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Bruna Prado
← Case studies · Channels built from scratch

Gupy · 2021 to 2024 · Email · Lifecycle

Email, from hands-on work to a team

At Gupy, I was an email specialist before leading the nurturing team. This case study has two parts: what I delivered with my own hands, and the experiments I led later, passing on what I knew to the team.

Part 1 · 2021 and 2022

Email specialist

I planned, wrote, segmented and analyzed every send.

What happened

  1. 2021

    Averages above the market

    With some copy highlights for B2B. And communication stopped being ad hoc: I organized everything into an email calendar.

  2. 2022

    30% above the market average

    51.7%average open rate on B2C emails

    The overall average was 30% above the market, and the click rate was 2% above too. Unsubscribes at 0.24%.

  3. 2022

    Large lists

    148Kcontacts in a single send, with a 65% open rate

    Emailing large B2C lists without losing opens: sends to 148K people had open rates between 57.8% and 65%.

Evidence click the image to enlarge

B2C Email Performance 2022 dashboard: 51.70% open rate, 6.40% click rate, 12.67% CTR, 2.24% bounce and 0.24% unsubscribeSends to large lists: 148,257 contacts with a 57.8% open rate and 148,413 contacts with a 65.03% open rate and a 7.32% click rate

Part 2 · Nov 2023 to Mar 2024

Leading the experiments

One person on the team loved testing. I mentored her and passed on what I knew about email; the team ran the tests.

Since April 2023 the open rate had been falling. In August it reached 24.5%, nine months below target, and the impact flowed down the funnel.

What happened

  1. Nov 23 to Jan 24

    Method, not guesswork

    24experiments in 3 months, 11 of them focused on opens

    Each test went into a spreadsheet with a hypothesis, a success metric and an ICE priority, and went through a weekly ritual with the team.

  2. Jan to Mar 24

    Above 30%, three months in a row

    24.5% → 32%open rate

    The gain held because the learnings became standard practice. The average for HubSpot customers in Brazil was 18%.

  3. Q1 24

    Opens that turned into MQLs

    +419more MQLs than forecast with a 24% open rate

    Of the 2,040 MQLs touched by nurturing in the quarter, 419 came from the higher open rate.

See how the experiments ran

Open rate of nurturing emails

above 30% 23% · our CSM's portfolio 18% · HubSpot customers in Brazil 24.5% Aug 23 28% Dec 23 32% Jan 24 32.5% Feb 24 32.3% Mar 24
The experiments started in November; the first conclusive results came in December and, from January on, the learnings became standard practice.

24 experiments, by category

  • Subject line45.8%
  • CTA25%
  • Content offer25%
  • List4.2%

By success metric

  • CTOR34.9%
  • CTR34.9%
  • Openness25.6%
  • Conversion4.7%

Each test went into the spreadsheet with

  • Hypothesis
  • Description
  • Success metric
  • Priority (ICE)
  • Category
  • Result
  • Learning

“The consistent increase in email open rates is proof of your marketing prowess (from 27.92% in December to 31.94% in January and 32.26% in February).”

HubSpot Customer Success, in a message to the team

Evidence click the image to enlarge

Results slide: an 18% average for HubSpot customers in Brazil and 23% for the CSM's portfolio, against 31.94% in January, 32.26% in February and 32.30% in MarchConsistency table: open rates of 28% in December 2023, 32% in January, 32.5% in February and 32.3% in March 2024

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