Examples
I just browsed a book on an online store but did not buy. Instead of showing me an ad for the book (which will now become almost impossible with the third-party cookie deprecation), imagine an ad which I see in the footer of a brand email saying “Sign-up to receive 7 days of excerpts about the book”. A single tap (which is an opt-in) and I am done. For the next week (or until I buy in the interim), I receive a daily E3 email with an excerpt and a magic cart to allow me to buy in the email itself.
When I see an ad which says, “Tap to receive 7 days of summer fashion tips”, the probability of me wanting to subscribe is much higher than simply seeing an ad with a logo and an invitation to click to a product or category page.
We can run through more such examples. The underlying theme is to leverage the E3 format for a new class of ads:
- An invitation to subscribe to content
- Content sent as a “micron” (micro newsletter) for a week – same time each day
- Each micron can have a form in the footer to gather zero party data (with Mu as incentive)
- This provides multiple opportunities to see (imprint the brand logo on the consumer’s mind) and sell
- All of this is done in email – think of it as inbox commerce / in-channel conversion
For the advertiser, this is like showing a pop-up on a website for new visitors inviting them to give their email ID in return for a discount on their first purchase. In the case of E3 Ads, the email ID collection is very simple: a tap to subscribe since the email ID is already known. (This is similar to how Meta runs ads enabling a click-to-WhatsApp action.) What is also new is the focus on content as an attractor – a soft-sell. In the effort to do a hard sell, brands end up with wrong acquisitions: a display ad is clicked but the consumer goes away without leaving any identifying information.
Email subscription ads are just one example. In situ form fills can also remove the friction for lead generation ads requiring a clickthrough to a landing page. The PII info can also help with targeted ads for reactivation and remarketing. A search box with a magic cart is yet another example where the ad actions can be completed inside the email. The key is to think how the unique features of E3 can be used to improve the ads and give them a content feel, making them more relevant for the email recipient.
I had discussed more examples in Part 5 of Reimagining Email Ads.
