Metroid Prime 4 has been on the cards for some time but many had lost hope on it ever coming to fruition since it has been in alleged development hell.

However, we have now received our first look at what’s next for Samus Aran, and fans are elated.

Here, we’ll run you through what we know on the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond release date, any trailers, what platforms it’s on, and more so you’re up to speed on this highly anticipated sequel to a classic franchise.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond release date

After years of waiting, thankfully we have a release date for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. This is simply 2025 at the moment but at least there’s a year we can cling onto.

Many are speculating that this will be a Q1 release, potentially March, which would be absolutely perfect timing to fill a gap where not too many games launch.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond trailers

There has been only one official trailer for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond – the announcement trailer.

This one was revealed during the June Nintendo Direct and gave us an actual good look at what the graphics may look like on release.

We also saw a villain that had seemingly been lost to time – Sylux, who hasn’t been in any Metroid games since Hunters, which was a nice surprise.

This is probably a bit more than what fans had thought they’d get since all the information up to this point didn’t even have the proper title of the game attached.

One thing to note here is that it did seem to be a very graphically intensive game, possibly alluding to it running on a different system…

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond platforms

Since this is a Nintendo published title, you probably already know that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be on the Nintendo Switch.

However, what many are speculating is that because of when the game will likely be releasing, it will also be a launch title for the next Switch iteration.

Whether this is the Switch Pro, Switch 2, or whatever it is called, is yet to be determined but one thing is almost nailed on – you’ll be able to play Beyond on this next system.

Is Metroid Prime 4: Beyond open world?

Even though the announcement trailer did appear like Beyond could be an open world game, sadly it is not.

Don’t lose all hope though as XboxEra co-founder Nick Baker stated that he learned from his sources that the game’s levels are “massive open areas” akin to something like Halo Infinite, where there was a lot of playable space to work with, almost giving you the feel of an open world.

This is fantastic news as it allows for amore immersive experience, also bringing the Metroid franchise truly into the current gen.

What this may also mean though is that your original Switch may struggle with the load, so keep that in mind before getting too hyped.

Is Metroid Prime 4: Beyond first person?

Yes, similar to that of the other Metroid Prime games, Beyond will be a predominantly first person title.

There will likely be elements where you see Samus from a third person perspective such as when you enter the Morph Ball, but you’ll be unleashing most of your firepower through the eyes of the legendary bounty hunter.

This new series of articles focuses on working with LLMs to scale your SEO tasks. We hope to help you integrate AI into SEO so you can level up your skills.

We hope you enjoyed the previous article and understand what vectors, vector distance, and text embeddings are.

Following this, it’s time to flex your “AI knowledge muscles” by learning how to use text embeddings to find keyword cannibalization.

We will start with OpenAI’s text embeddings and compare them.

(*tokens can be considered as words words.)

But before we start, you need to install Python and Jupyter on your computer.

Jupyter is a web-based tool for professionals and researchers. It allows you to perform complex data analysis and machine learning model development using any programming language.

Don’t worry – it’s really easy and takes little time to finish the installations. And remember, ChatGPT is your friend when it comes to programming.

In a nutshell:

Download and install Python.
Open your Windows command line or terminal on Mac.
Type this commands pip install jupyterlab and pip install notebook
Run Jupiter by this command: jupyter lab

We will use Jupyter to experiment with text embeddings; you’ll see how fun it is to work with!

But before we start, you must sign up for OpenAI’s API and set up billing by filling your balance.

Once you’ve done that, set up email notifications to inform you when your spending exceeds a certain amount under Usage limits.

Then, obtain API keys under Dashboard > API keys, which you should keep private and never share publicly.

Now, you have all the necessary tools to start playing with embeddings.

Open your computer command terminal and type jupyter lab.
You should see something like the below image pop up in your browser.
Click on Python 3 under Notebook.

In the opened window, you will write your code.

As a small task, let’s group similar URLs from a CSV. The sample CSV has two columns: URL and Title. Our script’s task will be to group URLs with similar semantic meanings based on the title so we can consolidate those pages into one and fix keyword cannibalization issues.

Here are the steps you need to do:

Install required Python libraries with the following commands in your PC’s terminal (or in Jupyter notebook)

The ‘openai’ library is required to interact with the OpenAI API to get embeddings, and ‘pandas’ is used for data manipulation and handling CSV file operations.

The ‘scikit-learn’ library is necessary for calculating cosine similarity, and ‘numpy’ is essential for numerical operations and handling arrays. Lastly, unidecode is used to clean text.

Then, download the sample sheet as a CSV, rename the file to pages.csv, and upload it to your Jupyter folder where your script is located.

Set your OpenAI API key to the key you obtained in the step above, and copy-paste the code below into the notebook.

Run the code by clicking the play triangle icon at the top of the notebook.

This code reads a CSV file, ‘pages.csv,’ containing titles and URLs, which you can easily export from your CMS or get by crawling a client website using Screaming Frog.

