Key takeaways ✨
- AI can be utilized in the complete e-mail advertising and marketing workflow as a associate, from technique to your approval course of.
- If you would like e-mail to stay as much as its repute because the strongest ROI of any channel ($36+ for each $1 spent), then utilizing generative AI on your writing will not be the very best use of the software.
- Combining synthetic intelligence with automation is what creates essentially the most efficiencies on your group.
- 29% of e-mail entrepreneurs imagine that AI-driven content material technology and analytics would be the greatest change in e-mail advertising and marketing this yr…perhaps even this decade.
- The shift in how e-mail is completed has already begun—and entrepreneurs who perceive the right way to work alongside it can have a bonus. There’s a lot potential to discover e-mail with AI, however within the meantime, promotional emails ought to nonetheless have a human eye.
Within the 2023 State of Electronic mail Workflows Report, we found advertising and marketing groups spend, on common, two weeks or extra making a single e-mail. From the marketing campaign inception to marketing campaign supply—they’re spending two weeks on the whole lot that goes into a terrific e-mail marketing campaign like technique, copy, design, code, setup, segmentation, testing, approvals, and sending.
That was earlier than synthetic intelligence (AI) modified the whole lot about how we work.
Because the promise of AI is high of thoughts for everybody world wide, our essential focus at Litmus is optimizing the e-mail workflow.
We’re already seeing a few of the modifications AI is making on e-mail advertising and marketing, but we’re nonetheless within the flip-phone-phase. 70% (!!) of e-mail entrepreneurs we talked to for this yr’s State of Electronic mail report say that as much as half of their e-mail advertising and marketing operations will likely be AI-driven by the tip of 2026.
Essentially, the best way e-mail entrepreneurs strategize, conceive, create, and analyze your communications is already altering, and AI is just going to get higher from right here. This raises the query:
The place will AI have the best impression on streamlining the e-mail workflow, so entrepreneurs can spend much less time on guide duties and extra time creating superb campaigns?
Desk of contents
AI in e-mail advertising and marketing is extra than simply writing
When you concentrate on the complete e-mail advertising and marketing workflow, the copy is only one small half. (Though some writers—myself included—wish to suppose it’s a very powerful half!) Utilizing generative AI to write down your enterprise emails, gross sales emails, and chilly emails is a sound tactic. You may practice generative AI to write down such as you do and to study the worth in what you’re promoting—and even aid you personalize the emails simply. The choices are limitless and the potential is large.
However if you would like e-mail to stay as much as its repute because the strongest ROI of any channel ($36+ for each $1 spent), then utilizing generative AI on your writing will not be the very best use of the software.
There are such a lot of extra functions for utilizing AI all through your e-mail workflow—they usually work a lot, a lot better than generic, imprecise, or so-so copy that AI is at the moment producing.
Consider AI as an extension of the automation you’ve already come to depend on as an e-mail marketer with one million gadgets in your to-do record. Whether or not you employ AI or not, a terrific e-mail advertising and marketing marketing campaign nonetheless must have:
- A compelling and fascinating design that aligns along with your model expertise.
- Precious content material {that a} subscriber or buyer can use or profit from.
- Clear insights on the again finish that can assist you measure what’s working.
Let’s discuss how AI may also help you with every of those parts.
Energy up your e-mail technique
Achieve skilled insights and business benchmarks from the most recent State of Electronic mail Report. Elevate your e-mail sport.
The place e-mail workflows get caught and the way AI may also help
Once we requested e-mail entrepreneurs about their e-mail processes for our annual State of Electronic mail survey in 2024, 62% of groups mentioned they wanted two weeks or extra to provide a single e-mail.
That quantity in 2025? It dropped to solely 6%.
Automation and AI are fully altering the best way emails are created, making groups extra environment friendly and productive. This frees up groups to suppose extra creatively and strategically about the place e-mail falls within the total advertising and marketing lifecycle, relatively than simply churning out e-mail after e-mail “as a result of so-and-so requested for it.” Combining AI with automation instruments like Litmus and Validity can unify segmentation, AI-driven content material, and testing right into a seamless workflow.
