
• You’re missed. (And so is your cart.)

Write email copy that sells

Now let’s write a memorable copy for your audience. Crafting email copy that sells is both an art and a science. It’s about delivering the right message in a way that resonates with your recipients and prompts them to take action. 

Before we dive into email copywriting, here’s the most important thing you need to have in mind before you start writing:the content of your campaign email should meet the expectation set by your sender name, subject line, and preview text. This is not only important for your subscribers, but also for email clients, such as Google and Outlook. 

First, consider the tone of voice of your email. Generally speaking, this is your brand voice. But you need to decide how you’re going to speak to the different segments of your audience. Here are some examples of tone of voice that you can step on, or even combine: 

• Conversational 
• Professional
• Humorous
• Friendly
• Inspiring
• Formal
• Informal
• Witty
• Serious
• Optimistic

After you’ve decided on a tone of voice for your emails, you need to think about the email’s structure. Similarly to the website layouts, there are different email structures and each one can serve the goals you’ve set for your campaign:

• Inverted Pyramid: Heading, image, subheading, call-to-action button. This structure aims to lead your subscribers’ eyes to the call-to-action. 
• Z-pattern: Heading, image right, text left, image left, text right. This structure is great for newsletters as it leads the eye of the subscribers left and right and keeps them engaged.
• F-pattern: Heading, text left, image right, text left, image right. Similar to the Z-pattern, this structure also keeps subscribers engaged but might be easier for some to read as the text is only left-aligned. 

If you want to use the Z-pattern or the F-pattern, we recommend A/B testing what your audience prefers. 

Then, let’s move to the actual copy of your email. You should deliver your main message in a clear and concise way. Don’t confuse the recipients of your email with too much information.

You have only a few seconds to grab the readers’ attention. How to keep them engaged? Personalize your message. Use a friendly and conversational tone, and focus on the benefits for the reader. Ask yourselves “What’s in it for them?”. Then answer this question in your copy. 

And don’t underestimate the power of short sentences. Write sentences that are easy to read and avoid using jargon or difficult words. 

Email accessibility is also key. Make sure your email is readable on all devices. Use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to make it scannable, and provide alt text for images to support readers with visual impairments.

Create call to actions that people want to click

Email call to actions (CTAs) are pivotal in guiding your audience towards the desired action, be it making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource. Creating CTAs that people want to click is essential.

For a CTA to work, be specific about what happens when someone clicks. “Buy Now” and “Sign Up” are fine, but “Get my free plan,” “Reserve my spot,” or “Start my 30-day trial” tell readers exactly what they’re getting — and make the action feel like their choice, not your ask.

Urgency works when it’s honest. “Sale ends Friday” or “Only 4 spots left in the webinar” pushes people to act because the reason is concrete. A button that says “Limited Time Offer” with no deadline attached doesn’t create urgency — it just sounds like every other email in the inbox.

Before you finalize your CTA copy, ask yourself: what does my reader actually get by clicking this? “Download” tells them nothing. “Get the free email checklist” tells them exactly what’s waiting on the other side. The more specific the benefit, the easier the click.

And last but not least, make your CTAs stand out visually. Use contrasting colors, larger fonts, or eye-catching buttons to draw attention to them.

Timе your emails right

Another thing that can significantly impact your email open rates is timing. According to many online researches, including Bika.ai, emails sent in the mid-morning during the workweek tend to have higher open rates. 

The best send time depends on your audience, so test before you commit. If you’re reaching new parents, early morning might catch them before the day kicks off. If your list is full of business managers, weekends tend to work better. That’s when they actually have time to read.

Sending intervals between your emails are also important. Sometimes a very engaged audience would like to receive emails sooner rather than later while disengaged subscribers might prefer to hear from you less often. 

Key metrics to track for email campaigns

Sending the campaign is only half the job. These are the benchmarks that tell you whether it worked and where to improve next time.

Metric	What it tells you	Benchmark
Open rate	Are people opening your emails?	20–30% depending on industry
Click-through rate (CTR)	Are people clicking your links or CTA?	2–5%
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)	Of those who opened, how many clicked? A sharper signal of content relevance than CTR alone.	10–20%
Conversion rate	How many completed the action you wanted: a purchase, sign-up, or download?	Varies by goal
Unsubscribe rate	A signal your content, frequency, or targeting is off.	Below 0.5%
Bounce rate	Hard bounces mean invalid addresses that hurt your sender reputation. Clean your list if this climbs.	Below 2%

Track these after every campaign and look for patterns over time, not just one-off results. A single campaign with a low open rate might mean a bad subject line. Three in a row is a segmentation or deliverability problem worth digging into.

Common email campaign mistakes

Most underperforming campaigns come down to the same recurring issues. Here are the ones worth watching out for:

• Sending to your full list unsegmented. Not everyone needs the same email. Segment first, even if it’s just two groups.
• A vague or misleading subject line. If the subject line doesn’t reflect what’s in the email, you’ll get opens but no clicks — and frustrated subscribers.
• Multiple competing CTAs. One email, one action. If you ask readers to do three things, they’ll often do none.
• Ignoring mobile. Over half of emails are opened on a phone. An email that breaks on mobile loses those readers immediately.
• Never testing anything. Subject lines, send times, CTA copy — all of these can be A/B tested. Skipping this means leaving improvements on the table with every send.
• Never cleaning your list. A large list with low engagement hurts your deliverability. Remove or re-engage inactive subscribers regularly.

Start sending campaigns that actually work

Despite the constant shifts in the digital landscape, email remains one of the most personal and direct channels available. It builds loyalty in a way that social media rarely does — because it lands in someone’s inbox, not their feed.

But strategy and content only get you so far. You also need the right tools to put it all into practice.
SiteGround Email Marketing gives you everything covered in this guide in one place: easy audience segmentation, a no-code editor with ready-made templates, built-in AI tools for copy and images, and campaign analytics to track opens, clicks, and conversions.

This article was originally published in September 2023, and then updated in May 2026.

Frequently asked questions about email campaigns