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Today, I’ve got a special treat for you, something most companies won’t share: a peek at one of our losses.

A “best practice” that failed so hard we had to pause part of the test early. And, if I can wax clickbait-y for a moment, it’s a tactic you may be using in your calls-to-action as we speak.

So come for the trainwreck, but stick around for the lesson, because what we learned led to 4% more leads from our CTAs.

And I’m going to show you how to recreate it. (The improvement, that is. Not the trainwreck.)

The Best Practice That Wasn’t

I turn to AJ Beltis, principal marketing manager of conversion strategy, when I need absolute authority on two things: 1) pop-culture movie references, and 2) content conversion.

So when I read an internal brief where a supposed best practice caused a 14% loss in conversion rate, I ran to him like Luke flying back to Obi-Wan.

It all started with a test of the wording on our CTA buttons. Long-time readers may remember that our anchor texts were once a grab-bag of different styles.

“It was up to the bloggers’ discretion because each of those CTAs was individually placed,” AJ explains. “So sometimes it was ‘Get the template,’ sometimes it was ‘Download now.’”

And because we test everything, when we set out to make our CTAs more consistent, we started by testing different language options. The test variants were:

• The Control: “Get the [Product Type]”
  Cut and dry. Straight to the point. A great example of our old anchor text strategy. 
  Example: “Get the Template”
• The Best Practice: “Get the Free [Product Type]”

Same as above, only now we add “free” as an enticement. A pretty non-controversial tactic you’ll see in every CTA guide.
Example: “Get the Free Template”

• The Wildcard: “Get the Free [Specific Product]”

Here we add a description of the offer to the button itself. At the time, this felt redundant because there was already a description above the button, but hey, let’s try it.
Example: “Get the Free Social Media Calendar Template”

We were so confident in the results that we put our money where our mouse was and slapped the test on 25 of our highest lead-driving blogs.

“We felt pretty comfortable with the risk because we weren’t removing anything or changing anything drastic,” AJ says. “So it was a reasonably safe way to test something.”

John Hammond felt the same way in Jurassic Park.

What Went Wrong (and What Went Right)

Within two weeks, Variant B cratered our conversion rate by 14%, until we finally paused that branch to mitigate losses to our heavy-hitting lead generators.

So, why didn’t the best practice work?

“One theory is that whenever you see something labeled as ‘free’ on the internet, it might have a spammy connotation.”

In other words, like Pavlov’s dogs, we’ve all been trained to see “Free Download” and immediately scroll past what is surely a scam and/or an ED cure.

Ah, but what about Variant C? The one we dismissed as redundant?

That one actually boosted our conversion rate by 4% overall, and by 7% among new visitors.

So, why did this variant work where the other failed?

AJ believes it’s all about using visual cues to highlight keywords the reader is looking for.

“When people are reading a blog post, they’re often just kind of skimming as quickly as possible to get an answer,” he says with a shrug and a sideways smile. “I’ve been a blogger and it sucks to say, but no one is typically reading all 1,200 words that you put your time and effort into.”

(But not you, dear reader. Not you … Right?)

Say a visitor is skimming to learn about social media content calendars. Suddenly they see a big orange button that offers a social media content calendar template.

“This is the specific thing that I want and it’s free? I’ll get it.”

The Takeaways About CTAs

To see the biggest takeaway, scroll back up and check out the CTA button right beneath the title of this very blog. You’ll see that we no longer include descriptive text above the button, and instead use the description on the button itself.

Some of AJ’s other insights:

1. Test Every-freaking-thing. (Or “Don’t take best practices at face value.”)

Trusting best practice alone would have damaged our conversion rate, and we might have never known why.

Similarly, if we hadn’t tested what we assumed was the redundant option, we would never have found a win.

“If we had just tested ‘free’ versus the control, the test wouldn’t have worked,” AJ points out. “But because we tested ‘free’ versus the control versus ‘free [specific thing]’, that extra layer worked.”

2. Use Keywords in Your Anchor Text

“If you can use those buzzwords they’re looking for, that’s going to be more successful. Using the words ‘content calendar template’ or ‘planning template’ when they’re reading a blog about social media content calendars … they’re already thinking about that word, so psychologically, it might hook them a little faster.”

Placing keywords in your anchor text is also a win for accessibility, as it helps folks who use screen readers to know what they’re clicking on.

3. DO Test on Your Biggest Lead Drivers

After getting beat worse than Rocky by Apollo, you might think we switched to testing on less important pages, but that’s not the case.

As Rocky says: “It ain‘t about how hard you’re hit, it’s about how you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

As AJ says: “When we look at testing our top pages, that’s also where the biggest opportunity for growth is. If we were to be a little safer by testing pages that don’t convert as well, we might not have been able to detect the magnitude of how successful or unsuccessful a tactic might be.”

4. Trust your audience above authority.

And that includes me, AJ, and Obi-Wan.

Always trust your audience’s reaction over what you find in any guide.

“Respond to your audience,” AJ says. “Some audiences might find a test that we ran to not be a good match. Whereas, we might look for inspiration from other companies, run it on the HubSpot blog audience, and find that their test doesn’t work for us.”

5. Test your offers, too.

Amid all this talk about CTAs, AJ drives one final point home: Your CTA is only as good as what it’s offering.

So test what you’re offering, too.

“We use templates because templates work for us. We don’t do webinars because webinars don’t work for us. Some companies, all they do is webinars, because that’s what works for their content sphere.”

How to Test Your CTA Button Text and Offers

Unlike in Rebecca’s test of paid ad landing pages, for this one you do want to test one element at a time. So be sure to test your anchor text and content offers separately.

You’ll also want to use a tool that evenly splits your traffic across the variants—something like Convert, VWO, or, hey, Content Hub!

1.  Navigate to the test page.
2.  Click on the file menu and then choose “New,” then “Run A/B Test.”
3.  Enter a name for each variation.

This should be something descriptive that will be easy to remember. If you look at the first screenshot, you’ll see we simply used “Original Page,” “Variant B – Free,” and “Variant C – Free + Description.”

4.  Click “Create variation.”
5.  Edit the anchor text or the destination of the link (but not both!)

For this time of optimization, you’ll get better results by testing one change at a time. (Though you can certainly test multiple variations on that one change.)

To recreate AJ’s test, try out a description of the offer within the anchor text. Heck, you may even want to try using “free.”

6.  Click “Publish” in the upper right corner, then “Publish now.”

No matter what you decide to test, be sure to keep an eye on the results over time. Be ready to pull that emergency brake so you can avoid your own trainwreck.

You open your computer on a Monday morning, and you have a few Slack messages about a campaign you’re launching on Tuesday.

After you‘ve answered those, you check your inbox and see you’ve been tagged in some slides for that same campaign.

Once you’re done responding, you hop on a Zoom call to chat with stakeholders about last-minute tasks that need to be completed for launch. A few of the stakeholders would like you to email a follow-up from the meeting, so you do.

But others would rather you tag them in the appropriate Google docs, so you do that, too.

Suddenly it‘s 1pm, and you’ve done nothing substantial on your to-do list to get this project launched. Your entire day has been hopping in and out of various messaging apps, slide decks, and Zoom calls, just trying to get everyone aligned.

Sound familiar?

I spoke with Jake Cerf, Head of Corporate Marketing at Asana, to untangle the biggest challenges most teams face when it comes to productivity in 2024 – and how you can solve them.

What Teams Get Wrong When It Comes to Productivity

Jake empathizes with the chaos that can ensue when you don’t focus on creating efficient processes for team-wide productivity.

“It can get chaotic,” he told me, adding, “Before I joined Asana, I reflected back on how I spent my time coordinating with folks — and it was a mess. We would be on email, Slack, and Google docs, and slides. And you never really knew who was doing what, and when, and it was too easy to lose sight of the objective we were all after.”

Which sounds painfully relatable. Fortunately, he has some tried-and-true tips for cleaning up your team’s processes and creating more scalable options to improve cross-functional collaboration.

1. Each team leader needs to know how their work ladders up to corporate objectives — and they need to make it clear in their workflows.

People always want to know how their work connects to broader strategic initiatives. They want to feel seen, valued, and know they are making an impact. So much of a leader’s job is about making sure people are working on the right priorities, and aligning to goals that move the needle.

That’s what makes a product like Asana so crucial. Jake has an easy time ensuring he isn‘t micro-managing his team on specific tasks, and that’s because in Asana he can see how each sub-task his team is responsible for ladders up to the company’s key objectives for 2024.

Additionally, to solve for conflicting cross-department goals, it can be helpful to use one centralized productivity tool that highlights the top-down priorities for the company.

“As a leader, so much of our job is making sure people are working on the right things, helping unblock team members and enabling them to have a North star. It’s good for productivity because when folks feel like they’re working on things that matter, they do better work,” Jake says.

He adds, “You don’t have to be as in-the-weeds on the details. You can tell team members the what and the why, and they can figure the rest out. But being clear about big picture objectives unlocks productivity up, down, and across the organization.”

If you‘re dealing with productivity issues, start by ensuring each leader is aligned on the major company objectives for 2024 – and then task them with demonstrating how all of their team’s projects ladder up to that ultimate goal. If a task doesn‘t fit, it’s time to consider re-focusing on the activities that do.

2. Assign your AI a “role” to uplevel your team’s productivity.

There’s been plenty of conversation surrounding AI over the past two years, but people are still skeptical about the improvements it can make to their daily lives.

In fact, 62% of marketers globally believe people should use some AI in their roles. For Jake, AI has proven much more useful as a teammate rather than just a tool.

“My life changed drastically when I stopped prompting AI with generic requests like, ‘Please write this blog post‘, and instead honed in on who I wanted AI to be: ’Please write this blog post as if you’re a tech writer at a large-scale SaaS company.‘”

Jake highly recommends assigning AI a “role” when leveraging AI for productivity.

“When teams are working on an important initiative, and you give each AI bot its own specific role, the output is much greater. Let’s say you’re writing a blog post — you can assign AI to be the editor, the fact-checker, or the content strategist.”

“Or,” He adds, “if you use tools like Asana, you’ll have access to AI that is one of the world’s greatest project managers. It can help you unblock issues and triage requests and make sure people are working on the right things.”

Ideally, the productivity tools you leverage already have AI capabilities built-in. If not, look into which plug-ins or external tools you might use to increase efficiency.

3. Leverage AI to minimize busywork.

The antithesis of productivity is busywork.

If your team is bogged down by menial tasks, they likely don‘t have the energy or time to focus on the big picture objectives that account for most of your team’s impact.

That’s a major roadblock – and one that can be solved with AI.

Jake offers the example of repurposing content as one opportunity for increased productivity. He says, “With AI, you can take a keynote presentation and ask AI to draft a blog post on the keynote. Or, you can take your keynote script and ask AI to design the presentation itself.”

He continues, “Finding new avenues to increase the longevity and impact of your content is one of the best ways to use AI.”

Additionally, Jake encourages marketers to leverage AI for content creation, as well as more creative outputs like manager reviews, sending feedback to teammates, riffing on ideas, role playing scenarios, and more.

4. Have one centralized workspace for teams to work cross-functionally.

Finally, none of this is possible without creating a strong foundation for efficient, scalable cross-functional collaboration.

Remember those slide decks and Google docs and Slack messages and emails I mentioned earlier? Why not try to put more of your work in one centralized place?

“Productivity comes down to visibility,” Jake says. “Your team needs to be rowing in the same direction. Having a tool like Asana has been super helpful for our team productivity — you need a place where you can set your goals and then track all of the team’s work and hold people accountable.”

“Plus,” he adds, “It’s crucial you use the same centralized workspace when you’re setting strategy so that you have alignment around the tasks and initiatives that will help you achieve your goals.”

In other words – jumping between 30 different messaging and content creation apps and tools isn‘t conducive to long-term productivity. As a leader, it’s your job to figure out how to centralize as much as you can in one place – and then use AI to supercharge it all.

To learn more about how HubSpot and Asana are helping marketers drive productivity, take a look at the HubSpot and Asana integration available today.

Email marketing is integral to any marketing strategy because it’s a great way to generate leads and convert audiences.

Whether you’re creating your first strategy or looking to modify your process, AI email marketing tools can help you save time, optimize your strategy, and meet your email goals.

In this piece, I’ll go over how AI email marketing tools work, new data about how marketers currently use AI for email marketing, and a list of tools you can leverage in your role.

Table of Contents

• What is AI email marketing?
• Why should you use AI email marketing?
• What are the challenges of AI in email marketing?
• How Marketers Are Using AI in Email Marketing [New Research]
• 15 AI Email Marketing Tools

What is AI email marketing?

AI email marketing is a machine-learning-powered process that helps marketers create email campaigns that reach the right audiences at the right time with the right messages.

AI email marketing tools use data (like your historical performance data) to help you optimize your email strategy, automation to help you save time on repetitive tasks (like triggering an email workflow), and generative AI to help you create email content.

When using AI in email marketing, you can do things like:

• Analyze past email performance to identify how to optimize your email strategies, like the best time to send your emails or the subject lines that get the most clicks.
• Compile email analytics so you understand the health of your campaigns.
• Trigger email workflows after people take a specific action.
• Clean up your email lists to improve deliverability.
• Write compelling copy that speaks to your audience.
• Personalize email content to specific audience segments.

Some tools have one specific function, like a generative AI email tool, while others offer multiple features.

Why should you use AI in email marketing?

I’ve found that the most significant benefit of using AI in email marketing is that it saves time while improving performance. The routine processes you spend time on can happen instantly, and you can launch your optimized campaigns faster.

Most AI email marketing tools are also powered by machine learning, meaning that they use data points (from your business and sometimes your industry) to help you optimize your email strategy.

You won’t be left to guess what works best because the AI can look at your past emails, and you can benchmark your performance against competitors to see where you can improve.

If you’re interested in learning more about the impact of AI on marketing, check out this Marketing Against The Grain episode about marketing opportunities that AI unlocks for business.

Click here to listen to the full episode.

What are the challenges with AI in email marketing?

Of course, using AI in email marketing is not without its challenges. AI tools are still relatively new in terms of technology, so they’re not perfect.

Here are a few challenges marketers face when using AI in email marketing and how they solve those issues.

Tone

Anyone who’s asked ChatGPT to write an email for them knows the first output will usually sound formal. Tone is undoubtedly the biggest challenge marketers face when using generative AI for email marketing.

Most AI tools need to be trained to match your brand’s voice and tone, and even then, you’ll probably still need to edit it to sound exactly how you want.

Meg O’Neill, co-founder of Intuitive Marketing Collective, gets around this challenge by using clear and specific prompts.

“I want [my emails] to sound like I’m talking to a friend,” says O’Neill. “I’ve added this requirement to my prompt, and it’s helped a lot. Sometimes, I’ll give [the AI tool] the name of a famous business person and ask it to write in a similar tone.”

Quality

Whether you use AI to write the body copy of your email, generate subject line ideas, or outline an email funnel structure, the quality of the overall content isn’t going to be perfect the first time around.

