On this unique interview with Stripo, Rui Nunes, a famend knowledgeable in e mail advertising and marketing, opens up about his journey into the trade, the traits shaping it, and the methodologies behind his most profitable campaigns. Rui additionally shares helpful insights into the way forward for e mail advertising and marketing, emphasizing the position of personalization, knowledge optimization, and AI-driven instruments in delivering standout campaigns.
Knowledgeable
Founding father of SendXmail, Zopply, and HotLeads
Rui Nunes is a serial entrepreneur whose portfolio contains three digital advertising and marketing businesses sendXmail, ZOPPLY, and HOT Leads, in addition to many different corporations in numerous fields. He began working with e mail earlier than the 2000s and by no means let go, although folks say it is DEAD since then.
Rui likes to cross alongside his expertise and know-how to the youthful era coming into the advertising and marketing world. He spreads his courses from Lisbon to Barcelona and Bangkok, educating digital legislation, efficiency advertising and marketing, e mail advertising and marketing, and advertising and marketing automation with AI.
He is additionally been a board member of the Portuguese Affiliation of Advertising and marketing Professionals (APPM), for greater than 10 years and empowers native entrepreneurs to compete worldwide.
Artistic by nature and an artist at coronary heart and soul, realized to like knowledge and numbers by them from one other perspective.
The final word app: Why e mail advertising and marketing nonetheless thrives
Stripo: You’ve had a various journey in advertising and marketing, from communication design to founding a number of companies and educating. What initially drew you to e mail advertising and marketing, and what features proceed to captivate you?
Rui: My life is a serendipity of occasions offering a number of doorways to open. I select to open the doorways that relate to what challenges me, match my values, and appear proper at that second.
Have I finished many issues that I remorse? For certain, however it’s a part of the method. I realized a lot from it.
In ’96–97, two Spanish entrepreneurs challenged me to review every thing about one of the best web alternatives in america on the time. After researching loads utilizing a dial-up web connection (sure, I’m that previous), it was clear that permission e mail advertising and marketing was the way in which to go.
Even at the moment, and earlier than regulation was made to demand it, having the subscriber’s permission was what made the distinction between the a number of corporations utilizing e mail advertising and marketing on the time.
It was clear that there was a decline in these utilizing opt-out methods (including folks with out their consent till they’d choose out) and in those that collected their consent within the course of. That idea was the beginning of the biggest permission e mail advertising and marketing database in Portuguese and Spanish worldwide. I’m happy with being a part of that achievement.
Challenger channels like SMS, social media, direct messaging apps, and even Slack have vitiated the loss of life of e mail advertising and marketing. We’re nonetheless right here and thriving.
On the finish of the day, e mail is what I name the last word app. It’s a common protocol of communication that may be present in any digital system, even in undeveloped nations. It may be in our newest Tesla mannequin or our sensible fridge.
Rui Nunes,
Founding father of SendXmail, Zopply, and HotLeads.
Likewise, it has additionally change into like an web ID. We use our e mail addresses to log in, which has change into an identification course of to work across the internet. That’s what I discover superb about it as a channel. It has change into pervasive and a part of the online as we all know it.
Electronic mail advertising and marketing methods that ship: Insights and greatest practices
S: Along with your expertise main groups and serving to corporations maximize their ROI, what do you see as essentially the most ignored metric in e mail advertising and marketing as we speak, and why do you assume extra manufacturers ought to concentrate on it?
R: The nice and unhealthy of e mail advertising and marketing are the identical: it’s low-cost and works! So, extracting the ROI of e mail advertising and marketing is just not that tough.
Having mentioned that, essentially the most ignored metric I see with e mail advertising and marketing as we speak and from the start is their subscribers’ LTV — lifetime worth.
To today, I nonetheless bear in mind very intently that once I left the primary e mail advertising and marketing firm I led, I used to be checking the analytics, and there have been folks nonetheless opening, clicking, and doing the issues that generated cash for greater than 12 years straight.
