I don’t attend training sessions often. Spending eight hours locked in a classroom is something I’d normally consider a waste of time. But that doesn’t apply to specialised data training that solves a concrete problem — and I definitely had one of those.

My Problem: Loads of Business Data, No Idea How to Work With It

At nanoSPACE, our entire company is stitched together from dozens of separate tools — we don’t have a centralised system (like an ERP) running the show. This patchwork approach works well, handling tens of thousands of orders per month at a fraction of the cost of heavyweight solutions, but it comes with its own headaches.

The biggest one is data fragmentation. Orders land in Shoptet, returns go into Retino, email campaigns are sent via Ecomail, accounting documents flow into Flexibee, Amazon is managed through Expando, project management runs through Freelo, B2B orders are split between Shoptet and direct invoicing… I could keep going for a while.

And that’s without mentioning that Shoptet has no suitable module for deeper analysis of order or customer data — we can forget about RFM analysis entirely.

All of this makes evaluating overall company performance incredibly difficult, and it’s led to us having at least a hundred Excel and Google Sheets files where we track various performance metrics separately, then painstakingly try to connect the dots.

After the last COVID wave, when things calmed down a bit, I had more time for analytics and started digging deeper into various reports, including:

• Revenue / profit per marketing channel, adjusted for returns and refunds
• Tracking margin trends over time, down to individual product level
• Automated allocation of discount coupons and performance tracking
• RFM analysis, customer segmentation, cohorts
  • Identifying traffic builders, etc.
• Financial analysis, cost breakdown, cash flow monitoring and forecasting (e.g. automatically calculating the value of delivered but not yet paid cash-on-delivery orders)

Every single report meant hours of exporting and merging mismatched data in Excel — and even then, I couldn’t fully trust the results. I knew there was a proper way to build this from the ground up: connect data from all systems, clean out outliers, and report into PowerBI or Looker. But how on earth do you actually do that?

Business Intelligence: Running a Company Based on Data

Right around that time, an invitation landed in my inbox for a data training course called Take Your Data Analysis Beyond Excel. The course promised I’d finally learn how to bring order to my business, marketing, customer, and financial data. So off I went 😎

The training was spot-on for me! I’m not a complete data novice — we already have our own data warehouse, and we’d already built a few custom reports with Digitální architekti. What I was missing was the bigger picture: an overview of what’s actually possible with the data flowing through our systems. And that’s exactly what I got from the course.

The training is led by Přemek Horáček, a seasoned Business Intelligence specialist. He makes a living connecting data sources for companies and uncovering the relationships hidden within them, helping his clients shift from gut-feeling decisions to data-driven management.

Keboola: A Data Extractor for Any System

If I could take away just one thing from the training, it would be this: sign up for Keboola! Keboola is the tool I’d been searching for. It allows you to regularly pull data from virtually any source. Here’s what I connected:

• Google Analytics
• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Sklik
• Shoptet
• Flexibee
• Marketing Miner
• Google Sheets

Keboola connects to each source via API and pulls the data you need.

Once inside Keboola, you can transform the data (using SQL or R — Přemek covers the basics during the training) and then save or export it to a storage solution. I export to Google BigQuery, but Google Sheets works too.

Transformations might include cleaning out extreme values (removing test orders, one-off orders worth €20,000, etc.), joining data from different tables using a shared ID, or any other manipulation your dataset needs.

What can you use it for?

For preparing data for virtually any report you can imagine. Here’s what I’ve done or have planned:

• Cleaning ad platform data by removing cancelled / returned orders
• Building an automated coupon report that calculates actual discounts given and resulting margins
• Calculating margins per order and bucketing them (grouping orders by size / profitability)
• RFM analysis on customer data pulled from Shoptet
• A cash flow dashboard enriched with cash-on-delivery data

The training also covers Google BigQuery, a similar tool for data extraction and transformation. It may be better suited for certain use cases, but it’s not as intuitive for the average user.

How do you transform the data?

Unfortunately, there’s no avoiding a bit of coding. Big data means big tables, so you’ll need at least basic SQL or R skills. Both are covered during the training, and afterwards we received a handy cheat sheet of essential commands. I have no ambition to master these languages in depth, but thanks to the course I now have enough understanding to know what to ask our data analysts for — and what’s realistic.

Keboola is also preparing templates for easy data extraction. This feature is still in beta, but it already offers several basic schemas for merging data from ad platforms and sending it to Google Sheets or PowerBI. For the most common use cases, you won’t need any coding at all in the near future.

