Email tags: Organize your list to positively impact engagement and conversion rate

Do you wish you could follow up with customers who click on specific links in your emails or live in a particular geographical location?

You use email tags.

Receiving emails tailored for a customer makes them feel seen, understood, and more willing to engage with your content.

But the process of delivering personalized content that matches each subscriber’s location, preferences, or past interactions can be daunting.

This guide will show you how email tags work and teach you how to use them whether you’re selling products or simply trying to increase audience engagement.

What are email tags?

Email tags are labels that help creators organize subscribers into a fixed group based on any criteria they choose. For example, creating tags to group subscribers based on products they’re interested in, incentives they sign up for, the items they’ve purchased, or even their location.

Using email tag management in your campaigns and newsletters is key to personalizing your content for each subscriber’s unique needs—helping you drive growth through your email channel.

How to make your email campaigns and newsletters more personal with tags

From our 2023 Creator Economy Report, growing an audience and improving engagement are two of the top three goals for creators—and email personalization goes a long way to make both happen.

To take advantage of the many benefits of personalization, here are some ways you can use an email tag strategy as a creator.

Use email tagging to organize your email list

When you send subscribers targeted emails, it makes them more likely to open them and also increases your click-through rates.

Email tagging allows you to target audiences with products and services relevant to their interests. This is really handy if you serve an audience with a range of preferences because each person is likely following you for a different kind of content or service.

With tags, you can deliver exactly what they prefer and avoid the unfortunate situation of pitching people products they’ve already purchased or have no interest in.

Segment your audience utilizing email tags

Email segmentation involves organizing subscribers into larger, more fluid groups or sections.

For example, putting subscribers with multiple tags into one segment. With segmentation, you can use email tags to create higher-level organization. This allows you to send specific content more easily to certain groups, providing your audience with exactly what they need. And we all know that a satisfied audience is a loyal one.

Difference between email tags and segments

Email tags mark subscribers as being part of a fixed group, say those living in the US, for example. Each tag provides one specific form of identification for your subscribers.

Segments, on the other hand, organize your tags into broader groups. For instance, you can place people tagged as living in the US and those tagged as having purchased a specific product into one segment at the same time. Whereas with tags, you’d only be able to mark each person with a single criteria at a time.

Audience segmentation allows you to target broader groups with similar interests than you can with tags alone.

Trigger email sequences based on your subscribers’ behavior

Link triggers allow subscribers to select preferences that set off automatic emails about their topics of interest. So when a subscriber clicks on a link, you can add a link trigger to tag them. Then set up the email tag to trigger adding a subscriber to an email sequence.

6 types of email tags and when to use which one

Now that you know how email tags work, here are six common types of email tags and some suggestions for when you can use each one. You can also create other tag types that best suit your business or tweak these to match your needs.

1. Product or service-related tags

This tag type works best if you sell a physical/digital product or a service. Create tags to keep track of customer behaviors related to shopping or purchasing a product or service. Product tags help you offer personalized product/service recommendations and nurture subscribers effectively toward a successful purchase.

This email from Gillian Perkins is the result of email tags. It likely went out to all the subscribers who did not purchase her product. It’s a great way to re-engage and possibly persuade these potential customers into buying.

When to apply service or product email tags

Here are some instances when you can use service or product email tags for different creator types.

• Coach: Use product tags to mark customers who bought a course recently to follow up with their progress.
• Artist: Tag subscribers who click on the link to your product landing page and follow up with those who did not purchase to learn why.
• Musicians: Tag subscribers who purchased a past album to email them when you launch your next one.

2. Customer journey related email tags

For some creators offering a single service, it might make more sense to organize subscribers by their stage in the customer journey, effectively setting up a marketing funnel.

Based on a typical funnel structure, the tags would cover subscribers at the funnel’s top, middle, and bottom and send tailored messages to each cohort.

When to add customer journey tags

Here are some examples of subscribers to tag if you’re organizing email tags by customer journey:

• The lead, such as a first-time visitor or referral who’s vaguely interested in your offering and signs up to stay in touch
• The regular reader who enjoys your blog posts and has signed up for a freebie in the past
• Clients who’ve purchased products from your site and have login details or a purchase profile

3. Interaction related email tags

Interaction related tags provide insight into what kinds of content your subscribers engage with the most. This type of email tag will also show you which content types they don’t like.