I’ll repeat it: 12 years!
Are you able to think about how a lot cash these folks have generated for us through the years, since we’re paid per e mail despatched or performance-based?
When you’ve got a excessive quantity, you might be extra aggressive in your funding to get related folks onto your record. As a substitute of making an attempt to scrape for quantity, paying pennies to get unengaged subscribers, you possibly can pay a lot larger to have prime performers each time.
S: Personalization and segmentation have change into important in e mail advertising and marketing. How do you strategy creating significant, data-driven segments that transcend the fundamentals, and will you share an instance of a profitable marketing campaign the place superior segmentation performed a key position?
R: Certain. For starters, some segments weren’t used beforehand as a result of we didn’t have sufficient subscribers in these segments to justify growing personalized content material for them. It wouldn’t make sense as a result of it wasn’t worthwhile to do it. We would want extra crucial mass to make it price it.
With AI, that isn’t an issue anymore. AI can section two subscribers and personalize emails of 1 — on the restrict — with out main human work.
Segments have been probably the greatest methods to extract essentially the most out of a listing, not solely from a efficiency perspective but in addition to supply extra related content material for every particular person. The extra related we discover the e-mail, the extra it is going to carry out and the extra we’ll interact.
A few of our best-performing and ignored segments are based mostly on previous behaviors in our internet properties and campaigns. Entrepreneurs rely totally on everlasting knowledge like age and sources, whereas behavioral knowledge is usually extra correct and fewer biased.
We now have a shopper within the B2B trade for whom we have now e mail automation prepared for individuals who set off a algorithm, like visiting the product and pricing pages greater than X instances. That automation makes use of completely different segments with dynamic content material to ship a super-customized e mail to interact and shut the deal.
Since we activated it, they’ve attributed US$1.3M in simply 4 weeks operating. After all, all of the benefit isn’t just for this automation, however we’re capturing the end result of the whole advertising and marketing funding utilizing segment-triggered campaigns like this.
S: You carry a singular mixture of artistic path and analytical focus to your e mail advertising and marketing methods. How does this twin strategy affect the way in which you design and execute e mail campaigns, particularly when balancing creativity with data-driven selections?
R: Let’s say that my artistic and creative aspect is what’s native.
It comes naturally, although I attempted to develop it as a lot as doable whereas rising up and received a collection of prizes and reward . . . however it wasn’t paying the payments but. So, I needed to decide and develop a aspect of me that wasn’t pure: the analytical one, if you would like.
At first, it was agonizing to take a look at numbers, do math, and attempt to make sense of them. Nevertheless, through the years, it has change into fairly completely different. Now, I like to take a look at uncooked knowledge and create a murals out of it. I selected to see it as an artwork type.
Now, it’s my superpower, which only some grasp: the capability to have an inventive eye for design and perceive what the info tells me to construct campaigns that work. I’m humble sufficient to grasp that regardless of having over 30 years within the discipline, knowledge and A/B testing can nonetheless beat my bets.
So, although my artistic aspect desires to fly and supply out-of-the-box concepts that work like wonders, I additionally perceive that data-driven selections are the way in which to go when the second comes.
Most of my work as we speak includes overseeing the staff’s improvement and creating frameworks and processes that nurture the designers’ artistic aspect whereas empowering the info analysts to have a say within the remaining product.
S: Your background contains founding corporations centered on digital advertising and marketing in numerous nations. In what methods have you ever tailored your e mail advertising and marketing methods for various cultural or regional audiences inside these markets?
R: Really, most of our market resides within the US, UK, and Northern Europe. Spain, Italy, and Portugal (the final one is my headquarters) have a residual impression on my companies.
