Remember when you set up your first email account? You’ve probably been through countless email addresses since then for various reasons–a change in taste, or more likely, a need for an email address that sounded more professional. Your email addresses back then was essentially your username, so we had “dorky” IDs that we likely would be embarrassed to share as contact information today. Email has evolved into one of the most important forms of online identification, and nearly everything on the web that you create an account for now requires a valid email address.

So, if the basic concept behind naming email addresses has drastically changed, you can bet that the marketing aspect of email has transformed as well. Just as you would be embarrassed to have to explain your decades-old email address, you don’t want to be embarrassed when explaining during a company presentation how you lost potential leads and customers with outdated and ineffective email marketing tactics that didn’t include strategies like personalized email. In order to help make sure this never happens, here are three email marketing tips you should follow to get the most out of your email campaigns.

Focus on the Personalized Email Process

Repeat after me: “Not all emails are meant to generate an online sale.” Again. Not all emails are meant to generate an online sale. Users that visit your website and sign up for more content via email are all motivated by the different things that your website has to offer, and they are all at different points of the conversion funnel.

However, companies are often too distracted with sealing the deal and getting conversions or sales so they often send the same sales-oriented email newsletter to each and every user. While it certainly is easy to do things this way, this method is no longer as effective in the modern era. Users will get annoyed when you place priority on trying to foster a conversion through your emails and appearing overly concerned with driving sales without including messaging that is at all related to the overriding reason they signed up to receive emails from you in the first place. Find out how and why users decided to give you their email address, and present them with content, imagery, and links that they’ll find valuable based on why they signed up.

For example, if you have a fashion site that sells a myriad of designer clothing and you also have a blog that gives style tips, fashion advice, and information about what’s trending now, it is reasonable to assume that someone may visit your site interested in updating their wardrobe, while someone else may come to your site through your blog. If both sign up for your emails, they’re likely anticipating different things from your brand. As a result, sending the same mailer to both users will likely leave someone feeling as if you don’t understand who they are as a customer and that you aren’t interested in what they are actually to learn from your business.

Take a few moments to plan out the process of where users are in the conversion process as well as how they will read, interact, and click through to landing pages from your emails. By doing this instead of focusing on immediately converting all of your email recipients into sales, you should see a considerable bump in your end goal (often conversions) without being overly sales-centric with your email content.

Send One to Two Personalized Emails A Week

If this was a guide on how to get users to unsubscribe from your emails or marking your emails as spam, I would suggest that you send them an email every single day. However, this is a guide on how to use your email marketing more effectively, so I suggest that you send one to two emails a week at most, and don’t click that send button any more after that.

Do research on the most favorable time and day that your target demographic will check and respond to their email and schedule out your campaigns accordingly. Each email that you send to your users should offer interesting and fresh content that will intrigue them and encourage them to click on prominent calls to action. For example, if you are having a “BOGO” or “50% off everything” sale, and it’s is a week long, it will not create a sense of urgency if your users get an email for 7 days straight reminding them of your amazing sale. “Inbox fatigue” and “email fatigue” are real terms, and in my own email marketing experience, even some of the more well-known brands don’t realize that they are driving online users away with the constant reminder of their existence in their inbox. Do not be that company. Receiving an email from your business should be a pleasant surprise and should be something that users look forward to receiving, not a daily nuisance.

Timing is Key for Email Personalization

I flew to Atlanta this past weekend to catch up with old friends, and I bought my tickets through an online travel company. They emailed me the day before and a couple hours ahead of my flight to check in online so I could skip the line, and linked me to a webpage that I could scan as my boarding pass. I loved the email check-ups and reminders up until I landed and turned on my phone. While I was still on the runway, I received a “How was your flight?” email. This email didn’t come as I was going through baggage claim or after I had gotten home from the airport, it came as soon as I landed. It may sound like an overreaction, but this is a good example of NOT giving users their space when sending them a follow-up email. As soon as I hit the runway post-flight, the first thing I want to be able to do is call my friends and family to let them know I have landed safely and check for any missed personal emails, texts, or phone calls – not get bombarded with emails that should realistically arrive around the time I check in to my hotel.

Research has shown that follow-up emails, especially for abandoned shopping carts, are great at re-engaging users and influencing purchases. What’s often not included in this research is the timing of when those emails were sent out. As I’ve hinted at earlier, timing when it comes to email marketing is essential and you want to send your follow-up or reminder emails at the right time to retain customer lifetime value and foster positive user engagement.

Effective Email Marketing is Personalized

Ultimately, the most efficient way to confirm that your email marketing initiatives are proving beneficial to your organization is to do a thorough examination of whether or not they are driving increases in key metrics. Whatever you use as your email platform, be sure to take a look at things like click-through-rates and open-rates to discover areas for improvement, and see what types of emails are providing you with the best results. By following best practices and tweaking your messages so that they are tailored to each individual user’s wants and needs, you’ll find your organization will convert more customers, and produce a higher ROI from email marketing efforts.