Then, it cleans the titles from non-UTF characters, generates embedding vectors for each title using OpenAI’s API, calculates the similarity between the titles, groups similar titles together, and writes the grouped results to a new CSV file, ‘grouped_pages.csv.’

In the keyword cannibalization task, we use a similarity threshold of 0.9, which means if cosine similarity is less than 0.9, we will consider articles as different. To visualize this in a simplified two-dimensional space, it will appear as two vectors with an angle of approximately 25 degrees between them.

In your case, you may want to use a different threshold, like 0.85 (approximately 31 degrees between them), and run it on a sample of your data to evaluate the results and the overall quality of matches. If it is unsatisfactory, you can increase the threshold to make it more strict for better precision.

You can install ‘matplotlib’ via terminal.

And use the Python code below in a separate Jupyter notebook to visualize cosine similarities in two-dimensional space on your own. Try it; it’s fun!

I usually use 0.9 and higher for identifying keyword cannibalization issues, but you may need to set it to 0.5 when dealing with old article redirects, as old articles may not have nearly identical articles that are fresher but partially close.

It may also be better to have the meta description concatenated with the title in case of redirects, in addition to the title.

So, it depends on the task you are performing. We will review how to implement redirects in a separate article later in this series.

Now, let’s review the results with the three models mentioned above and see how they were able to identify close articles from our data sample from Search Engine Journal’s articles.

From the list, we already see that the 2nd and 4th articles cover the same topic on ‘meta tags.’ The articles in the 5th and 7th rows are pretty much the same – discussing the importance of H1 tags in SEO – and can be merged.

The article in the 3rd row doesn’t have any similarities with any of the articles in the list but has common words like “Tag” or “SEO.”

The article in the 6th row is again about H1, but not exactly the same as H1’s importance to SEO. Instead, it represents Google’s opinion on whether they should match.

Articles on the 8th and 9th rows are quite close but still different; they can be combined.

text-embedding-ada-002

By using ‘text-embedding-ada-002,’ we precisely found the 2nd and 4th articles with a cosine similarity of 0.92 and the 5th and 7th articles with a similarity of 0.91.

And it generated output with grouped URLs by using the same group number for similar articles. (colors are applied manually for visualization purposes).

For the 2nd and 3rd articles, which have common words “Tag” and “SEO” but are unrelated, the cosine similarity was 0.86. This shows why a high similarity threshold of 0.9 or greater is necessary. If we set it to 0.85, it would be full of false positives and could suggest merging unrelated articles.

text-embedding-3-small

By using ‘text-embedding-3-small,’ quite surprisingly, it didn’t find any matches per our similarity threshold of 0.9 or higher.

For the 2nd and 4th articles, cosine similarity was 0.76, and for the 5th and 7th articles, with similarity 0.77.

To better understand this model through experimentation, I’ve added a slightly modified version of the 1st row with ’15’ vs. ’14’ to the sample.

“14 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“15 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”

On the contrary, ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ gave 0.98 cosine similarity between those versions.

Here, we see that this model is not quite a good fit for comparing titles.

text-embedding-3-large

This model’s dimensionality is 3072, which is 2 times higher than that of ‘text-embedding-3-small’ and ‘text-embedding-ada-002′, with 1536 dimensionality.

As it has more dimensions than the other models, we could expect it to capture semantic meaning with higher precision.

However, it gave the 2nd and 4th articles cosine similarity of 0.70 and the 5th and 7th articles similarity of 0.75.

I’ve tested it again with slightly modified versions of the first article with ’15’ vs. ’14’ and without ‘Most Important’ in the title.

“14 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“15 Most Important Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”
“14 Meta And HTML Tags You Need To Know For SEO”

So we can see that ‘text-embedding-3-large’ is underperforming compared to ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ when we calculate cosine similarities between titles.

I want to note that the accuracy of ‘text-embedding-3-large’ increases with the length of the text, but ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ still performs better overall.

Another approach could be to strip away stop words from the text. Removing these can sometimes help focus the embeddings on more meaningful words, potentially improving the accuracy of tasks like similarity calculations.

The best way to determine whether removing stop words improves accuracy for your specific task and dataset is to empirically test both approaches and compare the results.

Conclusion

With these examples, you have learned how to work with OpenAI’s embedding models and can already perform a wide range of tasks.

For similarity thresholds, you need to experiment with your own datasets and see which thresholds make sense for your specific task by running it on smaller samples of data and performing a human review of the output.

Please note that the code we have in this article is not optimal for large datasets since you need to create text embeddings of articles every time there is a change in your dataset to evaluate against other rows.

To make it efficient, we must use vector databases and store embedding information there once generated. We will cover how to use vector databases very soon and change the code sample here to use a vector database.

More resources: 

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

Google has announced it will no longer phase out third-party cookies in Chrome.