“As an e-mail marketer, you’re already doing a lot that, for many people, including AI appears like yet one more factor to make you overwhelmed. With AI, I believe the thought is to not use it so you may create extra new campaigns daily, however so you may handle extra personalised, dynamic, or detailed e-mail campaigns that carry out higher.“
Rafael Viana
Sr. Electronic mail Advertising and marketing Strategist at Validity
Spitball your e-mail technique with AI
One of many ignored methods AI may also help break by means of any sticking factors is by utilizing it as a strategic advisor. Taking the time to coach a company-specific model of Claude or Chat-GPT can repay with insights about your prospects and subscribers it’s possible you’ll not have thought to search for.
To do that proper, although, you might want to take the time to feed the machine necessary data like:
- Persona and audience data.
- Subscriber metrics.
- Previous high-performing marketing campaign examples.
- Your objectives.
“You may’t dump AI onto your emails and say it’ll repair the whole lot with out serious about your technique,” says Rafael. “For those who use AI to create six completely different emails despatched to the identical individual in forty-eight hours, they’re not going to learn it. It doesn’t matter which variation of topic line you’re doing in the event that they received’t have interaction, and it simply hurts your deliverability. You continue to must suppose.”
Asking AI to be “an e-mail advertising and marketing skilled” with this data is a helpful manner to assist your self suppose extra clearly about your e-mail advertising and marketing technique. Strive asking it to counsel marketing campaign concepts based mostly in your first-party knowledge, drip marketing campaign, or e-mail sequences based mostly in your product, or ask it for particular gives concepts to promote extra merchandise.
Consider it as one other individual within the brainstorming assembly, relatively than an oracle, in order that whenever you do use instruments like BriteVerify for segmentation and e-mail hygiene, you’re able to put these new segments to make use of.
Create copy shortly with AI—however use warning
This one will get a cross as a result of inboxes are crowded and e-mail is as shut as we get to our prospects, prospects, and communities. Meaning content material is extra necessary than ever. Actually, in accordance with the State of Electronic mail Report 2025, content material creation is essentially the most extremely sought-after talent when hiring for e-mail advertising and marketing roles.
“I discover AI to be very helpful as I do analysis forward of my writing, along with serving to edit my work,” says Rafael. “I can ask it to create a file of information across the matter I’m attempting to study extra about, after which I exploit a software known as Canvas, which throws all that knowledge as enter and it spits out an infographic to make it tremendous digestible. It’s invaluable as I create content material.”
Generative AI can pace up many copy-related areas:
- Electronic mail topic line brainstorming
- Producing topic line choices
- Copywriting and modifying
- Picture technology
- Video content material creation
The place AI may be most helpful is as a software to assist get you began or combat by means of author’s block. And don’t overlook about generative AI’s associate in crime—assistive AI. This kind contains instruments like Grammarly to assist content material creators whereas they’re doing their finest work. Litmus Assistant, for instance, can optimize your copy by suggesting compelling topic strains and replica alternate options in several tones.
Templatize your design with AI
After all, we’re massive believers that your e-mail design needs to be a few of your finest work, constructed to drive your most compelling and considerate campaigns. It’s insulting to subscribers when manufacturers spend the massive bucks and all their assets attempting to tug in new audiences—after which the loyal subscribers are caught with an afterthought like “template 42” with a emblem add.
Generative AI is shifting shortly on the design entrance, however with regards to being on-brand and efficient, you might want to pay as a lot consideration to design right here as you might be to the copy to make sure your model stands out within the inbox. AI isn’t any substitute on your model…we’ve all seen how AI has struggled with the human hand.
Machine studying and predictive analytics will play an more and more necessary function in how e-mail advertising and marketing campaigns are designed for personalization and that technique will likely be core to the design.
