Key takeaways ✨
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Litmus Live 2026 was one for the books. We had nearly 40 email-loving speakers whose sessions were so good that our heads are still spinning with new knowledge. And the attendees! Marketers tuned in from 79 different countries, including Ecuador, Scotland, Germany, India, and Japan.
Table of contents
- Authenticity meets AI: GaryVee on marketing’s next frontier
- What to do differently in 2026 (the email edition)
- From data to clicks: building personalized experiences that connect
- Where is email marketing headed in 2026?
- The inbox decoded: how mailbox providers really think about email
- How to make post-event follow-up not suck for you (or your customers)
- How to connect your email workflow for full funnel success
- Live email optimization with the pros
- Rewriting the future of email: Validity’s next chapter
- The new edge in email: AI, omnichannel playbooks, and pitfalls to avoid
- Cleared for takeoff: Virgin Atlantic’s’ high-flying email strategy
- Let’s go global: expert advice for connecting with international audiences
- Retention redefined—a practical framework for profitable newsletters in 2026
- Beyond the hype: real B2B email strategies for AI, automation, and inboxing
- Embrace AI for your email campaigns in 2026
- Accessibility is personalization: 3 email mistakes still breaking UX in 2026
- Omnichannel subscribers and the growing urgency to manage them better
Day 1 of Litmus Live 2026
Authenticity meets AI: GaryVee on marketing’s next frontier
Litmus Live kicked off with a special session from Gary Vaynerchuk, AKA GaryVee. The Founder and CEO at VaynerX and VaynerMedia chatted with Validity’s Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Validity, Mark Briggs.
They covered topics like the relevance of email in 2026, how email and social media work together, and doing the right thing for your audience. One of the key takeaways in the session chat: be an “AND marketer.” If you stop saying or and start saying and in terms of testing variants, trying new channels, etc, you’ll see your results soar.
This was a live-only session, meaning that the recording is not available for viewing.
What to do differently in 2026 (the email edition)
Ann, Ann, Ann… she’s a top keynote speaker for a reason—because she’s that good! Even with internet issues delaying her session, she delighted everyone with a masterclass in storytelling.
She walked us through the story of a classic cartoon called Mighty Mouse. It featured the rampaging sloth and the villainous cow—with parallels between their story and how we work today. It all came together with the ASAP Matrix showing impact over time and the growth potential. The sloth, of course, creates slow moments of high impact and high growth that benefits brands long into the future.
Then Ann, like the absolute pro she is, tied it all back to modern email in the AI era.
*Ann’s session is only available for re-watching through mid-May, so get your viewing in while you can!
From data to clicks: building personalized experiences that connect
This fantastic personalization panel featured Anna Levitin, Israa Alrawi, Jay Oram, and Matt Harris. It was hosted by Validity’s Sr. Director of Professional Services, Laura Christensen.
They had an open discussion about practical tips for personalizing campaigns, what’s holding teams back from personalizing more, how to manage data collection so personalization benefits subscribers, and more!
Where is email marketing headed in 2026?
The dynamic email trio—Guy Hanson, Danielle Gallant, and Al Iverson—got back together.
They started with deliverability predictions for 2026, including how relevancy sorting is affecting inboxes and behavior, then moved into how inbox requirements are evolving.
And what kind of discussion about predictions would it be without discussing AI? Open time optimization, relevancy sorting, AI-generated summaries, and adoption for both consumers and senders… They could have talked for hours but managed to cram a fantastic discussion into 30 minutes.
The inbox decoded: how mailbox providers really think about email
This was one of our most praised sessions of day 1! Guy Hanson and Tom Bartel from Validity were joined by Ross Adams from Microsoft, Dan Givol from Google, and Marcel Becker from Yahoo.
The conversation kicked off by diving into how mailbox providers think, including their expectations for responsible senders.
Unexpectedly, all three speakers then gave us great bar analogies:
- Marcel compared behaving badly at a bar, getting thrown out, and not being allowed back (despite a great apology) to email reputation.
