Email signature marketing 101: build your brand & get leads

Your email signature is more than just signing off your name at the end of an email. If done right your email signature can be made into a low-cost high-return marketing channel. Email signature marketing and email signature advertising can help you level up each email that you send and turn an otherwise regular interaction into a quality lead.

Let’s break down all you need to know about email signature marketing, including why it’s valuable, how to set it up, best practices, and more.

Click to Create the perfect email signature for your brand

What is email signature marketing?

Email signature marketing (ESM), or email signature advertising, is the practice of using your email signature for marketing purposes instead of just as a place to sign your name. You can use your email signature block to make a business offer by adding a CTA, like a button, a banner, or a text link. Some CTA examples can be, promoting a sale, job offer, scheduling a demo, initiating a video call, signing up for a newsletter, following you on social media, and running email signature marketing ads.

What are email signature marketing ads?

Email signature marketing ads are a CTA that is added to your business email signature block. ESM ads mostly come in the form of email signature banners. Running these ads lets you advertise your offers without adding an extra dime to your CPA. ESM ads provide more exposure to your marketing promotions. You can use the, to generate leads and prime prospects for conversion when next presented with the same offer through your other marketing channels.

Why should I use email signature marketing?

The quick answer is that it’s profitable. It costs you nearly nothing to set up this marketing channel and it serves as a constant running campaign that makes use of the activity you are doing anyhow. This makes it a low-cost high potential marketing channel, that helps you sell with every email you send, whether you attempt to or not.

You might be thinking that you have already focused your marketing campaign on so many different platforms, like social media, videos, your website, or through your email newsletter. Is adding marketing features to your email signature really worth the extra effort? Absolutely.

According to a survey, 62% of businesses are already using email signature marketing (ESM). So, if you don’t want to fall behind your competition, it’s a good time to get started. 

As I said before, setting up your ESM doesn’t take too many resources to create an email signature with marketing features, so it can be a potentially high-reward, low-risk, and low-cost effort on your part.

So, just how can you use ESM to bolster your campaigns and start generating more leads? Let’s take a look at a few ways you can implement it in your own emails.

A survey we gave our B2B clients showed that ESM campaigns yielded positive business implications. On average our clients had 22% more clicks, 32% more e mail replies, 10% growth in their social media reach, and 15% more leads.

Email signature marketing metrics KPIs

Email signature marketing makes use of your signature block as an ad placement for your company. And naturally, you would want to measure your ad or campaign performance. To do that you should apply the proper tracking and send the information to your respective analytics platform for measurement and analysis.

Main Email signature marketing metrics:

1. Email signature impressions
2. Email signature clicks
3. Email signature click-through rate

You can create your own metrics based on your business needs, to measure your email signature campaign contribution. You can measure things such as Purchases, Demo signups, or Pageviews that were generated from your email signature.

1. Email signature impressions

This metric is usually provided by your email signature management platform. It is the representation of the number of people that viewed your email signatures across all company emails. I say “representation” because in practice your signature manager will simply count the number of times where the signature appeared in an email viewport (inside of the screen where it can be seen).

If you are using your email signature for branding and brand awareness, then the email signature impressions will be your most important metric. For a big company that sends out a lot of emails, signature impressions can be in the thousands per month.

Email signature impressions can also be used for internal company purposes. Many companies with a large chunk of their employees working remotely use this metric to assess the degree to which employees view their brand logo on a regular basis. This is very important since it’s a major contributor to employees’ brand identification, in an age where some people never see the inside of the company office.

2. Email signature clicks

The email signature clicks metric is fairly straightforward. We all know what clicks are. But an email signature block can pack a lot of links for its tiny space. It’s, therefore, crucial to measure each link or link type separately. If a single email signature block has links, emails, or clickable phone numbers for different business sections or departments, you should apply separate tracking for each.

For example, your signature can have a phone number to Sales, an email address to Support, and a Marketing banner leading to a landing page. Each of these should be measured separately for the sake of clarity and for the future use of the corresponding business department.

Email signature clicks are tracked and measured using a UTM string with the relevant Source and Medium.

3. Email signature click-through rate

Email signature CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions recorded by your email signatures. This metric is usually provided by the email signature manager tool, but you can calculate it manually if needed, granted that you have the reliable impression and click data available.

Click to Create the perfect email signature for your brand

Email signature marketing campaign types

Email signature marketing campaigns are a subcategory of email marketing campaigns. In ESM campaigns add a CTA in the email signature block, thereby expanding the function of the email signature beyond simply providing contact information. ESM campaigns are most often used for brand awareness campaigns but are used for other diverse needs, from Support, Sales, HR, or running email signature marketing ads.

There are as many ESM campaign types as there are business goals. It would be wise to segment your company email signatures according to departments or groups that have unique goals. If you take anything away from this article it should be this: segment your email signatures and the campaigns they run.

For your convenience, we took the liberty of collecting the most common use cases for email signature marketing campaigns. These are the most common campaigns we see our clients use, on a regular basis. We split the campaign types into the respective departments that use them so that you can skip to what’s relevant to you.