“The quality is not always there,” says Jeanne Jennings, Founder and Chief Strategist for Email Optimization Shop, an email marketing consultancy.

To overcome this challenge, Jennings takes a collaborative approach by “micro-managing the AI tool at each stage to get the quality content I need. Without my collaborative approach, the output is usually junk,” she states.

Data Accuracy

Ben Schreiber, Head of ecommerce at Latico Leathers, says the biggest challenge he’s faced using AI in email marketing is data accuracy and integration.

“Good quality data is paramount to the success of using AI systems since any inaccuracies may lead to wrong output results,” says Schreiber.

“We have had issues with outdated or incomplete data, which directly affects how well or poorly our campaigns perform.”

How Marketers Are Using AI in Email Marketing [New Research]

Our State of AI in Marketing report surveyed 1,062 U.S. marketing and advertising professionals about how they’re currently using AI.

For starters, AI usage for marketing has increased significantly since 2023.

74% of marketers who responded to the survey said they use at least one AI marketing tool.

While chatbots are the most popular marketing tool used by marketers, 25% of marketers use AI through existing CRM and marketing tools with AI-enhanced features.

Here are a few specific ways marketers are using AI for email marketing.

Content Creation

By far, the most common use case for AI tools among marketers is content creation. Of respondents who report using AI, 43% say they use it for content creation.

While marketers use AI for everything from creating images to creating outlines, the most popular type of content to create is written content.

There’s no denying AI’s ability to generate text — both long-form and short-form — in an instant, making it a great tool for email campaigns.

In fact, 47% of marketers use AI to create email marketing content such as newsletters or campaigns.

Testing

From subject lines to body copy to design elements, testing is essential to increase engagement and ultimately improve your email marketing performance.

Of marketers, 27% say they use AI tools for brainstorming, and it’s safe to say testing email content falls into that category.

Not sure how to use AI for experimenting or brainstorming?

“Ask AI to provide you with specific testing ideas so you always have a fantastic list to choose from to continue improving your email performance,” recommends email marketer Bethany Fiocchi Root, CEO and founder of Oceanview Marketing.

Data Collection

Email marketing relies on data, but data collection can be a time-consuming process for busy marketers. That’s where AI comes in.

Not only can AI tools help automate data collection — decreasing time spent on these tasks significantly — they can be more precise with the information.

A majority of marketers (including those who don’t currently use AI) agree that AI can help their organizations share data more effectively.

From a leadership standpoint, 39% of marketing directors agree that AI and automation tools help employees make data-driven decisions.

And the more data you have, the more you can personalize your email marketing.

In fact, 69% of marketers agree that AI tools can help them personalize the experience their customers get.

Automation

Finally, marketers use generative AI to automate their processes. With AI, everything from scheduling email campaigns to email data entry is taken care of.

Of the marketers surveyed, 75% say using AI for automation helps them reduce time spent on manual tasks and more time on critical or creative tasks.

In other words, AI helps them focus on the aspects of the job they enjoy rather than on administrative tasks.

15 AI Email Marketing Tools

1. HubSpot AI Tools

Click here to learn more about HubSpot AI tools.

HubSpot has multiple email marketing tools and features to leverage to drive clicks and conversions.

AI Features

• Email Marketing Software that helps you easily create email workflows and triggers to reach your target audiences with the right messages at all stages of their journey.
• Inbox automation tool that scans your emails and recommends tasks based on email content and can auto-populate contact properties (like name and phone number) from every first-time email to create a customer profile.
• Content assistant uses generative AI to help you write high-quality email content, and you can ask ChatSpot to quickly write things like professional follow-up emails or thank you notes to prospects.

Price: Free tools are available. Starter plans cost $20 per month. Professional plans cost $890 per month. Enterprise plans cost $3,600 per month.

2. Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s email automation software helps ecommerce businesses create automated email workflows that reach audiences at the best possible time.

AI Features

• Its Content Optimizer compares your email data to industry benchmarks to give you recommendations for optimizing your campaigns and email content.
• You can choose from different versions of AI-generated content that match your intent and brand tone.
• Its Creative Assistant leverages your brand assets to create unique email designs you can personalize to different contacts.

Price: Free forever plans are available. Essential plans cost $13 per month. Standard plans cost $20 per month. Premium plans cost $350 per month.

3. Sendgrid

Sendgrid helps you create an automated email marketing process with custom workflows and triggers.

AI Features

• Its real-time API scans your email lists and removes junk or undeliverable email addresses to lower your bounce rate and ensure you reach more people.
• Get data-driven insights and recommendations for improvement based on your historical metrics and email performance.
• AI paces your email send and monitors your reputation with ISPs.

Price: Free trials are available. Basic plans cost $15 per month. Advanced plans cost $60 per month.

4. Phrasee

Phrasee uses AI to help you create effective email campaigns and content to share with your audience.

AI Features

• Its deep learning model and language insights leverage your historical data to tell you what works best with your audience and what inspires clicks for an optimized campaign.
• The Magic Button helps you generate email content (like subject lines or in-email CTAs) that will resonate with your audience.
• It always uses your custom guidelines and messaging to ensure everything you create is on-brand.

Price: Contact for pricing.

5. Drift

Drift offers an AI-powered inbox management tool that helps you clean up your email lists and improve deliverability.

AI Features

• Its Email Bots leverage machine learning to interpret emails and help you reply with engaging, conversational emails that inspire responses.
• AI can qualify a lead as ready for sales and automatically introduce the prospect to the right salesperson for seamless marketing to sales handoff.
• Use different Email Bots for your unique business need, like the follow-up email bot, abandoned chat email bot, and webinar email bot.

Price: $2,500 per month.

6. GetResponse

Use Get Response to design behavior-based email workflows to engage with audiences at key moments with content personalized to their needs.

AI Features

• Share keywords or phrases, email goals, and tone with the GPT-powered email generator that leverages industry data to produce emails most likely to increase your conversions.
• Display different images, text, or AI-driven product recommendations in each email.
• The AI subject line generator helps you test subject lines and learn what stands out in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Price: A free 30-day trial is available; paid plans start at $19 per month.

7. Levity

Levity’s software helps you manage your inbox, understand your email health, and save time.

AI Features

• Build an AI tool unique to your business by uploading your data that it will learn from and use to make human-level decisions.
• Create different AI blocks for every email workflow you want to run (like a workflow for responding to emails).
• Share unique categorization criteria with your AI to automatically sort emails as soon as you receive them.

Price: A 30-day free trial is available. Startup plans cost $49 per month. Business plans cost $139 per month.

8. Superhuman

Superhuman is an AI-powered inbox management tool that helps you streamline your processes. Best for teams that use Gmail or Outlook.

AI Features

• Immediately sort incoming emails into a split inbox based on your custom rules so you can sort spam from genuine humans and focus on what needs attention.
• Use its Snippets tool to create pre-built templates for phrases, paragraphs, or entire emails that you can quickly add to emails to automate responses.
• Set reminders for email tasks, like following up on unanswered emails or a reminder to respond to a message you snoozed for later.

Price: Starter plans cost $30 per month. Growth plans cost $45 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.

Most of the tools listed above have multiple AI features, like email writing help to automated inbox sorting. Below, we’ll go over AI email marketing tools that only offer generative features.

9. Hive

Hive offers an easy-to-use and time-saving tool for your email marketing. Simply share a brief prompt of what you’re looking for with its Notes AI, and it’ll help you generate a perfect response.

Price: There is a free forever plan. Teams plans cost $12 per user a month. Enterprise pricing is available.

10. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a generative AI tool that you can use to write your marketing emails, and all you have to do is enter a descriptive prompt into the chat. It’s a conversational tool, so you can ask it to rewrite the email until you’re satisfied.

Price: There is a free research preview. ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per month.

11. Zapier

Zapier runs on Zaps, automated workflows you can customize to your needs. You can create an email-based Zap to generate email copy with an API key from OpenAI.

Whenever you receive an email matching your Zaps rules, it’ll prompt GPT-3 to write an appropriate response.

Price: A free forever plan is available. Professional plans cost $19.99 per month. Team plans cost $69 per month. Contact Zapier for Enterprise pricing.

12. Copy.ai

Copy.ai is an email copywriting tool you can use to create high-converting emails. It can write email content for you, suggest subject lines, and help you stay on track with suggestions to improve email quality.

Price: A free forever plan is available. Starter plans cost $36 per month. Advanced plans cost $186 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.

13. Compose.ai

Compose.ai is powered by GPT-3 and helps you write personalized and on-brand emails.

Its autocomplete feature suggests how you can finish what you’re writing, and its suggestions and generations are always tone- and brand-relevant because it learns your unique brand voice.

It’s an always-free Chrome extension, so you can easily use it on your favorite sites.

Price: A free forever plan is available. Premium plans cost $9.99 per month. Ultimate plans cost $29.99 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.

14. Grammarly

Grammarly’s machine-learning copy-editing tool recognizes in-text errors and suggests how to fix them. I use this feature all the time to assist in my content writing.

GrammarlyGo extracts the context from short prompts and helps you instantly generate appropriate email replies. Leverage the tools on its website, as a Chrome extension, or within your favorite email client.

Price: A free forever plan is available. Premium plans cost $12 per month. Business plans cost $15 per month.

15. Jasper

Jasper Commands helps you create effective marketing emails quickly with machine learning algorithms.

Use it to write entire emails or email subject lines, and its outputs always match your business’ unique writing style and tone for brand consistency.

Price: Free trial is available. Creator plans cost $39 per month. Pro plans cost $59 per month. Custom business pricing is available.

Leveling Up Your Emails With AI

From writing copy to generating subject lines and even collecting and organizing data to improve personalization, a majority of marketers agree that using AI for email marketing makes their job easier.

When AI tools are used as just that — tools — they can improve your email marketing campaigns and give you more time to spend on creative tasks that make you better at your job.

It often surprises people to learn just how unfunny making comedy can be. I worked with this week’s master of marketing some years ago out of The Onion’s HQ, so we’ve both been behind the scenes. A business is still a business, and marketing is still marketing.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be a helluva lot of fun.

I talked to Hassan S. Ali, the creative director of brand at Hootsuite, where he describes his job as “leading a team of creatives to ruffle B2B marketing feathers for an equally feather-ruffling product.”

Case in point: His team recently produced a (mostly) SFW commercial that promises to “uncover social media insights” by repositioning a local green space as a nudist park.

Lesson 1: Comedy begins with empathy.

Since I last saw him, Ali’s had stints as the brand creative director for Potbelly’s and now Hootsuite. At both places, he’s brought his sometimes wry, sometimes absurdist humor into play.

I ask him to spill his secrets. What can I tell our readers that will make them funnier marketers?

His answer is no joke: If you want to successfully use humor in marketing, start by building trust and practicing empathy. He gives me this example:

Say you’ve got an idea for a hilarious new ad campaign, but you keep hearing that the stakeholders “don’t want to have fun.” (Cyndi Lauper weeps.)

Ali asks, “Is it that, or is it that they’re kind of worried that they’re going to spend money on this,” and if it flops, they’ll be reprimanded — or worse?

“That’s a very human emotion. So if we go into these conversations with, ‘Listen, I hear this might be a little outside of your norm,’” you’re immediately showing empathy, even if the person hasn’t voiced their fears.

Lesson 2: Data can make you funnier.

“Data helps inform and persuade and build that trust,” Ali says. He’s “definitely gotten a CEO who’s shifted in their chair a little bit” during a pitch, so he knows something about persuading the risk-averse.

When you’re asking stakeholders to work outside their comfort zones, you “oftentimes need the data to show to them that this is actually what surveyed people want.” Ali points me to Hootsuite’s 2024 social media consumer report: 55% of the 6000+ respondents enjoy brand content that “makes me laugh.”

Image Source

A practical tip ties this all together: Ali will sometimes shoot a funny version and a straighter version of an ad, and test both. Building trust means showing “that you’re able to communicate the needs of the business in a way your audience cares about.”

Lesson 3: Use the peanut butter method.

“Everyone hates advertising, but they’re okay being sold to,” Ali says.

It’s like using peanut butter to sneak your dog a pill. “If people are willing to be sold to, pitch the pill in something yummy. People will watch it.” (Let’s ignore for a moment that we are all the hapless dogs in this analogy.)

“I often think that the best ads are ones we can’t measure, because they’re shared in a group chat with friends.” I sincerely hope nobody is working on a pixel that can track my group chats, but it’s true that if somebody shares an ad, it’s because it’s both funny and emotionally resonant.

Maybe you see a funny ad for diapers. Your sister’s just had a baby, and you share the ad in the family group chat. “All of a sudden, there’s a bond formed through this piece of advertising.” And it goes beyond “here, buy this thing,” Ali says.

Without that (hopefully imaginary) group-chat tracking pixel, traditional marketing metrics won’t necessarily be of much use.

“But what did you solve for the customer?” Ali asks. “Those are the real results.” The more we can focus on that, “the better we’ll be as marketers.”

Lingering Questions

Each person we interview gives us a question for our next master of marketing. Last week, Wistia CEO Chris Savage asked:

What’s something you’re doing that’s working so well, you’re afraid to tell others about it?

Ali: I have to say that the creative brand team at Hootsuite is working so well that it‘s like a secret. Just to watch the collaboration and the teamwork that occurs here — it’s something I’ve never experienced before.

And Ali’s question for our next master in marketing:

What advice would you give yourself when you were first starting out?

Come back next Monday for the answer!

I’ve been editing videos for almost a decade, both professionally and for my passion projects. So, believe me when I say I know how tedious editing even the shortest videos can be.

Fortunately, many AI video editing tools can help speed up the process of editing, whether you’re a beginner or an expert videographer.

Here are 8 of the best AI video editing tools I’ve found and what I like most about them.

Best AI Video Editing Tools

1. Adobe Premiere Pro

I’ve been using Adobe Premiere Pro for work and for my own passion projects for 10 years, so I was intrigued when the video editing software announced that new AI tools are available on its platform and that more are on the way.

These are a few of my favorite AI tools within Adobe Premiere Pro:

• Text-based editing

This feature allows users to auto-generate their transcripts, highlight text to add clips to their timeline, edit, reorder, and refine their clips like they would a text document.

• AI audio category tagging

I love this feature because it makes audio editing a breeze by recognizing if a clip is music, sound effects, dialogue, or ambient sound and providing access to relevant tools for editing based on the sound type.

• Speech to text

To make your videos more accessible, Adobe Premiere Pro‘s speech-to-text feature automatically generates transcripts in up to 18 languages. It can also distinguish between speakers and create captions that match the video’s cadence and speech pattern.

Price: Plans start at $22.99 per month.

Best For: Intermediate to professional video editors. Though beginners can use Adobe Premiere, it does have a bit of a learning curve.

2. DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve has many AI tools and has incorporated AI into its platform for years. The one I find the most interesting is its facial recognition. Now, bear in mind I have very minimal experience with DaVinci Resolve, so I don’t have much experience with this feature.