How to Visualise Your Data?

Once your data is prepped, you’ll want to visualise it — that’s the whole point, after all. Marketers will likely know Looker (formerly Google Data Studio), which I use extensively for all sorts of marketing reports.

What impressed me more, though, was PowerBI, which I’d successfully ignored until now (mostly because it doesn’t run natively on Mac 😎). After the training, I realised that Looker is essentially a demo version of PowerBI. While both platforms are constantly converging, PowerBI still has the edge.

I spent a total of 8 hours at the data training, and I consider it a solid investment. I walked away with a completely new perspective on business data and how to work with it. In my spare time, I’ve been experimenting with building my own reports and gradually preparing a new brief for Digitální architekti, because I can feel it’s time to take our analytics to the next level 😎

Links

• Taste Academy
• Link to the course and upcoming dates
• Taste LinkedIn
• Přemek Horáček

No eye for design, and your Photoshop skills begin and end with resizing a photo? Have you ever gazed enviously at a beautifully designed presentation, or spent way too long trying to put together a decent infographic? If you’re still drawn to the idea of creating great visuals, you’re in the right place — today we’re showing you how to produce on-trend graphics for your website and social media using online graphic tools, even if you have zero design background.

I’ve been working in Photoshop for over 16 years (yes, roughly since I was fourteen) and I swear by Lightroom — but here’s the honest truth: knowing Photoshop and Lightroom inside out doesn’t automatically make you a good designer.

You need an idea, an instinct for aesthetics, and the skill to pull it all together. And some days, all three of those are in short supply. So let’s look at how to create cool visuals even when you feel like you have no idea what you’re doing — ideally for free.

What Is Graphic Design?

Graphic design is a broad term covering the creation, manipulation, and presentation of visual elements — think images, illustrations, photography, animation, and layout design. At its core, it’s the art and craft of visual communication, delivered through a wide range of media and tools.

What Are Graphic Designing Tools?

Graphic designing tools include everything from image editors and vector software to animation platforms and photo retouching apps. Some of the most widely used professional tools include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, GIMP, and Inkscape — but these have a steep learning curve.

These tools let you create and edit visual elements such as images, logos, icons, web graphics, animations, posters, and flyers. They offer features like drawing, colour adjustment, layers, filters, object transformation, and text effects — all the things that help creatives bring their ideas to life with precision.

Professional graphic designing tools are essential for designers, artists, photographers, and marketers. They help produce unique, polished, and professional visuals for everything from advertising campaigns and web design to print media and social content. Without them, achieving that level of creative output and precision would be near impossible — which is exactly why the free online alternatives we’re about to cover are such a game-changer for beginners.

1) Canva – Graphic Design in a Few Clicks

One of our absolute favourite tools — used by enthusiasts and professionals alike all over the world. With Canva, you get access to thousands of fonts, photos, and ready-made designs for free. The app is completely intuitive, and new templates are added all the time. Some designs and features do require a paid plan, but most of us can get by comfortably on the free tier — at least to start with.

💡 Read our in-depth Canva review.

These days we pay for the PRO version — because honestly, nothing else comes close. Every member of our team can use Canva with ease, which has saved us a significant amount in designer fees. With the PRO plan, you unlock a full media library of videos, photos, and other visuals, plus audio — music and sound effects included. You can also edit video and create mockups directly inside Canva.

Here’s what you can create in three minutes:

And imagine what you could do if you spent six minutes on it.

Canva Course for Beginners

Canva is easy to pick up on your own, but if you’d rather follow a structured path, there are plenty of online Canva courses available on platforms like Udemy and Skillshare. A good beginner course typically covers:

• 20+ lessons of step-by-step video content
• Editable Canva templates to practise with
• A downloadable learning plan to keep you on track

Who Is a Canva Course For?

• Complete beginners with no graphic design background
• Existing Canva users who want to make sure they’re using it to its full potential
• Small business owners and solo entrepreneurs
• Creative people who want to turn a hobby into a brand or side business
• Business owners who want to upskill their team and stay current with social media trends

2) Piktochart – Stylish Presentations and Infographics

If you’re after a simple tool for putting together presentations, Piktochart is well worth a look. It’s equally intuitive, offers a wide range of templates, and best of all — it’s free. The results look genuinely impressive too — see for yourself. All you need to do is fill in your content. Piktochart also has a paid tier with significantly more features if you need to go further.

