9 email marketing tips to enhance engagement in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys
In today’s marketing world, email has proven to be one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with customers. In Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, users can access powerful tools that facilitate targeted and timely communications. But these tools are only a portion of the equation. To inspire engagement amongst your customers, it is essential to implement some strategies in your marketing efforts to make them stand out in inboxes that are full of other things vying for their attention. We have compiled a list of email marketing strategies to help your content stand out and boost customer engagement.
Tip 1: Personalization
It is easy to ignore generic-looking emails, but emails containing personalized content are more likely to catch the attention of audience members. Personalization stands out because it is clear immediately that the email was tailored to the individual recipient.
Here’s an example of personalizing the introduction to an email so that it addresses recipients by name.
The easiest way to incorporate personalization is to include the recipient’s name in the introduction, but personalization can include so much more than that. In Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys, you can personalize emails using dynamic content that changes based on recipient attributes, such as industry or location. Customers are far more likely to open and interact with emails that feel personally relevant to them, so any personalization you can include will increase your chances of engagement.
Image courtesy of Microsoft
Tip 2: Design optimization
The layout of your emails can really make or break their effectiveness. Keep your designs tidy and easy to scan. Include white space, headers, and buttons to guide the audience member through the most important parts of the email. A single-column layout translates nicely to a mobile format, making it easy for readers to scan the email and tap any key action buttons. Be sure to preview and test your emails in both web and mobile formats before sending to ensure there aren’t any issues that need to be addressed before customers receive the email.
You also want to avoid any design or content that could get your emails flagged as spam or phishing (for obvious reasons). To do this, consider applying these best practices Microsoft suggests.
In Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, you can run your content through an accessibility and spam checker. This allows you to fine-tune your designs to reduce the likelihood of your email ending up in a Spam folder and ensure that your email is accessible to all audience members.
Navigate to “Check Content” in the upper right part of your window to run your design through the accessibility and spam checkers.
Tip 3: Visuals / Movement
Utilizing strong, relevant visuals can elevate your design and drive click rates. Incorporate high-quality images and graphics that support your call to action. Including movement via GIFs can further strengthen your visuals, as movement will grab the reader's attention. Always include alternate text for your images for accessibility, and ensure the image file sizes do not exceed 100KB to facilitate faster loading times.
Tip 4: A/B Testing
In the Real-time marketing module within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, A/B testing happens at the Journey-level, rather than the email-level like in the Outbound marketing module. Microsoft is depreciating the Outbound module on June 30th, 2025, so we’ll focus on Journey-level A/B testing in this blog. Journey-level A/B testing allows you to test beyond email variations. In Real-time marketing, you can test the effectiveness of communication channels, such as push notifications and text messages.
When determining which email or communication channel version will inspire higher click rates, you can use A/B testing to see which performs better. In Customer Insights – Journeys, the two versions of your message are sent to a subset of your audience. Whichever version performs better will be automatically sent out to the remainder of the audience. You can test images, subject lines, layouts, copy, or even the time of day your email is sent.
When conducting A/B testing, note that it is recommended to only test one variable at a time to determine which variation performed better, as it can be hard to tell if you include multiple variables in an A/B test. This will help you learn the preferences and habits of your audience members and allow you to create more effective content with higher-performing emails. If you want to learn more about A/B testing in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, visit our blog for more in-depth information.
Setting up an A/B Test: Image courtesy of Microsoft
Tip 5: Strong Call to Action
Any marketing email should guide the reader toward a clear next step. Whether you’re hoping to inspire them to shop, download, or do something else, a compelling call to action increases the likelihood of that action being taken. For maximum impact, use action-oriented language and place the action button earlier in the email so individuals who quickly scan emails before moving on don’t miss it. Lastly, design your button to stand out and make it inviting to click.
Tip 6: Reward engaged contacts
Not every contact engages similarly, so reward those who open and click your emails with something special. In Dynamics 365, engagement can be tracked at the contact level, which means you can create segments or Real-time triggers to follow up with engaged users. Consider extending an offer to those users, such as early access to events or discount options. Additionally, recognizing engaged users will inspire trust and deeper interaction. It might be useful to create a segment for highly engaged contacts based on open and click behavior so that you can nurture them with bonus offers.
Tip 7: Celebrate your customers
Consumers respond well to feeling recognized and celebrated, and a great strategy to inspire these feelings in your audience is to give them something special on their birthday or the anniversary of joining your mailing list. Whether it’s a discount code, a freebie, or early access to an upcoming promotion, your audience will appreciate and remember that you went the extra mile to make them feel valued.
Tip 8: Follow best practices for contact consent
As a marketer, you probably already know how important maintaining a decent sender reputation is. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys has features like consent enforcement that help keep your sender reputation up.
There are two Enforcement models in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys: Restrictive and Non-Restrictive. The Restrictive model requires contacts to opt in to receive various types of communications individually. For example, a contact might opt-in to your newsletters but not bulk marketing emails. In the Restrictive model, this contact will only receive emails they have manually opted in to. In the Non-Restrictive model, contacts can receive communications if they have opted in or left them as “not set.”
Navigate to your settings and select “Compliance Profiles” to access these features
Another strategy for maintaining your sender reputation is to monitor your email bounces and clean up your contact list.
Visit our blog to dive deeper into contact consent management in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys.
Tip 9: Frequency caps
The frequency cap feature is another useful tool in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys that allows you to limit the number of messages your contacts receive in a given period through a specific channel. Frequency caps enhance customer engagement with your messages as they are less likely to be perceived as spam content if the customer doesn’t feel bombarded by them. Therefore, they are less likely to unsubscribe or mark your messages as spam when they receive them, helping your sender reputation in the long run.
Email marketing is more than just sending promotional emails and hoping for clicks. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys allows marketers to deliver tailored and timely experiences relevant to their audience. Customers who receive personalized and well-designed emails are more likely to engage with the content in the email. Furthermore, A/B testing and strategic follow-ups can facilitate successful campaigns and inspire readers to respond to your call to action.
A big picture consideration marketers should make is that every click and open is an opportunity to learn more about the behaviors and preferences of your audience so that you can continue building a meaningful relationship with each email you send. Highly engaged contacts rewarded for their engagement are more likely to keep returning as loyal customers when they feel valued and nurtured by your brand. Whether you’re looking for new or optimizing existing strategies, your email marketing can become a powerful tool that creates connections and nurtures them into long-term customers.
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