The Email Design Conference 2016: Here’s What We Learned in London

This year is a truly special one for The Email Design Conference (TEDC). With more attendees, workshops, and speakers than ever before, we’re bringing the conference to three cities around the world: London, Boston, and San Francisco.

Last week, we kicked off the #LitmusLive series with TEDC London.
With more than 300 email geeks from Europe and around the world, this was the largest event we’ve hosted in Europe thus far. And based off last year’s London attendees’ feedback, we expanded the agenda quite a bit.

Over the course of two full days of email geekery, #LitmusLive London brought hands-on workshops, two parallel tracks of mind-blowing presentations from some of the smartest minds in the industry, and lots of opportunities to connect with fellow email friends.

Couldn’t make it to London? Don’t worry! Flip through the slides for inspiration and hands-on email advice from our speakers and explore our favorite takeaways from Twitter…  

Tips straight from the experts

Check out 17 of our favorite takeaways from TEDC London speakers.

Our favorite twitter takeaways

Be personal, not creepy 🤖 true in love, life and email #LitmusLive

— Carma Marketing Hub (@Compost_Carma) July 27, 2016

Never assume, always test! #LitmusLive

— Mafalda Verde (@mafsgreen) July 27, 2016

If you're hiding entire content sections on certain devices you should consider if you actually need them at all #LitmusLive

— alex kelly (@alexkellysays) July 27, 2016

Don't make it hard to unsubscribe from emails. If unsub is hard to find or click, the alternative is to mark you as spam. #LitmusLive

— Justine Jordan (@meladorri) July 27, 2016

@martinjmckenna "give your existing customers just as great experience as your potential customers" so true! #LitmusLive

— Carma Marketing Hub (@Compost_Carma) July 27, 2016

Finally, an explanation for why abandoned cart emails work so well. It's the Zeigarnik effect—the human need for completion. #LitmusLive

— Justine Jordan (@meladorri) July 27, 2016

Visualize your users' progress with progress bars to motivate them to keep going,- @LoloLoyalty! #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/gp02i8rFoG

— SEMrush (@semrush) July 27, 2016

Your Grandmother is the perfect test subject – "If your Grandmother can understand an interactive email, anyone can!" @cygro #LitmusLive 😀

— Jonny_P (@JonnyPryer) July 27, 2016

"GMX is Gmail's little annoying sister" ~ Wolfgang Marterbauer #LitmusLive #mademelaugh

— Ralph de Mol (@RalphdeMol) July 27, 2016

Booster campaign to the same list after 48hrs with a different subject line increases conversion by 35% #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/VQDGmFkCwF

— Judy Boniface (@JudyMailjet) July 27, 2016

70% of all online carts are being abandoned @RytisLauris #LitmusLive Use email to recover some of those.

— Jacques Corby-Tuech (@iamacyborg) July 27, 2016

Email should be regarded as an extension of your brand,- @LoloLoyalty #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/FWJYaYdAtv

— SEMrush (@semrush) July 27, 2016

You can use calc inline with background-position to control background image positioning in Gmail app @joon82 #LitmusLive

— Kevin Mandeville (@KevinMandeville) July 27, 2016

CSS3 isn't cleanly supported everywhere so never ever ever use it for CTAs #LitmusLive

— alex kelly (@alexkellysays) July 27, 2016

Email designers, get familiar with how attribute selectors work. #litmuslive pic.twitter.com/WsjVJ8SnFb

— Jason Rodriguez (@RodriguezCommaJ) July 27, 2016

Get buy-in from your stakeholders: Create content inventory of all emails + a customer journey flowchart @martinjmckenna #litmuslive

— Lauren Smith (@ImLaurenSmith) July 27, 2016

Email strategy implementation 101 🙌#LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/IfVLUkqkoe

— Viktor Edvardsson (@viktoredv) July 26, 2016

There's an uncanny valley of personalisation. A little personal is good. Totally personal is fine. But the middle can be creepy. #LitmusLive

— Dylan Smith (@dylanatsmith) July 27, 2016

https://twitter.com/stevenpainter/status/757943792343343104

Building great email isn’t easy. But let’s embrace the challenge!

The email world is ever-evolving and fast-paced, making it incredibly challenging to keep up with. Building great email is hard!

TEDC London made one thing very clear: Being part of a creative community that is willing to share their tips and hacks on how to tackle the everyday email challenges makes things a whole lot easier. Together we’re embracing the challenge!

This is what makes the email community truly special—and we’re proud to be part of it.