Go through the campaign types below to find the best way your business could start applying email signature marketing. You may also like to see how these campaign CTAs work in WiseStamp.

Business departments that commonly use ESM campaigns:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Brand
• Customer Support & Customer Success
• HR & Legal

Marketing campaigns

Sales campaigns

Brand awareness campaigns

Customer Support & Customer Success campaings

HR & legal department campaigns

10 examples of email signature marketing campaigns

Email signature marketing can seem limited to many people starting off with this new marketing channel. But really it’s a diamond in the rough. With a bit of polish, you can turn this small but effective digital real estate into a lead-generation gem. You can get creative with links, icons, images, and other signature features and addons.

ESM campaigns are proven time after time to be a high-ROI marketing channel. And ESM campaign automation can make this even more valuable and less time-consuming.

If you’re just getting started with email signature marketing, these are some tried-and-true methods to increase engagement and capture new leads.

1. Link to your high performance landing page

At the end of your “marketing signature“, add a link to a specific page that contributes most to your bottom line or another business goal. It can be your company’s home page, a landing page for a new product you want to promote, your most recent blog post, or even a link to your newest sale.

When you link to a page, be sure to use a convincing CTA to entice recipients to click on your link. To make sure you peak attention and create incentives, use a descriptive link text – something like “click to see our sales.” or “click here for 50% off all our online courses”.

2. Add social media links to encourage further engagement with you and your brand

Adding social media icons or buttons is a non-intrusive way to get people to visit your social media channels where they can better engage with you and build a relationship.

Social icons are a way to load your marketing signature with more depth. It’s your opportunity to show more of what you do and what you offer. Adding social media icons will bring more people to your social channels where you have the possibility to create familiarity and trust through prolonged engagement. In time, this will help you increase brand awareness and bring you more clients.

Even if your goal is not sales but only to grow your social presence, then adding social links to your email signature will help you do that. Solely by being visible they could pull in your most loyal customers that are already on your mailing list. Think of it as another point of contact, like your phone number or email address.

3. Offer your e-commerce wares directly from your email signature

Adding some pretty images of your e-commerce store products in your email signature is an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up. This little email signature marketing trick makes every email you send a mini-product page with a selection of your online store inventory.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a small local store or a huge multinational corporation, the people you most often email to are usually the most sales qualified.

This means a significant percentage of your email recipients are primed for making an impulse purchase of your wares. The links you add to the products in your email signature offer a very short route to completing an online purchase. Set this up right away to give yourself a high ROI marketing channel.

4. Get more people to download your Ebook

There’s no reason not to use your email signature marketing to push specific products. If you or your company have recently come out with an ebook, or any other digital and downloadable product, add it to your email signature.

This will help create more awareness around your digital product, help you reach more people, and also help cement your expertise in the topic your book is about. Add a direct link to download, and your signature is ready to go.

5. Softly and non-intrusively promote your new offers

Adding new promotions, offers, or sales to your email signature is a great way to promote a campaign without actually outwardly saying it.

Sometimes, mentioning it in the body of an email can come off too “salesy” and might actually turn some customers off. However, when placed in your signature, it seems like more of a supplement to your email.

The point of your email might have been to build a better relationship with your client, but by adding a link or banner to a promotion in your email signature, you’ve now accomplished more than just that. 

6. Add a case study to show off your success

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate previous successes to potential clients. By adding a banner, link, or image that goes to a page of case studies, you’re showing each email recipient that you and your company can be trusted.

You can also do this with customer reviews and testimonials. If it’s short enough. You can add the testimonial, or part of it, to the signature itself. Otherwise, add a link and CTA that directs your recipient to a page containing your best case studies and testimonials. 

7. Add event details to spread the word

Hosting an event or conference? Spread the word by adding the details such as time, date, location, or a link to the invite to your email signature.

This is a great way to network and to allow your recipients the chance to attend an event and get to know you better. If you’re not hosting but you’re going to a highly-attended conference, make it known in your signature.

Add a line of text saying that you’ll be at a specific conference including the dates, and then encourage people to set a meeting with you if they’ll be there as well.

8. Let your users quickly book a demo

If you’re sending cold emails, meaning to recipients who haven’t necessarily agreed to be on your mailing list, then it can be tricky to know what to include in your message.

There’s a lot you want to say, like introducing yourself, your product or service, learning about them, and then schedule a call.

Make your message more digestible by focusing first on establishing a connection with your recipient, and add a link to schedule a demo or consultation in your signature.

You’ll still have all the information you need in your message, but it will come off less pushy.

9. Add a video for stronger impact than just text

Email signatures don’t have to be entirely text-based. Sure, your basic details or links might be in text form, but you can also add images or videos to your signature.

An image of yourself is a great way to appear more professional, approachable, and trustworthy, especially when emailing a new client who may not know who you are.

Marketing videos make for great email signature marketing add-ons as well. You can add a small-sized video that introduces your company, a new launch, or provides a tutorial on how to use a specific product. 

10. Add a banner with seasonal a promo

Get into the festive mood by creating seasonal promotional banners that can be added to your signature. You can add a banner that promotes things like Black Friday or holiday gift specials.

