10 email marketing case studies to inspire your success

Email remains the key marketing channel for a reason – it brings business results. With email, you can build a contact list with your target audience, learn what they need to know to become successful, and send them relevant information that helps solve their problems and decide whether to buy your products or services. 

Also, when you use a professional email marketing platform, you can be sure that your emails reach everyone in your contact list, something social media algorithms cannot do for your marketing. 

In this article, I’d like to highlight nine email marketing case studies showing how different business achieve their goals with email marketing:

1. Allakando email marketing case study – contact list management: remain personal while interacting with a large audience
2. ECS Publishing Group email marketing case study – 10% list growth and sales spike in a tough niche
3. LesFrenchies email marketing case study – turning social media followers into an engaged community
4. InfoShare Academy email marketing case study – list building: use a lead magnet to attract the target audience  
5. WOŚP email marketing case study – use online marketing tools to collect information from your audience  
6. LandCafe.pl email marketing case study – educational email series with a 54% sales rate   
7. TechSoup Polska email marketing case study – 1200% increase in orders value from email campaigns over a year  
8. MobileFun email marketing case study – Automation and email marketing campaign A/B testing in ecommerce  
9. Selsey email marketing case study – 2x more conversions from abandoned cart emails
10. Your Parenting Mentor case study – more event signups and high-end digital product sales

I hope the case studies inspire you to make the most of this online marketing channel.

If you are about to start with email marketing, here are a few resources that might help you develop a basic strategy and run your first campaign:

• Email marketing for beginners
• Email marketing best practices
• Email marketing benchmarks

Nine great email marketing case studies 

I wanted to emphasize the versatility of email marketing, so I’ve chosen companies operating in different industries, e.g., ecommerce, education, and NGOs, to provide different contexts of use.

1. Allakando email marketing case study – contact list management: remain personal while interacting with a large audience 

Allakando is an innovative tutoring company based in Sweden. Its mission is to accelerate people’s growth – both educationally and personally with an innovative blend between traditional home tutoring and cutting-edge education technology. 

Challenge: In November 2021, the company was connecting 5 900 passionate tutors with more than 26 000 students. The challenge was to remain personal while interacting with a large audience.

“GetResponse makes it simple to talk to the right people in the right way at the right time.” – Erik Schuss, CMO at Allakando.

Solution: The team at Allakando collects data from multiple sources and uses it to segment their contact list. At the time of creating this case study, they created eight segments and assigned ten custom fields to contacts in their email list.  

Collecting and using the data allows the team to send relevant emails to teachers, parents, and students.

As Erik Schuss states: “Over the years, the importance of quality and relevance has increased in all parts of marketing and communication. Especially when communicating with email, broad blasts of messages to large audiences will more likely see you ending up in the junk folder than driving revenue and value. We reached a point where we realized that we needed to really have a tool to manage all of our messaging in a way that ensures that what we send gives a positive experience.“

Key takeaway: Know your audience.

Make sure you understand the needs of people on your contact list: what do they need to know to follow your call to action? Once you’ve mapped it out, group contacts with similar needs together. Such groups are called segments. Send relevant information to segments of your audience makes your email marketing much more effective. 

Check out the full case study:

If you’d like to learn more about segmentation, you can see How to Use Email Segmentation.

2. ECS Publishing Group email marketing case study – 10% list growth and sales spike in a tough niche

ECS Publishing Group is the corporate parent of music publishers E. C. Schirmer, Galaxy, and MorningStar. Established in 2014, it specializes in producing sheet music across various genres, with a particular emphasis on choral compositions.

Challenges: Music publishing is a challenging industry for building brand awareness. Composers often overshadow the publisher’s brand, making it extra difficult to build a dedicated email list. 

In addition, customers frequently buy single copies to review before purchasing in bulk for their groups, leading to delayed feedback on marketing efforts.

Solution: ECS Publishing Group deployed several tactics:

• They integrated their Magento store with GetResponse
• Started sending web push notifications to their store visitors
• Started segmenting their audience based on customer purchase history and preferences
• Focused on growing their email list and efficiency

Results:

• Boost in sales following targeted email campaigns, especially those focused on product offerings, thanks to segmentation 
• More than 2k new subscribers (10% email list growth) in a tough industry 
• 50% newsletter open rates and 3% click-through rate

Key takeaway: Use customer data to run highly targeted email campaigns.

Check out the full case study:

3. LesFrenchies email marketing case study – turning social media followers into an engaged community

Les Frenchies Travel is all about sharing the best travel tips for exploring France, with a particular emphasis on Paris. Founded by husband-and-wife duo Colleen and Antoine Dupont, they’re renowned for their insider advice on discovering the best of France’s attractions. 

Challenge: Despite having a large following on social media (e.g., 230k+ YouTube subscribers, 94k+ Facebook group members), Les Frenchies faced difficulties in reaching all their fans due to the platforms’ limitations. They realized that social media algorithms made it hard for their content to reach everyone interested.

