another reason to not ghost your list (spoiler: AI) - The Email Sound Booth with Liz Wilcox

Summary5 min read

Podcast Summary: The Email Sound Booth with Liz Wilcox

Episode: Another Reason to Not Ghost Your List (Spoiler: AI)
Release Date: April 21, 2025
Host: Liz Wilcox

Introduction

In Episode 126 of The Email Sound Booth, Liz Wilcox delves into the increasingly significant role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in email marketing. Titled "Another Reason to Not Ghost Your List (Spoiler: AI)", the episode emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistent communication with email subscribers to ensure favorable AI-driven assessments and sustained engagement.

AI and the Evolution of Preview Text

Liz begins by sharing a conversation with her former business coach and current friend, Roberto Candelaria, highlighting a new AI feature affecting email marketing.

Liz Wilcox [00:00]: "All right, let's talk about it. So I was texting with my boy, Roberto Candelaria. [...] his preview text AI was generating it instead of what he wrote for the preview text."

Roberto noticed that instead of his personalized preview text, AI was generating summaries for his emails. This shift indicates that AI is taking a more active role in how email content is presented to recipients, potentially altering the intended messaging crafted by marketers.

Impact on Email Engagement

Liz explores the implications of AI-generated preview texts on email engagement, particularly focusing on cases where AI may misinterpret the relationship between sender and recipient due to limited interaction data.

Liz Wilcox [04:30]: "AI is just telling Roberto, hey, you can unsubscribe. Open this and unsubscribe, bro."

She cites an example involving a subscriber named Nicole, who hadn't engaged with Roberto's emails for over a year. The AI, lacking sufficient interaction data, defaulted to prompting unsubscribes, thereby reducing the chances of re-engagement.

Liz Wilcox [05:45]: "Because Nicole hadn't emailed Roberto in a long time, that means the Internet gods don't have a lot of data for Nicole and don't have a lot of data for the relationship that Nicole and Roberto have via the inbox."

This scenario underscores the risk of diminished visibility and increased unsubscribe rates when email senders fail to maintain regular communication with their lists.

The Necessity of Consistent Emailing

Liz emphasizes that consistent emailing is crucial for building a robust data profile with email service providers (ESPs). This data assists AI algorithms in accurately assessing sender-recipient relationships, ensuring better email placement and delivery rates.

Liz Wilcox [07:15]: "The more you email, the more data they can receive, the more they can make the best decisions for you, AKA put you in the inbox, put you in promotions, you know, make sure your emails are delivered right."

By regularly engaging with subscribers, marketers can enhance their email deliverability and maintain a positive standing with ESPs, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of AI misinterpretation.

AI's Role in Email Deliverability and Subscription Management

Liz discusses how AI-driven tools assess email interactions to determine the likelihood of subscriber engagement. In cases where data is sparse, such as infrequent emailing, AI may incorrectly categorize emails as low priority or prompt unsubscribes.

Liz Wilcox [09:00]: "AI and the Internet gods, they are in cahoots. And if you ain't emailing, they gonna be telling you folks, hey, don't want this email."

This dynamic highlights the intertwined relationship between AI algorithms and email success, reinforcing the necessity for continuous and meaningful communication with email lists.

Motivating Marketers to Maintain Active Email Practices

Despite the somewhat pessimistic outlook, Liz turns the discussion into a motivational call-to-action for marketers to remain proactive in their email strategies.

Liz Wilcox [10:30]: "This should be motivation. Let it be motivation. Get your butt in the chair. Put your fingers on the keyboard."

She encourages listeners to utilize available tools and resources to keep their email lists active, thereby ensuring that AI algorithms recognize and favor their emails in recipients' inboxes.

Leveraging AI and Tools for Effective Email Marketing

Acknowledging the challenges posed by AI, Liz offers practical solutions for marketers to enhance their email campaigns. She suggests using AI to generate content and templates, making the process more efficient and tailored to individual business needs.

Liz Wilcox [12:15]: "Remember email marketing membership? I got you covered for nine bucks a month. I send you a template every single week. [...] You can put the template in. AI, say, hey, this is a newsletter template. Write it for my special unique business. Here's the tone. It'll spit it out for you."

By integrating AI tools into their email marketing strategies, marketers can maintain consistency, personalize content, and improve overall engagement rates without being overwhelmed by the demands of regular content creation.