- Ross compared the quality of guest list recommendations for a party to mailbox provider expectations. Bad recommendations = a less fun party/a hit to your reputation.
- Dan compared the guy at the bar, who repeatedly asks someone out despite numerous rejections, to keeping it simple and only sending messages subscribers want to receive.
Stop stressing about email deliverability
Learn the key factors affecting email deliverability. Implement best practices to ensure your messages reach the inbox every time.
How to make post-event follow-up not suck for you (or your customers)
Leah Miranda worked through being sick to deliver a super detailed presentation—in the best possible way—about creating post-event workflows using AI agents. What made it especially valuable was that she didn’t just share theories—she showed us workflows she actually uses!
The efficiency created with her agents was mind-blowing and quite inspiring. Watch her session and I bet you, too, will start dreaming about saving hours of time using an agent like hers.
How to connect your email workflow for full funnel success
Lisa Wester is a longtime Litmus and Validity user. 💖 She walked us through Copeland’s workflow—across teams—to create, deploy, and analyze emails. From migrating from three ESPs to one, to building an engagement scoring model, and testing their way to success, Lisa showed us how Copeland leads the way in email excellence.
Learn more about Copeland’s ESP migration in our case study.
Live email optimization with the pros
Danielle, Megan, and Julie from Validity’s Professional Services team were joined by Mark Robbins for this fan-favorite session. We received a ton of email submissions, but unfortunately only had time for three of them. The lucky companies featured were VSP, Matheny Arts Access, and the Regional Office of Education 4 (ROE4).
They covered what the companies are doing well, what can be improved, and how to make those changes. Some recommendations included copy to capture attention, accessibility tweaks, code modifications, and CTA optimizations.
Rewriting the future of email: Validity’s next chapter
Validity’s Mark Briggs, Founder and CEO, and Matt Gore, CTO, wrapped up day one with a very special announcement about Validity Engage: our new AI-powered email intelligence platform for marketers!
Engage is built on Validity’s vast data network featuring trillions of data points across industries and the globe. It premiered with four agents:
- Ignite: the foundational agent takes an email at any stage and optimizes it, so marketers achieve maximum inbox placement and engagement on every send.
- Guardian: the agent that protects your brand 24/7. It monitors brand reputation, inbox performance, and email content. If Guardian can’t automatically fix the issue it finds, it will recommend a fix.
- Expression: this agent delivers on-brand creative assistance. It works with the other agents to recommend and build on-brand email components to drive more ROI.
- Insight: the analytics agent provides deep market intelligence that helps you stand apart from competitors, better your strategy, and fine-tune your customer journeys.
Learn more about Validity Engage.
AI-powered email intelligence
Built on Validity’s vast data network, Validity Engage removes risk and boosts email performance—so you can produce exceptional results in less time.
Day 2 of Litmus Live 2026
The new edge in email: AI, omnichannel playbooks, and pitfalls to avoid
Day two kicked off with the one and only Jay Schwedelson. Accompanied by movie memes and reality TV shoutouts, Jay walked us through his latest tips for omnichannel marketing—starting and ending with email.
Jay also declared that no one is an expert in marketing because we’re all learning and trying new things all the time—a growth mindset that everyone should adopt.
Some takeaways include:
- Content recency is king. Include dates with your offers to rank highly with search engines and LLMs.
- Try using “and,” “plus,” and “but” in your preview text to keep interest rolling.
- No more unlocking, discovering, and uncovering. Stop using jargon and keep things conversational.
How Virgin Atlantic uses Validity products
Virgin Atlantic is known for their bold, customer-first branding. They’re also a long-time Validity customer. 🫶
Virgin knows how important email is, and they’ve invested in their email program over the years to make sure it’s world-class. The results speak for themself, like their Sender Score of 100!