Instead, it’s trying a new approach that emphasizes user choice and control over their web browsing privacy.

Major Policy Reversal

For years, the company had been working towards eliminating third-party cookies, repeatedly delaying the implementation due to various challenges.

Instead of deprecating these cookies, Google will introduce a new experience in Chrome that allows users to make informed choices about their privacy settings.

Anthony Chavez, VP of Privacy Sandbox at Google, stated in the announcement:

“We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.”

User Control At The Forefront

Under this new proposal, Chrome users can set their privacy preferences, which will apply across their web browsing activities.

This pivot comes after extensive feedback from various stakeholders, including regulators like the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), as well as publishers, web developers, standards groups, civil society, and advertising industry participants.

Continued Commitment To Privacy Sandbox

Despite this major change in direction, Google remains committed to its Privacy Sandbox initiative. The company plans to continue developing and offering Privacy Sandbox APIs to improve privacy protection and utility for those who choose to use them.

Additionally, Google intends to introduce IP Protection into Chrome’s Incognito mode, further enhancing user privacy options.

Implications For the Digital Advertising Landscape

This reversal is likely to have far-reaching implications for the digital advertising industry. Advertisers and publishers preparing for a cookieless future may need to reassess their strategies.

Google has stated that it will continue to consult with the CMA, ICO, and other global regulators as it finalizes its new approach. The company also intends to engage with the industry as it rolls out these changes.

In Summary

As Google shifts its approach to third-party cookies, here are key points to remember:

Google isn’t phasing out third-party cookies as previously planned.
Users will have more control over their privacy settings in Chrome.
The Privacy Sandbox project will continue, offering alternative technologies.
This change will affect advertisers, publishers, and users differently.
The full impact of this decision on the digital advertising landscape remains to be seen.

Featured Image: photosince/Shutterstock

AI is terraforming tech. The content and SEO ecosystem is undergoing a massive structural change.

Human-written content gains value faster for LLM training than for end consumers as the pure profit licensing deals between LLM developers and publishers show.

Publishers struggle to survive from digital subscriptions but get millions that go straight to their bottom line for providing training data.

Content platforms, social networks, SaaS companies and consumer apps coat their products with AI. A few examples:

Spotify DJ (AI-generated playlist).
AI Overview (AI answers in Google Search).
Instagram AI personas (celebrity AI chatbots).
Ebay’s magical listing (turn a photo into a listing).
Redfin Redesign (try interior designs on real house pictures).

The quality of machine-generated content (MGC) challenges human-generated content (HGC). I ran an experiment with my Twitter and LinkedIn followers: I asked them to choose which of two articles was written by a human and which by a machine – and they had to explain their answer.

Only a handful of people figured out that AI wrote both pieces. I intentionally framed the question in a leading way to see if people would challenge the setting or believe that one piece was written by a human if told so.

Not an isolated experiment: A survey of 1,900 Americans found that 63.5% of people can’t distinguish between AI content and human content.1
People seek help: Google search demand for [ai checker] has reached 100,000 in May 2024 (Glimpse).
Dark side: scammers use MGC to make money, as 77% of AI scam victims lost money.2

The quality level of LLMs pushes SEO work towards automating workflows and learning with AI, while writers will take content from good to great instead of zero to one.

Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free!

System Builders

Clients, podcasters and panel hosts often ask me what skills SEOs need to build for the AI future. For a long time, my answer was to learn, stay open-minded and gain as much practical experience with AI as possible.

Now, my answer is SEOs should learn how to build AI agents and workflows that automate tasks. AI changes the way search works but also the way SEOs work.

AI + No-code Allows SEOs To Automate Workflows

A few examples:

1/ Cannibalization

Old world: SEOs download search console data and create pivot tables to spot keyword cannibalization.
New world: SEOs build an AI workflow that sends alters, identifies true keyword cannibalization, makes content suggestions to fix the problem, and monitors the improvement.

2/ Site Crawling

Old world: SEOs crawl websites to find inefficiencies in internal linking, status code errors, duplicate content, etc.
New world: SEOs build an AI agent that regularly crawls the site and automatically suggests new internal links that are shipped after human approval, fixes broken canonical tags and excludes soft 404 errors in the robots.txt.

3/ Content Creation

Old world: SEOs do keyword research and write content briefs. Writers create the content.
New world: SEOs automate keyword research with AI and create hundreds of relevant articles as a foundation for writers to build on.

All of this is already possible today with AI workflow tools like AirOps or Apify, which chain agents and LLMs together to scrape, analyze, transform data or create content.

Moving forward, we’ll spend much more time building automated systems instead of wasting time on point analyses and catalogs of recommendations. The SEO work will be defining logic, setting rules, prompting and coding.

You Can Learn (Almost) Anything With AI

I never made the time to really learn Python or R, but with the help of Chat GPT and Gemini in Colab, I can write any script with natural language prompts.

