What is Contextual Email Marketing?

In this post we will introduce the concept of contextual email marketing and illustrate it with some examples. When we talk about contextual email marketing, we are referring to email marketing that, "in real time", adapts the content of the email to the "context" in which the user and/or the brand find themselves at a given moment.. Without going too deeply into the matter, we consider that the context is related to:

• The moment of interaction. For example, I can open an email for a flash sale when there are 2 days to go, or I can open it when there are only a few hours to go. In this case, it will be a matter of adapting the content to the two "time contexts". In these cases, the use of a countdown timer is very useful. As another example, a user might open an email on a weekday, when footfall in physical shops is lower, or at the weekend, when footfall is higher. Depending on the context, it would make sense for the user to find content that induces them to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon or to buy in e-commerce.
• The place of interaction. Emails can be opened from the workplace, from home or in another city if I am travelling. Let's suppose we are a retailer with physical shops distributed throughout a territory. If a user opens an email from a city where we have a physical shop, we could show them on a map the nearest one to go to.
• The operational circumstances of the business. Our users can open an email showing products on offer when there is inventory, and after a few days open it again when the inventory has changed. Depending on the conditions of this business context, we could show, in real time, the products that are in stock at any given moment.

Contexts can be multiple, what we are talking about when we talk about contextual email marketing is to determine which elements are most significant when determining a context and to use those that "operationally" are more agile and give better results.

To illustrate these ideas, we have reproduced here some examples of contextual email marketing that we found interesting.

In this example from Vueling we see the use of a countdown timer in which the user visualises the time remaining until the end of the offer. It is a way to increase the sense of urgency and keep the user's attention during the campaign.

This is an example of contextual email marketing based on geolocation. The user finds a map with the physical locations where they can redeem their points. Depending on the place (physical context) from which they open the email, the nearest locations are shown at that moment.

In this example, the products that the user finds when opening the email are inserted as they appear in the e-commerce. If a few days after the campaign and for inventory reasons, the products change in the e-commerce, when the user opens the email again, they will find the updated contents in the email.