The 5 Email Marketing Lessons That Took Me From “Cool Copy” to $100M in Sales

Hey it’s Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

I was thinking about what to write my newsletter about today and I started thinking about my early email marketing days.

When I was a freelancer working in-house as the head email marketer for three different 8-figure brands.

I remember 5 distinct “ah-ha” moments working in these companies that changed the way I think about email marketing.

Today, I want to share those moments with you.

Key Takeaways:

• Simplicity beats complexity: one clear message per email wins.

• Email is the core and backbone of high-revenue ecommerce brands

• Focus on the 80/20 of email: popup, flows, and weekly campaigns.

• Double your popup conversion rate and you can double your revenue.

• Great deliverability = send to your engaged list + send good content.

1. The Most Underrated Copy Principle in Email: Keep It Simple

Early in my email marketing career, I wrote long, “wizard-level” value bombs that nobody read.

Meanwhile, a new copywriter was sending super short, base-level emails… and crushing me on clicks and revenue.

The difference?

He kept things skimmable and to-the-point.

Your customer’s attention span is fried. They're checking emails in traffic or at the grocery store. They want quick dopamine, not a novel.

Takeaway: Focus each email on one idea and hand off the CTA like it’s a silver platter.

2. Email Is the Backbone of Every 8-Figure Brand

When I worked in-house with 8-figure brands, I saw this pattern everywhere: The email calendar was built first… before ad creatives, social content, even product launches.

One brand spent six figures monthly on ads just to grow their email list. Why? Because email converts cheaper, faster, and better.

Lesson: If you aren’t treating email as your growth engine, you’re leaving massive money on the table.

3. You’re Overcomplicating It

Most brands stall out with email because they overthink it.

Deliverability, design, segmentation... all of it.

But when we helped a brand hit $750k/month from email/SMS, we didn’t do anything fancy. We just nailed:

• A high-converting popup

• All 8 core email flows

• 3–4 weekly campaigns

And it worked.

Remember: Simple systems done well > fancy systems done inconsistently.

4. Your Popup Form Might Be the Biggest Revenue Lever

Most brands have a 2-3% popup conversion rate.

We regularly push that to 6-12%.

One tweak took a client from 750 signups/month to 2,625.

Welcome flow revenue jumped from $7k to $25k/mo… without changing a single email.

Tip: Test new copy, offers, and layouts weekly until your popup is a conversion machine.

Takeaway: You may be spending time optimzing the wrong things. Focus on your pop-up and list growth.

5. Deliverability Is Easy (If You Know This)

You’re scared of the spam folder, but it’s not that deep.

Google looks at your engagement. If you get 20% opens, they think 80% of people don’t care and they will start sending your stuff to spam.

Fix your deliverability by:

• Only sending to people who open your emails (your 60–120 day engaged segments… anybody who has opened in email in the past 60-120 days)

• Actually sending good content (tips, stories, useful info—not just discounts)

The last part is underrated… SEND GOOD CONTENT

If you send fun, entertaining emails, people will keep opening your emails and improve your deliverability.

Many people forget this.

In summary… keep things simple, focus on your pop-up, create good content, and send all emails only to people actively opening your email.

That’s the formula for a solid email system.

Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
Our Place

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IvLBji-sZohLT11_khPTh0iewI6VTOHy/view?usp=sharing 

Notes:
Fun idea adding the computer interfaces to the email design.

Something fun to add some life to what you’re sending!

Template of The Day

If you want access to a bank of 134 mix and match templates like this equating to over 5,000+ possible email designs, click here » 

Helpful Links Of The Day

• Recreate banger emails with ChatGPT

• Results from starting to send 4 emails per week for this brand

• Banger email from my team

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max

PS - If you run a 7-9 figure ecommerce brand and you want to have a free email strategy consultation, book a call here »

PPS - I have a few different products you can buy. If you purchase any one of these products you get access to my private community of 850+ members with daily posts from me, access to me for support 24/7, and private calls.

• Ecommerce Email Mastery: A 60 lesson course breaking down everything you need to know about ecommerce email marketing in the most concise and organized manner. learn more »

• Mix and Match Email Design Templates: 134 email section templates that can make 5,000+ unique email designs with, learn more »

• QuickFlow Templates: All core 7 core email marketing flows fully templatized with examples, learn more »