When the script doesn’t work, I can paste a screenshot into Chat GPT and describe the issue to get a solution. AI helps with Regex, Google Sheets/Excel, R, Python, etc. Nothing is off-limits.

Being able to write scripts can solve problems like data analysis, a/b testing and using APIs. As an SEO, I’m no longer dependent on engineers, data scientists or writers to perform certain tasks. I can act faster and on my own account.

I’m not the only one to figure this out. People are learning to code, write and many other skills with AI. We can learn to build AI workflows by asking AI to teach us.

When you can learn almost anything, the only limit is time.

The Work Of Writers Changes

Against common belief, writers won’t be crossed out of this equation but will play the critical role of editing, directing and curating.

In any automated process, humans QA the output. Think of car assembling lines. Even though AI content leaps in quality, spot checks reduce the risk of errors. Caught issues, such as wrong facts, weird phrasing or off-brand wording, will be critical feedback to fine-tune models to improve their output.

Instead of leg work like writing drafts, writers will bring AI content from good to great. In the concept of information gain, writers will spend most of their time making a piece outstanding.

The rising quality work spans from blog content to programmatic content, where writers will add curated content when searches have a desire for human experience, such as in travel.

Unfair Advantage

As often with new technology, a few first-mover people and companies get exponential value until the rest catch up. My worry is that a few fast-moving companies will grab massive land with AI.

And yet, this jump in progress will allow newcomers to challenge incumbents and get a fair chance to compete on the field.

AI might be a bigger game changer for SEOs than for Google. The raw power of AI might help us overcome challenges from AI Overviews and machine learning-driven algorithm updates.

But the biggest win might be that SEOs can finally make something instead of delivering recommendations. The whole value contribution of SEOs changes because my output can drive results faster.

Survey: ChatGPT and AI Content – Can people tell the difference?

Artificial Intelligence Voice Scams on the Rise with 1 in 4 Adults Impacted

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

In a new installment of its “SEO Made Easy” video series, Google provides three simple guidelines for utilizing internal linking to improve SEO.

The video, presented by Google’s Martin Splitt, offers valuable insights for improving site structure and user experience.

Strategic internal linking highlights your most valuable content, ensuring users and search engines can identify them quickly.

Additionally, internal linking can help search engines understand the relationships between pages, potentially leading to better rankings.

3 Tips For Internal Linking

Splitt emphasized three main points regarding the effective use of internal links:

User Navigation: Internal links guide users through a website, helping them find related content and understand the site’s structure.
Search Engine Crawling: Google’s web crawler, Googlebot, uses internal links to discover new pages and understand the relationships between different pages on a site.
HTML Best Practices: Properly using HTML elements, particularly the < a> tag with an href attribute, is essential for creating effective links.

The Importance Of Meaningful Anchor Text

One of Google’s key recommendations is to use descriptive, meaningful anchor text for links.

Splitt demonstrated how clear anchor text improves user experience by allowing visitors to quickly scan a page and understand where each link will lead them.

He stated:

“Users and Bots alike prefer meaningful anchor text. Here on the left you see what that looks like each link has meaningful words as anchor text and you can easily spot what the link will take you to.”

See the examples he’s referring to in the image below:

Splitt continues:

“On the right you see a page that doesn’t use meaningful anchor text and that isn’t a good user experience especially when you try to quickly scan the page and find the right link to use.”

See also: Sentence-Level Semantic Internal Links For SEO

Balancing Link Quantity

While internal linking is vital, Splitt cautioned against overdoing it.

He advises applying critical judgment when adding links and creating logical connections between related content without overwhelming the user or diluting the page’s focus.

Technical Considerations For Links

The video also touched on the technical aspects of link implementation.

Splitt discouraged using non-standard elements like spans, divs, or buttons to create links, saying if an element behaves like a link, it should be coded as one using the proper HTML structure.

In Summary

These are the key takeaways from Google’s video on internal linking:

Internal linking is a fundamental aspect of SEO and user experience.
Focus on creating meaningful, descriptive anchor text for links.
Use internal links strategically to guide users and search engines through your site.
Balance the number of links to avoid overwhelming users or diluting page focus.
Stick to proper HTML structure when implementing links.

See the full video below:

Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, July 2024. 

By Sean Tinney June 19, 2024

One of the most effective emails you can send to your audience is the abandoned cart email. When sent at the right time, an abandoned cart email serves as a helpful reminder to encourage your customers to complete their purchase. Many people put together a cart but get distracted before checking out. In fact, on average, 70.2% of online carts are abandoned.

That is a lot of lost sales. 

But you can recover many of these sales with an automated abandoned cart email campaign designed to increase conversion rates. 

What is an abandoned cart email?

An abandoned cart email is a reminder sent to visitors who added items to their shopping cart but didn’t complete the purchase. This automated email prompts the visitor to finish their transaction. The best reminder emails are creative and timely, aiming to encourage the completion of the sale. 

