Do you modify email newsletter content based on recipients' purchase histories and preferences? You could be making more if you do - here's proof.

Email marketing continues to be an essential part of results-driven web strategies. There are certainly shiny newer ways to reach prospects and customers, like social outreach and video content, but email works because it neatly packages brand content into digestible pieces – straight to customers’ inboxes. However, brands are still leaving money on the table if they aren’t personalizing all of the promotional emails they send.

A recent study from Experian Marketing Services revealed that email content is more successful across the board when it’s personalized to the recipient, from open rates to sheer transaction volume. The open rate for promotional emails is 29 percent higher for tailored content than non-personalized messages, and they also provide 41 percent higher unique click rates.

Getting a foot in the door is the first step to content ROI, but the success of personalized emails goes beyond that. Transaction rates are also six times higher when emailed content is personalized for recipients, versus spray-and-pray campaigns containing generic messages.

Transaction rates are six times higher when emailed content is personalized

And it’s not just promotional email. Triggered email campaigns see similar success. Transaction rates are twice as high when messages are personalized, compared with results from impersonal email sends.

Inbox space is in high demand as companies shift their spend from direct to digital. Brafton previously reported that 91 percent of consumers check their email accounts daily, and many do so frequently from their smartphones. However, companies must be careful not to oversaturate inboxes with generic messages that miss the mark, or customers will quickly opt out of email campaigns. Every message is an opportunity to get the right brand content in front of prospects on the precipice of converting and smart content marketers will salvage those opportunities with emails tailored to recipients’ interests and transaction histories.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.