That said, its facial recognition allows users to group clips based on the people who appear in them. All I’d have to do is select a group of clips and right-click to select “Analyze Clips for People.” From there, DaVinci Resolve will scan the clips, assess the faces that appear, and group clips with the same faces together.

If you’re editing video of an event with a lot of people and you want to narrow down your clips to include a specific group, this feature will save time and effort.

Price: Users can download DaVinci Resolve for free, or buy the studio version for $295.

Best for: Beginner to expert video editors.

3. CapCut

I can‘t scroll through TikTok for over a minute without seeing a video edited with CapCut. I’ve never used CapCut, but I’m truly amazed by the quality of the videos people churn out using the app.

CapCut is known for being a user-friendly video editing app that is suitable for anyone, regardless of their level of editing experience. Part of what makes CapCut so easy to use is its AI tools, which can do most of the work for you.

For example, let’s say I have a long-form video I want to shorten so I can upload it to a short-form video platform like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. I can take that long-form video, upload it to CapCut, and identify standout moments, and the app will generate a shorter version of the video.

Price: CapCut is free to use but paid options start at $20.84 per month.

Best for: Short-form video editing for platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts.

4. Runway

Runway is a platform specializing in creating AI tools for video editing and other aspects of visual art. To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend Runway for beginner video editors or those with no experience at all.

The platform can do a lot, but its plethora of tools and their uses can be overwhelming. Even I, an experienced video editor, was only able to assess the tip of the iceberg of what Runway can do.

That said, its AI video generator is simple to use. To test it out, I entered a prompt asking for a video of a cat frolicking in a forest and chasing after a butterfly. The images weren’t perfect, but I can see them being used to figure out concepts or inspiration for shots or art.

Price: Runway is free with limited features, and paid plans start at $12 per user per month.

Best for: Expert video editors.

5. InVideo

I’m pretty familiar with InVideo after using it to create a TikTok video a while back. You can read all about it here if you want to know my experience with InVideo.

In short, I enjoy InVideo because it’s very simple to use. Unlike Runway, I definitely recommend it for marketers and creators who want to churn out simple short-form videos with little to no video editing experience.

My favorite feature of InVideo is its AI text-to-video tool. When I used InVideo to create a TikTok, I entered a script into the text box, selected a few images, and the platform generated a video based on the script in just a minute.

Price: InVideo is Free, and price plans start at $15 per month.

Best for: Editing and generating short-form videos on a tight schedule with little to no experience.

6. ClipChamp

Clipchamp is a video editing app by Microsoft that allows users to easily make videos even if they have no video-editing experience. A standout AI tool is its AI text-to-speech, which boasts over 400 voice styles in 170 languages.

Users can choose a mood, pitch, accent, and gender for the voice.

Price: Free for beginners, and prices start at $11.99 for everyday editors.

Best for: Beginners looking to make short-form videos.

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7. Descript

I found Descript to be pretty easy to use. It‘s a platform boasting a variety of AI tools, and one I find the most convenient is its AI transcript generator. Uploaded a video of myself talking to my cat (don’t judge me), and the AI transcribed it perfectly.

I then uploaded a clip from a concert I went to where the singer shouted the name of the next song over a crowd of screaming fans. The AI misheard the singer, so the transcription was incorrect (the song’s name is actually “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”).

However, Descript allows me to edit the transcription so it’s correct.

Price: Limited features available for free and pricing starts at $12 per person per month.

Best for: Beginners editing quick-hit videos.

8. Wondershare Filmora

Wondershare Filmora is a cross-platform video-editing software that is known to be ideal for beginner and intermediate video editors and creators. I was impressed by the number of versatile AI tools available I found while browsing its site.

One tool that sticks out to me is the AI Frame Interpolation. This feature enhances video visuals without losing quality, increases low frame rate automatically, and supports a variety of video formats including GIFs.

If I want to slow down a video without deteriorating its appearance, the AI Frame Interpolation would be most useful.

Wondershare Filmora’s AI Vocal Remover is also interesting. User can separate vocal and music from a song and keep high quality audio while removing vocals.

Price: There is free version with limited features, and pricing starts at $49.99 per year.

Best for: Beginners and intermediate editors looking to create long or short-form videos.

Video editing can take anywhere from from several minutes to a few hours, depending on the project. If you’re curious about how AI can streamline the process for you and give some of your time back, you now have new tools you can test out for yourself.

Our CRO team made a change that lifted the performance of our paid ads by almost 11% — and they didn’t have to make any deals with supernatural beings to do it.

So while I’m a little bummed that I don’t get to use my Ouija board, the good news is that you’ve already got everything you need to try this out for yourself.

In fact, this tactic is all about what you don’t include on the landing page. Below, I chat with our sorceress supreme of conversion rate optimization to find out what that cryptic advice actually means.

But first, a grave warning …

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Before you go cutting content from your website, a word of warning:

“Yes, this works for us,” says Rebecca Hinton, CRO strategist and principal marketing manager at HubSpot. “But it may or may not work for you, so you always want to test it.”

Rebecca’s tests have helped my program hit triple-digit growth, so I’m going to politely insist you take her word on that.

At HubSpot, we never dive into changes without having the proof to back it up, and neither should you. Your audience could react very differently from ours.

The tactic I’m about to share came from the results of a rigorous experiment, and later on, I’ll show you how to run one just like it.

Okay, now onto the good stuff.

What She Cut

The first change, surprisingly, was to stop sending paid ad traffic to our product pages. Why? Because those pages have too many jobs already.

“Your website has to appeal to all of your customer personas,” Rebecca explains. “People who are new, people who are seasoned, people who are already customers.”

That adds up to a lot of content. And for visitors who landed on your site via a paid ad, it’s a lot of distraction.

To illustrate her point, Rebecca gives the example of a user clicking on an ad that says ‘Download our ebook.’

“If you were to send them to a website with full navigation, maybe they get distracted, maybe they feel like ‘Ah! I just wanted the ebook!’” She throws her hands up in the air in mock frustration.

“But with a dedicated landing page where the primary CTA is about downloading the ebook, now they’ve had a logical experience.”

So her team set out to make a dedicated landing page for each ad being tested. But, as I mentioned above, what’s on those pages isn’t nearly as interesting as what isn’t.

And what isn’t there is about 90% of our website’s navigational links.

Here’s a screenshot of what one of our product pages currently looks like:

Like your Gran’s holiday dinner, there’s a little something for everybody.

Now here’s the paid ad landing page for the same product:

If we stick with the food metaphor, this one would be a working lunch. You get exactly what you came for and you get it fast.

On the dedicated landing page, visitors can only sign up or request a demo. (Or leave, I suppose. But let’s think positive.)

“The point of a landing page is to focus users, so we don’t really want to be linking them out everywhere,” Rebecca says.

And the proof is in the results — which I’ve actually been underselling, because one regional market saw an incredible 83% increase in CVR.

Even if you’re not sold on nixing the nav, you should still be using dedicated landing pages. Rebecca explains why:

“If we send paid ad traffic to product pages, we can’t do any CRO testing. I don’t own those pages.”

Chances are, your team isn’t the only one with an interest in your product pages. That can limit what you’re allowed to change, add, or experiment on.

By creating a dedicated landing page, you’re also creating a sandbox you don’t have to share. (The dream of every middle child.)

“We’d call that a win even if the results were flat because it opened up green space for future testing.”

But now that I’ve covered what not to include, what should you put in those shiny, new green spaces?

How to Make Landing Pages that Land

Since the details depend on your business and what you’re advertising, you’ll need to do a little experimentation. But Rebecca’s got some tips to get you started — and they upend what I’ve always heard about A/B testing.

1. DON’T test one element at a time. Start with big swings and radical changes.

Most A/B testing guides tell you to pick one small change at a time. And if you’re just trying to optimize an already high-performing page, that’s sound advice. But to get these results, Rebecca tossed that out the window.

Start with wildly different versions that will quickly identify trends within your users’ preferences.

“You want to take big swings, and say, ‘These pages are radically different, and it looks like our users are more attracted to this one.’”

Once you’ve got a clear winner, then you can narrow in on smaller details like color choices, CTA language, image placement, etc.

2. Consider the journey, and not just the destination.

Many landing pages mistakenly swing to one of these extreme opposites:

•  Marketers assume conversion will happen on its own, and include too little content.
•  Marketers assume they need to convince every visitor and include too much content.

“Think about the journey starting from seeing your ad to taking the action you want them to take.”

While you want a clear path to the CTA, your landing page should also include content that helps guide that journey.

That may take the shape of testimonials, trust indicators, customer stats, or other kinds of social proof. It may be language that romances the call to action. It may even simply be basic company info.

“Set the stage before you dive into a specific product.”

The exact details will depend on what you’re advertising, but no matter what you include, make sure it creates a logical path to conversion.

But remember that the journey doesn’t stop at the conversion.

“What’s the post-conversion experience?” Rebecca asks. “Is it a thank you page? Is it a purchase confirmation?”

If the landing page is dinner, your post-conversion confirmation is dessert. Nail this, and your visitors will come back for more.

3. Don’t assume you’re going to get a winner.

I’m definitely guilty of this one. If you only have two choices, one of them is going to win, right?

Not necessarily. You could have an inconclusive test with equal results. You could fail to get statistical significance. Your visitors could reject both choices.

“If you have the traffic to support it, test a couple different landing pages,” she says.

More variants won’t necessarily guarantee a winner, but they will help you work through your options faster.

Just be sure you’re not spreading your traffic too thin. Which brings me to the next point …

4. Pay attention to statistical significance.

With too small an audience, your results could just be random chance. Did landing page two really convert better? Or did it just happen to get the visitors who were ready to click?

To know that, you need to make sure your test reaches statistical significance (the probability that your results are due to real factors and not chance.)

Without considering significance, Rebecca’s test may have sent us in the wrong direction entirely.

While her experiment increased the number of signups, it actually appeared to reduce the number of demos by 11.6%.

However, while the team was 99% confident in the signup conversion results, they only achieved 64% significance for the demo results.

(There’s no magic target for statistical significance, but the higher the number, the more confident the results. Imagine crossing the road if you were only 64% confident a car wasn’t barreling toward you.)

So if we hadn’t considered significance, we may have been spooked by the reduced demos and chosen the wrong landing page.

Okay, but how do you figure out what’s significant?

“That’s where you want to use a calculator,” Rebecca says. “I use Convert’s calculator. You plug in your weekly traffic, your weekly conversions, and what percent change you think you’re going to see.”

(For big swings, Rebecca recommends aiming for at least a 10% difference in results.)

The tool then suggests how long you should run your experiment to reach statistically significant results.

“Two weeks is our minimum. We don’t like to go under that. And we try not to go over eight weeks.”

5. Don’t assume that regional successes equal global successes.

In our case, regional testing refers quite literally to different geographic markets. For you, it may mean different store locations, different business units, or different products.

Either way, the lesson is the same: Don’t assume what works for one audience will work for all of them.

“When we get a win in our English-speaking region, we still test in our other regions,” Rebecca explains. “We know that all of them can perform differently, so we can’t just assume that because something won in EN, we can roll it out globally.”

Case in point, the same test saw an 83% increase in our Spanish-speaking market, but only a 33% increase in our French-speaking market.

And while it’s lucky this test enjoyed increases in all markets, it could have easily gone the other way, reducing conversion in one region. If we hadn’t tested it, that’s something we wouldn’t have noticed until we lost enough leads to raise red flags.

How to A/B Test Your Landing Pages

There are two main ways you can test different landing pages:

1.  A/B testing evenly splits your traffic between the variant pages.
2.  Lookback analysis means simply making the change and then comparing the results before and after.

“A/B testing is really the gold standard,” Rebecca advises. “But if you’re unable to do that — maybe you don’t have the traffic, maybe you don’t have the tools — a lookback is your next best option. And it’s certainly better than not testing at all.”

That’s because an A/B test makes sure that any external influences (think holidays, Google updates, kaiju attack, etc.) will impact each variation equally. But if Godzilla strikes during a lookback analysis, you’ll have to scrap your data and start over again.

Since Content Hub’s got a really top-notch landing page testing tool, I’ll show you how to do it there, but you should still be able to follow along if you’re using another tool like VWO or Optimizely.

1. Either create a new page or choose an existing page as the control for your split test.

If you’re already running paid ad campaigns, you might as well test your existing landing page as the control. Even if it’s your product page.

Again, don’t just take my word for it. Try it out!

2. Click on the name of your page.

3. Click the “File Menu” and select “New” then “Run A/B test.”

4. Enter a name for each page variation.

This is an internal name that your audience won’t see, so instead of something editorial, choose something descriptive that will make sense to you long after you’ve forgotten the reason for the test.

Bonus points if you choose something that will make sense to stakeholders who want to peek in on the results.

5. Click “Create variation.”


6. Edit the variation page with your big swings and radical changes.

To faithfully recreate Rebecca’s test, you’ll want to try a version with navigation and one without.

Other than removing extra content (like SEO inclusions and FAQs), that’s all that changed during this experiment.

“The goal was to match the landing page as much as possible,” Rebecca says. “So we did not change the copy and we tried to keep the layouts very, very similar. We wanted it to be an apples-to-apples comparison.”

However, if you’re just getting started with dedicated landing pages, here are some other big swings you might consider:

• Formatting content in paragraphs versus bullet points.
• Including videos versus static images.
• Showing customer logos versus testimonials.

7. To start the test, click “Publish” and then “Publish now.”

Both variations will now be live.

Voilà! You’re ready to make marketing magic.

And if you don’t do what we don’t do, you just might get the results we got.

 

Chris Savage once raised $17.3m in debt to do a leveraged buyout of his own company.

Today, that company is a $67k video marketing platform. I caught up with the Wistia CEO to learn how he sextupled — that’s 6X — Wistia’s product updates.

Lesson 1: Sometimes, just go with your gut.

“Two-pizza team” is a Jeff Bezos term that describes a scrappy business strategy. Basically, your teams should be small enough to suffice on two pizzas. That’s roughly five to eight people. (Unless, of course, one is a college student. Then it’s about one to two people haha.)

After years of over-processed approaches, Savage put Bezos’ philosophy into practice.

Before switching to two-pizza teams, Wistia released 12 product updates annually. This included a new webinar tool and new interactive video elements like in-video quizzes.

After restructuring its product teams and simplifying its strategies in 2023, Wistia released 72 updates — 6X over the year before.

How? By turning away from flawless road maps and exceptional internal comms, and toward innovating based on customer feedback every two weeks.

“This change fostered a more dynamic approach to product development and feedback, and it encouraged constant evolution and learning within the teams,” Savage tells me.

His two-pizza teams consist of product managers, designers, tech leads, and engineers. At their core, they work like a small business within a business.

“The key to innovation is building these small teams that work the way a startup can — in fast sprints,” he says.

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That’s the how. But what I find most interesting is the why: Before, Savage says his employees consistently pitched bulletproof, data-driven projects — but the instinct-driven items, often based on limited customer feedback, were ignored.