Supportive calls to actions (CTAs) included in this email can guide the potential buyers to spend more on upgrades or related products or services. Some abandoned cart emails include special deals or free shipping, but most simply serve as a timely reminder to spark action.

Why abandoned cart emails matter

Shopify found that retargeting a customer with an abandoned cart email increases sales by more than 20% and reduces abandoned cart rates by 6.5%. When customers receive a reminder about their left-behind shopping cart, many return to complete their purchase. The best part? You can automate these reminders!

Why do people abandon online shopping carts?

Understanding why shoppers abandon their carts is crucial for creating a more effective sales funnel. According to Statista, the most common reasons for cart abandonment in the US for 2024 included:

Unexpected costs (shipping costs, taxes, or other charges)

Account setup required

Didn’t trust the site with credit card information

Delivery time was too slow 

Complicated checkout process

Inability to see the total cost upfront

To improve conversion rates, it’s important to be clear about costs throughout the process and reduce the number of steps required to complete a purchase. 

How do you determine your cart abandonment rate?

To determine if your rates improve after implementing an abandoned cart email campaign, you’ll need to calculate your cart abandonment rate. This calculation will serve as your baseline.

The cart abandonment rate is calculated by dividing the number of purchases by the number of shopping carts created during a determined amount of time. Then, subtract this value from 1 and multiply by 100 to determine your cart abandonment rate. 

This is the percentage of interest that didn’t end in a sale. Regardless of your current rate, send out reminders to reduce it as much as possible. 

What happens after cart abandonment?

Since there are many different reasons a shopper may leave the website without completing the purchase, there are also several things likely to happen after the abandonment. According to Statista, UK shoppers who abandoned their carts were most likely to:

Purchase the item from the site at a later date (31%)

Purchase the item from an online competitor (26%)

Changed their mind or weren’t looking to buy (23%)

Went to a physical store to make their purchase (8%)

Abandoned cart emails can potentially prompt a purchase from 80% of those shoppers who are still interested in buying. 

15 Abandoned cart email best practices

Writing a powerful reminder email means following best practices for abandoned cart emails. Here are crucial steps you should follow to get the most out of your reminder emails:

1 – Use attention-grabbing abandoned cart email subject lines

Getting your email opened is a huge step with a cart abandonment email since many shoppers are used to seeing them. The best email subject lines stand out from the rest of the inbox but still make it clear what the email is about. Good abandoned cart subject line examples include ”You forgot something” or “Oops, Did Something Go Wrong?”

2 – Trigger the email within 24 hours 

Statistics show that sooner is more effective than later when it comes to reminder emails. Conversion rates for neglected carts are highest when the email is sent out 30-60 minutes after inactivity. However, those rates plummeted after 24 hours when the lead had grown cold.

3 – Copy should be short & direct

Remind people what they left behind with copy that inspires them to take action. Get to the point quickly with creative and succinct copy by trimming out all the excess. Simply highlighting a key benefit or two could help them finalize their purchase.

Speaking of being direct, check out this example from Nike:

4 – Use images to highlight what they are missing

The brain processes images about 60,000 times faster than text. Images will spark instant reminders of what drew them to your items in the first place. Always include pictures or GIFs of the items they’ve left behind to help provoke a response.

Here’s a great example from Hydrow:

5 – Reinforce the product or service benefits

Retargeting with a reminder email is the perfect time to highlight the product they are considering. Offer your most influential reasons for why they should finish the checkout process on the items in their cart.

6 – Consider a discount or value

If you plan to offer a great deal, the cart abandonment email is a good time to offer it. Even a small discount, like $5 or 10%, can make it more appealing to finish the purchase. People love to find deals, which could be the perfect way to help them decide to buy.

Saatchi Art does just that, plus they add a FOMO (fear of missing out) headline:

7 – Offer social proof with reviews

Providing reviews or testimonials can help motivate your leads to take the leap and make a purchase decision. Word-of-mouth marketing is highly influential, and a genuine customer review has a similar appeal.

8 – Include a call to action (CTA) that fits your goals

The primary goal of an abandoned cart email is to prompt a return and complete the sale. Your CTA should be positioned to drive that action. Use FOMO to encourage urgency, such as “Get it before it’s gone” or “Limited availability.”

9 – Set up an automated feature

You shouldn’t have to manually send out your reminder emails. Set automated emails for cart abandonment to go out after a certain lapse of inactivity.

10 – Segment your audience

Tailor your abandoned cart emails to different audiences by segmenting them into groups based on things like purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics. Personalization makes your abandoned cart emails more relevant and, therefore, more effective.

11 – Include dynamic content

Dynamic content in your emails displaying real-time product availability, offers and discounts, or product recommendations keeps your emails feeling fresh.

12 – Highlight limited-time offers:

Draw attention to limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency and to nudge recipients toward a purchase. One way to do this is with a countdown timer. These motivational additions to your email are a great way to get your shoppers to act quickly.

