Best practices for increasing campaign engagement

Campaign engagement refers to opened emails where recipient clicked a button. (Learn more about campaign performance metrics.)

This article assumes you've already authenticated your domain and configured other campaign defaults.

1. Clearly identify your target audience

First, identify who your target audience is. Ask yourself:

Who am I trying to engage?
What are some specific characteristics that make them unique?
Who should not receive the email?

Use segments to define your customer group, such as users with low adoption, key contacts from accounts at risk, users with high NPS score, etc.

Additionally, segmentation can help you determine the timing of your email delivery. Will you send it one time to customers who currently meet target criteria (e.g., a product announcement for customers with Product A) or ongoing as soon as conditions exist for each user (e.g., a primer when approaching contract renewal).

By default, ongoing emails don't target the same user twice.

Best practices:

Whenever possible, never target more than 1 campaign per day to the same group of users
New sign-up flows or program opt-ins will be ok to send more regularly (e.g., 1 campaign every 1-2 days)
Space your nurture drips out to every 3-5 days

2. Massage your message

Write with your customer in mind. Try starting by answering the question, "What’s in it for them?" Try starting with a campaign template or leverage the AI content generator for inspiration.

Additionally, give your audience a clear call to action (CTA). And always place the CTA (button) above the fold (top half of email) so they see the button as soon as they open your email. Don’t make them scroll!

Here are some examples of tying your email goal to your CTA:

Email Goal I want this audience to...	CTA Button So, I will tell them to...	Measuring Success I’ll set the email goal to...
Register for training	Register Today	10% of openers register for training
Complete at least 1 task	Login OR Get Started	25% of target list logged in
Participate in NPS Survey	Clickable 1-10 Scale	10% participation rate

Best practices

Include personalization where possible
Use attributes, bulleted lists, or paragraph breaks to visually format your campaign
Less is more! Limit email content to no more than 125 words
Limit the primary CTA to 2-5 words, and ensure that it aligns to the email goal
Include secondary links only if they are necessary and support the primary CTA and email content

3. Refine your subject line and sender

Don’t be afraid to test and optimize subject lines—including how they appear on your mobile device. Not all words are created equal! Some "power words" might work for one campaign, but not for another. Here are some examples of power words to try:

Welcome
New
Get
Register
Now
Update

Avoid spammy words that over promise (e.g., free).

Some of these example subject lines have averaged a 50% open rate across their respective campaigns:

Type of Campaign & Purpose	Subject Line Example
NPS invitation	🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Would you recommend us to your colleagues?
Customer re-engagement	❗️Don’t miss out: Boost team efficiency
Login celebration after receiving re-engagement email	🙌 Welcome back!
Customers who opted in to training	Trigger automated processes with SuccessPlays [Video]
Leverage usage data (e.g., if user visits pricing, but doesn’t upgrade)	Have a question about data?
General sales introduction email	Discussing your customer success goals today
Customer newsletter and resources	Must have customer journey examples, templates, graphics

Additionally, always consider who the email is coming from. For example, is the e-mail coming from the company, a sales rep, CSM, Marketing? The sender should align to the campaign message and goal; the choice of sender can boost or hurt open rate.