For years, email marketing has been declared “dead,” yet every serious ecommerce brand still relies on it. Unlike social platforms, email is a channel brands truly own; no algorithms, no declining reach, just a direct line to their audience.
The difference is how it’s used. While many companies still send occasional promotions, the smartest brands treat email like a media channel, using it to tell stories, build relationships, and drive consistent revenue.
Email is no longer just a promotion channel
Open your inbox and you’ll see two kinds of emails.
The first kind looks like this:
“20% OFF TODAY ONLY”
“FLASH SALE”
“LAST HOURS”
The second kind feels completely different. It looks more like content than marketing.
Stories. Product culture. Behind the scenes. Editorial visuals.
The best brands understand something simple: People don’t open emails because they love promotions. They open them because they care about the brand.
This is where strategy comes in. Good email marketing usually sits on three pillars:
1. Smart subscriber acquisition
Your email list is an asset. Great brands invest serious thought into how they grow it:
thoughtful pop-ups
early access to drops
exclusive content
community perks
The goal isn’t just collecting emails. It’s building a qualified audience.
2. Automated flows that work quietly in the background
Most ecommerce brands underestimate this.
A well-built email strategy isn’t powered by newsletters. It’s powered by automation.
Key flows include:
Welcome sequences
Abandoned cart recovery
Post-purchase follow-ups
Win-back campaigns
These flows often generate 30–50% of total email revenue for mature brands. Which is why the platform you use matters.
Tools behind modern email marketing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo has become one of the go-to platforms for ecommerce brands. Unlike traditional email tools built mainly for newsletters, Klaviyo is designed around customer data and ecommerce behavior.
It allows brands to segment audiences precisely, trigger emails based on user actions, connect purchases to campaigns, and track the revenue generated by each email. The result is simple but powerful: email stops being just a communication channel and becomes a real revenue engine. For many ecommerce brands, email can represent 20–40% of total online revenue.
Milled
Milled is one of the most underrated tools for marketers. Instead of sending emails, it works as a massive archive of real campaigns from thousands of brands.
It’s perfect for exploring how brands design their newsletters, analyzing launch campaigns, spotting design trends, and finding inspiration for subject lines or layouts. For marketers and creative teams, it’s essentially an endless source of email marketing inspiration.
Inside the email strategy of Nude Project
Nude Project is one of the most interesting brands to watch in Europe right now, and their email marketing is a big part of it.
What makes their emails stand out isn’t just design. It’s voice and culture. Their emails feel like an extension of the brand universe you see on social media.
A few things they do particularly well:
Strong brand voice: The tone is playful, confident and unmistakably theirs.
Story-driven emails: Not everything is a promotion. Many emails build hype around drops, community events or brand culture.
Editorial design: The layouts feel closer to a magazine than a traditional newsletter.
The result? Emails that feel like part of the brand experience, not just another marketing push.
The future of email marketing
Despite the rise of social platforms, email isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving. The most effective brands are using personalized, data-driven and editorial-style emails to turn their inbox presence into a true brand channel.
At LOUD, we help brands design email marketing strategies, from tools and automation flows to creative direction, that turn email into a real growth driver. Get in touch.
