Across 21 hospitality and lifestyle brands, I managed email strategy and execution for a combined audience of more than 250,000 subscribers. My role covered the full lifecycle of the channel, from list growth and deliverability to campaign strategy, automation, testing, and monthly performance reporting. The goal was not simply to send more emails, but to make email a reliable driver of revenue, retention, and direct engagement.
The first priority was building a stronger foundation for long-term performance. I implemented list-growth strategies tailored to each brand, including on-site pop-ups, lead magnets, giveaways, and booking engine integrations. At the same time, I refined segmentation based on subscriber behavior and engagement patterns so that campaigns could be more relevant and better timed. This helped maintain strong engagement across accounts, with open rates consistently ranging from 30–55% and click-through rates from 3–10%.
Deliverability was another key focus. In hospitality especially, even the strongest offer will underperform if it never reaches the inbox. To protect sender health and improve placement, I conducted bi-annual list cleanups across client accounts and implemented proper authentication protocols, including DMARC and DKIM, across all client domains. As a result, I maintained a 99% deliverability rate, ensuring that campaigns had the best possible chance of reaching engaged subscribers.
Beyond campaign sends, one of the biggest opportunities was lifecycle automation. I developed and optimized a series of high-impact automated flows, including cart abandonment, OTA win-back, and cancellation recovery. These were designed to capture revenue that would otherwise have been lost and to bring guests back into the direct booking funnel. Across all accounts, these automation strategies generated an additional $600,000+ in 2024 alone.
Testing played a major role in improving performance over time. I ran structured A/B tests across subject lines, calls to action, content format, and visual hierarchy to better understand what resonated with each audience. Several consistent insights emerged. Editorial-style subject lines outperformed more overtly promotional ones in open rate, while softer, more indirect calls to action such as “Learn More” or “View Offer” drove stronger click-through performance than more direct asks. Applying these learnings across accounts led to a 5% year-over-year lift in open rates and an 18% increase in click-through rates.
To ensure strategy remained grounded in performance, I produced monthly reports analyzing KPIs, subscriber trends, campaign revenue, and automation results. These reports helped identify opportunities to refine timing, improve segmentation, adjust creative direction, and strengthen flow performance. For several clients, strategic email sends became a meaningful traffic driver as well, contributing approximately 6% of total website traffic.
The cumulative business impact was significant. Between 2023 and 2024, email campaigns generated more than $10 million in revenue across the portfolio. Seasonal campaigns also saw strong growth, with Black Friday revenue increasing from $1.5 million in 2023 to $2.3 million in 2024.
For hotel and lifestyle brands, email is often one of the most efficient and underutilized revenue channels. By strengthening deliverability, improving lifecycle strategy, and using testing to continuously refine performance, I helped turn email into a more consistent, measurable, and profitable part of the marketing mix.