3) Looka – Affordable Logo Creation

Most people assume that getting a decent logo without a big budget is basically impossible. But there are tools out there that can seriously reduce what you’d normally spend. One worth trying is Looka. Simply choose your preferred colours, logo styles, and icon types, and it generates a custom logo for you. You can then tweak it to your liking and export the final version for $20.

4) Infogram – Free Tool for Creating Infographics

Need to put together a polished infographic or a data report? Give Infogram a go — it has a solid free plan. Again, it’s a very intuitive tool with plenty of templates, where you simply swap in your own text and update the graphics or images as needed. Exporting does require a paid plan, but if you don’t need a PDF, a good old screenshot works just fine. 😎

5) Bannersnack – Easy PPC Banner Creation

Tired of building PPC ad banners one size at a time and looking for a smarter way to handle it? Bannersnack is my second most-used graphic design tool after Canva. It’s perfect for producing PPC banners quickly and efficiently — you can generate up to 20 different banner sizes in one go. It even supports animated HTML banners. 😎 The investment paid for itself within the first month. Professional banner design doesn’t come cheap, so having a tool like this in your kit is a real money-saver.

Last year, we were all scrambling to implement a functional cookie consent banner and dealing with the resulting data loss. Larger companies invested in data analytics and worked on modelling the missing data, while the rest of us either didn’t enable the banners at all or simply accepted that Google Analytics could no longer be trusted. Here’s our takeaway from Data Restart 2022 — the leading data analytics conference — and what you can do about the cookie apocalypse right now.

Over the past 12 months, a number of ways to tackle the data drop have emerged and improved. Google Analytics 4, Server-side Google Tag Manager, Consent Rate measurement, Enhanced Conversions and Consent Mode for Google Ads, Conversion API for Facebook, and more.

Just when we e-shop managers started to breathe a little easier, data analysts began sounding the alarm again: for roughly the next three years, there will be a vacuum in which 3rd-party cookies (which we all rely on for ad targeting) disappear from browsers, while no systemic solution is ready to replace them — one that would let us keep serving relevant ads that customers appreciate and that generate revenue.

The ePrivacy Regulation, which is supposed to eliminate cookie banners and allow users to set preferences directly in their browser, won’t come into force until at least 2025.

That’s why I headed to Data Restart — organised by Taste Academy — as I do every year, to hear how the best data analysts in the Czech Republic are preparing for the data apocalypse.

I’m not a data analyst myself, and I’m not a developer either. I’m writing this summary for everyone in a similar position to mine. You’re responsible for online marketing and the performance of your entire marketing mix, but you don’t have developers on hand or the budget to hire a team of data analysts. Yet you still need to keep things running, because your business depends on online.

So let’s dive in 🙂

Less Customer Data, More Estimates

For the past 20 years, online marketers and data analysts have revelled in a data jungle. We measured everything, everyone, everywhere. There was so much data that you could easily create a campaign offering a free coffee with cake to all secondary school students who walked within 100 metres of your shop between Monday and Friday. We knew about our customers:

• which websites they visited
• what they did on those websites
• what they purchased
• what topics they liked reading about
• which devices they used to visit us
• what electronics they owned
• where they worked
• which shops and stores they visited
• what they did in their spare time
• ….

Those days are over (and, frankly, that’s a good thing). Since 2022, users have the right to choose whether we can track them on our websites or not. This simple mechanism means that media houses, despite their best efforts, are losing roughly 20% of their data, while e-shops can easily lose 50%.

Users express their preference via the so-called “cookie banner,” though soon it won’t just be about cookies — because their days are numbered too.

Technological Changes in Browsers — The End of Cookies

It started with ad blockers, which simply strip ads from websites and block the storage of 3rd-party cookies in the browser. Users install ad blockers proactively, and data professionals have more or less learned to live with them.

💡 What are 3rd-party cookies? Third-party cookies are cookies stored in your browser by a website other than the one you’re currently visiting. For example, cookies from advertising platforms (like Google) that use the cookie to track your activity across the websites where they run ads.

But browsers themselves have also started blocking 3rd-party cookies, which makes the problem much bigger. Firefox and Safari block 3rd-party cookies by default — this currently affects roughly 30% of web traffic, and that number will only grow, because it’s just a matter of time before other browsers, including Google Chrome, follow suit.