There are very completely different cultural audiences in all of those markets. I’m not solely speaking about language. If that had been the case, it might be simpler. We might simply must translate the content material, and that’s that. However no! It’s extra sophisticated than that. It’s a distinct tradition altogether. Even throughout the similar shopper, in the event that they’re worldwide, they battle, and we’re now snug with this.
Rui Nunes,
Founding father of SendXmail, Zopply, and HotLeads.
Every content material localization takes a selected strategy to that area, tradition, and even the aim of the marketing campaign or e-newsletter. We are able to deal with this correctly as a result of folks work for us in each location we handle.
We put money into native professionals who deeply perceive what works in that location. Moreover, we presently have greater than 350 contractors working across the globe on many tasks. Since our inception, our absolutely distant stance has been a profitable alternative for us, because it has change into an asset as an alternative of a legal responsibility.
Navigating traits in automation methods
S: Having applied advertising and marketing automation for quite a few manufacturers, what traits do you see in automation methods, and are there any rising automation instruments or practices you’re enthusiastic about?
R: There’s an fascinating mixture of traits occurring. Regardless that many massive manufacturers go for the standard suspects within the discipline, like Salesforce Advertising and marketing Cloud with Einstein or Adobe Expertise Cloud with GenStudio or Goal, there’s additionally a rising development of huge manufacturers ditching all-in-one options for one thing tailored in response to their wants.
Klarna is essentially the most publicized model, however I’ve seen just a few different manufacturers dipping their toes right into a custom-built resolution that conveys completely different options, like AI-coding assist and no-code methods, to construct one thing utterly designed for his or her wants.
The explanations for this are primarily three:
- It’s cost-saving because you put money into one thing that you just personal afterward. There are not any month-to-month super-costly charges, which is paramount for the large manufacturers.
- Tailored design and expertise: this implies they will design one thing that responds on to the expertise they need to present their viewers.
- Proprietary IP.
They usually can maintain evolving the instruments to answer future calls for.
This opens a brand new world, and we’re tremendous excited to contribute to no matter resolution the purchasers want on this division.
For medium–smaller corporations, we’re seeing large adoption of API connector instruments, like Zapier and Make, to supply advanced advertising and marketing automation that the common platforms can’t present in a single resolution.
These instruments enable us to do superb issues, they usually rival the large manufacturers, which normally price 50 instances extra.
S: Automation and AI are rising quickly in e mail advertising and marketing. What position do you see AI taking part in in personalization and segmentation, and are there any potential pitfalls manufacturers ought to look ahead to when integrating AI into their e mail methods?
R: We’re on the tipping level of asserting that multiplying the human strategy is definitely a actuality. Up till very just lately, solely with instruments like Salesforce Advertising and marketing Cloud and related may AI be used to create content material slots inside a e-newsletter designed for every subscriber — what we prefer to name hyper-personalization.
With the appearance of extra democratic entry to AI, even for these with smaller budgets, we are able to now see the rise of hyper-personalization for anybody within the discipline.
Nevertheless, e mail advertising and marketing and automation platforms should not growing these options quick sufficient, as AI is evolving quickly. To appreciate the complete potential of those applied sciences, we have to resort to third-party methods that do the heavy work for us.
I see many individuals fall into the primary pitfalls of relying an excessive amount of on AI and never having a set of boundaries and guidelines of use. They let AI hallucinate, as we normally name it when it goes freestyle and produces content material in opposition to model guidelines and tips.
It’s essential to supply strong constraints and have a number of testing grounds to make sure that the content material generated doesn’t go rogue and supply content material that doesn’t work as supposed.
S: Do you assume the use and coaching of AI analytics and automation are a development in e mail advertising and marketing that may acquire momentum in 2025?
R: I might say so in our case and the purchasers we work with. Nevertheless, this received’t be the case for almost all of the e-mail advertising and marketing and automation market. I’m so pessimistic about it due to the lag between improvements and the adoption fee in earlier conditions.