“The ideas might’ve had very little data, so they were never at the top of the list,” he says. “But it turns out some of those ideas were the most impactful. It’s completely changed Wistia as a business.”

If your employees are endlessly updating internal docs and polishing fancy slide decks to pitch to leadership, you might want to ask: Is all of this getting in the way of driving bigger impact?

Lesson 2: If a few people like something, go build it.

Savage has a hot take: If you can get 10 people to love your product, you can get a thousand people to love it.

He‘s so confident in this concept that he claims there’s “no need for further testing” once you‘ve proven a few people think it’s a good idea: “We tend to underestimate how universal an experience can be, and we rely too heavily on quantitative data.”

Sometimes, instinct-driven ideas are unvoiced because you don’t feel you have the data to back them up. But if you rely too heavily on quantitative data, you risk ignoring real-time feedback that could lead to your next great idea. (Uber famously started with very little data to support its concept.)

“Zone in on your first happy customers, figure out what they like — and keep doing it.”

Lesson 3: Go all-in on what’s working to grow faster.

Savage is open about his mistakes in the early days: “In the beginning, I really didn’t understand how far we could take Wistia. It’s a very simple mistake: When leaders get something that’s working, instead of doubling down on that type of experience, they diversify instead to mitigate risk.”

While Savage understands the temptation to add new features or products to your repertoire, he fervently believes that only a few offerings drive customer behavior.

“If you could just double down on those things, you would grow faster.”

Keep it simple, stay hyper-focused on that one product or feature that’s likely driving 90% of your adoption, and you’ll soar.

Interested in how AI is changing video forever? Check out my interview with Chris Lavigne, Head of Production at Wistia

Lingering Questions

Each person we interview gives us a question for our next master of marketing.

Last week, Anna Sokratov, the brand manager for a particularly vile-tasting liqueur called Jeppson’s Malört, gave us this question for Savage:

What unconventional marketing approach would you like to take, and how would you go about doing something you haven’t done before?

Savage: My instinct goes to trying to get an awkward product placement in a summer blockbuster — the dream would be like the next Mission Impossible. Ethan Hunt has to use Wistia to decode something.

And it’s egregious — it’d have to be an over-the-top obvious product placement.

Savage’s question for our next master in marketing: What‘s something that you’re doing that‘s working so well, you’re afraid to tell others about it?

Come back next Monday for the answer!

When I was growing up, your first email address was a rite of passage (I see you, smileygirl747 and thegrouchy1). Today, it’s simply a necessity for many daily activities. Need a free email address?

There are dozens of free email service providers available that offer security, ample storage space, and accessibility on both your mobile devices and desktops. But they each have their use cases, and I’d recommend them for different reasons.

In this guide, I’ll explain what each free email account entails, as well as which options offer the best privacy. You’ll also learn about the best email service providers that host your account and integrate with your business website for free right now.

(But if you’re looking for the best email marketing services, check out this article instead.)

Table of Contents

• Types of Email Accounts
• Best Free Email Accounts
• Best Free Email Accounts for Privacy
• How to Make an Email Account
• Frequently Asked Questions About Email

Types of Email Accounts

There are two main types of email service providers to choose from for personal emails: email clients and webmail.

Most options offer both alternatives to best match the end-user’s needs, but it’s still important to understand the different terms.

What are email clients?

Email clients are software applications you install onto your computer to manage the email you send and receive. To access this email, the client interacts with a remote email server.

Examples of email clients include Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail.

What is a webmail?

Webmail is an email you access only from the internet, so it exists primarily on the cloud rather than your computer. Instead of an installed application fetching your email, you can manage your inbox right from your internet browser.

Examples of webmail providers include Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail.

Now, let’s explore the best free email service providers (and the best free email accounts for privacy) you can use — both webmail and email clients included.

I’ve highlighted unique features for each email service provider to help you find the best fit, but remember, regardless of which you choose, you can use our free email signature generator to add that little extra professional touch.

1. Gmail: Best for Productivity and Accessibility

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Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 15 GB free email storage.
• 99.9% protection from suspicious/spam emails.
• Text suggestions that help you write emails faster.
• Allows users to un-send emails within seconds of emailing.
• Accessible on all internet-connected devices and browsers.
• AI features to aid in productivity.

Who should use it: Anyone who already uses and loves the rest of Google’s products.

It might seem like an obvious top pick, but Gmail is too versatile not to get our first slot.

Gmail is the most popular email provider globally, with an estimated 1.8 billion users. And according to Litmus Labs, it has the second-highest email client market share.

Ironically, however, one reason Gmail is so popular has nothing to do with email.

Gmail is an email inbox tool you can access once you have a Google account. Since it’s built into Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), creating a Gmail account is more than creating an email account.

With Gmail, you can access a suite of free applications to chat, run video conferences, and share files with the people on your contact list. These applications include Google Play, Google Spreadsheet, Google Docs, and more.

For example, Google Hangouts, available from your inbox’s left sidebar (or the right — you can customize how your inbox is displayed), lets you text and video chat with other Gmail users if you don’t want to send an email.

Note: You can also use a free product like HubSpot Meetings to schedule meetings without back-and-forth emails.

Like most email accounts today, Gmail also has an intuitive calendar where you can set meetings and reminders.

Setup experience: First, Google built Gmail’s privacy settings into the user agreement. So, if you have specific security preferences, cater to them before using your new email account.

After you create your email address, Gmail redirects you to a homepage with more privacy settings.

This section asks about your YouTube preferences because the platforms are connected through your Google account.

Unlike other email accounts, you can use your Gmail address to log in to and manage your YouTube account. You’ll also use this account to collaborate on shared documents and spreadsheets from a cloud-based Google Drive.

I like Gmail’s offer of 15 GB of free email storage. This allows me to keep things that are important without worrying too much about hitting the limit.

This email service also has extensive customization options as well. Personalizing your inbox is more than selecting graphics or themes — it lets you decide how you want your email inbox to function.

You can also choose whether you want a reading pane, which emails show up at the top of your inbox, and more.

What I Like

• Each Google account comes with a range of helpful tools and resources.
• You can use “Labels” to create folders to organize your inbox. This helps you organize many emails, especially if you’re using your Gmail account for business.
• There are many ways to personalize your email inbox for your specific needs.
• AI tools

What I Don’t Like

• The tie-ins with other Google products can feel overwhelming if you just want to create a simple email account.
• Primary, Promotions, and Social sections of the inbox can be helpful, but emails don’t always end up where I expect them to, so I often direct all emails to the primary inbox and sort them myself.
• Some settings and options are more intuitive than others, so getting used to this email experience may take longer than you’d like.
• Some settings require you to click “Save” to make changes, while others happen automatically, which can get confusing.
• Nested labels don’t always work properly on mobile.

Pro tip: Google offers a number of free AI tools in Gmail that you can use to be more productive.

Some of these tools, like Tabbed Inbox, which automatically organizes your received messages into different buckets, still need work, but others are quite useful.

For example, Smart Compose uses generative AI to make suggestions about what to write next as you’re composing an email, while Summary Cards organize and showcase all of the crucial information from transactional emails.

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If you are a member of the Workspace Labs program, you can also play around with the “help me write” feature to create emails from simple prompts.

2. AOL: Best for Interface Organization

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Type of email: Webmail (Email client available with paid plans)

Core Features

• 1 TB free email storage.
• One-tap unsubscribe.
• In-app spellchecker to reduce errors.
• Protection from suspicious/spam emails.
• Ability to import contacts in any file format.
• Attachments tab with files you’ve sent or received.
• Accessible from any internet-connected device and browser.

Who should use it: Anyone who uses email for most of their communication.

“You’ve got mail!”

America Online (AOL) — I feel nostalgic just typing those words — was many’s first introduction to email in the United States. And it has quietly kept up with today’s standards for a good user experience, making it still one of the best free email accounts available.

Operating as a division of Yahoo! Inc., AOL delivers your email from its classic news-driven homepage and offers the contemporary spam filters and virus protection you’d expect from an email provider.

You can also send text and instant messages from specific windows in your email inbox.

And AOL does have something over Gmail: more storage. Also, you can import email contacts from a CSV, TXT, or LDIF file, so you’re not creating your “buddy list” from scratch.

Setup experience: The sign-up experience is simple, but it seems arbitrary that there is a limit on characters in the email address. This provider also requires a phone number for verification. I got an error message on my first try signing up.

On the second try, everything went smoothly, and I could easily create my new AOL email account.

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Onboarding is quick and simple — it’s just choosing a theme and text settings. Then, the homepage for my new email account was full of news and ads, which I wasn’t expecting.

There was also an ad at the top of my inbox. When I clicked “Compose” to create a new email, a helpful set of pop-ups showed me how to create emails with their tools.

The AOL inbox also offers spaces to save contacts, photos, documents, subscriptions, and travel.

What I Like

• Large text option is great for accessibility.
• Simplified tools make it easy for many users to create, organize, and send emails.
• The “Views” section offers spaces to save contacts, photos, documents, subscriptions, and travel.
• Huge amount of storage.

What I Don’t Like

• Some add-on features feel dated.
• Ads and headlines distract and fill a sizable portion of the screen.
• Helpful icons on the right sidebar are for calendar features, but they’re small and difficult to see compared to clickable ads.

3. Outlook: Best for Multiple App Integrations

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Type of email: Webmail and Email Client

Core Features

• 15 GB free email storage.
• Option to use add-ins to access other Microsoft apps like Skype.
• Excellent filters to organize and group important emails in folders.
• Provides aliases that add anonymity to your email and protect your identity and inbox from malicious spam.
• Data encryption in your mailbox and after you send an email.

Who should use it: Anyone who uses many platforms to connect with others.

If you ever cringed at the sight of a “Hotmail.com” email address, you can thank Outlook for keeping it alive and well.

Microsoft bought Hotmail in 2012 and relaunched it as Outlook. But there’s good news: The tech giant reinvented the free email service and added many advanced features.

While it touts a calendar and message filter like Gmail, Outlook also integrates with several popular communication apps.

For example, you can connect Skype, Facebook, PowerPoint, PayPal, and even task management software such as Trello. This makes it easy to reach and work with non-Outlook users without leaving your inbox.

Another perk: Outlook offers 15 GB of free storage for each user, along with a super-clean interface.

Setup experience: Creating an email address was super easy. However, the verification puzzle wasn’t very intuitive. So, if you take a non-traditional approach to puzzles, this step may take longer than you expect.

When I opened my Outlook inbox, an ad was already at the top with many others on the right sidebar.

The second email was a “welcome” with details about the Outlook mobile app, extra tools, security, and how to personalize your inbox. Then, a “Get Started” panel appeared in the inbox with a six-point checklist for setup.

If customizing your inbox is important, make some time to set up your Outlook inbox.

You can access personalization choices not in this checklist, like dark mode, notifications, and accessibility, by clicking on the gear icon at the top left of your Outlook inbox.

What I Like

• Outlook is a streamlined, professional tool for business email.
• It’s easy and intuitive to create new folders, label or flag emails, and draft new emails.
• Includes many useful features for sending professional emails, like buttons to prioritize emails and customize your signature.
• Icons at the top right for Skype, OneNote, Calendar, and tips are useful add-ons for users.

What I Don’t Like

• Promotion for other Microsoft products within this free email account can feel distracting.
• Onboarding doesn’t seem as user-focused and comprehensive as other tools.

4. Yahoo! Mail: Best for Lots of Storage

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Type of email: Webmail (Email Client available for iOS)

Core Features

• A mammoth 1 TB free email storage.
• Instant notifications for new emails.
• Connects seamlessly with the Yahoo Calendar.
• Accessible from all internet-connected devices and browsers.
• Advanced sorting and organization of media and documents.

Who should use it: Creatives and anyone who sends and receives attachments frequently via email.

Yahoo! Mail, another well-known platform, sits beside AOL in storage space, but this should be no surprise, as Yahoo! and AOL are under the same parentage. It offers a whopping 1 TB for free, along with a few key social media integrations.

You can have custom background themes and search for key information from your inbox with Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo! Mail makes it easy to find every photo, video, and document you’ve ever attached or received via email in the tabs on your inbox’s sidebar.

This makes the platform appealing to those who share documents regularly or want an album made of every photo they’ve ever shared.

Setup experience: Overall, this was a similar sign-up experience to AOL. I ran into the same error messages, too. The theme selection pop-up was also similar, but there wasn’t an option to choose larger or smaller text.

Once you’ve completed the theme selection, you’ll be in your Yahoo! Mail inbox. Again, there is already an ad at the top of your inbox and an ad on the right sidebar.

The “Views” menu on the right side works the same way it does on AOL, but it also includes sections for “Emails to myself,” “Shopping,” “Wallet,” and “Receipts.” As someone who frequently sends myself emails as reminders, this is a helpful addition.

If you want more personalization, click the gear icon at the top right. Scroll past themes, message layout, inbox spacing, and message tabs, then click on “More Settings.”

What I Like

• Simple and easy-to-use tool that comes with a free email account and tons of storage.
• Clicking on email draft text connects to Grammarly GO for writing suggestions.
• Easy to use “Views” feature for organizing email and attachments.
• Email is one tab within the larger Yahoo! property for easy access to other resources.

What I Don’t Like

• Not much of an onboarding experience, but the tool is intuitive if you’re already familiar with email.
• It takes several clicks to update your preferences for notifications, security, filters, and more.

5. iCloud Mail: Best for Data Encryption

Type of email: Webmail (Email client available via Apple Mail)

Core Features

• 5 GB free email storage.
• One-click “Unsubscribe” feature.
• Native to Apple products and services.
• Search functionality to find info about an email.
• VIP flagging for automatic filtering of important messages.

Who should use it: People who use a Mac or iPhone and want everything in one system.

If you’re Team Apple, iCloud Mail may be on your list of email service providers as the email address is often needed for Apple tools.

Their free email account has 5 GB of storage that you can use to sync your photos, files, or email.

However, it’s important to note that because the storage is shared between all of your apps and devices, you may eat into your email storage allowance for the month.

Upgraded plans start at $0.99 a month and go up to $9.99 a month.

While it’s free to create an iCloud email address, you’ll need two things to create an account:

• An Apple ID.
• An Apple device that your Apple ID is connected to.

If you have both things, it’s easy to create your new iCloud email account.

You can use this account through the Mail app on your Apple computer desktop or online through iCloud Mail.

The features of these two interfaces are slightly different. For example, it’s easiest to create an out-of-office auto-reply email online.

One of the most significant advantages of using iCloud over other email providers is the ease of integration.

Apple builds its desktop and iPhone mail apps with all email clients in mind, but it pays special attention to making the experience delightful for iCloud users.

What I Like

• This email account has the clean and visually appealing design Apple is known for.
• It’s simple, easy, and familiar to use for Apple fans.

What I Don’t Like

• Apple is more of an ecosystem than a service provider. This interconnection offers extra value, but it can also be frustrating if you’re looking for a simple standalone email service.
• Very little email storage.

