At the end the author makes the conclusion that this "sexy change" was sub-optimal but the problem was a copywriting issue. A large red button that says Buy It? How could anyone not guess that wouldn't get clicked much. People don't want to immediately buy something without reading about it first, especially when coming from an email.<p>Also: why a huge red button instead of green or any other color? Red has many negative connotations (and is also used to signify the end of a process) so it was probably the worst possible color choice. I bet if it said See It and was green or blue the CTR would've eclipsed the unstyled email very easily.<p>The problem wasn't going from an unsexy email to a sexy one, it was the boneheaded copywriting errors and color choices. He should find a new designer.
I would have liked to see more data. Step 1 - change text email to graphics every thing else stays the same. Step 2 - Change the wording. Step 3 - Leave step 2 wording and go back to ext email.<p>This way you can compare like for like and figure out what is actually causing the increase/decrease for the CTR.<p>As it stands, the article didn't include enough data to see if their changes actually fixed the situation.
Yeah the best thing to do would be to 50/50 test the email to measure the true impact. But I think the conclusion that "See it" is better than "Buy Now" is certainly reasonable.<p>The first thing I thought when I saw the two images was about mobile - it seems like the first version was a lot more friendly for mobile devices than the second design. Since more and more people are clicking through promotional emails like this on their mobile devices, that could also play a role in CTR.
Interesting. Did the clicks convert differently?<p>I think the sweetspot is a well designed email/site that is consistent with your brand AND converts well. This wasn't a fair fight between the two designs!
> <i>I asked a design buddy to sexify it</i><p>Here's your problem. Instead of doing proper A/B testing, you asked some clueless designer to "sexify it". Instead of thinking, he/she made it look like a typical spam email.<p>Also, most modern email clients block images by default. So your email probably looks like crap to most recipients.