2021 has been quite the year for, well, just about everybody. But particularly for email marketers.
After a wild 2020 that brought the beginning of a pandemic, a lot of uncertainty, and some unbelievable email numbers, 2021 didn’t give us much of a break. What a lot of us hoped would be a return to “normal” ended up being an acceptance of a different kind of normal. Though, Apple made sure none of us got too comfortable in this new normal.
As we tie the final bows on a more than eventful 2021, let’s take a look back at some of your incredible achievements from the past year.
Together we reached the world
This year, Campaign Monitor customers used our platform to send over 31 billion emails (31,350,157,127 to be precise!) opened in 245 countries around the world. That’s some serious reach.
57% of those opens came from mobile devices, up 3% from last year but down from 63% in 2019.
We made email work smarter and harder
You all took advantage of our smart email marketing features in a major way.
You designed 627,606 new email templates to stand out in crowded inboxes. You go, Van Gough.
You ran A/B tests on 136,406 campaigns, and built 53,427 automated journeys. That’s some seriously sophisticated marketing.
Technology kept us on our toes
Just as we were all beginning to settle into our routines, Apple dropped a major surprise on the digital marketing world when it announced Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). Putting open rates in serious jeopardy, this feature is just beginning to shape how we all, as email marketers, think about goals and engagement — something worth keeping an eye on in 2022.
Ultimately, we think marketers will be better off for it. More on our predictions for MPP and the email world here.
And, technology moved us forward
This was a record year for the product team at Campaign Monitor. Overall, we released 28 new features — all centered around making Campaign Monitor smarter, faster, and easier for you to create your incredible campaigns.
As new features were added, we were blown away by the rate you all took advantage.
It was a busy year, and our aspirations are only growing.
Here are a few highlights:
- January – Social Links
- February – Lists & Subscribers Refresh
- March – Free Image Gallery
- April – Footer Flexibility
- May – New Overview Page
- June – New Automation Page
- July – Welcome Journey Recipe
- August – New Campaign Experience
- September – Apple Mail Privacy Protection
- October – Campaign Reporting Refresh
- November – Help Menu
- December – Journey Reporting Refresh
We had your back every step of the way
Our support team resolved 29,468 support tickets this year — or 80.7 tickets per day!
Our deliverability team continued to do amazing work, keeping our delivery rate at 99.86% in 2021. And with a 99.98% uptime, your app experience was pretty seamless.
Outside of keeping you up and running, we also did our best to deliver you features to help you do your best work.
Email Academy — We launched a free online learning platform to increase your skills, train your team, and build your business. We created 8 courses this year, with more to come in 2022. So far, almost 5,000 of you have begun your Email Academy journeys. If you haven’t yet, head here to begin!
Your go-to for all things MPP — We were here for you when things got, er, a little confusing. After Apple announced MPP, we acted quickly to pass along what we knew about the feature as well as how to adjust your strategy. Then, our product team made some changes to our reporting tool to reflect our post-MPP world.
We’re still learning about all the effects of MPP, and we’ll be here to guide you through it all.
A new Campaign Monitor, inspired by you — Over the past year, we’ve been hard at work on building a completely new campaign experience with you at the heart of it. Change is always hard, even when it’s for the better, but our product managers Phil and Dan were here to walk you through every detail.
You all took to the refreshed interface at an incredible rate. After our new campaign experience went live, we saw a 20% increase in the number of A/B tests you sent and a 20-25% increase in the use of tags.
We can’t wait to see how these changes to the platform continue to unlock your creativity in 2022.
Our team grew together, even when apart
Even as some of our offices have begun to open back up, we’re continuing to focus on building a hybrid team. We now have team members across 11 different countries, working as connected and in-sync as ever.
We’ve placed a serious focus on employee health as well, offering a wellbeing allowance, free Calm app subscriptions, and encouraging time off for wellbeing — whatever that means for each person.
And we couldn’t have done it without you
Email is what we do, and you won’t find a group that’s more passionate about that than we are. But there’s more to it than just that. We’re consistently inspired by the work and creativity of the people that use our product, and we can’t wait to continue to serve you all and watch you grow in 2022.
p.s keep an eye out for our annual email benchmarks report coming in January. We’ve got some interesting insights from an unprecedented year 👀