creepy personalization?

How To Personalize Your Emails (Without Being Creepy About It)

I checked my unsubscribes in Kit a while back, which I don’t normally do. 

But part of my Thursday routine is checking on my ads, making sure that subscribers who come through that doorway are reading my emails and not unsubscribing after 5 minutes, or worse, letting my emails go cold in some dark corner of their inbox. 

Somehow, I found myself looking at a list of people who unsubscribed that day, and I recognized one of the names, a fellow writer whose work is hilarious and addictive. 

Ugh, I felt so bad.

Not because that person unsubscribed. To paraphrase Jane Austen, there are as many reasons to unsubscribe from newsletters as there are moments in time. No biggie. She must’ve had her reasons. Conjecture is futile. 

That lurch in my stomach was a feeling that I was poking my nose somewhere it shouldn’t be. It felt like an invasion of privacy. 

Just because I have this data, should I be monitoring it, scrutinizing names, and making inferences from it? 

Maybe yes, maybe no. 

There are useful, meaningful ways to use subscriber data. 

For example:

> To determine who’s interested in which offers, based on what they click
> To see what topics they want to learn about based on the winner of a subject line test
> To build a notification list for your upcoming program, made up of everyone who subscribed to a certain freebie or clicked a link
> To show specific messaging to some subscribers and not others (which is called “conditional text” or “conditional content”)

Then, there are creepy ways to use subscriber data. 

For example:

> To monitor who unsubscribed from last week’s email and wonder why that might be
> Sending a personalized email that says, “I can see you opened 6 emails about my latest offer but you didn’t buy yet, would you like to get on a call and talk about it?” (That strategy may work if used covertly, but it makes subscribers feel like you're spying on them.)
> Deleting people who don’t buy anything and writing them off as “freebie hunters.” (This is a real strategy. Sandra and I both think it’s a real ding-dong move. She wrote about it here.)

If you’re like me—and everyone I know, actually—you’re sensitive to how your data is being used. It’s annoying when it’s used in a way that you didn’t consent to. Like when Meta quietly decides to train its AI on all of your photos and makes it complicated to opt-out. 

Personalization in email is a delicate balance of “Here’s some recommended content based on your interests” and “I’m outside your kitchen window, and I see you’re about to make a coffee, might I recommend Folgers in your cup?”

And yet personalization is so important, as is customizing emails based on the interests and actions of your subscribers. 

One recommendation to do that in a not creepy way: Be clear about when you’re going to track and tag someone. For example: 

“Click here to add yourself to the notification list.” 

Or make a note, “If you click this link, you’ll get a few extra emails about this.”

Or say in a promo email, “You’re getting this email because you downloaded X freebie, which makes me think you might want this too. Click this link to say, ‘Actually, I’m not interested.’”)

Use clear language that leaves no room for interpretation about how the data you’re collecting will be used. 

Simple. 

It’s just transparency. 

People can only consent if they know what they’re consenting to. Because consent must be freely given, informed, and revocable, remember? For a refresher, read this email.

Paraphrasing Jesus now, who said, “To whom much data is given, from them much will be required.” (The original quote uses he/him pronouns, obvi. That’s basically what he said tho.) 

Running a newsletter puts you in a leadership position, whether you have 50 subscribers or 50,000. This is just one way you can take responsibility for that power and be in right relationship with those smart humans you are leading. 

Now hit “reply” and tell me how mad you are at Facebook! 

SRSLY, how do you make something people love so much but also suck so bad!?!

Stay cool but also stay mad,

T-Boss
Fueled by love and rage

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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P.S. 

Some people think using first names is just an outdated party trick, but I love personalizing emails this way. What do you think? You tell me.  

If you don’t see your name in that email, it means I don’t have it. You can update your information here.

P.P.S.

Pass it on! This topic is especially important if you work with online business owners whose trust has been broken many times. And please cite my work.