6. Mozilla Thunderbird: Best for Managing Multiple Accounts

Type of email: Email client

Core Features

• Smart email organization into folders.
• Browser-like tabs for working on multiple emails.
• Integration with your Google Calendar for task management and meeting scheduling.
• Large extension library to customize your experience with several apps and services.

Who should use it: Anyone looking for a simple but customizable email inbox.

Thunderbird is a free email client from Mozilla (known primarily for Firefox) that offers a quick email inbox setup and a simple, easy-to-use user interface.

However, it is important to note that it isn’t free to create an email address on this platform. If you need one, the tool allows you to create an email address via Mailfence or gandi, but at a cost.

If you’ve already created a free email account on another service, like Gmail, however, you can use this tool to create, check, and send emails from multiple accounts.

The app offers customizable features, such as theme settings and app extensions, to improve your email experience. The email app also allows you to open multiple emails in tabs, like how you would open various web pages in Firefox browsers.

Setup experience: To use this tool, you’ll need to download Thunderbird, so it may not be a fit if you’re looking for an online email platform.

It’s exciting that this is an open-source tool, but the many pop-ups and donation requests added to the confusion I was feeling as I tried to set up my email.

What I Like

• Smart streamlined tool for receiving, sending, and organizing emails.
• Great features for privacy, chat, and more.
• Excellent tool for tech-savvy email users.

What I Don’t Like

• The text in the inbox interface is small. It’s easy to increase the font size in the reading pane for individual emails, but increasing the font size for the interface isn’t intuitive unless you’re tech-savvy.
• Some common processes require multiple steps. For example, you need to create a template and a filter to create an out-of-office auto-reply message.

Pro Tip: While Thunderbird will charge you to create a Mailfence email account during sign up you can create one for free directly on Mailfence’s site. More on this later.

8. Mail.com: Best for Custom Domain Options

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Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 65 GB free email storage.
• Attachments up to 30MB.
• Choose from 100+ custom domains.
• Alias addresses.
• Two-factor authentication.
• Add-free premium plans.

Who should use it: Small businesses or entrepreneurs that would like a more unique and custom domain without the price tag.

Mail.com may not be as popular or well-known as Gmail, but it offers many of the same features.

It has the basics like anti-virus and spam security and dedicated apps for your mobile devices, but also up to 10 alias addresses per account (think help@ or support@), a massive amount of storage, a calendar, and online office tools like a word processor and spreadsheet tool.

But what’s its biggest differentiator? That’s got to be its option to choose from over 100 custom domains.

Mail.com’s options make you look a little more polished and established than a Gmail or Outlook email address, but they are still short and memorable.

You can choose from general options like mail.com or myself.com or even industry or profession-focused options like engineer.com or musician.org.

What I Like

• Lots of custom domain options.
• Secure and professional.
• Ample storage.
• Free alias addresses.
• Additional productivity and office tools.

What I Don’t Like

• Business interface -– Between ads and the numerous navigation options, there’s a lot to sort through if you just want to read and send emails.

9. 10 Minute Mail: Best for temporary email addresses

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Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• Randomized email addresses.
• Addresses are only available for 10 minutes (though you can extend by 10-minute increments).
• Receive emails.

Who should use it: Users claiming offers or testing out forms

As a marketer, it may be blasphemous for me to include this option on our list, but hey, it can be extremely useful.

As the 10 Minute Mail website reads, “the website you are registering with could be selling your personal information; you never know where your e-mail will be published. An email address with a 10-minute lifespan is the best solution to prevent this.”

Ever needed to test out a form on your website or wanted to claim an offer from a website that has questionable security? Or maybe you’ve wanted to snoop on a competitor’s strategy without anyone knowing. 10 Minute Mail is here to help.

Every time you visit the no-frills webmail provider, you’ll be given a randomized temporary e-mail address and inbox that expires after 10 minutes.

Once the clock runs out, you can’t access the address or inbox — but you can extend the time by 10 minutes as many times as you need to, with the click of a button.

What I Like

• Helps keep your primary inbox clean and personal information secure when filling out certain forms.

What I Don’t Like

• No history of emails received.
• Can only receive emails, not send them.

10. Zoho

Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 100% privacy from advertisers.
• Encrypted emails to secure sensitive information.
• Customizable domain name.
• Integration with Zoho CRM.

Who should use it: Startups and small businesses.

This is the first of the free email accounts for privacy to make our list, but it holds a ton of potential for businesses.

Most of Zoho’s plans are paid, some for as little as $1 a month. But they have a free forever plan, too.

The first thing you’ll notice about Zoho is its user-friendliness. From integrating with Google Drive, Box, and other cloud-based file managers to its built-in task manager, this email service offers a simple way to accomplish all your daily tasks.

To create an email account, you need to either add a domain you own or purchase one. Then, you have to verify your domain. This can feel complicated if you just want to create a quick personal email account.

But if you’re looking for a free email account for your business, the real difference-maker is the ability to use a custom domain to create free email addresses for up to five users.

The first user to sign up will become the super admin for emails on your custom domain.

What I Like

• Professional and clean interface and email experience.
• A free domain-based email address is a professional plus for new businesses.
• Tons of useful business apps and features.
• Thorough onboarding that walks through 17 key features.

What I Don’t Like

• No chance to test the features of this email service before going through a multi-step setup process.
• The number of apps and features can be overwhelming if you’re looking for a simple tool.
• 25 MB attachment limit, which may be a challenge if you frequently send emails with attachments.

11. ProtonMail

Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 1 GB free email storage.
• Optimized inbox for grouping messages into folders.
• 100% privacy (personal information is not required to open an account).
• End-to-end data encryption that eliminates third-party access to your email.
• Compatibility with external email clients like Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, and ProtonMail.

Who should use it: Anyone who sends and receives sensitive information.

ProtonMail offers just 500 MB of free space, but for the worthy trade of encrypted email, allowing you to send messages that nobody else can see and disappear after a month.

What’s the catch? Is the service hard to use? ProtonMail is easy to use on any device, with no software to encrypt your emails, as with most webmail platforms. Like other email services on this list, its inbox interface is easy to understand.

And, the tool offers quick color-coded labels to help you further organize emails that require the most care and protection.

Setup experience: Creating an account was easy, and the captcha was simple and quick to complete. For Gmail users, Proton quickly suggests forwarding their Gmail accounts to this service.

The onboarding is also inviting and easy to understand. It offers helpful suggestions like changing app logins to your new Proton email address.

This tool is simple and intuitive, and it was easy to create useful folders and labels for my new email inbox.

What I Like

• Streamlined tool for receiving, sending, and managing emails securely.
• A clear focus on data protection and email protection.
• Super easy to set and has clear instructions for forwarding.

What I Don’t Like

• Requires a paid upgrade to remove their branded footer.
• Uses different terms to describe some features, like “Auto-reply” for vacation or away messages, which can be confusing.

12. GMX Mail

Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 65 GB free email storage.
• Easy-to-use email filter templates.
• Protection from suspicious/spam emails.
• External account integration to manage all emails (even from other service providers).

Who should use it: Anyone who needs multiple emails with one central inbox.

While you may not have heard of GMX Mail, it’s been around for quite a while (since 1997) — and it has many features that I think make it worth considering.

Now, at a glance, the GMX website will look identical to Mail.com and, frankly, I can’t explain to you why. But both are well-known and trusted email service providers with their share of differences.

Like Mail.com, GMX offers 65 GB of storage and alias addresses, but its big differentiator is privacy.

It allows for email encryption, and data is secured only in Europe according to European data protection standards — arguably some of the best in the world.

It also offers a spam filter and virus and malware scans.

Setup experience: Once I logged in, there was a big ad at the top of the inbox. This was partly confusing because the inbox and other sections have a small font that could be hard for some users to read.

To address this, their instructions recommended I adjust the text size of my browser, which wasn’t what I was hoping for.

When you open an email, it opens a new window with a much larger font. This is good, because it makes the email easier to read, but overall it created a disorienting user experience.

What I Like

• Clear and useful settings for spam detection, virus protection, blocklist, and more.
• Settings on the left-hand sidebar are super convenient and easy to understand.
• Supports emailing in multiple languages and has a built-in translator tool.

What I Don’t Like

• The only way to increase font size in this email tool is to zoom in or out on the browser window.
• Several useful features are so different from other email services they may take some getting used to.
• Some stationery choices feel dated.

13. Tuta (formerly Tutanota)

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Type of email: Webmail (Offline Email Client Available)

Core Features

• Full encryption to guarantee email privacy and zero tracking.
• Sustainable email storage on secure servers powered entirely by renewable energy.
• 1 GB free email storage.

Who should use it: Any individual looking for free encrypted emails without ads

Tuta is a great choice for folks looking for a free private email service provider. They also have business accounts available for a small cost.

This service places a premium on security with end-to-end encryption of internal and external emails, calendars, and contacts using quantum-safe encryption.

It also promises not to scan or track your emails, which we certainly believe as there are no ads on the platform.

Other security features include two-factor authentication (2FA), session handling, and phishing protection.

Setup experience: After signing up, one of the first screens you’ll see is a recovery code. Once you log into your inbox, you’ll see three emails from Tuta.

Each email details what sets this service apart and its dedication to security.

From there, you can click the settings gear at the bottom left of your screen to see menus for updating templates, appearance, and other email settings.

This tool is super simple, so there aren’t many of the extras that other platforms have, but if you’re focused on privacy, this is a plus. The interface is easy to understand and use for its primary function: receiving and sending email.

What I Like

• Open source email account service that prioritizes user privacy.
• Focus on sustainability and environmental impact.
• Simple and easy-to-read interface.
• Streamlined functions make it easy to focus on writing, sending, and organizing email.
• No ads.

What I Don’t Like

• You can attach images or documents, but this tool isn’t for sending images or graphic emails.
• Folders for organization, but no flags, labels, or tags, which can make it tough to find important emails.

14. Mailfence

Type of email: Webmail

Core Features

• 500 MB free email storage.
• Excellent legal protection owing to strict Belgian privacy laws.
• True OpenPGP end-to-end encryption on a secured infrastructure.

Who should use it: Anyone looking for a secure email account that integrates with other tools.

Mailfence is a secure browser-based email service provider based in Belgium. Given the strict privacy laws in Belgium, all your data is locked away from third-party access.

Their free plan gives you 500 MB of email space, which is admittedly quite limited, but if you’re not sending big files, you can make it work.

Fortunately, if you exceed this, you can still enjoy Mailfence for as little as €2.50 a month.

On the paid plan, you can create up to 10 aliases and have five GB of email space, among many other features.

With Mailfence, it’s easy to organize your day and business because you’d be able to easily integrate your email account with your contacts, calendar, and documents.

Setup experience: The landing page after account creation has lots of text to read, which can be a little overwhelming compared to other simpler email services. But the interface is clean and simple once you’re in the inbox.

Some functionality isn’t super intuitive. For example, to create a folder, you click the three dots to the right of your email address at the top.

Based on my experience in other email services, I would expect to add a new folder where the “Tags” option is in Mailfence’s interface.

What I Like

• Easy-to-read user interface.
• Simple encryption options to protect sensitive data.
• A welcome email with email account details is super helpful.
• Clear icons at the top highlight other service features.

What I Don’t Like

• Some functionality takes some getting used to, like how to use “Tags” effectively.
• Great for plain text emails but not as useful for emails with images or animations.

Bonus: HubSpot Free Email Integration

Get Started with HubS’s Free Email Integration

Type of email: Email Integration

Core Features

• 500 email per day limit. You can send up to 500 emails per day with a free email account. This is a great limit for businesses just starting out.
• Log customer email responses. This tool brings communication into a single space to easily meet customer expectations. It also eases potential customer frustration by placing customer call notes and email exchanges in the same place.
• Schedule email sequences. You might copy and paste templates for customer emails. But why copy and paste when you can schedule email sequences and send customers exactly what they need to know when they need it?
• Update contact records. Keep up with customer contact changes with a single system that connects everything you know about your customer in one place.

Who should use it: Anyone looking for a free way to connect email accounts to customer management or marketing tools.

Like Thunderbird, HubSpot’s free email integration offers an exciting, free way to improve your email experience.

As noted above, many of these free email tools are siloed systems for email creation and management. But what if you want to send beautifully designed newsletters or manage contacts with email?

If you’re creating a free email account for your business, this tool can connect your email to customer relationship management, marketing, and more. This can help your team do more from their email inboxes.

You can track customer conversations, use sales automation for new leads, and send gorgeous marketing emails to your contact list.

Setup experience: Signing up with an existing email, like Gmail, is quick and simple. As soon as you log in, you’ll learn how to send free marketing emails and connect your email to HubSpot’s free CRM.

Get HubSpot’s Free CRM

The step-by-step onboarding process offers a lot of information, so make sure you’re ready to start using this tool when you sign up.

What I Like

• Super tool for sending graphic emails, like newsletters.
• Useful feature add-ons for small businesses looking for free email.
• Excellent walkthroughs to make the most of marketing and integration features.
• Connects to HubSpot CRM and other powerful business tools.

What I Don’t Like

• This free account’s huge range of features can be a lot to take in.
• May not be a fit for someone looking for a personal email account.

How to Make an Email Account

No matter which provider you choose, creating an email is a simple process. But it’s still important to know best practices so you can have one that fits your needs the best.

The purpose of an email is to provide a space for you to have easy, secure communications. Follow the steps below to create an email:

1. Choose an email provider.

Select an email provider based on your user needs. Consider which features, such as top-tier security, email scheduling capabilities, or integrations, are the most important to you.

Also, consider how much storage you will need and what type of provider works best.

2. Choose a username.

Select a username based on the purpose of the account. If it is a professional account, then your name with a significant number will do.

The name of your business will do if it’s a business account. You might also consider [email protected] for professional accounts.

3. Create a secure password.

Email providers generally have minimum requirements for how secure your password must be. These often include a number or a special character.

Follow these guidelines and choose a password that’s unique and has a variety of letters, numbers, and characters to make it extra secure.

4. Secure your account.

Many email providers include ways to add extra security to your account. Take advantage of these features to keep your account and data safe. Setting up two-factor authentication is a great place to start.

5. Write a signature.

Set up an email signature for your account. This saves a lot of time as you are writing emails and helps keep your closing consistent. Include information like your name, your title, and your contact information.

HubSpot’s free email signature generator includes all of these along with social media links and a headshot.

Frequently Asked Questions About Email

What’s the best email service provider (ESP)?

This is a tricky question with no direct answer. The best email service provider is one that addresses your unique needs.

For instance, if you want an ESP with a large storage space, Yahoo! Mail may be ideal because it offers you one TB. If you want an ESP that seamlessly works with Google’s products, Gmail will be your top pick.

If you are a Microsoft fan, you would want to opt for Outlook. And, if you seek an ESP with uber-high privacy and security, ProtonMail may be best for you.

Why does your email service provider matter?

Whether you’re an individual or a business owner, your choice of ESP can impact your email deliverability. A reliable ESP ensures your emails land in your recipients’ inboxes and avoid the spam folders.