Due to the blocking of 3rd-party cookies, we’re losing data for remarketing, customer segmentation, and other marketing tools — without which, under the current setup of ad platforms, we should expect a significant drop in revenue.

Google Privacy Sandbox

Google keeps delaying the rollout of cookie blocking in Chrome because it’s searching for a replacement solution. In simple terms: how to continue profiling users without needing 3rd-party data. One of the approaches being considered is Google Privacy Sandbox in Google Chrome. The browser itself will continue collecting data, but it won’t send all of it to ad platforms. Instead, it will only provide them with a user profile (e.g. that the user is interested in Apple iPhones).

Czech Ad ID

In the Czech Republic, an alternative approach to profiling users without cookies is emerging. Two major Czech digital players — Seznam and CPEx — have jointly created and launched the Czech Ad ID project, which enables ad targeting without the need for cookies. Instead, matching will be based on email addresses. Sounds like 2000 all over again? And what about GDPR?

Anyone can join Czech Ad ID; the only requirement is to use one-way email hashing. You hash the customer’s email on your end and send it to Czech Ad ID, which stores the hash in a database. Over time, this builds up a customer profile that can be targeted through programmatic advertising.

Just as with other forms of tracking, you’ll still need the user’s consent for processing their data for marketing purposes (Hello, cookie banner!).

How to Tackle the Data Loss Right Now

As the volume and reliability of your data decline, your ad performance will drop too (at least according to the reports from ad platforms) — regardless of where or how much you’re spending. Let’s look at what you can do to rescue your data right now (apologies to the analysts out there, but no, the average e-shop definitely hasn’t deployed this full tool stack yet 🙃).

Deploy a Functional Cookie Banner

Let’s be honest: you don’t have a functional cookie banner, we don’t have a functional cookie banner… Until now, data was far too valuable to voluntarily give up by deploying a banner that users mindlessly dismiss.

A functional cookie banner means that no tracking fires on the website until the user explicitly gives their consent. We don’t track even when the user doesn’t refuse (i.e. they close the banner or ignore it).

Ad platforms are starting to require a functional banner, and you simply can’t get by without one anymore. At the conference, I heard several stories about Google blocking an entire Ads account because the e-shop wasn’t collecting user consents.

If you’re deploying Google Enhanced Conversions, Google now explicitly asks you to set up Google Consent Mode, which requires a properly implemented cookie banner.

💡How to deploy a cookie banner? Try Cookiebot. It costs around $50/month at most and includes everything you need. It’s what we use.

Set Up Google Ads Enhanced Conversions

If you’re using Shopify, WooCommerce, or another off-the-shelf e-commerce solution, setting up Google Enhanced Conversions is straightforward — you just need to add a token to the plugin. So what does it actually do?

Your e-shop sends hashed 1st-party data (customer information provided during checkout) to Google, which then matches it against its own data to calculate additional conversions. The result is a so-called lift — a percentage showing how many extra conversions Google attributed to your Google Ads campaigns.

The outcome is more accurate reporting, better conversion attribution, and improved data-driven ad optimisation. Use Enhanced Conversions alongside your standard Google Analytics tracking.

💡How to set up Google Enhanced Conversions? For example, via GTM.

Set Up Google Consent Mode

When you deploy a cookie banner, you should also set up Google Consent Mode at the same time. It’s an open API from Google that receives information about users’ consent or refusal of tracking. It can even utilise anonymised data from users who declined tracking. While you won’t see this data in Google Analytics, Google uses it for further modelling and data estimation.

💡How to set up Google Consent Mode? Check out this guide series from H1.cz (in Czech).

Deploy Facebook Conversion API

If you advertise on Facebook, make sure you’re using their Conversion API. It works similarly to Google Enhanced Conversions. You send order information to Facebook via an alternative route, independent of browser settings. This helps Facebook better attribute and calculate conversions.

CAPI is designed as a complement to the Meta Pixel, so ideally you should be sending data through both channels.

💡 How to deploy Facebook Conversion API? Read the article on cernovsky.cz (in Czech).

Measure Your Consent Rate

Deploying a cookie banner isn’t the end of the story. You need to measure the number of consents, the number of refusals, and the number of people who fall into the grey zone (neither consenting nor refusing). Together, these make up your Consent Rate.

You compare the number of page views with consent and divide it by the total number of page views. This tells you exactly how much data you’re actually losing in your analytics.

💡How to set up Consent Rate measurement? The team at Taste can help — they already have a ready-made tool for this.