13 – Provide clear contact information

When you simply include your customer service phone number, email, and chat, it gives confidence to your potential customers that you are readily available to answer their problems or questions.

14 – Incorporate additional triggers

Use other behavioral triggers alongside your abandoned cart emails to help keep your brand top of mind. Set up triggers when customers revisit your site or add more items to that old cart. 

15 – Test different send times

We already mentioned that it’s important to send abandoned cart emails within 24 hours. But when exactly should you send your abandoned cart email? Every business is different, and that’s why we encourage you to test different send times to find out what works best for your audience.

Abandoned cart email examples

There are all kinds of abandoned cart emails you can consider when creating your own. Here are some of our favorite examples from real brands, showcasing variations of value promise, humor, imagery, and more.

1 – LEGO

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Fun and engaging graphics

Easy purchase process with “Make it yours in a snap”

Strong positioning of CTAs

Enticing, supportive, and amusing for someone previously browsing LEGO sets

2 – NOMAD

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Adds a touch of humor with “What Happened? Did your Wi-Fi Crash?”) 

Light-hearted but effective

Relevant CTA –  “Seal the Deal.” 

Clever reinforcement of their 30-day return policy

3 – Dote

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Another joke reminder — “Your shopping bag has abandonment issues.”

The light-hearted theme continues with “Save these items hours of therapy and give them a loving home.” 

Clean, simplistic, clutter-free design 

4 – Dollar Shave Club

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Reinforces brand positioning

Offers a bold promise

Highlights several benefits for signing up at the beginning of the email

Large product shot with a natural flow leading the reader to the CTA for more information.

5 – Pepper

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Offers a small discount to spark a purchase

Features the customer’s most recent cart additions to appeal to potential buyers

6 – Peel

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Simple and straightforward design

Creates a sense of urgency with “We’re holding the items in your cart for you, but don’t wait too long!”

Clear call to action in a standout color

7 – Gilt

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Uses the expiring cart threat to spark immediate action

Shows alternative colors of the items in their cart to motivate a purchase

8 – Google Express

Image from ReallyGoodEmails

What I love about this example:

Simple and direct design

Clearly lists items and pricing from the abandoned cart

Positions the CTA right below the headline for prime visibility

9 – Doggyloot

What I love about this example:

Creates urgency with “Items you added to your cart are almost sold out”

Clear and prominent “RESTORE MY CART” CTA

Friendly and warm sign-off

10 – J. Crew

What I love about this example:

Direct and engaging headline

High-quality image of the abandoned product

Clear CTA with “GO TO YOUR BAG NOW”

Additional CTAs

11 – Whiskey Me

What I love about this example:

Personalized touch with the order number

Simple layout focused on action

Friendly reminder of the item’s details

12 – Huckberry

What I love about this example:

Displays the abandoned item with details.

Provides easy access to assistance from customer support.

Creates urgency by mentioning limited sales and inventory.

13 – 23andMe

Image from Really Good Emails

What I love about this example:

Emphasizes the value of the product with a personal benefit statement.

Clean and simple design, focusing on the message.

Clear and direct headline: “Don’t forget to order your kit.”

14 – Le Puzz

What I love about this example:

Friendly and welcoming headline: “Hello again!”

Bright and eye-catching design that stands out.

Creative and engaging copy: “We found a lost puzzle. Could it be yours?”

15 – Stetson

What I love about this example:

Clean and elegant design.

High-quality product image to remind customers of the item.

Free shipping offer prominently displayed to add extra incentive.

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By Jesse Kennedy June 20, 2024

Rather listen or watch? You’ve got it! 

Email design is critical to an effective email marketing strategy. While the actual information you communicate is important, design elements are just as crucial.

After all, studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to our brains is visual.

So, by incorporating email design best practices, you can leave a lasting impression on subscribers, help them remember and trust your brand, and drive more conversions.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a professional designer to create beautiful emails!

In fact, in this article, we’ll cover all the most important email marketing design best practices that anyone can apply, regardless of skill level. 

At the end, we’ll show you a few email design tools to help you start sending gorgeous emails in no time.

Why is email marketing design important?

Email marketing design goes beyond the mere aesthetics of your messages. In fact, design plays a crucial role in how recipients perceive your brand identity.

By giving your email design the attention it deserves, you can help build trust with recipients, get them to engage more, and even drive more conversions.

So, let’s take a look at some of the key reasons you should incorporate email design best practices into your marketing strategy.

1. Create a good first impression

If you’ve put in the effort to get users to sign up for your email list, then it’s key to make a good first impression!

WIth good email design, you can capture recipient’s attention and set a positive tone for their interaction with your brand.

A professional-looking design establishes trust from the outset, ensuring recipients feel like they’re getting the value you promised when they signed up for your list.

2. Drive more conversions

By establishing trust with effective email design, recipients will also be more likely to convert into customers.