Conclusion

In this episode, Liz Wilcox effectively highlights the critical impact of AI on email marketing, particularly concerning email deliverability and subscriber engagement. She underscores the importance of maintaining a consistent emailing schedule to ensure that AI algorithms favorably assess and promote emails within recipients' inboxes. Moreover, Liz offers actionable advice on leveraging AI tools to streamline email marketing efforts, ensuring that businesses can adapt to the evolving digital landscape and continue to cultivate profitable and meaningful email lists.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

Liz Wilcox [00:00]: "Yet another reason to not ghost your list. Spoiler AI."
Liz Wilcox [04:30]: "AI is just telling Roberto, hey, you can unsubscribe. Open this and unsubscribe, bro."
Liz Wilcox [05:45]: "Because Nicole hadn't emailed Roberto in a long time, that means the Internet gods don't have a lot of data for Nicole."
Liz Wilcox [07:15]: "The more you email, the more data they can receive, the more they can make the best decisions for you."
Liz Wilcox [09:00]: "AI and the Internet gods, they are in cahoots. And if you ain't emailing, they gonna be telling you folks, hey, don't want this email."
Liz Wilcox [10:30]: "This should be motivation. Let it be motivation. Get your butt in the chair."
Liz Wilcox [12:15]: "Remember email marketing membership? I got you covered for nine bucks a month."

Resources Mentioned:

Roberto Candelaria: [Link in show notes]
Email Marketing Membership: Details available in the show notes.

Final Thoughts

Maintaining an active and engaged email list is more crucial than ever in the age of AI-driven email assessments. Liz Wilcox's insights serve as a timely reminder for marketers to prioritize consistent communication, leveraging AI tools to enhance their strategies and ensure their emails reach and resonate with their intended audiences.

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Transcript1 lines

[00:01]
Liz Wilcox
What's up, Liz Wilcox? Here you are listening to the email sound booth, episode 126, and I want to give you yet another reason to not ghost your list. Spoiler AI. All right, let's talk about it. So I was texting with my boy, Roberto Candelaria. I'll link him in the show notes. He used to be my business coach. Now he's just a really awesome, great friend and colleague. And he was texting me about some generative AI stuff, right? So, you know, nowadays it looks like Apple mail, maybe a little bit of Google instead of showing preview text. And you can Google what preview text is if you need to. Instead of the preview text he wrote for his email, there's preview text that's generative. Like, AI is skimming the. The email and saying, like, hey, here's. Here's your summary. And if you're watching on YouTube, like, sorry, I just realized, like, I was. I. I have a red Mini Cooper convertible now, and I just realized, like, I literally ran inside, went potty, and hit record, and my hair is wild, and I feel wild. Anyway, so he was texting me, and his preview text AI was generating it instead of what he wrote for the preview text. Then he showed me our. Our fellow friend who hadn't emailed in, like, a year and had emailed that week. And the generative AI just said, like, the name of her brand and then unsubscribe. It said unsubscribe option available inside. So this. My spidey tenses are tingling here. And, you know, I can't. I didn't do a lot of research on this. Of course, this is all brand new, so there's no research really to be done. But my spidey senses are telling me that because her name's Nicole, because Nicole hadn't emailed Roberto in a long time, and because it was just a hey, how you doing? Type of email, the generative AI, because it didn't have a lot of data on Nicole for Roberto's inbox, said, hey, you might want to open this and unsubscribe again. Rewind that. Because this is my. This is my feeling. Don't take this as law, but I have a very, very high suspicion that because Nicole hadn't emailed Roberto in a long time, that means the Internet gods don't have a lot of data for Nicole and don't have a lot of data for the relationship that Nicole and Roberto have via the inbox. Re. The inbox. Regarding the inbox. Right. So y'all when you email consistently, AI, the Internet gods, Google, Yahoo, Outlook, whatever, whatever, whatever, that allows them to gather data on you, right? The more you email, the more data they can receive, the more they can make the best decisions for you, AKA put you in the inbox, put you in promotions, you know, make sure your emails are delivered right, make sure they go to the top, etc. The more data they have, the better they're going to get at that. So it appears, because Nicole and Roberto, there's not a lot of data in that exchange. AI is just telling Roberto, hey, you can unsubscribe. Open this and unsubscribe, bro. Open this and unsubscribe, bruh. That's not good. We don't want that. Yes, I'm raising my voice. Sorry. If you had your AirPods in and you were relaxing. This is not a time to relax. This is a time to recognize we have yet another reason to not ghost your list. Because apparently AI and the Internet gods, they are in cahoots. And if you ain't emailing, they gonna be telling you folks, hey, don't want this email. Unsubscribe, baby. It's not good. All right? Episode 126. I know, kind of a downer. But really, this should be motivation. Let it be motivation. Get your butt in the chair. Put your fingers on the keyboard. Put that right hand on that mouse. Open up kit.com ActiveCampaign Flodesk Whatever you're doing, whatever you're using, okay? Type up your little. Your little newsletter. You need a little help with your newsletter? Not not knowing what to say. Remember email marketing membership? I got you covered for nine bucks a month. I send you a template every single week. It says, hey, babe, don't know what to send. Copy and paste this. Speaking of AI, you can put the template in. AI, say, hey, this is a newsletter template. Write it for my special unique business. Here's the tone. It'll spit it out for you. All right. I'm Liz Wilcox. As always, you are awesome. All the links are in the show notes. Check it out. I'll see you on the next episode, my friend.