If you want to get better at email marketing, there’s one thing that matters more than templates, tools, or tactics:
Studying real email marketing emails.
Not theories.
Not swipe headlines on Twitter.
Not generic “best practices.”
Real emails that real brands are actually sending to real customers.
After working in ecommerce email marketing for years, one pattern shows up over and over again: the marketers who improve the fastest are the ones who study examples consistently.
This article breaks down:
What email marketing emails really are
Why most people struggle to write them
How top ecommerce brands approach them
And how to get inspiration without starting from scratch every time
What Are Email Marketing Emails?
Email marketing emails are the actual messages brands send to customers to drive revenue, engagement, education, and retention.
In ecommerce, these usually fall into a few core categories:
Promotional emails (sales, launches, limited drops)
Lifecycle emails (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase)
Seasonal emails (holidays, gift guides, BFCM)
Educational emails (product usage, FAQs, storytelling)
Re-engagement emails (winbacks, inactivity campaigns)
Most marketers know these categories exist.
What they don’t always know is:
What these emails actually look like in the wild
How top brands structure them
Which angles repeat across industries
And why certain emails convert better than others
That’s where studying real examples changes everything.
Why Writing Email Marketing Emails Is Harder Than It Should Be
A common problem I see is this:
You sit down to write an email…
And you’re not even sure what to send.
Sometimes you know the goal but don’t know the angle.
Other times you don’t know the goal at all.
And often, you just need to see a few good examples to get unstuck.
Most marketers end up:
Digging through their inbox
Searching Slack for screenshots
Bookmarking random emails
Or guessing and hoping it works
That’s inefficient, and it slows everything down.
Great email marketing doesn’t come from guessing.
It comes from pattern recognition.
How Top Brands Actually Approach Email Marketing Emails
The best ecommerce brands don’t reinvent the wheel every time they send an email.
They do a few things consistently:
1. They start with inspiration, not a blank screen
Before writing anything, they look at what other brands are doing.
Not to copy.
To understand structure, pacing, and angles.
2. They reuse proven patterns
When you study enough email marketing emails, patterns jump out quickly:
Similar subject line formulas
Repeated layout structures
Familiar ways of introducing offers
Common urgency triggers
These patterns exist because they work.
3. They focus on clarity over creativity
High-performing emails are usually simple:
One main idea
One clear action
Clean layout
Direct copy
Creativity supports clarity, not the other way around.
4. They learn from real examples, not theory
You can learn more from reviewing 10 real email marketing emails than from reading 10 blog posts about email marketing.
Real emails show actual decisions:
What the brand chose to emphasize
What they removed
How they guided the reader
Where they placed the CTA
How to Improve Your Email Marketing Emails Faster
Here’s a simple process that works whether you’re a founder, marketer, or copywriter:
Look at real email marketing emails from other brands
Study how they open the email
Notice how they introduce value
Pay attention to layout and flow
See how they transition into the offer
Observe how they create urgency or clarity
Adapt what works to your brand
The key is volume.
When you see enough examples, ideas stop feeling hard.
They start feeling obvious.
Where Inboox Fits In
One of the reasons we built Inboox is because there wasn’t a good way to study email marketing emails at scale.
Now, Inboox includes over 1.5 million real ecommerce emails that you can:
Search by campaign type, niche, tone, and journey stage
Browse for inspiration when you’re stuck
Study when you want to understand why an email works
Use as references instead of starting from scratch
Each email also includes AI analysis to help break down:
Subject lines
Angles
Layout choices
CTA structure
Overall strategy
Whether you know exactly what email you want to write or have no idea where to start, having real examples in front of you makes everything easier.
Why Studying Email Marketing Emails Still Wins
Email marketing hasn’t changed in one important way:
The brands that win are the ones that communicate clearly and consistently.
Tools come and go.
Trends change.
But studying real email marketing emails will always be one of the fastest ways to improve.
If you want better emails:
Look at better emails
Study what works
Learn from brands already doing it well
That’s how you build instincts.
That’s how you get faster.
That’s how you stop guessing.
Final Thoughts
If email marketing is part of your job, studying real email marketing emails should be part of your workflow.
Not occasionally.
Regularly.
And having a searchable library of real examples makes that habit much easier to maintain.
You can explore 1.5M+ ecommerce email marketing emails inside Inboox here:
https://inboox.ai/