Start Using Google Analytics 4

Yes! Deploy Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as soon as possible. You can run Universal Analytics (the current version of Google Analytics) and GA4 side by side, but start learning the new platform.

As of July 2023, Universal Analytics is being sunset and you’ll have no choice but to use GA4. GA4 takes a fundamentally different approach to measurement, and at first glance it may seem like you can’t find the information you’re used to seeing in UA. That’s partly true. Some data you see in UA simply won’t be measurable in the future, and GA4 doesn’t even account for it.

On the other hand, GA4 is designed to work with incomplete data. It uses algorithms to automatically model and estimate missing data. Once you’ve deployed a cookie banner, you’ll actually have higher-quality data in GA4 than you ever had in UA.

💡 How to get started with Google Analytics 4? Ideally, attend a training course. One of the best options is the GA4 Masterclass by Czech analytics expert Jan Tichý.

Deploy Server-Side Google Tag Manager

This option is more suited to those running e-shops on custom platforms with server access. By using Server-Side GTM, you theoretically don’t lose data due to cookie restrictions, because everything is tracked on the server side and isn’t dependent on browser settings.

Server-side data collection helps with modelling, because you can compare it against data captured by client-side tracking codes in Google Analytics. But remember — even for server-side tracking, you still need user consent, regardless of whether you’re sending the data anywhere or not.

Make Logging In More Attractive

The data you collect about customers in your own CRM system will become increasingly valuable, and you’ll need to feed it into advertising platforms (like Czech Ad ID or similar initiatives). Your job is to figure out how to encourage users to hand over their contact details (email or phone number). You want as many people as possible to log in on your website. Here are a few ideas:

• a shopping basket that syncs across devices
• saved sizes on fashion e-shops
• members-only sections with exclusive content or offers

CRM in a Cookieless World

Customer data has always been important, but measurement challenges (and the rising ad costs that come with them) are pushing marketers to embrace the “less glamorous” communication channels — especially working with their customer database. Honestly, when was the last time you called a customer to thank them for their order?

💡What is CRM (= Customer Relationship Management)? A CRM is any tool where you collect customer data. It could be a spreadsheet, your e-commerce platform, an email marketing tool…

Your CRM is a goldmine of information waiting to be tapped. If you connect the data correctly, you can find out — even without cookies:

• Which channels are bringing in new customers
• What made customers register with you
• Who your most loyal customers are
• Why customers leave, and what to offer them

Within your CRM, you can segment customers (by purchased items, purchase frequency, order value, etc.) and create audiences from those segments that you can target with specific campaigns (display advertising, email marketing, phone outreach, etc.).

• I’d recommend starting with an audit of your email marketing, which I consider a low-hanging fruit for most e-shops — an opportunity to earn more money with minimal effort.
• To evaluate an email campaign, you don’t need to rely on web analytics. Discount coupon usage can be reliably measured within your CRM database.
• Have a reactivation email campaign but people aren’t opening the emails? Take that segment, export the data to Facebook/Google, and try delivering the same message via paid advertising.
• Look after your top customers. You can personally call them on their birthday and ask what would make them happy.
• You can call customers who haven’t bought from you in over a year — not to sell, just to ask why they stopped shopping with you.
• Set up email automation (or make phone calls) targeting customers who placed a high-value order but haven’t collected it from the pickup point, risking a return.

List and Measure All Customer / Subscriber Sources

You’ll probably be surprised by the sheer number of ways customers and contacts end up in your database. Write down all the sources, review them, and optimise where possible (add incentives, etc.). Here are the typical ways customers enter the system:

During a website visit

• newsletter sign-up in the footer
• newsletter sign-up via pop-up
• newsletter sign-up from a promotional offer

During checkout

• guest checkout with newsletter opt-in
• account registration during purchase

From campaigns

• newsletter sign-up from a Facebook campaign

Offline

• in-store registration
• sign-up via offline competition at a trade fair

There are many more registration methods, and you’ll work with each source differently. Next, find out how you’re currently handling each group and whether anything can be improved. For example:

• Are you tagging the source of each contact in your database?
• What newsletters are they receiving?
• What onboarding campaigns are running for them?
• Do they have their own sales funnel?
• What do you want to do with them going forward?

Consolidate All Your Data in One Place

Choose a system where you’ll centralise your data. I use Ecomail for this, for example. What do you know about your customers that you can leverage in campaigns? Things like:

• gender
• name
• email
• phone number
• name day, birthday
• registration date
• registration source
• reason for registration
• product categories purchased
• specific products purchased
• purchase frequency
• order value
• email engagement, etc.