Regardless that AMP for e mail was launched years in the past, solely a fraction of e mail entrepreneurs use it usually. The identical is true for DMARC and BIMI on the sender authentication aspect or for darkish mode when the system activates at evening.
I believe there’s an urge and a requirement to use it, however most e mail entrepreneurs will solely use the advert hoc and guide strategy, constructing content material individually on ChatGPT and Claude after which pasting it into the e-newsletter.
In my understanding, that’s extra of what we used to do, however as an alternative of an expert copywriter, it is going to be a machine producing bland content material in opposition to the competitors doing the identical factor.
The good potential of AI in e mail advertising and marketing and automation is the power to supply one-to-one content material, each copy and pictures, in response to every subscriber. For instance, if the system is aware of that I’m a rally-racing fanatic from Lisbon, Portugal, it is going to produce copies and pictures in response to these knowledge alerts.
Sharing data: Classes from a thought chief
S: Your e mail e-newsletter shares common ideas and insights on model advertising and marketing, together with case research. What makes a selected case research or perception stand out, and the way do you select which examples to incorporate to supply essentially the most worth in your subscribers?
R: The method is fairly easy. Just a few sources do many of the curation for me, and I even have notification alerts round particular key phrases that do many of the work.
My job, then, is to determine what is sweet sufficient to be part of the e-newsletter.
What makes it ok?
- Is it from a dependable supply?
- Have we seen related outcomes utilizing the identical techniques?
- Does our expertise out there maintain what they declare?
- Is there sufficient details about what they did to extract worth?
- Are the outcomes ok to encourage others to observe their strategy?
- Can our viewers study from that have with sensible examples and techniques?
- Is it completely different sufficient from the earlier shared circumstances to continuously study new issues?
It doesn’t matter if we’re speaking a couple of single-creator e-newsletter or a giant company with a extra advanced technique and techniques. What issues is whether or not we are able to study from it and apply it to our explicit case.
That’s why I believe everybody, from seasoned e mail and automation entrepreneurs to solopreneurs who must juggle all of the capabilities, can study from these experiences.
S: As an educator, you assist information the following era of entrepreneurs. What abilities do you contemplate crucial for somebody coming into the e-mail advertising and marketing discipline as we speak, and the way has this modified over latest years?
R: As all the time, because the starting of this occupation, what’s wanted is the excessive capability to adapt to the context, the established order, and the way our viewers prefers to interact.
Our focus as entrepreneurs is to grasp our services or products and our viewers deeply in order that we are able to talk relevantly to each events.
An ideal e mail marketer should all the time be up-to-date with the most recent traits and absolutely perceive the fundamentals and greatest practices.
A crucial thoughts that isn’t starstruck by the brand new shiny objects can be important.
It must make sense. We shouldn’t leap into each new development simply because it’s . . . new — solely when it is sensible for our final objective.
Lastly, they have to be humble. After so a few years within the enterprise, I’m humble sufficient to grasp that I don’t know every thing and that we should attempt to continue learning nonstop. Issues change so shortly that we should all the time be within the loop in order to not miss the prepare passing by.
Wrapping up
We’re extremely grateful to Rui Nunes for sharing his data and expertise on this interview. His insights make clear the artwork and science of e mail advertising and marketing and the mindset wanted to reach a continuously evolving trade.
Listed here are the important thing takeaways from our dialog:
- Personalization is crucial — Rui emphasised the facility of tailoring emails to particular person subscriber preferences, combining zero-party knowledge with artistic storytelling to extend engagement.
- Testing unlocks success — A/B testing and iterative studying stay nonnegotiable when refining e mail campaigns. Rui’s examples exhibit how even small tweaks can result in important outcomes.
- AI instruments are the longer term — whereas creativity stays essential, leveraging AI and automation instruments might help streamline processes and obtain higher outcomes, enabling entrepreneurs to concentrate on strategic objectives.
We hope Rui’s experience evokes you to innovate and refine your e mail advertising and marketing methods.
