Email marketing is a strange mix of art, science, and sometimes wild guessing. If you’re tired of sending campaigns and hoping for the best, you’re not alone. This guide is for marketers and sales folks who want to actually know what’s working in their email campaigns—and who are curious if personality insights from Humantic can give them an edge. We’ll skip the fluffy advice and focus on what you can actually measure, tweak, and optimize.
Why Bother Measuring? (And What Not to Obsess Over)
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. But you also can’t spend your life chasing vanity metrics. Here’s what matters:
- Open rates: Useful, but noisy—thanks, Apple Mail privacy changes.
- Click rates and conversions: The best indicators that people care.
- Replies and forwards: Often overlooked, but pure gold for B2B.
- Unsubscribes and spam complaints: Painful, but important warning signs.
Don’t get too hung up on open rates alone. They’re easy to game and often misleading. Instead, focus on the stuff that moves the business: clicks, replies, conversions.
Step 1: Set Up Solid Tracking (Don’t Skip This)
Before you start optimizing anything, make sure you’re actually gathering good data. Here’s how:
- UTM parameters: Add these to links so you can track clicks and conversions in Google Analytics. If you’re not doing this, you’re flying blind.
- Segment your audience: Don’t lump everyone together. Break it down by persona, industry, or whatever matters to you.
- Connect your CRM: Pull in email response data, not just opens and clicks. This is where Humantic can help—more on that soon.
- Respect privacy: Don’t use pixel tracking in ways that’ll get you flagged as spam. And don’t ignore unsubscribe requests.
Pro tip: Double-check that your email platform is actually tracking what you think it is. Do a test send and click through yourself.
Step 2: Use Humantic Insights to Understand Your Audience
This is where things get interesting. Humantic isn’t just another analytics tool. It helps you figure out who your audience is—specifically, their personality type and communication preferences.
What’s the point? Well, people respond differently to the same message. Humantic claims to predict which prospects prefer straight facts, which like a little charm, and which want all the details.
Here’s how to use it (without buying into the hype):
- Sync your contacts: Humantic can analyze your email list and give you personality breakdowns (e.g., “43% Analytical, 28% Amiable”).
- Assess your existing campaigns: Compare your messaging style with the dominant personality types in your list.
- Spot patterns: Are your emails with a conversational tone bombing with “Driver” types? Are your detailed ones boring the “Expressives”?
What works: Humantic is most helpful when you’ve already got a decent-sized list and some campaign history. If you’re sending cold emails to five people, don’t expect magic.
What to ignore: Don’t try to tailor every email to every personality. You’ll drive yourself nuts. Use Humantic to spot big trends, not obsess over individuals.
Step 3: Analyze Performance by Segment
Here’s where most marketers get lazy—don’t be that person. Once you’ve got personality data, start segmenting your results:
- Compare open, click, and reply rates by persona: Maybe “Analyticals” love your data-heavy campaigns, but “Amiables” tune out.
- Look for outliers: Did a certain segment have a spike—or a drop—in engagement? Dig in. Was it a subject line, a CTA, or the time of day?
- Don’t chase ghosts: If you see a 1-2% difference, don’t overthink it. Look for big swings that actually matter.
Pro tip: Run A/B tests with different messaging styles. For example, send a straightforward version to “Drivers” and a friendlier one to “Amiables.” See what moves the needle.
Step 4: Optimize One Thing at a Time
Let’s be real—if you change everything at once, you’ll never know what worked. Here’s a sane approach:
- Pick your lever: Subject lines, body copy, CTA, send time, or design. Focus on one.
- Test with intent: Don’t just “try something new.” Have a hypothesis, like “Shorter subject lines will boost opens for Expressives.”
- Measure, then tweak: If you see a real improvement (think 5-10%+), roll it out wider. If not, try the next thing.
What works: Small, steady changes add up. Resist the urge to overhaul everything after one bad send.
What doesn’t: Copy-pasting “best practices” from generic blog posts. Your audience isn’t generic, and neither are you.
Step 5: Keep an Eye on Quality, Not Just Quantity
You can get obsessed with moving numbers up. But “better” doesn’t always mean “more.”
- Watch reply quality: Are you getting real responses, or just auto-replies?
- Look for signals of intent: A thoughtful reply or a meeting booked beats 100 clicks from tire-kickers.
- Check unsubscribes and spam complaints: If these go up, you’re probably pushing too hard or missing the mark.
Pro tip: If you’re running B2B campaigns, replies can be a better metric than clicks. A warm lead replying is worth far more than a click from someone who’ll never buy.
Step 6: Feed Insights Back Into Your Workflow
Humantic gives you more than just a report card. Use what you learn to actually change how you work:
- Update your messaging templates: If direct CTAs work best with certain segments, bake that into your standard outreach.
- Train your team: Share what you’ve learned about which approaches work for which personalities.
- Don’t stop testing: Audiences change, and what worked last quarter might flop next time.
What works: Treating campaign optimization as an ongoing process, not a one-and-done project.
What doesn’t: Letting “analysis paralysis” stop you from sending anything at all.
Real Talk: Where Humantic Shines (and Where It Doesn’t)
Let’s cut through the hype. Humantic is great for:
- Teams with a big enough list to spot patterns (think: hundreds or thousands, not dozens).
- Marketers who want to personalize at scale, but don’t have time to write every email from scratch.
- Sales teams looking for that extra edge when prospecting.
But don’t expect:
- Instant results from tiny lists.
- A magic bullet that fixes bad messaging or a weak offer.
- To never have to experiment again.
Wrapping Up: Simple Beats Clever
If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this: keep it simple, measure what matters, and don’t be afraid to try something different. Tools like Humantic are helpful, but they’re no substitute for honest testing and a bit of common sense.
Start with the basics, let the data guide you, and keep improving—one campaign at a time.