And then experiment. ☺️ The possibilities for leveraging your database are practically endless. You’ll find plenty of tips in our Ecomail review and in our article with 18 practical email campaign tips.

There was much more covered at the conference. For those interested, I’ve included a list of all the presentations available for download below. Don’t forget to sign up for next year’s edition 😉

Conference Presentations

• Jan Tichý: Keynote: Analytics Is Dead. Long Live Analytics!
• Pavel Jašek: How to Run Performance Marketing With Imperfect Data
• Dominik Kosorin & Lukáš Šmol: Czech Ad ID
• Radek Kupr: Consent Rate — How We Solved the Data Drop
• Marina Mchedlishvili: How to Build Strong Data Strategies in a Post-Cookie Era
• Tomáš Bouma: Data Mesh and Personalisation Use Cases in Practice
• Hana Bartoňková & Vojtěch Říha: How Much Does One Article Earn? Connecting Web Analytics With Advertising
• Linda Appeltauer: CRM in a Cookieless World: Opportunities and Pitfalls
• Roman Appeltauer: Activating First-Party Data With SGTM
• Michal Schejbal: Data Transfers to Third Countries Outside the EU
• David Voráček: Preparing a Media House for the Post-Third-Party-Cookie Era
• David Janoušek: Performance Campaigns During the Cookie Apocalypse

Summaries From Other Sources and Agencies

• Data Restart summary by Digiamo

Although email marketing is not as sexy and trendy as, for example Influencer marketing , it still proves to be one of the most stable and profitable tools that any business or brand should invest in.

Why? Email is one of the best and cheapest ways to communicate with your customers. Looking at our client statistics, email marketing has long been the most effective remarketing tool, costing the company only our time and earning clients millions per month.

A marketing channel for a few thousand that makes millions

For our clients, email marketing accounts for 15-30% of their total turnover. It is no exception that in an e-shop with 40,000 active customers, we can achieve tens of millions of CZK in turnover through mailing. It all depends on the number of customers (e-mailing is mainly a remarketing tool) and the segment of products the e-shop offers.

The big advantage over PPC ads, product comparators or social media ads is that the financial investment in functional emailing is negligible compared to the revenue generated.

💡 We have the best experience with the Czech tool Ecomail which is quite affordable. You pay only for the number of active contacts, in the case of a 30,000 database it comes out to 3,750 CZK per month, without limitation on the number of sent emails.

Whereas with PPC and other ads you have to pay for the specialist’s time and the cost of the ad, with e-mail marketing you only pay for the specialist’s time and any marketing promotions, such as a 100 CZK discount on the first purchase. This means that Email marketing, which can earn you several million a month, can cost you only a few thousand crowns.

How to do effective email marketing

Now we’ll look at the tips and tricks that can make your email marketing the most profitable sales channel for your online store, business or brand.

1) Properly selected email sending tool

Using the right tool for sending emails is absolutely key. You should choose a tool that can be well connected with your e-shop, Facebook but also Google Analytics. Without a good connection to your e-shop you won’t be able to create the most important mail campaign, the abandoned cart. Without proper measurement, you can’t evaluate whether your campaigns are effective.

The tool should be able to A/B test both subject and content and create automated campaigns. We’ve tried a number of tools, such as Mailchimp and Active Campaign, but in the end we’re moving all our clients to Ecomail.

If you’re hesitant to make the switch, go for it, you won’t regret it. We also consider it a great advantage that Ecomail is Czech and therefore has available technical support during working hours.

2) Actively collect contacts in accordance with the law

The most important thing is to collect new contacts and the most effective way is to contact for a discount (for example, a discount of 100 CZK on the first purchase) or for downloading the so-called. magnet. A magnet can be a PDF with a cookbook, for example, or a guide to building a home hydroponics system.

Of course, you also collect contacts when you place orders in the e-shop, but the buyer must agree to receive marketing communications.

There are also more sophisticated ways of collecting emails that can bring you more relevant leads. For example, if you sell things for the garden, you can entice people to sign up for a multi-week email course on gardening, growing vegetables, propagating houseplants, etc. If you sell marketing courses, you can offer an email course on Facebook advertising.