If you have a business, you’d want an ESP that goes beyond delivering emails. At some point, you’d need email templates, automation capabilities, and analytics to track your subscribers’ email engagement.

While many ESPs falter at this, HubSpot, a platform used by 194,000+ customers in over 120 countries, excels.

How do I pick the best email service provider for my team?

Several variables must be considered when choosing an email service provider for your team. First, you need to identify your needs and select those that are most important. These needs could include integration options, ease of automation, and customization.

With these needs, you can research ESPs, evaluate their features, check their pricing, and read customer reviews. If your preferred ESPs offer trials, take advantage of that and test them.

Every team has hopes of scaling in the future, so consider picking an ESP that can work irrespective of your team’s size.

Making the Most of Your Email

And with that, you have some of the best options for free email accounts this year. But who knows? Your next email address could be entirely different while giving you just what you need to succeed.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Think about all the times you’ve signed up for things in your life. Did you once download Evernote? Dropbox? Spotify? Maybe you’ve even taken a class on General Assembly.

Each one of these signups is likely a result of an effective call-to-action (CTA).

Think about it: If you hadn’t been drawn in by the copy or design of the CTA or been guided so eloquently through your sign-up process, you would probably use a lot fewer apps and websites than you do now.

In this post, I’ll explain how using strategic CTAs can guide your visitors through the buying journey and highlight my favorite examples.

Table of Contents

• What Is a Call-to-Action (CTA)?
• What Is a CTA in Marketing?
• How to Write a CTA
• Different Types of CTAs
• Best Call-to-Action Examples

What Is a CTA in Marketing?

As a marketer, CTAs are relevant because they encourage your audience to take action on a marketing campaign.

Ultimately, the goal of any marketing campaign is to guide your audience in the buyer’s journey so they eventually make a purchase.

Types of CTAs

Not all marketing campaigns use the same types of CTAs since there are several tactics you can use to guide your audience in their journey.

For instance, a marketing campaign with the goal of gaining more newsletter subscribers might use a form submission, while a campaign enticing users to “learn more” may include a button.

Below I’ve listed common types of CTAs that are used in marketing. Keep in mind that every brand and audience is different so it may be beneficial to A/B test CTA types and designs in order to figure out which ones work best for you.

Buttons

By far the most common type of CTA, buttons are icons with an actionable phrase written in them that entices users to click and take further action.

Button designs can vary based on the brand style and goal of the campaign, but generally, your button should have a high-contrast color so it can stand out on the page.

Forms

Form submission CTAs convert site visitors into leads by offering visitors something in exchange for their contact information. Offers can include downloadable content, product quotes, service sign-ups, subscriptions, and more.

Banners

A CTA banner can be located along the top, bottom, or side of a web page. Banners typically include some type of captivating copy and design that encourages visitors to click on them to take action.

Contextual Links

Usually located within the body copy of a blog post, contextual links contain clickable text that directs users to a related landing page.

Pop-Ups

A pop-up is a CTA in a small window that suddenly appears on the page.

Since users often tune out static CTA buttons and forms, pop-ups can be a great way to communicate an offer or entice users to sign up for your service.

Many websites also use exit intent pop-ups, which are triggered when users are about to leave the site.

Slide-Ins

Similar to pop-ups, slide-in CTAs are meant to capture the user’s attention by “sliding in” from the bottom or the sidebar. Slide-ins are a good alternative to pop-ups since they are less disruptive to the user experience.

1. Keep it simple.

In my experience, the most effective CTAs are often the most simple. For instance, a CTA that says “download now” tells the user that they can download related materials just by clicking on your button.

When writing your CTAs, use understandable and direct language that clearly communicates what action you want your audience to take.

The more jargon or complex sentences you use, the more likely you are to confuse your readers and miss out on a conversion.

Pro tip: More is less, right? I find that to be true as well when it comes to CTAs, so think about making your CTA 50 characters or less. This way, you avoid making the CTA overly complicated.

2. Use action verbs.

I think the most effective CTAs start with a strong action verb to encourage readers to take immediate action. Action verbs inject energy and momentum into your CTAs, making them more vibrant and engaging.

For example, active CTAs like “Buy now” and “Get started” are more motivating than passive CTAs like “Continue” and “Next.”

Keep in mind that some action verbs are better suited for specific purposes.

For instance, CTAs like “Get started” and “Sign up” are good for SaaS conversions, while CTAs like “Buy now” and “Add to cart” are better for ecommerce conversions.

Pro tip: Consider what action you want each customer segment to take. When using action words, pick different ones for each user depending on their buying stage.

3. Create a sense of urgency.

Add a time element to your CTA to create a sense of urgency. I find this encourages your audience to act promptly instead of procrastinating.

It can also foster a fear of missing out (FOMO), driving people to take action to avoid losing out on valuable opportunities or limited-time offers.

Creating a sense of urgency can be done by using phrases like “limited time offer,” “today only,” or “while supplies last.”

Keep in mind that the urgency you convey should always be genuine. Overusing urgency tactics or creating false scarcity can erode trust and credibility with your audience.

Pro tip: To drive more sales, you can use countdown clocks beside your CTAs on digital platforms to graphically emphasize the severity of the situation. In my experience, this works especially well for one-time sales or event registration.

4. Be creative.

CTAs don’t have to be so rigid and formulaic. When writing your CTA, I suggest you incorporate your personality and humor to stand out and make an impact — just make sure that it aligns with your brand voice and drives action.

For instance, instead of writing something generic like “Sign up,” you could go with something more exciting like “Take the leap.”

While both examples encourage your audience to take action, the latter taps into the idea of taking chances and embracing new opportunities, making it more compelling.

Remember, the ultimate goal is to make your CTA compelling and irresistible enough for your audience to take action.

And if your CTAs aren’t getting the most engagement, consider testing out different versions to help you strengthen and refine them over time.

You can take a look at our checklist to see if you’re on track to creating engaging calls-to-action.

Pro tip: Along with testing your copy, I recommend considering the button design that encourages the most clicks and conversions and experimenting with various button dimensions, colors, copy, and placements.

It could require some trial and error.

Different Types of CTAs

CTAs all serve a designated purpose, but keep in mind the language they use can vary. And today, marketers everywhere have put some creative spins on their CTAs to generate the leads their businesses depend on.

Below are a few examples of the types of CTA button copy you might use in marketing:

To help you identify what’s effective and what’s not, I’ve listed out examples of CTAs that totally rock below.

Find examples of CTAs that are simple and effective, others with great call-to-action phrases, and still more that balance multiple buttons on one page.

1. HubSpot

CTA: Download Now

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One of the perks of using HubSpot is the wealth of free resources we offer. This slide-in CTA, which is found in an article discussing marketing intelligence, demonstrates how a well-placed CTA can improve user experience.

I like that it’s unobtrusive and comes in midway through the article, not only prompting readers to “download now” but offering a useful and free resource.

The marketing kit offers an out-of-the-box solution for those who may not know where to start.

How to Replicate This CTA

Offer a free resource that is directly related to the topic of the article it appears on. On HubSpot’s CTA, readers can finish the article and then download the guide with templates to get started making a marketing kit of their own. (Click here to learn how to add slide-in CTAs to your blog posts.)

2. The Budgetnista

CTA: Sign Up For Weekly Goodies!

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Run by personal financial educator and author Tiffany Aliche, The Budgetnista is a one-stop shop for personal finance. In addition to providing content that delights her audience, she’s also a pro at creating inviting CTAs.

Instead of simply putting a signup CTA to promote her newsletter, she uses language that entices the reader to click. “Sign Up For Weekly Goodies” sounds a whole lot more interesting than “Sign up for my newsletter.”

Who doesn’t want weekly goodies?

How to Replicate This CTA

The Budgetnista’s CTA mirrors Aliche’s personality, which I think is a nice touch and helps personalize the interaction. Encourage visitors to take the desired action by using friendly and creative language.

3. Glossier

CTA: I’m in

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Beauty brand Glossier has its marketing image down, in my opinion, showcasing realistic images of women with a variety of skin types.

Who can forget their boy brow campaign? Their website is clean, with lots of white space that makes the photos of the models and makeup pop.

Their CTA is an overlay that appears when you start scrolling down their site. While many would quickly click out of the pop-up, the language Glossier chooses makes you want to stick around.

“Let‘s take this to your inbox” is a clever way to ask folks to sign up for their newsletter. If you‘re down to join simply click “i’m in” and you’re done.

How to Replicate This CTA

Use clever phrasing and imagery that makes your brand more relatable and entices people to take action. Glossier’s CTA, for example, includes an image of a model wearing the brand’s makeup, which makes it even more appealing.

4. 310 Creative

CTA: Book Free Assessment

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Growth agency and HubSpot partner 310 Creative aims to help B2B companies scale and refine the buyer’s journey to increase sales.

Knowing that visitors to the site may not quite know what specific services they need, 310 Creative makes use of a CTA that removes confusion.

The slide-in CTA solicits visitors to book a free assessment to get some clarity on where their business may be falling short and discover why these outcomes are happening.

How to Replicate This CTA

Demonstrate empathy for the visitor and remove barriers by stating the service is free. By describing an issue followed by “If this sounds familiar, let’s talk” it demonstrates that 310 Creative is there to help and understands the frustration.

5. Heyday

CTA: Sign Up And Save

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Heyday is a bit of a rebel in the facial industry. Its minimalist, no-frills approach has made it a favorite among those who just want to see an aesthetician without the fuss and upselling.

That minimalist but friendly approach shows up in their CTA, too. Making great use of some models with glowing skin, this CTA entices viewers to sign up for their newsletter with a discount.

The “sign up and save” button is persuasive, along with the humorous “No thanks, I prefer full-price skincare” hyperlink to opt out.

How to Replicate This CTA

Employ beautiful aesthetics, a discount, and humor to encourage visitors to take the desired action. I think mentioning a value proposition, like saving, helps communicate to readers why they should sign up.

6. VRBO

CTA: Discover your escape

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If you love browsing beautiful vacation homes in your spare time, VRBO is a great place to do it. The brand makes great use of aspirational aesthetics and gorgeous locales.

The dark blue CTA pops against VRBO’s white background, drawing the reader in. Then the “discover your escape” button adds a touch of adventure for those who may be interested in renting a vacation home.

How to Replicate This CTA

Make great use of color and phrasing. VRBO’s CTA communicates that you’re not booking a regular vacation but rather an adventure where they can serve as your trusted guide.

7. Hulu

CTA: Get The Disney Bundle

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Streaming giant Hulu went for a dramatic approach with this CTA. The dimmed background shows off all its television and movie offerings, while the green and white text of the CTA draws your attention to the promotion.

I think it’s clever because it’s a sign-up and upsell in one, informing users that they can get a discount add-on with Disney+ and ESPN+.

How to Replicate This CTA

Entice visitors with the impression they’re getting a deal by offering a bundle and put emphasis on providing value to get visitors to take action.

Here, Hulu’s CTA button says “get the Disney bundle” instead of having a generic button that says “sign up.”

8. Hija De Tu Madre

CTA: Subscribe

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Apparel company Hija De Tu Madre keeps it fresh with a clean, pink and white color scheme that exudes youthfulness and freshness.

Most of what makes their CTAs so appealing is the clever play on words, mixing both Spanish and English, an ode to their target audience.

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Because they’re so dialed into their audience, Hija De Tu Madre can extract more information from their visitors. Instead of just having a CTA that requests an email (first image), they’ve introduced a mobile phone request in a second CTA.

How do they persuade folks to hand over their digits? By offering them a chance to win merch — specifically their popular denim jackets.

How to Replicate This CTA

Offer something visitors consider valuable in return for their personal information — in this instance, a coveted denim jacket will make people more likely to share more information.

In my experience, the key is to know your audience and tap into their interests.

9. Wool and the Gang

CTA: Share Your Knits #woolandthegang

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This CTA from Wool and the Gang will make you feel all fuzzy on the inside. The collage background of customers donning their Wool and the Gang garments, plus a cute pup really draws the reader in and fits with the brand’s audience.

I like that the CTA button states “share your knits #woolandthegang” because it encourages customers to share what they’ve made using Wool and the Gang products, working as both brand promotion and customer engagement.

How to Replicate This CTA

Grab the visitor’s attention by creating a sense of community and enticing visitors to join. This particular CTA also doubles as brand promotion as more customers share their knits across social media.

10. Tweak It Studio

CTA: Personalized Wood Names

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Home decor and design company Tweak It Studio showcases the importance of having fun but clear CTAs.

They get the visitor’s attention with “Just Dropped” in big bold letters to inform readers on new products on offer, then combine it with a CTA button that states exactly what the item is — in this case “personalized wood names.”

I think it’s much more effective than just having a button that simply states “buy now.”

How to Replicate This CTA

Use urgency to get visitors to check items in your online store and clearly communicate where the visitor is heading when they click the CTA button.

11. Evernote

CTA: Sign Up

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“Remember Everything.” Visitors can immediately understand that message the moment they land on this page.

The design on Evernote’s website makes it super simple for users to see the quick benefits of using the app and how to actually sign up to use it.

Plus, the green color of the main and secondary CTA buttons is the same green as the headline and the Evernote logo, all of which jump off the page.

How to Replicate This CTA

Consider using a bright color that contrasts well with the elements on your web page to make your CTA stand out. This can go a long way, even if your text is simple like in the Evernote example.

12. Dropbox

CTA: Sign up for free

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Dropbox has always embraced simple design with a lot of negative space. Even the graphics on their homepage are subtle and simple.

Thanks to that simple design and negative space, the blue “Sign up for free” call-to-action button stands out from everything else on the page.

Since the CTA and the Dropbox logo are the same color, it‘s easy for the visitor to interpret this CTA as “Sign up for Dropbox.” That’s one effective CTA, in my opinion.

How to Replicate This CTA

Negative space can work in your favor if used correctly. Use it to your advantage by allowing your CTA to stand out using your bold brand colors.

13. OfficeVibe

CTA: Subscribe

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Here’s a slide-in CTA that caught my attention from OfficeVibe. While scrolling through a post on their blog, a banner slides in from the bottom of the page with a call-to-action to subscribe to their blog.

The best part? The copy on the slide-in told me I’d be getting tips about how to become a better manager — and the post it appeared on was a post about how to become a better manager.

In other words, the offer was something I was already interested in.

Plus, I like how unobtrusive slide-in CTAs are — as opposed to what my colleague Rachel Sprung calls the “stop-everything-and-click-here-pop-up-CTA.”

I find these CTAs offer a more lovable experience because they provide more information while still allowing me to continue reading the blog post.

How to Replicate This CTA

You can create your own slide-in CTA using HubSpot’s marketing tools. After designing your CTA using our templates, create a HubSpot account.

Go to Marketing > Lead Capture > CTAs in your HubSpot account and follow the CTA instructions here.

14. Netflix

CTA: Join Free for a Month

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One big fear users have before committing to sign up for something? That it’ll be a pain to cancel their subscription if they end up not liking it.