For example, whenever they posted something in their Facebook group, it would only reach 3-5% of their audience.

Solution: LesFrenchies employed a few tactics that would help them diversify their marketing channels and build a more reliable connection with their audience:

• Integrate their WP website and Shopify store with GetResponse
• Start offering free guides on their website in order to build an email list
• Send a regular newsletter to keep their subscribers informed about the latest content from their YouTube channel, Facebook group, and website

Results:

• Higher reach – while social media posts reach only 3-5% of their audience, email campaigns boast an impressive 50% open rate
• Higher engagement – they’ve achieved a 4% click-through rate, which shows strong engagement with their email content

Key takeaway: Use email marketing to diversify your marketing channels and turn social media followers into subscribers.

Read the full case study:

4. InfoShare Academy email marketing case study – list building: use a lead magnet to attract the target audience 

InfoShare Academy offers intensive programming courses for beginners who want to start a career in IT. 

Challenge: The key challenge was to attract Facebook users who may want to start a career in IT and invite them to sign up for a dedicated contact list where they’ll be nurtured with an email marketing series on how to learn programming. 

“We’re one of the few companies in our niche doing content marketing. We use our newsletter to nurture the leads who consider taking up a programming course, providing valuable information on a regular basis.” – Jakub Kłos, Digital Marketing Team Leader. 

Solution: The team prepared a Facebook lead ads campaign using “The 125 coding terms for beginners” ebook as a lead magnet – a piece of valuable content for the target audience.

“We wanted to reach people who only just started thinking about learning to code. We wanted to educate them. Our competitive advantage is the quality of our courses, confirmed by our alums. The quality of the content we offer reflects this.” – Sylwia Tokarska, Digital Marketing Specialist 

Results: 

• 1200 new contacts in one month 
• 1.31 PLN acquisition cost per contact 

Key takeaway: Create lead magnets to grow your email list.

Check out the full case study:

More on lead magnets: 25 Lead Magnet Examples That Build Your Email List & Convert

More on Facebook Ads: How to Optimize Facebook Lead Ads for Success

5. WOŚP email marketing case study – use online marketing tools to collect information from your audience 

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy “WOŚP”) – is a philanthropic foundation whose primary goal is providing health care, saving the lives of ill people, especially children, and promoting a healthy lifestyle, and preventive medicine. 

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s communication strategy is based on the idea of being closer to people. 

Challenge: During The Orchestra at Home (Domowa Orkiestra) live event, the founder, Jurek Owsiak, spontaneously asked people if they would like to take part in Pol’and’Rock Festival and the foundation needed to create a place where people could express their interest, provide them with information, and sign up for updates. 

Solution: WOŚP used one of the provided landing page templates, and in just 3 minutes, they created a simple web page where people interested in the festival could join a dedicated contact list. 

“As soon as we established that the Pol’and’Rock Festival is on, we started preparing a landing page. We later sent out an email with a survey. Through the survey, we learned that people want to meet face-to-face. Nobody at that time planned an offline event on this scale. Direct contact with people was crucial for our teams.“

“In 2021, we decided that the Poland Rock festival would be a ticketed event. Suddenly, we found ourselves in need of custom communication with our audience, sending tickets, instructions, etc. One of the main tools we utilized was GetResponse.” – Anna Sobieraj, Digital Marketing and Social Media Specialist 

Results: 

• 3 minutes spent on preparing a signup page 
• 41.74% signup rate
• 51488 signups

Key takeaway: Use online tools like live webinars, landing pages, and email marketing to stay in touch with your audience.

Check out the full case study:

More on landing pages: 7 Winning Lead Generation Landing Page Examples & Tips

6. LandCafe.pl email marketing case study – educational email series with a 54% sales rate  

LandCafe.pl is an online store created out of love for travel and coffee, offering artisanal coffee beans. 

Challenge: Quite common in ecommerce: to increase product awareness among the newsletter audience, speed up purchase decisions, and boost sales. 

“Our target audience is people who know the difference between the quality of mass-produced and artisanal coffee. Our customers make conscious choices, which gave us the idea for an educational campaign that could make our subscribers more aware and ready to buy.” – Łukasz Janik, founder of LandCafe.pl. 

Solution: Welcome email series based on the Learn > Like > Trust > Buy principle. The email sequence helps new subscribers better understand the brand and products so they can buy the coffee they like best. It starts with a welcome email explaining the idea behind the brand and inviting people to read more in the blog post. The next few follow-up emails explain the products in detail. The last email in the sequence contains a discount coupon and drives even more online sales.

Results:

• 41.30% sales rate during the welcome series 
• 13.30% discount coupon email sales rate 
• 54% total sales rate 

Key takeaway: Find out what your audience needs to know to purchase your product or service and use this knowledge to design a welcome email series. Use marketing automation to put the series together and assign tags to customer behavior. 

