Setting up email funnels and sending newsletters are essential building blocks of a good online strategy. Good marketing communication is useful, has value for the customer and is as little as possible in his or her irritation zone. But what do your customers find annoying about your newsletter? Adobe recently published a study which makes it clear what customers' biggest annoyances are when they read a newsletter.

Too often receiving emails that are poorly written and irrelevant

These are actually the three biggest irritations that the customer has when reading the newsletter. 45% of respondents in the survey indicate that they believe they are emailed too often by a company. Poorly written emails are then cited as the biggest source of irritation (23%), followed by an offer in the newsletter that makes it clear that the company does not have the correct customer data (22%). An offer that the customer has already purchased (also 22%) is closely related to this.

Differences by age

Within the results there are some interesting differences when we segment by age of the respondents. The youngest group of respondents (18-24 years) is much less bothered by poorly written emails than older respondents. At the same time, younger readers are more likely to be irritated when an offer from the email does not meet their needs or if it is an offer that has already been purchased.

Personalization is important, but don't make it too creepy

Personalizing a newsletter in such a way that it becomes creepy is mentioned as an annoyance by 16% of all respondents. In the 25-34 age group, even 23% mention this as an annoyance. The survey also asks how important respondents think it is for a newsletter to be personalized. Interestingly, 56% in the same age group say it is important or very important that an email is personalized. So the main message here seems to be: personalize your emails, but don't overdo it.