So, with the right email design, you can help guide your audience towards the action you want them to take, whether that be making a purchase or downloading a resource.

3. Improve readability and engagement

Incorporating email design best practices is also key for improving the readability of your messages. 

For example, the use of subheadings and bullet points, along with visual elements, like images, can help make your emails more engaging.

A report by Litmus found that people spent an average of just nine seconds looking at an email. So, it’s key that those who open your emails are able to understand the information quickly and easily.

Remember, the easier your emails are to read, the more recipients will be engaged. When recipients are more engaged, they’ll be more likely to convert. 

4. Build recognition with a consistent brand image

One more key reason email marketing design is important is that it can help you build a consistent brand identity.

This is crucial to developing both trust and recognition amongst your recipients.

According to an Edelman report, 59% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they trust, regardless of the price. Likewise, 67% are more likely to advocate and stay loyal to a brand they trust.

So, to create loyal customers, it’s critical to build a recognizable and reliable brand image. By incorporating email design best practices into your marketing, you can achieve this.

11 Email marketing design best practices

Now that you have a better understanding of why design is so important, let’s look at some email marketing design best practices.

By incorporating these tips into your emails, you’ll be able to send emails that create a recognizable brand identity, build trust with recipients, and improve engagement.

1. Pick the right email design layout

The right email layout can make the difference between a subscriber who takes an action and one who unsubscribes. 

Attention spans are getting shorter, so understanding how people read your emails will help you craft more effective messages.

Knowing where their eyes are likely to go can make your email more readable. Better yet, it can help the reader navigate towards your call to action. 

So, let’s explore a few types of email design layouts to help you do that.

Z-Pattern

The Z-Pattern traces the path of your eyes when reading: left to right; top to bottom.

People will read the first line across, then down and to the left, and back across the right again. When reading in this pattern, it forms a Z-shape.

This email design layout works best when you have a lot of information to communicate. The structure will help your subscribers consume all the information in an easy and logical way.

You’ll often see this type of email follow a pattern where you start with a headline and text on the top left, with an image to the right. Then, the lower left corner will have another image, and across from that will be text. 

This works because:

1. Readers’ eyes are naturally drawn to images. By having the images diagonal from each other, you help subscribers follow an easy-to-read path.

2. It creates a cleaner layout by not having all your text on one side of the email.

Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a format used for news stories, but it also works well for emails. This structure grabs attention and focuses on the most important parts of your message. 

It’s good for when you have one thing to tell your readers, and a specific call to action you want them to click on. 

You can use this layout for:

Driving subscribers to your website to read an article

Collecting sign-ups for an event

Encouraging subscribes to purchase a product or service

F-Pattern

Finally, the Nielsen Norman Group first identified the F-Pattern after studying how people’s eyes read a website.

Similar to the Z-Pattern, a reader consumes content from left to right, and then back to the left. However, instead of reading across the second line, they read less. This pattern continues as readers make their way down the email.

This means you should put your most important, attention-grabbing information at the top of your email. 

Then, assume your subscriber is going to skim the rest of your email. Use less text further down in the email, and balance the copy with images on the right.

This email design layout works well when you have a lot of information to communicate. 

You should structure your email with the most important information at the top, and then use bullet points and shorter content further down the email. 

Finally, close with a call to action.

2. Choose the right colors

Select colors that reflect your logo and brand. However, be sure there’s enough contrast for easy reading. Remember, clarity is key!

Text that doesn’t have enough contrast against its background is hard to read.

It’s also a best email marketing design practice to incorporate color psychology. To choose complementary colors, check out this chart about the emotional impacts of different colors.

Free color palette tools like Coolors can also help you create a professional-grade palette in minutes.

Ultimately, this will ensure your emails are better aligned with your brand identity.

3. Leave some breathing room

Densely packed emails may be hard to read. This is especially true on mobile devices, where 49.7 percent of all email opens occur.

Most people scan emails rather than reading them word by word. So, having ample white space between elements makes your emails easier to scan. Essentially, it keeps them from looking visually overwhelming. 

Leaving extra white space has an additional benefit as well: it challenges you to keep your message brief and to only include the relevant details. 

Remember, brevity and clarity are critical to effective email design.

Here’s a great example from TrueCar.

4. Use text as a design element 

Formatting your emails for skimmers and scanners also helps. The most common formatting elements are: 

Subheadings

Short paragraphs

Bullet points

Bolded phrases 

Using visual cues like these will make the most important points of your email easy to find.

Look at this example from Jon Persson of CultMethod. He bolds important elements within the body of his email, while breaking up the copy with bullet points and perfectly-placed headlines. 

Most importantly, each paragraph is short and easy to read.

5. Balance text with images

You should also consider breaking up large chunks of text with visual images. Readers prefer short blurbs of information. So, try incorporating images and lines when possible.

