7 Effective Behavioral Email Targeting Strategy to Boost Open Rates & Its Impact

In the quest to maximize email marketing effectiveness, we’ve gathered insights from seven marketing experts on how behavioral email targeting can significantly lift open rates. From using personalized recommendations to lift engagement to achieving a remarkable 55% open rate through data-driven personalization, these marketing leaders, including a Founder and a CMO, share their successful strategies.

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Personalized Recommendations Lift Engagement

In email marketing, we leveraged behavioral targeting by sending personalized product recommendations based on past purchase history. We segmented our audience into groups based on their purchase behavior and interests, then crafted emails showcasing items similar to those they had previously bought or shown interest in.

This method significantly increased our open rates, as the content was highly relevant to each recipient. Specifically, we saw a 40% increase in open rates and a 20% uplift in click-through rates compared to our generic newsletter campaigns. The targeted approach made recipients feel understood and valued, leading to better engagement and, ultimately, higher conversion rates.

This strategy highlighted the power of personalization in email marketing, proving that understanding and acting on customer behavior can dramatically improve the effectiveness of email campaigns.

Alka Gupta, Content Marketing Lead, Smartlead.ai

Behavioral Insight Over Open Rate Focus

Well first, let’s get one thing straight: open rates are garbage. They are about as reliable as a bin bag with a huge hole in it. 

Email marketing using behavioral and specific targeting should not be about getting people to just open your email. It’s about getting your audience to:

– Engage with your brand

– Recognize your brand as ‘not another annoying brand sending me annoying emails’

– Feel heard and seen

– Associate your brand with positive emotions

I use behavioral email targeting in all of my email campaigns (well, our clients’) and through experimenting with simple to the most intricate segments and targeting, we’ve found:

– When you use behavior to not only trigger an email but instead as insight to get into the head of your subscriber, your email goes to another level.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say I just downloaded a brochure online from an independent kitchen retailer and it was called ‘Kitchen Inspiration 2024’.

Most marketers and businesses go wrong here; they call this a ‘lead’. It’s really not. This behavior is often mistreated by brands and then it triggers some sort of sales & marketing process that hounds people with ready-to-buy content and sales calls.

What this behavior tells us is that:

– This person is really invested in 2024 kitchen trends

– This person MIGHT be looking into a new kitchen at some point in the future

– This person cares about their kitchen and the way it looks and feels

– This person isn’t ready to buy

Now, using that insight from behavior changes the strategy.

The messages are tailored using behavior but informed by insight to craft compelling messages and emails sent at the right time to talk more about 2024 kitchen trends and inspiration, getting real on the new kitchen process, providing a link to the brand Pinterest board for lots more inspiration, shares a message on how this kitchen company crafts designs and takes a look inside.

None of this is sales. It’s called nurturing.

Stop using behavior to get opens and start using behavior to build relationships.

Beth O’Malley, Director, Astral Digital

Optimized Send Times Increase Opens

In my past campaign, I tested multiple schedules to maximize open rates. Based on the audience’s work-life behavior (employees at a company), I found a sweet spot. It’s the time when the employee finally settles (physically and mentally) and starts their day. It is generally 10-15 minutes (based on the responsibility the person holds) after the official check-in hours when they are checking their emails, and boom, your email lands ;). Based on the responsibility a person holds, they have different work-life behaviors.

Result? A 5-10% increase in open rates. P.S.: It was not a bulk campaign, but rather a small and targeted campaign.

Ankkit Jjain, Digital Marketing Analyst

Targeted Campaigns Enhance Customer Interaction

I have conducted behavioral email targeting to increase open rates by segregating subscribers based on their previous activities in my company’s emails. For the e-commerce industry client, we developed two email campaigns that were tailored differently depending on customers’ behaviors such as browsing history, purchase frequency, and cart abandonment. Click here to see the best deals at your local auto parts retailer. 

Moreover, we saw a similar effect with a 20% hike in click-through rates and a 25% growth in conversion rates. The specificity and pertinence of the content attracted the recipients to interact more with the client’s offerings, which improved sales in the end.

Kartik Ahuja, Digital Marketer, kartikahuja.com

Re-engagement Campaigns Spike Open Rates

One specific way I’ve utilized behavioral email targeting to boost open rates is by sending targeted re-engagement campaigns to inactive subscribers. By identifying subscribers who haven’t opened emails in a certain timeframe, I crafted personalized messages aimed at reigniting their interest. 

These emails often included incentives like exclusive offers or content previews tailored to their previous interactions. This strategy resulted in a significant uptick in open rates, with re-engagement campaigns typically seeing a 25-30% increase in opens compared to standard broadcast emails.

Naima Ch, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Set Alarm Online

Product Interest Segmentation Elevates Opens

One specific strategy we employed was segmenting our email list based on user interaction with our website, particularly focusing on those who viewed our product pages but didn’t make a purchase. 

We sent these users personalized emails highlighting the products they showed interest in, along with a limited-time offer. This approach led to a significant increase in open rates, from an average of 18% to 26%, and a noticeable uplift in conversion rates, demonstrating the power of personalized, behavior-based targeting.

Alex Taylor, Head of Marketing, CrownTV

Data-Driven Personalization Achieves 55% Open Rate

We tried something new with our emails by looking at how people have interacted with our stuff before. It was like making each email feel like a personal note, talking about places the reader already liked. This wasn’t just guesswork; we knew what we were doing.

The change happened fast. More people started opening our emails—a 55% jump! It felt like we found a secret way to really grab our readers’ attention.

This move showed us how important it is to pay attention to what the data tells us. By making our emails match what our readers are into, our messages became something they looked forward to, not just another email among many.

Swena Kalra, Chief Marketing Officer, Scott & Yanling Media Inc.

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