Marketers live by their carefully crafted email calendars. But as soon as an unexpected curveball arises—think inventory issues or last-minute updates to creative assets—those neatly ordered campaigns are immediately shuffled.
While those stressors and inefficiencies are enough to make marketers question their current calendar set-up, this common scenario begs the question: does it really matter whenan email launches? Beyond tentpole campaigns and product releases, most of the calendar is actually quite flexible. Disaster doesn’t need to strike when an email originally scheduled for Thursday morning launches on a Friday evening instead.
Why is that? Because 80-90% of customers leave their marketing emails unopened. Therefore it’s crystal-clear that the pre-selected dates and times on an email calendar aren’t as effective at reaching customers as they could be. A new approach is sorely needed.
Make 2024 the lastyear of your old email calendar. In 2025, embrace a new era of AI-powered email that eliminates the need for traditional planning and helps you connect with your customers more effectively, while simultaneously improving the experience for marketers. Additionally, this will improve performance and get merchants and key stakeholders the category exposure they’re ultimately looking for.
Email Send Times Should Be Backed by Data
Most decisions a marketer makes are data-driven, and the same thinking needs to be applied to the email calendar. Email deployments should be strategic; goodbye arbitrary dates, and hello personalized send times.
Rather than sending a batch email for women’s shoes on Tuesday at 1 PM, AI allows marketers to not only deploy emails at the times that each customer is most likely to engage, but personalize the content within that email for every recipient.
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The secret to this fresh approach? Decoupling campaigns from creatives. Instead of tying a creative to a specific campaign, all assets can be added to an evergreen library. For example, tomorrow’s full file send could have 50 hero images for the AI to select through, which eliminates the opportunity cost in performance when sending the same messaging to everyone. Additionally, each of those assets can be reused based on the recipient’s engagement—for example, automated redeployments can be sent to new subscribers or customers that didn’t previously engage.
This ensures that customers actually see the assets that are most relevant to them. As an added win, marketers ultimately gain far more value from their creative investments.
The New Campaign Flow
You’ve got the tools for a calendar-free 2025. Now, let’s break down what setting up a campaign would look like with AI:
Select a template composed of various content blocks. Some can be AI-driven and personalized while other key messaging is locked in for every recipient or rules based via Studio.
Set guardrails for the AI-driven blocks to help control the output. These can be business rules or merchant preferences, such as certain brands or categories that can’t be shown next to each other or next to a promotion. These are then taken into account by the AI when selecting content.
Manage the creative library, which includes images, URLs, subject lines, preheaders, disclaimers, tags, and more. This is a critical role that only the marketer can play. As the “creative librarian” you will always retain control as to what content is eligible for selection within the personalized campaigns.
Taking the AI-Powered Approach Drives Revenue
While replacing the traditional calendar with AI may sound exciting and forward-thinking, the real excitement comes from the results it drives. Just take a look at Victoria’s Secret.
By taking an AI-driven approach, Victoria’s Secret no longer has to rely on a one-size-fits-all version for their campaign. Through the power of AI, their team can now generate hundreds of thousands of variations to meet each recipient's individual preferences. It’s this level of nuance and limitless personalization that engages customers and ultimately helps Victoria’s Secret see lifts in performance.
Rip Up Your Email Calendar
It’s time to upgrade your email calendar to an AI. Curious how your team can do it? See Movable Ink Da Vinci in action, or explore the related resources below.
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