3) Set up your most important automation – abandoned cart

The basic automation is an abandoned cart. We recommend setting it up directly in Ecomail or in another emailing tool, rather than directly in the e-shop (Shoptet can do this, for example). Abandoned basket set up in Ecomail has saved us more than 1100 orders for one client in one year.

4) Send newsletters regularly, but don’t overwhelm

Only send newsletters when you have something to say and never overwhelm your contacts. What should you write to people? You should definitely not forget to send news, monthly promotions or weekly discounts if you run them on your e-shop. Send newsletters in accordance with your content strategy .

5) Only send people content that interests them

Create automations with content that specific people are interested in. Segment your people based on their interests and behaviour on your e-commerce site so that you only send them content that they might be interested in.

For example, don’t forget to automatically send a reminder to customers when it’s time to get spare parts for a device they’ve purchased. If you are selling more complex products, please remember to send instructions by email.

If they buy garden tools or seeds from you, send them tips on what to plant when. Do they buy cosmetics? Create emails with tips on how to take care of your skin.

6) Create meaningful automations and update them according to results

The biggest power in email marketing is in the automations because you only set them up once. Then you just edit them according to how people react to them. You can do automations on people who buy products for bodybuilders, for yogis or for coffee lovers, depending on what e-shop or website you run.

If you create interesting content, people will not only read it, but they will also build a better relationship with your brand and are more likely to purchase the products you recommend in the email.

7) Use verbs or action words in the subject

The subject should be strong enough to attract attention. Thus, it is recommended to use verbs that evoke emotion or action, such as “buy”, “end”, “don’t miss”, “won’t” and “congratulations”. Action words such as “today only”, “discount” and ” important“ also work .

8) Try emoticons 😍

Although many email marketing experts try to avoid emoticons because they can reduce deliverability, they can increase open rates by up to 57%. It is therefore a good idea to experiment with emoticons in the A/B test, but always test the version with emoticons and the version without to see how much it changes deliverability and open rate.

9) Experiment with numbers and statistics

People love statistics and numbers. So put numbers and statistics in the subject line whenever you can.

• 25% discount today only.
• 90% of people love this coffee.

10) Try to arouse people’s curiosity

People are naturally curious and you can take great advantage of this in email marketing. Just lure them in and don’t give away the point in the introductory text, for example:

• “Reproducing a monster is easier than you thought.”
• “You probably didn’t know that about poodles.”
• “Danger to children lurking in your home”.

11) Use preview text

Most email clients display not only the subject, but also the so-called. “preview text” or preview text. If you are using Ecomail, it is very easy to edit this text to add information to the object. So don’t forget to make the most of it.

12) Don’t forget the CTA – call to action button

There should always be at least one call-to-action button(buy, download, read) in the email. Buttons should be red. Don’t experiment, red works best according to all studies. Use the red buttons on banners and in emails. They work better. Period.

When we have a brandbook developed for clients, we always want to develop a red one to use for CTA buttons and actions. The red one simply attracts people the most, and those who don’t have it lose out.

13) Write simply and clearly – good copy is essential

Proper copy is essential, sell with a story or a joke, but be clear, understandable and concise. People are not supposed to read long texts. Therefore, at the beginning, in the first paragraph, say the most important thing. Write texts in accordance with your Tone of Voice .

14) Personalise your content

Refer to people by the first name under which they registered for your e-shop. This can be done very easily in Ecomail , but also with other email marketing tool providers. Send different offers to men and women. Create mailings based on what they click on and what they buy from your e-shop.

15) Test your email subject line and content

A/B testing is extremely important when creating an email. Try different verbs or test the use of emoticons in the subject. Never send an email without testing the subject line or another content option.

16) Control what you send

One of the biggest mistakes is sending an email without first checking how it looks on both desktop and phone. Check the functionality of links, loading images and other elements, and formatting.

17) Set up reactivation campaigns

Set up a reactivation campaign for customers who haven’t purchased in a long time. Haven’t they bought from you in six months or a year? Send them a discount automatically.

18) Lubricate dead contacts

Haven’t purchased from you in a year, haven’t clicked or opened any emails, and haven’t responded to your reactivation campaign? Delete them. There’s no point in paying for a contact (you pay email marketing tools by the number of contacts or emails sent) who doesn’t respond. Seriously, don’t worry about it and don’t spend more than you have to.

Need help with email marketing?

Contact us . Although we cannot guarantee that we will have the space to take you on as a new client, we are always happy to find time for a consultation. We’ll be happy to review your current emailing and suggest automations or ways to collect new leads.