Images help tell the story of what you want to communicate to your subscribers

Just be sure not to overdo it! Instead, follow the 60/40 rule: images should take up no more than 40% of your email.

6. Plan for missing images

Nearly all email services give subscribers the option to hide images. In fact, some even disable images automatically, forcing the user to click a link or press a button to “turn on” images. 

For example, here is how an email with a large hero image appears in Outlook:

Since many popular email platforms block images, you should make sure your email is still readable—and your call-to-action is still clickable—when images are turned off.

Rather than using image-based buttons that hide your CTA when images are turned off, try using a “bulletproof button” instead. This technique combines a background color with a regular text link, providing the illusion of a button that users can see when images are on or off.

Most email marketing services, like AWeber, allow you to easily create bulletproof buttons within your email design layout. 

If the images you’re using are an important part of your emails, make sure you add alt text to the image. This is text that describes what the image is about. 

If you’ve ever laid out webpages or worked with WordPress, you may have added alt text to images before.

When you include alt text, subscribers can still understand what you intended to show them, even if they block images.

7. Pick the right typography

As we’ve mentioned already, making your email easy to read is critical, and your typography is a huge part of this.

So, be sure the font you use in your subheadings and body copy are comfortably readable. Common email fonts include Arial or Helvetica, but you’re not limited to these.

Additionally, ensure you’re using a large enough font size. After all, you don’t want your recipients squinting to try to read your email. For example:

This font size is a 12px, and it can be difficult for people to read

This font size is 16px, which is large enough for most of your subscribers to read without zooming in.

8. Use clear links and buttons

You’ll likely include at least one or two links and buttons in your email marketing design. However, it’s important to make sure it’s clear where all of your links lead to.

For example, instead of writing phrases like “click here”, try using more specific labels.

Something like “buy now” or “get your demo” tell the reader exactly what will happen when they click on your link or button.

For example, in this email from Capital One, their button clearly communicates that when you click it, you’ll be able to view the details of their checking account offer.

9. Attract readers’ eyes

We already mentioned that you’ll want to include some visual elements, like images, in your email design. 

However, it can also be a good idea to add in some creative elements, like a GIF, to really grab your readers’ attention.

If you do opt to include a GIF, just be sure it enhances your message and doesn’t distract from what you want to communicate.

Ultimately, though, small creative touches like this can be a great way to grab attention and engage recipients.

10. Include a call to action

If you’re taking the time to build and send an email to your list, it’s key that you direct your subscribers to take some sort of action when they read it.

Calls to action can include anything from:

Encouraging subscribers to buy your product or service

Directing recipients to download a free resource

Getting recipients to sign up for an event or webinar

Ultimately, you want to engage your subscribers so they take the action you want them to take.

So, be sure to include a CTA that clearly communicates the value it can provide recipients, and make sure it stands out.

11. Send a test email

One more critical email marketing design best practice is to test your email before sending it out to your entire list. This will help you ensure there are no formatting errors in your design.

After all, you don’t want to put in all the effort to design your email only to realize it doesn’t look right in subscribers’ email inboxes.

So, be sure to send a test email to your own inbox first. 

Once you’re positive that it looks the way you want it to, then you can send it out to your entire list.

Email design tools to create beautiful emails

You don’t need to start from scratch to create beautiful emails. In fact, there are tons of email marketing tools that make design a breeze.

So, here are several email marketing design tools to help you get started.

1. Canva

Canva is a free graphic design tool that allows you to create and edit any kind of image. 

Better yet, AWeber has a fully-integrated Canva drag-and-drop button. This means you can create your images in Canva and drag them directly into your AWeber email.

2. Email templates

Sometimes simply getting started is the hardest part of sending an email. This is where an email template can come in handy. 

When you find the right template, most of the work is done for you. All you need to do is customize it to fit your brand by adding your logo and updating the colors. Then you’re ready to go!

AWeber has hundreds of email marketing and newsletter templates ready for you to customize for your messages. These can save you hours of time every week and let you skip most of the heavy lifting of designing your own emails. 

Here are just a few of the templates available. Each template also has at least three color palettes to choose from.

3. Try an email builder

Finally, online tools like Stripo, BeeFree, and Dyspatch also have templates and drag and drop email design editors. They’re similar to what you’ll find in your email marketing provider’s account, but some email designers prefer these tools. 

You can design an email in any of these tools and then import it into your email provider. 

Engage your subscribers with email marketing design best practices

If you’re not a pro designer, building a professional-looking email may seem a bit intimidating. 

However, by incorporating the email marketing design best practices above, you can start creating beautiful emails in no time.

Remember, good email design is critical to building trust, driving conversions, and establishing your brand identity. So, it’s key that you give your design the attention it needs to be effective.

Of course, if you want a custom-designed email or newsletter, we can help with that, too! AWeber offers both custom email templates and landing page designs. 

Full custom designs are $229, or a modification of an existing template is $29. Click here to learn more about our custom design services.