There are only three hard things in Computer Science. Coding responsive email is one of them @HTeuMeuLeu #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/Ri5KzEOmYV

— Litmus (@litmusapp) July 27, 2016

"Email should be easy. It should be like LEGO. Unfortunately, it’s not." @samsexton #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/tQkkOYcgB9

— Litmus (@litmusapp) July 27, 2016

Constraints drive creativity. @HTeuMeuLeu #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/5x90gGCT1n

— Aaron Simmonds (@otherside_uk) July 27, 2016

Email geeks and their love for swag!

In London we’ve seen a whole new level of dedication to snag more swag (rhyme unintended). We heard some attendees even considered (shudder) stealing!

😁 #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/Aewy8fKzAG

— Aaron Simmonds (@otherside_uk) July 27, 2016

I'm quite close to a famed litmus cushion, unattended. Don't worry, it's safe! #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/Iv9eB8h5uD

— Mel (@Mellywellington) July 26, 2016

Didn't even have to steal one! #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/l8vFsuI9TL

— Ralph de Mol (@RalphdeMol) July 27, 2016

This year, in addition to the traditional #emailgeek shirts and famed Litmus pillows/cushions, we had something special in store for our swag-loving email friends:

Is it Christmas yet? I got Litmus socks 😹😹😹 #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/ujltMvD7Do

— Jen (@GOMisakiGO) July 26, 2016

https://twitter.com/stephphillpotts/status/759401064168775680

Waiting for my flight back from #LitmusLive and getting some looks because of my socks. And lovin it. #litmusswag pic.twitter.com/6wtyNIF32u

— Hillel Berg (@Greensmoker) July 27, 2016

#litmuslive #swag pic.twitter.com/YXboAcksuP

— againstsoph (@againstsoph) July 27, 2016

https://twitter.com/KerCook/status/758360127820955649

Thank you email geeks for making #LitmusLive London so special

A big thanks to all our speakers and attendees at #LitmusLive London. We couldn’t have done this without you! Here’s a big virtual hug to all of you!

What time is it @KevinMandeville? Hug time! @cygro #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/7d2sVIxyx3

— Mel (@Mellywellington) July 27, 2016

England has never seen this many hugs. #LitmusLive

— Jacques Corby-Tuech (@iamacyborg) July 27, 2016

Just want to say thank you @litmusapp for an amazing couple of days at #LitmusLive . So much energy & inspiration. pic.twitter.com/QMJmWsc8CB

— vtlowe (@vtlowe) July 27, 2016

Look at all the cool people who made #LitmusLive possible @litmusapp Thank you guys so much ❤️✉️ pic.twitter.com/bPiADxewXp

— Carma Marketing Hub (@Compost_Carma) July 27, 2016

OneLove #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/TjXg42NtNP

— Jonno Cox (@MrJonnoCox) July 27, 2016

Want to read more about TEDC London?

Thanks to the wonderful email community, there are many more places for you to read about the conference and dive deeper into the exciting strategies and techniques our speakers shared in London. Here’s what you can do to learn more:

1) Check out conference recap posts

• Mailjet: Hot Off The Email Development World: Our #LitmusLive Takeaway
• Mayoris: Testing Interactive Email
• Email Chick Geek: A recap of the third visit to the Litmus Email Design Conference
• Action Rocket: #LitmusLive London, in Tweets
• Guestfolio: Guestfolio at the Email Design Conference 2016
• Guestfolio: Better Email for All – Email Development at TEDC 2016
• The Reference: Missed the Email Design Conference? Here Is Our Report!
• Mail Bakery: MailBakery at Litmus TEDC 2016 in London
• 1973online: The Email Design Conference 2016
• Nicki Graham: Email design at its best at TEDC16
  
• 1973online: Background Images in Email – #LitmusLive Learnings

2) Flip through some of the presentations decks

Some of our speakers shared their presentation slides online—a great chance to catch up on some of the exciting content:

• Andrea Mignolo: Transform your Email Strategy with Design Leadership
• Cyrill Gross: Testing interactive email
• Rémi Parmentier: Thinking outside the <table>

3) Explore our speakers’ blogs

Many of our speakers have wonderful blogs—and some of them use those to dive a little deeper into the topics they’ve talked about at TEDC:

• Rémi Parmentier – Emails by HTeuMeuLeu: Thinking outside the <table>
• Kristian Robinson – Two Blog: Background Images – Part 1
• Cyrill Gross – Mayoris Blog: Testing Interactive Email

4) Join the discussion on Litmus Community

We’ve asked our attendees to share their top takeaways from #LitmusLive London in Community. Explore what they said.

Still looking for more? It’s not too late to join us in Boston or San Francisco!

Good news: London was just the beginning of the #LitmusLive season! We’ll continue the email geekery in Boston (August 15-17) and San Francisco (September 15-16). A small number of tickets is still available for both conferences.

Save your seat →