Hey {{First Name}}, in the last email, we talked about why pretty emails aren’t the lever most brands think they are.

Today, we’re going to talk about another common trap: over-leveraging on automations/flows.

At some point, almost every growing brand gets sold a massive automation map,
12, 15, sometimes 17 flows deep, 30-70+ total emails.

Here’s the truth:

Unless you had nothing set up, the ROI is almost never there.

Agencies are selling $12k-20k+ flow packages and most brands who had the foundation setup already, just end up disappointed.

A simpler flow setup that costs half (or less) usually gets you 90%+ of the revenue with a fraction of the complexity or the over-sending to your audience.

For example, the brand from the next email you’ll see on Friday has over 40 flows live in their account, but still only makes up around 30% of email revenue, over 75% of that coming from 5 core flows.

Complexity feels productive.

It looks sophisticated.

But most of the time, it just creates more to manage without meaningfully increasing revenue.

Flows should support your program and be an impactful PORTION of the program, not pretend to become the program.

Once email gets complicated enough that teams hesitate to touch it, performance stalls.

That’s usually the point where growth slows.

That’s a wrap on this newsletter!

Stay tuned for the next email on Friday to discover the lever that actually moves email revenue at scale (and the metric only big brands are paying attention to that makes sure it’s working.)

If you have any email questions or want me to cover anything specific, reply back to this email.


Until next time,
Anthony