This also adds an eye-catching aspect to your signature, so don’t be afraid to add other items here. You can make a banner for a giveaway, a coupon code, a free trial, an event, or so much more. 

11. Hiring? Link to your job offers

Is your company currently recruiting? Add it to your email signature! This can be a great way to reach a potential candidate for an open position, and your HR rep will surely appreciate the effort.

Not only that but if you’re emailing clients, it’s a great way to let them know that your company is growing and successful without explicitly spelling it out for them. 

Best practices for email signature marketing

While there are endless additions you can make to your email signature to increase your marketing efforts, there are some key things to keep in mind in order to make the most of it. But before we get into that, let’s cover the basic information you should include at the start, before you optimize your signature for marketing.

What should an email signature for marketing include?

1. Employee name
2. Employee title
3. Company name
4. Company logo
5. Company website address
6. Employee email address
7. Social media icons (linking to company social media pages)
8. CTA

1) Optimize your email signature CTA:

Even having a CTA in your email signature puts you ahead of most companies. But beyond directing the recipient to take the action you desire there is still work to be done.

How to optimize email signature CTA?

• Track your CTR using UTMs
• Make sure you’re message is clear and concise
• Segment your CTA message and goal according to the employee job post (Sales – “Book a demo”, HR – “We’re hiring! Apply now”, Support – “Contact us 24/7”, etc.)
• Use Voice of Customer in your micro-copy
• Experiment with different types of CTA (button, text link, banner, video, image gallery, video conference button, etc.), to see which generates more clicks
• Experiment with CTA variations (copy, look, placement, etc.) to see which brings the most clicks

2) Stay true to your brand:

If your brand often uses a minimalist design and a specific color scheme, make sure any additions to your signature reflect this. A huge, flashing colorful banner might look strange in this scenario, so always tailor any additions to your brand.

3) Keep it simple:

There are a lot of different ways you can use marketing in your email signature, but that doesn’t mean you should be using them all! Stay simple in your design not to overwhelm your recipient and focus on what’s most important.

4) Ensure your signature is responsive:

You put a lot of effort into your email signature, so you want it to function well and look good across all screens. Runs some tests just to be sure before sending your message.

5) A/B test your signature:

You A/B test subject lines and messages, so why not the signature as well? See what works better with your audience, and if you need to, tailor certain signatures to a specific segmented list to maximize results. 

6) Update your signature regularly:

Whether for seasonal sales, special events, or announcements, it’s a good idea to keep your signature fresh. Of course, don’t do it too often to maintain a sense of uniformity, but changing it once in a while is a good practice.

7) Use these techniques internally too!

These email signature marketing ideas aren’t only for clients but can work well when emailing coworkers as well. You can add reminders of company events, targets, or updates in your signature to keep everyone on the same page.

8) Segment your email signature marketing campaigns

You can make as many signatures as you have departments. Each department in your company has its own goals and KPIs, which means each would benefit from an ESM campaign that’s tailored to their specific needs. It may require a bit more work but it’s worth it.

If you’re using WIseStamp to manage your company email signatures you can save time and reduce your workload by assigning admin permission to team leaders or department heads so they can edit and manage their department signatures on their own.

Top email signature marketing software

You might be thinking that all the ideas for links, icons, or banners for your email signature seem great. But how do you actually put them into practice?

Well, you can craft images, banners, color schemes, and designs on your own. But unless you’re a graphic designer, this is time-consuming and probably won’t yield the best results.

That’s where we can Wisestamp can help you. WIseStamp is an easy-to-use email signature manager, which you can use to create personalized professional email signatures in just a few minutes, and deploy them in your private email or across the emails of thousands of employees.

Over 1 million professionals and 4000 companies are already using the WiseStamp email signature maker to market their business to generate leads. You may want to try the WiseStamp Signature Manager to see if it could work for you.

How set up your email signature marketing campaigns in minutes

Use WiseStamp to set automated email signature marketing campaigns for every email your business sends out.

Choose from dozens of social media icons, set your own color scheme, select fonts, and easily add images all from one place. You also get tons of add-ons that let you create a complete email signature for marketing with custom buttons, banners, video thumbnail, Instagram gallery, handwritten sign-off, an email disclaimer, and more.

Bonus tip: add a handwritten signature for an extra touch

A little bonus we’ve seen a lot of people use is a personal handwritten signature sign-off. Many WiseStamp users use our hand signature maker to add a cursive sign-off to their email signature block. This brings a more personal feel to their email signatures. Which improves trust and conversion.

If you’re creating an email signature not just for yourself but for your entire company, you can actually assign a cursive hand signature for each employee automatically! (which WiseStamp generates based on the employee name).

How does this help your marketing strategy? Well, it’s a subtle reminder that the person behind the message is real. By evoking the sense of signing off on a document in an email, you can create a more firm connection by coming across as professional, authentic, and trustworthy. That’s always helpful when you’re adding other marketing elements to the rest of your email.

Final thoughts

Implementing new email signature marketing techniques is relatively simple and can be done with minimal effort, especially when you use simple signature tools like Wisestamp.

Update your signature from a basic name and phone number to a personalized, dynamic signature complete with marketing elements to see how it can positively impact your business.