Check out the full case study:

More on welcome series: 11 Welcome Emails That Set the Standard

7. TechSoup Polska email marketing case study – 1200% increase in orders value from email campaigns over a year 

TechSoup Polska Foundation actively supports community and social organizations by facilitating access to new technologies: software, hardware, and various solutions and by showing how to use them. 

Challenge: Giving associated organizations access to new technologies, educating them on available tools and technology, and facilitating knowledge exchange between partners and associated organizations. 

Solution: A newsletter fulfilling the information needs of the target audience.

“The main goal of our email marketing comms is to inform organizations about products and support they can get thanks to TechSoup. Our newsletters contain information about new offers, training invitations, and tips that help you select the right tools for remote work.” – Liza Nema, TechSoup Polska Project Coordinator 

Results: 

• 1200% increase in orders value from a newsletter over a year 
• 8666 associated organizations 
• 11 emails sent in March and April 2020 
• 20 recommended solutions for remote work 
• 3 trainings conducted 

Key takeaway: Use your newsletter as a revenue channel. If you segment your list properly and send relevant content, the average open rate of your newsletter will be high. A newsletter with the same email structure might help your subscribers navigate through content and result in high click-through rates driving more traffic to your website.

Check out the full case study:

More on newsletters: 21 Company Newsletter Ideas: Examples & How-to Guide

8. MobileFun email marketing case study – Automation and email marketing campaign A/B testing in ecommerce 

Mobile Fun is the UK’s leading online mobile accessories retailer — offering the latest mobile phones and exciting accessories. Based in Birmingham, the company operates through offices and dedicated websites worldwide. 

Challenge: To segment the contact list, send targeted newsletters, run tests, and automate processes. 

Solution: 

• Automation: we automated our welcome and engagement program. The simplicity of setting that up and the actual results we get are pleasing to see. 
• Segmentation: we can segment our contact list and send targeted newsletters. 
• Drag and drop newsletter creator: we can quickly and easily create and tweak our designs for A/B testing.

“With GetResponse, you can actually check what is driving your KPIs. We’re doing around 20 split tests at the moment. We’re testing how different colors, background images, and CTAs impact sales and revenue.” – Matt Page, Email Marketing Executive. 

With the A/B test creator, you can quickly test which subject line or content resonates most with email subscribers, resulting in higher click rates. This way, you can make data-based decisions on the messaging that drives email engagement and conversion rates.

Results: 

• 11.69% Variant A test open rate 
• 12.37% Variant B test open rate 
• 49.17% Winning campaign open rate 

Key takeaway: Run A/B tests to check the performance of emails before they get sent to all the recipients.

Check out the full case study:

9. Selsey email marketing case study – 2x more conversions from abandoned cart emails 

SELSEY is one of the biggest furniture and home decorations retailers in Poland. The company’s mission is to provide its clients with a comfortable space where they can relax, which is crucial for keeping daily activities efficient, and the mood positive. 

Challenge: Encourage users to complete their purchase, maintain relationships with users and increase brand loyalty. 

Solution: Abandoned cart automation cycle incentivizing purchases. According to the test, the simple tactic of including social proof in the email doubles conversion rates and turns website visitors into customers. If you add a discount, together with a personal touch from your satisfied customers, you can increase the conversion rate almost three times. 

“Abandoned cart cycle is dedicated to people who take their time when making a purchase. Usually, it does not concern spontaneous shopping. Deciding on purchasing furniture can take up to 6 weeks. Users treat the cart as their wish list, adding various products they liked, not necessarily focusing on buying here and now.” – Weronika Andrzejewska, Conversion & Inbound Marketing Specialist.

Results: 

• 202% conversion from an email with reviews of happy customers 
• 239% conversion from an email with reviews of happy customers and a discount code 

Key takeaway: A/B test incentives to purchase and create an automated abandoned cart series.

Check out the full case study:

More on abandoned carts: 15 Best Abandoned Cart Email Examples and Best Practices

10. Your Parenting Mentor case study – more event signups and high-end digital product sales

Your Parenting Mentor is a platform founded by Jeanne-Marie Paynel, who provides parenting advice through private mentoring and online resources like a weekly podcast and a newsletter.

Challenge: The whole platform was run by Jeanne-Marie Paynel, who refers to her as a “one-person” show. At some point, her subscriber list grew exponentially, and she needed a better way to manage that big list and engage with subscribers better.

Solution: Jeanne-Marie used features like Newsletters, Autoresponders, Marketing Automation, and Segmentation to send weekly newsletters, sales campaigns, or promotional campaigns to her subscribers. Moreover, GetResponse’s reporting functionalities helped her track campaigns’ success.

Results: Some campaigns reached an open rate of 91.3% while the CTR for some emails was 69.75%.

And Jeanne-Marie was, of course, more than happy with the results

Time to level up your email marketing campaigns

Now you’re familiar with at least nine different scenarios where email marketing proved to be an effective marketing channel. I hope these case studies inspire you to use email in your business and find ways to be closer to your customers. Email might be the perfect channel to build relationships with your target audience – relationships that translate into more email-generated sales and revenue.