For example, if readers always click on links related to certain topics and rarely click on links about another topic, they’re probably more interested in one offering than in the other.

When to insert action email tags

Here are some good times to use action email tags:

• Blogger: Action tags are very helpful for seeing what kinds of blog content your audience likes so you know what to focus on.
• Musician: You can use action tags when you share tour dates to see which locations are more popular with your audience.
• Maker: Action tags can show which products quickly catch your audience’s attention.

4. Sign-up source related tags

If you offer different signup incentives on your opt-in forms, it’s worth tagging subscribers based on their sign-up source. This reminds you of their key interests and why they joined your mailing list so you can keep sending them content they enjoy.

Sign-up source tags also help you track how much paid ads contribute to your mailing list growth. For example, tagging subscribers from your Facebook ad landing pages shows how many pages are converting.

When to apply source email tags

Here are some ways to use source email tags:

• Blogger: Tagging subscribers who sign up from a lead magnet form helps you decide which products or blog posts to send them next.
• Author: Knowing which opt-in forms subscribers join from helps you know which books resonate the most with your audience.

5. Email tags for audience engagement level

While some subscribers enthusiastically read each email, others might barely open one every few months. Tagging your audience by their engagement level makes it easier to target your most committed customers and remove cold subscribers to maintain high open rates.

This email from Kiddipedia is an example of what email tagging by engagement level can achieve. The team identified me as rarely engaging with their content, and this triggered an email sequence to try to reconnect with me (or remove me from their mailing list).

When to use status email tags

You can use engagement level tags in several ways:

• Removing cold subscribers: Tags identify your long-term inactive subscribers and send them into a reconnection/unsubscribe sequence.
• Rewarding engaged subscribers: Engaged subscribers will be delighted to receive a discount code or special content to thank them for their continued interest.

6. Interest and preferences related email tags

Preferences-related email tags are some of the most commonly used. Many creators send out short surveys in their welcome emails to determine their audience’s interests and preferences by asking them to click on links representing different options. These links trigger tagging and can also place subscribers in specific email sequences.

When to add interest email tags

Here are some opportunities for using interest email tags:

• Coach: Tag subscribers who click on webinar links about a specific topic.
• Musicians: Find out where your audience lives by sending out a location survey email.
• All creators: Send out a survey with link triggers for different categories of your content, products, or services and ask readers to click on all that match their interests.

How to get started with email tagging in Kit

How to add an email tag to new subscribers

To tag new subscribers, use one of two methods: sign-up forms or automations.

Method #1: Use a sign-up form

To use a setup form for email tagging, you’ll need to set the form up appropriately. When setting up your sign-up form, let subscribers choose which categories they fit into by creating a checkbox field. To do this:

• Create new tags in the Grow > Subscribers tab.
• Then, create a new form under Grow > Landing Pages and Forms. You can add a new field to your form from your list of pre-created tags, as shown below.
  
  
• When visitors check a box during sign-up, they’re automatically tagged. This method works best for landing pages with more space to fit the checkboxes.

Method #2: Utilize email automations

This method is more low-effort for subscribers.

• Set up an automation in the Automate > Visual Automations tab.
• Click create New Automation > Start from Scratch.
• Add an entry point. If you’re choosing to tag everyone joining from a specific sign-up form, this form will be your entry point.
  
  
• Choose the tag subscribers from that entry point should get. You can choose a pre-existing one or create a new tag right there.

Once that’s done, every new subscriber from that form will be automatically tagged.

How to add an email tag to existing subscribers

Here’s how to tag your current subscribers

• Under Grow > Subscribers, the right pane has Segments, Tags, and Products. Find Create a Tag under Tags.
• Select the subscribers you want to tag and click Bulk Actions > Add Tag.
  
  
• You’ll be prompted to choose from your tags, select the right option, and click Save.

Scale your business with Kit’s seamless tag management

Segmenting and tagging your customers is almost like reading their minds. It affords you a priceless peek into their interests and preferences and helps you figure out how best to sell to them.

While the tag management process may seem complicated, it doesn’t have to be. With the tips and examples we’ve shared, you’ll be on your way to giving customers exactly what they want—every single time!

If you don’t already have a Kit account, it’s free to sign up!