Netflix nips that fear in the bud with the “Cancel anytime” copy right above the “Join Free for a Month” CTA.

I’d venture a guess that reassurance alone has boosted signups. Also, you’ll notice again that the red color of the primary and secondary CTAs here matches Netflix’s logo color.

How to Replicate This CTA

Not only can you get a visitor’s attention with a stark contrast in color, but you can use language in your CTA that entices them to click.

Consider using “Try for Free,” or something similar in your CTA that removes the risk for potential customers.

15. Square

CTA: Get Started

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To achieve effective CTA design, you need to consider more than just the button itself. In my experience, it’s also super important to consider elements like background color, surrounding images, and surrounding text.

Mindful of these additional design components, the folks at Square used a single image to showcase the simplicity of using their product, where the hovering “Get Started” CTA awaits your click.

If you look closely, the color of the credit card in the image and the color of the CTA button match, which helps the viewer connect the dots of what to expect if/when they click.

How to Replicate This CTA

You can use color to help visitors connect the dots whether it’s coordinating similar tones like in this image, or by using brand colors like the Dropbox example.

16. Prezi

CTA: Give Prezi a try

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The folks at Prezi are also into the minimalist design look on their website.

Other than the green dinosaur and the dark brown coffee, the only other color accompanying the predominantly black-and-white design is a bright blue — the same blue from their main logo.

I like that that bright blue is strategically placed on the homepage: the main “Give Prezi a try” CTA, and the secondary “Get Started” CTA, both of which take users to the same pricing page.

How to Replicate This CTA

This page took a minimalist color scheme, but incorporated two CTAs with the same color button that direct visitors to the same landing page.

If your page has a clean, minimalist design, I suggest you consider trying two CTAs with different text to draw visitors in.

17. Full Bundle

CTA: Our Work

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Full Bundle is another company that uses negative space to make their primary CTA pop. The white “Our Work” call-to-action stands out against the dark grays of the background. I think their choice of CTA is strategic, too.

Given that they primarily exist to build out clients’ online presences, it’s important for them to showcase their work — and that’s what most folks are going to their website for.

How to Replicate This CTA

Make creative use of negative space like Full Bundle’s gray tones. As you can see, the different shades of gray make triangles, adding a subtle design element that makes their white CTA pop out at the bottom.

18. Panthera

CTA: Join

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The folks at Panthera are looking for users who really care about wild cats around the world and want to join a group of people who feel the same way.

To target those people in particular, I love how they use language that would speak to big cat lovers: “Join the pride today.” The page itself is super simple: an on-page form with two, simple fields and a button asking folks to (again) “Join.”

How to Replicate This CTA

Establish a connection with your target audience by using vernacular related to your brand that would appeal to them in your CTA. Echoing the same phrase on the page and CTA is clever and reinforces the message.

19. EPIC

CTA: Let’s start a new project together

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The folks at the agency EPIC use their homepage primarily to showcase their work. When you arrive on the page, you’re greeted with animated videos showing some of the work they’ve done for clients, which rotate on a carousel.

While there are plenty of other places users might click on their site — including their clients’ websites — the main call-to-action stands out and always contrasts with the video that’s playing in the background.

I love that it features friendly, inclusive language —“Let‘s start a new project together” — which gives a hint to users looking for a creative partner that they’re an especially great team to work with.

How to Replicate This CTA

Use inviting language. It’s easy to make a button that just says “join us,” but that’s not very convincing. Consider something friendlier like “let’s work together” or something specific to the service you offer.

20. Aquaspresso

CTA: Send Me Specials Now!

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The whole point of a call-to-action is to direct your site visitors to a desired course of action — and the best CTAs do so in a way that’s helpful to their visitors.

The folks at coffee company Aquaspresso really nailed that balance here with the pop-up CTA on their main blog page.

Here, the desired course of action is for their blog readers to check out what they’re actually selling (and hopefully buy from them).

There are many ways they could have done this, including putting out a CTA that urges people to “Check out our most popular products!” or something very direct.

But I love what they’ve done instead: Their CTA offers blog readers something much more helpful and subtle — an offer for “today‘s specials” in exchange for the reader’s email address.

Adding that the specials are for today only is a great example of a psychological tactic called scarcity, which causes us to assign more value to things we think are scarce. The fear that today’s specials are better than tomorrow’s might make people want to fill it out and claim their offer while they can.

How to Replicate This CTA

The call-to-action above was created using HubSpot’s templates. Consider introducing a sense of urgency for website visitors by using scarcity in your CTA.

You can use phrases like “limited time offer” or “get today’s deals” to motivate visitors to take the desired action.

21. QuickSprout

CTA: Are you doing your SEO wrong? Enter your URL to find out

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No one wants to be wrong. That’s why a call-to-action button like QuickSprout’s slide-in CTA on their blog is so clickworthy.

It asks the reader, “Are you doing your SEO wrong?” Well, am I? All I have to do is enter my URL to find out. Seems easy enough! It’s this language that can really entice visitors to click through.

Plus, having the CTA slide in mid-blog post is a great tactic for catching readers before they bounce off the page.

Traditionally, many blogs have CTAs at the very bottom of each blog post, but research shows most readers only get 60% of the way through an article.

How to Replicate This CTA

Use language in your CTA that grabs visitors’ attention or speaks to a pain point they may be having. The case above uses SEO, but you could use something like “Having trouble converting leads?” and then position your service as the remedy.

(Click here to learn how to add slide-in CTAs to your blog posts.)

22. Grey Goose

CTA: Discover a cocktail tailored to your taste

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Here’s a fun, unique call-to-action that can get people clicking.

Whereas site visitors might have expected to be directed to product pages or press releases from the homepage, a CTA to “Discover a Cocktail Tailored to Your Taste” is a pleasantly surprising ask.

People love personalization, and this CTA kind of feels like an enticing game. The play button icon next to the copy gives a hint that visitors will be taken to a video so they have a better idea of what to expect when they click.

How to Replicate This CTA

Personalization works wonders for establishing a connection with visitors. Consider implementing a CTA that suggests a personalized experience for visitors based on the product or service you offer.

For example, you could say, “Explore plans that fit your budget,” or “Choose a design tailored to your brand.”

23. Treehouse

CTA: Claim Your Free Trial

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A lot of company websites out there offer users the opportunity to start a free trial. But the CTA on Treehouse‘s website doesn’t just say “Start a Free Trial” — it says “Claim Your Free Trial.”

The difference in wording may seem subtle, but think about how much more personal “Claim Your Free Trial” is. Plus, the word “claim” suggests it may not be available for long, giving users a sense of urgency to get that free trial ASAP.

How to Replicate This CTA

If you offer a free trial for your service, instead of just using a button that says “free trial,” I recommend personalizing the experience by using “start your free trial.”

24. OKCupid

CTA: Continue

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OKCupid‘s CTA doesn’t seem that impressive at first glance, but its brilliance is in the small details.

The call-to-action button, which is bright green and stands out well on a dark blue background, says, “Continue.” The simplicity of this term gives hope that the signup process is short and casual.

To me, this CTA feels more like I’m playing a fun game than filling out a boring form or committing to something that might make me nervous. And it’s all due to the copy.

How to Replicate This CTA

I’m a sucker for games — and I know many other people are, too — so if it works for your product or service, try to gamify your CTA to spark interest.

25. Blogging.org

CTA: Countdown Clock

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I don’t know about you, but nothing like a ticking timer makes me want to take action. After spending a short amount of time on blogging.org’s homepage, new visitors are greeted with a pop-up CTA with a “limited time offer,” accompanied by a timer that counts down from two minutes.

As with Aquaspresso’s example in #20, this is a classic use of the psychological tactic called scarcity, which causes us to assign more value to things we think are scarce. Limiting the time someone has to fill out a form makes people want to fill it out and claim their offer while they can.

Curious what happens when time runs out? So was I. Hilariously, nothing happens. The pop-up CTA remains on the page when the timer gets to zero.

How to Replicate This CTA

Similar to Aquaespresso, consider using scarcity to give visitors to your site a sense of urgency to take action.

26. IMPACT Branding & Design

CTA: What We Do

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CTAs can feel really pushy and salesy (yes, that’s a word…) if the wrong language is used. I like IMPACT’s educational approach, where they challenge visitors to learn what the company does before pushing them to take any further action.

This call-to-action is especially intriguing to me because they don’t even use an action verb, yet they still manage to entice people to click.

How to Replicate This CTA

Entice visitors to learn more about your business by using language in your CTA that persuades them to see what you do. Use something like “see our past projects,” “what we do,” or “view our work.”

27. Huemor

CTA: Launch (Do Not Press)

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If you went to a website and saw a “Launch” CTA accompanied by the copy “Do Not Press” … what would you do? Let’s be honest: You’d be dying to press it.

The use of harmless reverse psychology here is playful, which is very much in keeping with Huemor’s brand voice.

How to Replicate This CTA

If your brand is more playful or in the creative industry, you can use that to your advantage in a CTA using gamification or reverse psychology, like Huemor’s example.

28. Brooks Running

CTA: Find out when we have more

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How many times have you hotly pursued a product you love, only to discover it’s sold out? Well, as you might know, it’s no picnic for the seller either. But just because you’ve run out of an item doesn’t mean you should stop promoting it.

Brooks Running uses a clever call-to-action to ensure their customers don’t bounce from their website just because their favorite shoe is out of stock.

In the screenshot above, you can see Brooks touting an awesome-looking shoe with the CTA, “Find out when we have more.” I love how this button turns bad news into an opportunity to retain customers. Without it, Brooks’ customers would likely forget about the shoe and look elsewhere.

When you click on the blue CTA button depicted above, Brooks directs you to a page with a simple code you can text the company. This code prompts Brooks to automatically alert the visitor when the shoe they want is available again.

How to Replicate This CTA

For ecommerce businesses, sending customers to a page that states the item is out of stock can be a turn off for customers and cause them to bounce.

Consider adding a CTA that says “notify me when restocked,” or “find out when we have more” to keep them engaged and gain their email information.

29. Humboldt County

CTA: Follow the Magic

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Humboldt County’s website is gorgeous on its own: It greets you with a full-screen video of shockingly beautiful footage.

But what I really love is the unconventional call-to-action button placed in the bottom center, which features a bunny icon and the words “Follow the Magic.”

It enhances the sort of fantastical feel of the footage, making you feel like you’re about to step into a fairytale.

What’s more, once you click into that CTA, the website turns into a sort of choose-your-own-adventure game, which is a fun CTA path for users and encourages them to spend more time on the site.

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How to Replicate This CTA

Great for travel companies and creative firms, CTAs like Humboldt County’s lure readers in. If your brand has some creative leeway, use it. You could try a phrase like “find your next adventure,” or “plan your trip.”

30. Uber

CTA: Sign up to drive | Start riding with Uber

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Uber’s looking for two, very distinct types of people to sign up on their website: riders and drivers.

Both personas are looking for totally different things, and yet, the website ties them together really well with the large video playing in the background showing Uber riders and drivers having a good time in locations all over the world.

I love the copy of the driver CTA at the top, too: It doesn‘t get much more straightforward than, “Make money driving your car.” Now that’s speaking people’s language.

How to Replicate This CTA

Targeting two types of customers? You can create CTAs for each of their personas similarly to Uber.

31. Spotify

CTA: Go Premium | Play Free

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As soon as you reach Spotify’s homepage, it’s pretty clear that their main goal is to attract customers who are willing to pay for a premium account, while the CTA for users to sign up for free is very much secondary.

It‘s not just the headline that gives this away; it’s also the coloring of their CTA buttons. The “Go Premium” CTA is lime green, making it pop off the page, while the “Play Free” CTA is plain white and blends in with the rest of the copy on the page. This contrast ensures that visitors are drawn to the premium CTA.

How to Replicate This CTA

If you offer both a paid and free version of a service, consider using two separate CTAs, choosing a color that pops for the paid option versus something more understated for the free version.

32. Ugmonk

CTA: Send me the coupon | I’m not interested

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Exit CTAs, also known as exit intent pop-ups, are different from normal pop-ups.

They detect your users’ behavior and only appear when it seems as though they’re about to leave your site.

By intervening in a timely way, these pop-ups serve as a fantastic way of getting your reader’s attention while offering them a reason to stay.

Ugmonk has a great exit CTA, offering two options for users as a final plea before they leave the site.

First, they offer a 15% discount on their products, followed by two options: “Yes Please: Send me the coupon” and “No Thanks: I’m not interested.”

It‘s super helpful that each CTA clarifies what “Yes” and “No” actually mean, and I also like that they didn’t use guilt-tripping language like “No Thanks: I hate nature” like I’ve seen on other websites.

Finally, notice that the “Yes Please” button is much brighter and inviting in color than the other option.

How to Replicate This CTA

Exit intent CTAs are extremely useful for ecommerce. You can offer a discount on services or something else of value to entice visitors to convert.

33. Pinterest

CTA: Continue with Facebook | Sign Up

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Want to sign up for Pinterest? You have a couple of options: sign up via Facebook or via email. If you have a Facebook account, Pinterest wants you to do that first. How do I know?

Aesthetically, I know because the blue Facebook CTA comes first and is much more prominent, colorful, and recognizable due to the branded logo and color.

Logically, I know because if you log in through Facebook, Pinterest can pull in Facebook’s API data and get more information about you than if you log in through your email address.

Although this homepage is optimized to bring in new members, you’ll notice a very subtle CTA for folks with Pinterest accounts to log in on the top right.

How to Replicate This CTA

Allow users to sign up with Facebook or Google in your CTA. This saves visitors time signing up and you’ll be able to gain more information about them.

34. Madewell

CTA: Take me there | What’s next?

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Madewell (owned by J.Crew) has always had standout website design, taking what could be a typical ecommerce website to the next level. Their use of CTAs on their homepage is no exception.

When you first arrive on the page, you‘re greeted with the headline “I’m Looking For…” followed by a category, like ”Clothes That’ll Travel Anywhere.”

Below this copy are two options: “Yes, Take Me There” or “Hmm… What’s Next?” The user can choose between the two CTAs to either browse clothes that are good for travel, or be taken to the next type of clothing, where they can play again.

I think this gamification is a great way to make your site more interesting for users who come across it without having a specific idea of where they want to look.

How to Replicate This CTA

Use gamification in your CTA to persuade visitors to explore your site further. They may not know specifically what they are looking for or how your company can help. Creating fun prompts can help visitors find what they are looking for.

35. Instagram

CTA: Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

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Since Instagram is a mainly mobile app, you’ll see two black CTAs of equal size: one to download Instagram in Apple’s App Store, and another to download it on Google Play.

The reason these CTAs are of equal caliber is because it doesn’t matter if someone downloads the app in the App Store or on Google Play … a download is a download, which is exactly what Instagram is optimizing for.

If you already have Instagram, you can also click the CTA to “Log In” if you’d prefer that option, too.

