The Top 5 Websites to Find Email Design Inspiration
When creating a marketing email or newsletter, have you ever found yourself with doubts about the title to write, the images to use, and especially, the copy to compose for maximum conversion? These doubts may sound particularly familiar to you if you’re not a marketer, as creating a high-catching email doesn’t come naturally to you.
When we create a marketing email, we should pay the same attention and care when designing a landing page and website. The title, body, CTAs, and imagery should all serve a specific purpose; everything must fit harmoniously together. To give you an idea of what a great email looks like, here is an excellent example from Soundstripe, a music and media licensing company:
The Soundstripe layout is an excellent example of a high-converting email, as it contains all the critical elements in the right place:
- Top big statement: To immediately catch the user’s attention
- First CTA: To converts the users already convinced
- List of benefits: To explain in detail why it’s worth upgrading
- Final CTA: To persuade those who were not previously ready to buy
What if I told you that thousands of beautiful email design inspirations, similar to Soundstripe, are available at our fingertips and are totally free to browse? If you find it difficult to believe, let me introduce you to email design galleries, places that collect and organize the best email designs to inspire us whenever we need them.
In this article we will show you the best 5 websites to find high-quality email design inspiration. Each of these websites showcase a vast variety of email designs (e.g., SaaS, software, physical/digital products, etc.), so that we can get inspired regardless of the industry or market we’re in.
The Best 5 Places to Find Email Design Inspiration
Really Good Emails
Really Good Emails is the most popular gallery of email design inspiration, featuring over 10.000 emails across many categories, such as industry, seasonal, promotional, and more. It is the go-to destination for designers and marketers looking to improve their marketing communications and get inspired by great visuals and attractive copy. The website includes several topics, and the entire archive of emails is browseable via tags or a direct search box. RGE also offers a premium subscription plan, which allows you to save emails to libraries, save them from inboxes, and set your inspiration as private.
Features:
- Save emails to folders and create collections of inspiration
- Check the code, text, and info of each email
- Browse emails by topics, industries, objective, and more
Email Love
Like RGE, Email Love is an inspirational gallery featuring hundreds of beautiful email designs from top marketers and designers. The website organizes the content into multiple categories and topics, which are browseable using the top header navigation. On Email Love, users can access inspiration by category, trend, and occasion and even discover the best services to create and run successful marketing emails. The website also includes a podcast that teaches users the latest tactics for staying ahead of the competition.
Features:
- Browse inspiration by industry, trends, and occasions
- Discover the best strategies for creating a successful marketing campagin
- Check full email previews and related inspiration
Newsletter Search Engine
Newsletter Search Engine (NSE) is a curated gallery that collects and organizes the best email newsletters to help designers, developers, and copywriters with their jobs. Designing conversion-ready emails has become more challenging in today’s highly competitive market. NSE offers a powerful search engine, allowing everyone to find inspiration and stay up-to-date with the latest trends.
Like other similar websites, NSE organizes the content into categories, which are directly accessible via tags. Another exciting feature of this website is the ability to read email reviews, providing an opportunity to learn from the best in the industry.
Features:
- Read email reviews and learn from top email marketers
- Browse inspiration by categories and brands directory
- Premium functionalities available after sign up
Milled
Milled is a powerful search engine for email newsletters. It covers over 100,000 brands and retailers, making it a go-to tool for finding the latest sales, deals, coupons, and discount codes. Although Milled’s archive is mainly aimed at eCommerce and store owners, it also includes content not limited to these categories.
Users on Milled can search for inspiration through the brand directory, search bar, or by signing up to the website. Signing up also gives the possibility to save inspiration to favorites.
Features:
- The largest archive of fashion and apparel brands
- Possibility to browse local retailers, as well as national and international retailers
- In-app functionalities and add-ons available after sign up
Unlike the other websites we have reviewed, Pinterest isn’t a simple email inspiration gallery but probably the most popular image-sharing and social media service worldwide. On Pinterest, millions of users organize and collect their inspiration every day and share their favorite ones with others.
You can find inspiration for pretty much anything on Pinterest (e.g., landing page inspiration, visual design, illustrations, etc.) , and as well on email design. To find email-related inspiration on this website, simply enter any keyword in the top search bar or follow users and collections.
The best thing about Pinterest is that it’s completely free and offers a wide range of functionalities.
Features:
- Save and organize inspiration into collections
- Share collections with other and gain followers and visibility
- Receive suggestions and news based on your favorite topics
Never Run Out of Email Inspiration Again
As promised at the beginning of this article, by using these 5 websites you will never run out of email inspiration again. Now let’s wrap up this post by including some important information that we will certainly find useful when designing out next email design:
Popular email types with examples
Here are some of the most popular email types, including examples of how to create them:
- Behavioral: An automated email sent to a recipient based on a specific action. An example of behavioural email may be a recovery cart communication sent when a user leaves the checkout without completing a purchase.
- Promotional: An email that offers incentives to encourage users to make a purchase. A typical promotional email may be a Black Friday campaign offering a special discount to new and existing customers.
- Informational: An informative email gives your audience more information about your product or service. For instance, it can communicate that the service is temporarily unavailable for maintenance.
- Seasonal: An email sent during the holiday season (e.g., Christmas) with a positive and emphatic message. These emails can focus on various topics such as promotions, coupons, or simply sending well wishes.
Popular email design trends for 2024
We should pay attention to trends in email design as they ensure that we follow the best practices regarding usability and accessibility. Here are our favorite ones for 2024:
- Big typography: The use of big typography in web and email design is becoming very trendy lately. We like big/bold typography because it helps establish the brand’s character while ensuring the email is readable on any device.
- Animated elements: Dynamic elements like animations and GIFs are becoming increasingly popular in email design. They make the message more direct and engaging and help to reduce the amount of text for a better user experience.
- Gradients: Similar to big typography, gradients are everywhere across web content. Although we do not see any particular advantage of using gradients for a better usability, we still recommend them as they can give brands a contemporary and up-to-date look.
- Whitespace: More than a trend, whitespace is a best practice in web design. It provides room to breathe when the content is rich and helps users access information more effectively on small devices.
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