Email marketing remains the backbone of B2B and B2C companies. It’s vital to track how others in your niche build their email strategy and track success to stay ahead of the curve. Analyzing a competitor’s campaigns will allow you to fine-tune your approach, identify emerging trends, and execute better campaigns:
How To Check Competitors’ Email Marketing Campaigns?
Here are some practical methods of understanding and adapting to your competitors’ email tactics:
Subscribe to Their Newsletters (Yes, Really)
To get started, take the easy approach by subscribing to your competitor’s newsletters. Most organizations have simple opt-in forms on their website, giving you instant access to what they send through email.
Use an extra email account to follow competitors’ newsletters. Organize them in folders for each company or industry.
Pay close attention to how often they send it, their subject lines, the tone, visual designs, and overall content flow.
According to HubSpot, studying the frequency with which your competitors send emails can help refine your emails at an early phase. It can increase customer engagement.
Analyzing Subject Lines and Open Rates
Subject lines are the first point of contact between your emails and prospects. Strong subject will grab readers’ attention instantly. You would identify a pattern that works for them and adjust accordingly.
Use platforms like MailCharts or SubjectLine.com to assess the performance of your subject lines.
Categorize your subject lines into groups (promotional, seasonal, or information-based) to understand which one works for you.
Campaign Monitor reports that a message with personal subject lines has 26% more open rates than any other message. Your competition might use personal subject lines- so should you.
Study Images and Design
A good design in emails makes all the difference in conversion. Understand their visuals and layouts to see what is trending and what works.
Analyze images, Calls to Action, and mobile responsiveness because more than 60% of emails are opened on a mobile.
Pay special attention to how well-balanced the overall presentation from images to text to CTAs.
Nike’s campaigns focus on power and energy, which engulfs the consumer. If your target audience is image-focused, do not hesitate to plan around the same strategy.
Leverage Competitive Intelligence Tools
Why should you do the hard work yourself? Tools like MailCharts, SimilarWeb, and Owletter can automatically monitor your competitors for you. They’re a goldmine of knowledge for your email marketing efforts.
Note how often your competitors send emails, how their designs are, what kind of messages they use, seasonal nurturing, etc.
Companies that monitor competition’s email tactics saw a 14% rise in campaign performance because of better, refined information (Owletter).
Keep an Eye on Timing and Frequency
Timing doesn’t have to be a roll of the dice with email. Monitor when competition is sending and at what frequencies to spot patterns and big season specials. Keep an eye out for angles — are they sending more during the holidays? Do they send weekly?
Create a calendar to log and track competitor emails over a given time. See where patterns are emerging and make moves accordingly.
According to GetResponse, Tuesday has the highest open rate day at 18.3%. If that coincides with the competitor’s approach, it may be worth testing with your audience.
Reverse Engineer Their Funnel
Competitor emails may speak louder than the message within. They often reveal a larger funnel sales strategy. Get curious about aspects, like which one works for your competitors, educational or promotional content? How long is their nurture sequence?
Sign up for competitor emails and track how they move through the funnel. Do they begin with nurture and then pivot over to product offers?
Track the ratio of educational to promotional message content, follow-up timing, and progression through a sequence.
Engage with Their CTAs
CTAs are a make-or-break for email campaigns. Interacting with competitors’ CTAs will give you insight into their goals and conversion strategies.
Look out for CTA design, copy, and where they land (landing page, webinars, etc.)
Click on competitor CTAs to see how they guide users post-click. Track conversion flows and test variations in your own campaigns.
Emails with one CTA can increase clicks by 371% and sales by 161% (WordStream). If competitors overload their emails with CTAs, simplifying yours might set you apart.
Evaluate Personalization Methods
Personalization isn’t just a buzzword. It’s one of the primary facilitators of engagements. Start monitoring how competitors are personalizing their content across segments.
Look for personalized subject lines, customized offers, or behavior-based emails. Identify if they are segmenting their audience by demographics or past behavior.
Check Out Automated Email Campaigns
Automation can help you scale your email marketing efforts. Competitors probably have intricate workflows for everything in the user cycle, from abandoned carts to welcome sequences.
Keep track of automation triggers like post-purchase follow-ups, birthday offers, or even reminders when the cart is abandoned.
Subscribe to competitors’ emails and monitor their automated flows in emails. Track competitor email timing and sequence compared to yours.
Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than manual emails, says Experian. If everyone around you is all-in on automation, you should consider it.
Check for Their Usage of Social Proof
Customer reviews, testimonial evidence, or case studies can add trust and credibility to emails. Check if your competitors use social proof and how they are using it.
Look for testimonials, case studies, and user-generated content in email campaigns.
If the competitors have plenty of social proof, you can display your achievement stories or client feedback to gain the reader’s trust.
Airbnb adds customer reviews in emails to boost credibility. If you are willing to apply those techniques, there is a good chance that credibility and conversion rates will increase.
Overall, look for gaps that you have in your strategy, observe any new trends coming in, and copy winning moves.
Top Competitor Email Marketing Tools in 2025
Here is a quick look at the top tools that will supercharge your competitor analysis for 2024:
- MailCharts: It facilitates in-depth tracking and actionable insights about the industry
- Owletter: Helps you track and analyze competitor emails automatically.
- SimilarWeb: You can get a 360-degree view of traffic from emails and campaign success with this tool.
- Email Insights (by Litmus): This tool helps compare your email campaigns against competitors on each device and platform.
- eDataSource: This tool is all about email placement and deliverability.
Leveraging these tools can help you analyze your competitor’s email campaigns and boost conversions..
Summing It Up
Review your competition’s email strategies systematically. This will take you from subject lines to social proof, ensuring you stay competitive and innovative in this world of changing norms and standards of email marketing.
What’s Next?
Would you like to know more about how to analyze competitor email marketing? Explore our in-depth resources and join the conversation with industry experts at MarTech Pulse. The future of digital asset management starts now.
