Recently, our ESP of choice Klaviyo conducted the “Ugly Email” contest and in the process of (reluctantly) submitting our entry, we uncovered some…gems…from a colourful past…let’s say we’re not very proud of. Before our emails were lauded for designs, and churned upto 50% of ecommerce revenue for our 60+ clients as it happens today, let’s say design or copy wasn’t really our strong suit. We were just a couple of young chaps, hopped up on the startup hustle, tapping away on our laptops, and selling email marketing packages to whoever would hire us. But of course these humble beginnings served as the building blocks and prepared us for the present that thankfully looks much better now. 

So let’s dig into some of the best examples of those ugly emails, hold our hands virtually, and while we wallow in collective cringe, thank the lord, for our growth, our new set of amazing copywriters and designers, and clients that let us afford them. 🙂

1. We didn’t get women or their beauty products a whole lot.

2. Let’s just say we didn’t really believe in “less is more.”

3. Having a uniform typeface, colour, style or any semblance of a minimal design wasn’t really our focus. 4. Don’t miss out on the subtle “Browse Abandon” flow that ‘somehow’ managed to sound like a stalker confession!

To be fair, the customers we got back then weren’t really the Blendjets and the Shark Tank-featured companies like we do today.

5. From hair growth supplements to umm, male enhancement products, we marketed the shadiest products on the internet.

6. It’s almost like we specialised in email marketing for feeding people’s body image issues.

We hope you had a good laugh, at our expense! For one thing, we’re really grateful for our evolution from that 2 person freelancer hustle to now a fledgling full-service email marketing agency with over 60 people. To say that we’ve come a long way in more ways than one is an understatement. 

And just in case you’re wondering, our emails look a bit more like these now.  This is one of the many great emails for Blendjet, our breakout client who we have helped achieve over 30% of their store revenue from emails.

(Read the case study.)

Here’s another from Eternity Modern, a client we helped go from 0 to $300k in a month from email marketing.

Check out some more examples of great emails we do at the Email Hall of Fame.