Tom Nowell and Reece Cohen from Virgin Atlantic joined Guy Hanson for a discussion about Virgin Atlantic’s email program, including the tools they use to make it shine. They covered:
- Litmus for email QA and rendering
- Litmus for collaboration and approvals
- MailCcharts for insights on their competitor landscape, especially send days, and full customer journeys and workflows
Let’s go global: expert advice for connecting with international audiences
Rodrigo Brandão and Fernando Rubino joined Validity’s Cynthia Price for a fantastic discussion about marketing to international audiences. It centered around truly understanding your international audience.
They also covered the complicated bits—international laws. It’s best to abide by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), even if you’re unsure whether or not it applies to your audience. If you break a rule—knowingly or unknowingly—you could get hit with unwelcome fines.
As a writer, I was extra attentive to the copywriting piece and how they approach copy in countries that speak different languages. They had great advice about when to use AI, translation services, and local speakers. You’ll have to watch it to get the details.
Retention redefined—a practical framework for profitable newsletters in 2026
Chase Dimond and Jimmy Kim co-host the Send It! Podcast and Ecom Email Marketer Newsletter. It was a no-brainer to have them speak about newsletters at Litmus Live!
Their talk centered around the profitable power of retention and how to shift your mindset so retention is always front and center.
They also outlined how AI can help marketers scale their email retention, including messaging, segmentation, delivery time optimization, identifying performance trends, and personalizing.
Throughout it all, they stressed the importance of human-to-human relationships on in retention. Be human. Period.
Beyond the hype: real B2B email strategies for AI, automation, and inboxing
Jeanne Jennings is a highly-requested Litmus Live alum, and she crushed it yet again this year! Her session info-packed session focused on what she does best: B2B email.
Complete with real-life examples, she covered:
- Where AI fits (and doesn’t) in a high-performing B2B email program.
- How to optimize automation for longer, more complex B2B sales cycles.
- How to align email content to real buying stages, not just sales pressure.
She wrapped up by answering your fantastic questions in the chat.
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Embrace AI for your email campaigns in 2026
Brian has it right: panels are so much more interesting when the presenters have differing opinions! And boy, did Beth O’Malley, Leah Miranda, and Larry Kim deliver.
Our internal AI expert, Rafael Viana, guided the back-and-forth conversation. They covered quality and trust of AI-generated content, if AI “magic buttons” are a dream or a nightmare, building internal AI agents vs buying Saas tools, how AI is affecting deliverability, and so many more great subjects.
Everyone’s favorite takeaway from the session:
Accessibility is personalization: 3 email mistakes still breaking UX in 2026
Lauren Castady and Tylor Loposser, both Litmus Live alums, gave us an email reality check: accessibility is for everyone. In real life, every single person experiences situational or temporary impairments at some point. By designing and writing emails for accessibility, you’re making your sends enjoyable for everyone.
They walked us through three common email accessibility mistakes:
- Not believing accessibility is a priority
- Believing accessibility weakens your brand
- Thinking accessibility is overwhelming
Then they put their teachings to action by going over a couple of real emails submitted by our Litmus Live registrants.
I may be biased because accessibility is near and dear to my heart, but this is one session to watch, rewatch, and then watch again.
Omnichannel subscribers and the growing urgency to manage them better
Litmus Live ended with a speaker everyone knows Chad S. White. His omnichannel chat covered how email, SMS, and push work together to create positive, valuable experiences for subscribers. He outlined channel expectations, how to vary your message across channels, when to use channel- exclusive messages, how to reduce churn, and more. Honestly, the amount of information in this session was impressive, but not surprising since it’s Chad S. White.
One quote that stuck with me:
Cynthia wrapped it up by announcing the five winners of our social media contest. Thank you to all who participated!
Litmus Live registrants can watch the sessions in the Zoom Event Lobby. Then they will be made public in early March.
Thanks for joining us!
That’s a wrap on Litmus Live 2026. Thanks for attending—or at least thanks for reading the recap blog. We’ll make the recordings available for public viewing in early March. In the meantime, registrants can rewatch sessions in the event lobby. (Check your calendar invite for the link.)
Keep an eye out for an announcement about Litmus Live 2027.
Lindsey is a Sr. Content Marketing Manager at Validity.
