Why Email Is a Powerful Channel for Visual AI

Learn how to take your email marketing to the next level by using visual AI to tailor content to shoppers’ preferences and behaviors.

Emails convince customers to buy, with half of buyers saying they make a purchase from marketing emails at least once a month, and 59% claiming marketing emails have influenced their purchases. 

Email marketing is also the best way to keep customers in the loop about sales and discounts and motivate them to buy. With email marketing’s ROI at $36 for every dollar spent, many brands continue to increase their email budgets. 

Taking marketing emails to the next level begins with visual AI. 

It enables brands and retailers to create engaging and personalized content for subscribers and can draw customers back following cart abandonment through recommendation carousels offering similar items.

How Visual AI Maximizes Email Marketing

Re-Engage Your Customers

Even after a brand seemingly addresses all moving parts of the digital shopping journey, customers still manage to drop off at some point in the sales funnel, which can be frustrating for eCommerce businesses. 

You can recapture shoppers’ attention through carefully curated product recommendations sent directly to their inboxes. Visual AI works behind the scenes to craft product suggestions personalized to a customer’s browsing and session history for continued inspiration and to help them pick up where they left off. 

If a shopper was browsing a checkered shirt on your site and abandoned their cart at the last minute, you can send them an email saying “You Forgot Something!” and include a carousel of similar items directly below the message with the title “Recommended for You.”

It goes without saying that re-engagement emails are also an opportunity to offer other relevant content and promotions to make the shopping experience more enticing.

Draw Attention With Visual Content

Because the human brain processes images 60,000x faster than text, and 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, product discovery works better when it’s image-based. What’s more, an overwhelming 91% of consumers say they prefer visuals to written content and are more likely to remember you and retain 65% of the information when it contains relevant images

Visual AI populates marketing emails with items you know your shoppers will like. Instead of restarting the product discovery process from zero and sifting through endless information, email recommendations present customers with relevant visual suggestions that save them time and energy and take out the guesswork. 

Personalize Emails With Shopper Preferences

Customers expect brands to understand their needs — 71% say they expect personalized marketing, and 76% get frustrated when it’s not there. This also applies to emails, with 60% of marketers saying personalization is among the most effective ways to boost engagement

A visual AI-backed algorithm can provide consumers with a consistent and personalized experience through emails that update every time they are opened and display changes in price, availability, and more. 

Email content can also be customized according to shopper personas. For example, is your customer a high-intent shopper or a casual browser? For those who have abandoned their carts, emails can display items they left behind and offer similar item recommendations.

Scale Your Email Strategy

While personalization is crucial for boosting the online customer journey, applying it at scale can prove difficult due to the amount of data and time needed to do so. 

Visual AI addresses this challenge by automatically tailoring product suggestions in emails to suit customer preferences. Brands can then deliver personalized emails to individual recipients at scale and reduce business costs without sacrificing the effectiveness of their email campaigns. 

Mobile screenshots of the Zales homepage.

Get Measurable Results

Whether you’re aiming to drive down your cart abandonment rate, increase conversion, or gain loyal customers, email campaigns backed by visual AI can help you track and measure your efforts and make data-driven decisions. 

Take jewelry retailer Zales as an example. The company experienced 3x more clicks 5.9x higher conversion by engaging high-intent and high-converting shoppers through visual AI-powered emails. If your approach isn’t reaping results, emails can easily be re-configured and tweaked through A/B testing. 

Boost Email Marketing With Visual AI

With information moving at warp speed, the ability to quickly and constantly update email content to shoppers’ preferences and behaviors is crucial. 

By leveraging visual AI technology, brands can present customers with relevant and memorable content to re-engage them, draw their attention with visual cues, personalize their shopping experience, and gain measurable results.