How to Replicate This CTA

If you have an app, consider adding a CTA for each platform visitors can download it from. This removes friction and makes it easier for visitors to download your app without having to search.

36. Barkbox

CTA: Get Started | Give a Gift

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The two CTAs on Barkbox’s homepage show that the team there knows their customers: While many people visiting their site are signing up for themselves, there are a lot of people out there who want to give Barkbox as a gift.

To give those people an easy path to purchase, there are two equally-sized CTAs on the page: “Get Started” and “Give a Gift.”

As an added bonus, there’s an adorable, pop-up call-to-action on the right-hand side of the screen prompting users to leave a message if they’d like.

Click into it, and a small dialogue box pops up that reads, “Woof! I‘m afraid our pack is not online. Please leave us a message and we’ll bark at you as soon as pawsible.”

Talk about delightful copy.

How to Replicate This CTA

Similar to Uber, you can use multiple CTAs to serve different audiences. Play with language and come up with phrases that work best for your brand voice.

37. t.c. pharma

CTA: Find out more | View products

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Turns out Red Bull isn’t its own parent company: It’s owned by Thailand-based t.c. pharma, a company that makes popular energy drinks, electrolyte beverages, and functional drinks and snacks.

Its homepage features two CTA buttons of equal size: “Find out more” and “View products” — but it‘s clear by the bright yellow color of the first button that they’d rather direct folks to “Find out more.”

How to Replicate This CTA

Use color to persuade visitors to take a desired action. If you have a preferred button that you’d like people to click, make it the more prominent of the two.

38. General Assembly

CTA: View Full-Time Courses | Subscribe

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As you scroll through the General Assembly website, you’ll see CTAs for various courses you may or may not want to sign up for. I’d like to point your attention to the CTA that slides in from the bottom of the page as you’re scrolling, though, which suggests that you subscribe to email updates.

Although this feels like a secondary CTA due to its location and manner, I actually think they try to sneak this in to become more of a primary CTA because it’s so much more colorful and noticeable than the CTAs for individual classes.

How to Replicate This CTA

When you create your own CTAs, try using bolder colors — even ones that clash with your regular stylings — to see if it‘s effective at getting people’s attention.

39. charity: water

CTA: Give by Credit Card | Give by PayPal

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Charity: water‘s main goal is to get people to donate money for clean water — but they can’t assume that everyone wants to pay the same way.

The CTAs featured on their homepage take a really unique approach to offering up different payment methods by pre-filling $60 into a single line form and including two equally important CTAs to pay via credit card or PayPal.

Notice how both CTAs are the same size and design — this is because charity: water likely doesn’t care how you donate, as long as you’re donating.

How to Replicate This CTA

For payment CTAs, consider giving visitors options for how to pay. What matters most is that they make the purchase.

40. Hipmunk

CTA: Flights | Hotels | Cars | Packages

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When you land on the Hipmunk site, your main option is to search flights. But notice there are four tabs you can flip through: flights, hotels, cars, and packages.

When you click into one of these options, the form changes so you can fill out more information. To be 100% sure you know what you’re searching for, Hipmunk placed a bright orange CTA at the far right-hand side of the form.

On this CTA, you’ll see a recognizable icon of a plane next to the word “Search,” so you know for sure that you’re searching for flights, not hotels. When you’re on the hotels tab, that icon changes to a hotel icon. Same goes with cars and packages.

How to Replicate This CTA

Use icons to provide further explanation of your CTA to users. It’s both helpful and adds character.

41. MakeMyPersona

CTA: Grab the template! | No thanks

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Here’s another example of a great pop-up with multiple calls-to-action — except in this case, you’ll notice the size, color, and design of the users’ two options are very different from one another.

In this case, the folks at MakeMyPersona are making the “Grab the template!” CTA much more attractive and clickable than the “No, I’m OK for now, thanks” CTA — which doesn’t even look like a clickable button.

I also like how the “no” option uses polite language. I find brands that don’t guilt-trip users who don’t want to take action to be much, much more lovable.

How to Replicate This CTA

Being friendly shouldn’t just be for getting visitors to take the desired action.

Using friendly language is just as important in CTAs for those who would like to opt out. Consider using  “no thanks” or something similar to what MakeMyPersona used to keep it cordial even if customers aren’t ready to purchase yet.

42. TeuxDeux

CTA: Get Started for Free | Try for Free

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Another example of simplistic design, TeuxDeux’s main website features one phrase and two CTA buttons.

That’s it.

Using the company’s colors, the background is just a splash of red and some black. The CTA buttons stand out against the color and emphasize that you can try the product for free.

I like these CTAs because they show that the company understands its audience.

Whenever I‘m researching to-do list apps, I always want to try it before I buy it.

It’s something that people are very particular about and want to test-drive. TeuxDeux’s CTAs show that they understand this about their audience.

How to Replicate This CTA

Know your audience and allow them to test drive your service. Tap into their needs and interests and include them in a CTA to help them navigate to what they need faster, risk-free.

It could be something like “get started for free,” “download templates for free,” or “try for free.”

43. Betabrand

CTA: Get involved

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Betabrand is a clothing company that sells yoga/dress pants for women. Usually, clothing brands tend to use similar CTAs such as “Shop Now.”

However, Betabrand’s homepage CTA is unique in that it involves the audience. Here, users can vote and impact the design of new products.

I think this is a fun way to get the audience involved and do something different.

How to Replicate This CTA

Encourage visitor participation by using a voting or survey type CTA when appropriate. It helps customers develop a personal relationship to the brand because they are contributing to the decision making process.

44. Fabletics

CTA: Limited Edition

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This Fabletics CTA uses several marketing tactics: scarcity and a holiday.

On the homepage, the brand announces a limited edition collection that’s tied to a holiday (Mother’s Day).

Additionally, the CTA uses a bright color so the CTA stands out on the simple homepage.

How to Replicate this CTA

Combine CTA types when it makes sense. For example you could use scarcity with a limited time only promotion for a grand opening, holiday, or to celebrate a new product launch.

45. Ashley Stewart

CTA: Shop the Lookbook

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Ashley Stewart is a clothing brand catered to plus-sized women. In this CTA, the company uses a fun design to entice website visitors. The entire collage of images looks like a behind-the-scenes camera roll, which is interesting to look at.

Additionally, the CTA copy is straight to the point, which is helpful for visitors who are looking to browse.

How to Replicate This CTA

Sometimes short and sweet is the best approach. Use your CTAs to get to the point and get visitors what they want. You could use something like “shop this look,” or “download the guide now.”

46. Amazon Music

CTA: 3 months free

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This is a great example of several of the elements we’ve talked about in one CTA.

Amazon uses two strategically placed CTAs, with a colorful yet simple design, and offers the product for free.

With this CTA, Amazon is promoting one of its own products and services on its homepage instead of other products listed for sale on the site.

The only message they want to get across? That you can try their product, Amazon Music, for free for three whole months. This CTA accomplishes that goal with a simple design.

How to Replicate This CTA

Offering a free trial? Make it known by using a prominent CTA that pops and eliminating unnecessary features that clutter the landing page.

47. Barnes and Noble

CTA: Shop Now

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Barnes and Noble uses a simple CTA to entice visitors to shop a limited collection during the Mother’s Day holiday.

I like this CTA because the landing page design is so cohesive with the branding of the overall company. Additionally, the graphics and the fonts are all interesting and match the brand’s messaging.

How to Replicate This CTA

Create a cohesive look that appeals to your audience and aligns with your brand voice. Play with fonts and colors that compliment each other and are pleasing to the eye. Keep the CTA simple with a “shop now,” or “download now” button.

48. Slack

CTA: Learn More | Contact Us

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Slack uses beautiful, simple design on its homepage to entice visitors to click on one of the two CTA buttons.

I like this example because Slack has two CTA buttons for two different audiences.

If you’re just getting started in your research, you can click “Learn More.”

However, if you’re a repeat visitor and know that you want to talk to a sales person, you can click “Contact Us.”

This is a great example of serving two audiences with the CTAs on your homepage.

How to Replicate This CTA

Serve two audiences with separate CTAs on the same landing page. You can make them distinct using color to contrast the two buttons or draw more attention to the desired choice.

49. Nintendo

CTA: Compare Features

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On Nintendo’s website, the company is focused on answering any questions a visitor might have.

In fact, one of the main CTAs is “Compare Features.” With this CTA, Nintendo answers one of their most popular questions because they understand that many visitors are still doing their research before purchasing a product.

How to Replicate This CTA

Have multiple pricing or feature options? Consider using a CTA that helps users compare their choices so they can make a more informed decision.

Good Call-to-Action Phrases You Should Be Using

It’s a no-brainer that using an engaging and well-thought-out CTA can be the difference between someone converting or not. Below are some examples of phrasing you can use.

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That’s why I’ve created 12 workable phrases that you can use as a template for CTAs.

• Get Your Free Copy/Get Free Access: No one can resist anything for free, so this CTA works great, especially for emails and newsletters. If you’re considering getting first-time users to subscribe to your newsletter service, you could use this to draw them in.

• Start Your Free Trial for X Months/Join Free: Similar to the example above, this can be a good tactic to allow your subscribers to join your platform. This way, they can understand whether they need your service before leaving your page without trying anything.

• Request a Demo/Book a Demo/Schedule a Demo: SaaS companies can engage users by showing them around the platform. Demos are usually free, and I find that they allow you to engage with users without being too sales-y.

• Get “X%” Off/Claim $X: I don’t think anyone can resist a good deal, especially if you’ve been looking to purchase something and a discount code randomly pops up. This is a great way to get your users to subscribe to your business as well since most of the time, you’ll need to enter your email address for the code.

• Limited Stock Available/Buy Now — Before It Disappears: If you’re looking to drive urgency within your target audience, these CTAs can be quite effective, especially when you add scarcity to them. So, whenever you want to sell any product, you can use these phrases to drive them to their shopping cart.

• Meet our Team/Speak with Our Experts: Sometimes, your audience wants to know more, but they’d like to go the extra mile to talk to your company’s representative. I find it more personal when you can speak one-on-one about your questions or concerns.

• Complete My Purchase/Treat Yourself Today: At HubSpot, we found that tailored CTAs convert 202% better than basic CTAs. So, adding words such as “my” and “yourself” adds a personal touch.

• Book or Reserve Your Spot Now: Want to add a touch of exclusivity when engaging your audience? Make them feel like a part of the club!

• Get a Quote/Request your Quote: Another CTA showing your customers the value they’ll get.

• Show Me X: In my experience, showing the product or service in action is always useful. This gives your audience a sneak peek.

• Connect with Us/Follow Us: For your audience to engage with you on social media, these phrases can drive them to where you want. All you have to do is show them the way.

• Get Inspired/Let’s Do This: Again, a sense of urgency is the key here. You’re trying to get your audience to perform an action you’d like them to do.

Pro tip: As you run ads, remember to modify your CTA according to the funnel level you aim for. You can also create CTAs with buttons to direct users along common paths when they’re most likely to convert or prioritize certain actions.

Create Your Own CTAs

There you have it. Now you can see just how important a few small CTA tweaks can be. Take inspiration from the examples above and create CTAs that convert.

Full Disclosure: We don’t have data to know if these are all scientifically successful, but these examples all follow our best practices.

If you decide to recreate these CTAs on your site, please remember to test to see if they work for your audience.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Short-form video is revolutionizing the way that businesses approach primary lead generation. But do you know why — and how to apply it to your marketing strategy?

When HubSpot started growing back in the early 2000s, the core strategy for primary lead generation was organic search optimization. It worked incredibly well for HubSpot (and many other businesses), helping us grow into the company we are today. But times have changed.

AI advancements and the resulting shifts in Google’s algorithm have significantly disrupted SEO, making the competition for keywords fiercer than ever — and making it more difficult and expensive to rank and drive traffic. Yet many new businesses still turn to this strategy to drive growth in 2024, without looking at other avenues — which Kieran and I believe is a huge mistake.

As discussed in a recent episode of Marketing Against the Grain, we see the future of primary lead generation shifting to short-form video — and the data backs us up. Short-form video was reported as having the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy in 2024, with over 84% of marketers saying that video has helped them increase traffic to their website.

But what are the advantages to short-form video and how can you integrate it into your marketing plan?

Advantages of Short-form Video as a Lead Generation Tool

Short-form video — like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram reels — offers companies significant advantages over traditional lead-generation strategies. While the specific perks will vary depending on your product and business model, three that Kieran and I find particularly compelling are:

• Scaled distribution: video platforms give businesses access to massive audiences, which is especially valuable for newer companies that are looking to grow their customer base. For example, the number of daily YouTube Shorts views reached 70 billion in 2023.

• AI defensibility: video content is inherently more personality-driven than information-driven, meaning it’s harder to replicate with AI, ensuring your content remains unique and engaging

• Differentiation: with so many businesses still relying on traditional SEO, embracing short-form video sets you apart from the competition and enables you to quickly gain traction in less-crowded spaces

Three Tips for Using Video for Lead Generation

Learn how to test and incorporate video into your marketing workflow by accessing HubSpot’s Video Marketing Starter Pack and considering the ideas below:

1. Lean into storytelling.

“Most brand marketing is boring,” says Kieran. “Instead, try approaching your brand like you’re writing a TV series.”

For example, rather than developing traditional, short-term video campaigns, consider long-term series with recurring characters and plotlines. This storytelling approach establishes a deeper connection with the audience, making your brand memorable.

Also, never underestimate the power of humor. “One of the outlandish things I think someone could do is hire a comedy writer for developing a company’s brand campaign,” Kieran says. Humor again makes your video content memorable while further differentiating you from competitors.

2. Recycle existing content.

Especially for teams with limited budgets and resources, repurposing existing video content is an efficient way to expand your short-form content portfolio.

For example, recycle long-form videos by cutting them into smaller, more digestible clips. Turn webinars into video ads, or customer interviews into testimonials. This approach maximizes the shelf-life of your existing content and enables it to reach a broader audience.

Also, don‘t be afraid to lean into AI. As Kieran explains during the episode: AI tools now enable you to take the text from a blog post and generate a two-minute educational video that perfectly summarizes the blog’s key points. Add AI-generated audio, embed the video back into the blog, and distribute it on other platforms to drive traffic. Instantly, you’ve created a multimodal blog post that engages readers in new ways.

3. Partner with influencers.

Collaborating with influencers allows brands to reach targeted demographics with less effort. For example, I would look for people who have really successful YouTube channels and TikTok accounts with very specific audiences — and then partner with them for sponsored video content or embed my product into their content.

Associating your brand videos with (carefully chosen) creators increases your credibility, as they already have established trust with their followers. Furthermore, value and brand-aligned influencers increase authenticity and ensure your message resonates with a receptive audience.

To watch our entire discussion about the future of lead generation, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain below:

This blog series is in partnership with Marketing Against the Grain, the video podcast. It digs deeper into ideas shared by marketing leaders Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (SVP, Marketing at HubSpot) as they unpack growth strategies and learn from standout founders and peers.