We suggest working along with your e-mail developer and e-mail designer to craft a extremely templated, modular e-mail design system with re-usable elements to make issues quicker and simpler. (As a bonus, we’ve got an entire library of pre-tested e-mail snippets for you right here at Litmus!) We had been shocked to study that solely 28% of corporations in our State of Electronic mail report informed us that they used a centralized design template system to take care of model consistency throughout e-mail varieties. AI can suggest (and construct) a few of these elements to make your designs and accompanying code extra scalable throughout completely different campaigns.
Use AI for primary coding to spend extra time on personalization
A powerful workflow course of and undertaking administration software will permit this section to be as fast as attainable at this stage. Whereas there was some experimentation with generative AI instruments in e-mail code creation, AI can miss the mark by failing to:
A devoted e-mail developer will at all times tackle these concerns.
AI also can assist with primary code and de-bug your code extra shortly. Suppose: the repetitive duties your builders haaaate doing anyway.
That manner, your e-mail builders can spend their time testing new methods to innovate and personalize emails than customized coding each single e-mail design. Utilizing dynamic content material tailor-made to particular person preferences or location-based personalization may be extraordinarily efficient, however it’s extra technically difficult than basic segmentation or topic line personalization.
That is the place AI can actually shine. You’re already accumulating mountains of information about your subscribers—harnessing synthetic intelligence to tug that knowledge collectively can supply more practical alternatives for dynamic, personalised content material that converts.
Thamima Christensen, Head of Product for Oracle Eloqua Advertising and marketing Automation at Oracle says, “Many manufacturers acquire huge quantities of buyer knowledge, however and not using a centralized knowledge technique and real-time activation, that knowledge typically sits unused. Integrating AI-driven segmentation and automation can bridge that hole and switch knowledge into significant buyer interactions.”
Interact with 1:1 experiences
Ship personalised content material at scale. Use stay polls, dynamic content material, and superior focusing on to drive outcomes.
Pace up suggestions and approvals with AI
Groups persistently report that essentially the most time consuming a part of sending an e-mail is the suggestions and approvals stage of the ship. Anybody who has ever tried to get an e-mail out the door and must get approval from a number of stakeholders can relate.
It goes one thing like this: You ship a check e-mail and ahead it to the group who must assessment it. You suppose you’re asking for a final cross at grammar edits to offer you some peace of thoughts. Inevitably somebody within the reviewing group takes that second to query the strategy, the picture, the call-to-action (CTA) button coloration, the viewers—and even the entire concept. (Observe to advertising and marketing leaders right here: let’s both empower our groups to personal the ultimate product or be well timed in our suggestions.)
How can we pace this up? We suggest taking an Agile strategy, a robust inventive transient, and really outlined roles throughout the proofing stage. (And Litmus Proof takes these e-mail threads out of rotation altogether.)
Is AI going to have an effect on this? We’d like it to—however a human contact is essential at this closing stage. To make sure the multitude of containers are checked accurately for the right e-mail ship, people must be concerned on this course of.
Construct higher emails along with your teammates
Shave 2+ hours off your assessment and approval course of and get error-free emails to market, quicker, with Litmus Proof. Study extra.
Analyze your efficiency with AI
A lot of the hype with AI is about content material creation and replica…when the very best use of AI continues to be within the land of numbers. Many analytics instruments (like Litmus Analytics and Validity Everest) embrace advice engines (generally with AI, generally with out) that may supply subsequent steps based mostly in your present efficiency. Not less than 41% of corporations are utilizing AI-driven analytics in some type, in accordance with our State of Electronic mail report.
Understanding the large quantity of information that e-mail advertising and marketing creates will make your future campaigns extra tailor-made and attention-grabbing to your subscribers. The commonest use case is primary segmentation and focusing on, adopted by automated choice optimizations equivalent to e-mail ship time (34%), superior behavioral predictive modeling based mostly on buyer conduct (32%), buyer journey mapping (30%), and churn/retention prediction (22%).
Predictive analytics and advice engines offer you a a lot clearer image of what your knowledge means on your e-mail technique and equip you with higher proof to carry to your bigger advertising and marketing group about subsequent steps. The info exhibits that corporations utilizing AI outperform corporations that don’t and now have a clearer sense of ROI generated from e-mail.
AI in e-mail advertising and marketing: A abstract
Generative AI will get all of the hype, however a lot of the success of AI in e-mail advertising and marketing comes from different forms of AI, like reactive advice engines.
Electronic mail workflow stageChallengesHow to make use of AIWhat people ought to nonetheless doHow Litmus and Validity can helpEmail StrategyPulling knowledge from disparate sources into one place.Tailoring your technique to your viewers utilizing knowledge from all kinds of sources.Use AI suggestions to suppose extra deeply and creatively about delivering high-performing e-mail to your subscribers.Validity BriteVerify offers safe, scalable contact validation so you may simply construct and keep an actionable database.Content material creationDoing extra with much less.Generate copy and pictures shortly with generative AI.Edit, edit, and edit.Litmus Personalize makes it straightforward to include dynamic personalised content material into your emails.CodingHandling finicky e-mail purchasers and necessities throughout dozens of units.Create a code snippet library to templatize your designs in a versatile manner.Take a look at your emails with a human eye.Litmus Guardian screens your emails and flags any points. Plus, Litmus Previews helps you QA earlier than you hit ship.Suggestions and approvalsThe fixed back-and-forth with stakeholders.Not but!Take an agile strategy with a robust inventive transient.Litmus Proof helps you skip that back-and-forth with e-mail.AnalysisFiguring out what motion to take out of your efficiency knowledge.Run analyses throughout your advertising and marketing lifecycle and supply suggestions.Filter these suggestions by means of what is sensible for your enterprise.Litmus Analytics gives suggestions based mostly in your present efficiency.
Study from the very best
Your favourite manufacturers use Litmus to ship flawless e-mail experiences. Uncover the ROI your emails can obtain with Litmus.
What’s subsequent for e-mail entrepreneurs?
Do we’d like AI? The e-mail workflow is complicated and nuanced. Everybody does e-mail otherwise.
But, there are commonalities in how we do e-mail that might be made higher, simpler, and fewer aggravating with some assist. It’s an actual studying curve, however 29% of entrepreneurs imagine that AI-driven content material technology and analytics would be the greatest change in e-mail advertising and marketing this yr…perhaps even this decade.
Most entrepreneurs plan to make use of AI to enhance human work—70% say that as much as half of their e-mail advertising and marketing operations will likely be AI-driven by the tip of 2026, whereas one other 18% predict that 50-75% of their e-mail advertising and marketing will likely be AI-driven.
At Litmus, we’re all about testing, and in order that’s precisely how we’re approaching incorporating AI into our e-mail workflow.
AI isn’t coming to interchange you—particularly as a result of it hasn’t solved all of our e-mail advertising and marketing challenges but. However one factor is obvious: the shift in how e-mail is completed has already begun, and entrepreneurs who perceive the right way to work alongside it can have a bonus.
We envision a world the place apps are infinitely extra useful, guiding you thru pure language processing to unravel why emails aren’t exhibiting up with the design you perfected. There’s a lot potential to discover with AI and we will’t wait to listen to extra from e-mail geeks as they discover nice prompts and functions that ship extra personalised, related emails to their subscribers.
However within the meantime, with complicated emails that embrace excessive ranges of personalization or stay content material, you’ll need a set of human eyes testing each side of your emails to make sure you by no means ship a damaged e-mail. At Litmus, we’re persevering with to discover and assist this evolving area—and we’re excited that can assist you do the identical.
From idea to ship, quicker
Reduce e-mail growth time in half with Litmus Builder. Create on-brand emails shortly, with or with out HTML expertise.
