4 Email Marketing Lessons From Uber, Starbucks, Levi’s, and John Freida

Why look at what the corporations are up to?

Given the sheer size and budgets of the companies we’ve just mentioned, you probably think that their strategies are irrelevant or unattainable for you. Sure, you probably don’t have a multi-billion budget to spend on emails, and your email marketing department may only include one person. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t apply these strategies — albeit modified — to your small business email marketing strategy.

For example, with Selzy, you can get your hands on personalization and analytics tools and use email examples from this article as a source of inspiration. The scale might be drastically different, but the basic trends and rules will still be relevant!

Uber: Personalizing emails with a twist

Uber has an elaborate personalization engine that is responsible for email, push, and SMS messages across all locations and company services.

The system is made up of several external services and uses intricate logic to find the most relevant offers and structure the email (or another form of communication) accordingly. Here is an overview:

If that image looks intimidating, we totally understand! The whole system comes down to:

• Finding offers relevant to each user based on their likely location, past purchases, and preferences.
• Ranking all the relevant offers.
• Putting the most enticing ones up top (those with bigger discounts, for example).

But there’s one aspect that makes this personalization unique and even more effective. When it comes to determining the customer preferences, the most recent orders are given a greater weight. This twist to the ranking system drove a 4% increase in email click-through rate!

Personalization works for new users, too. In this case, the recommendations can be based on the items a person put into the shopping cart, similar users’ preferences, and contextual factors like restaurant popularity and time of day. In the example below, there are two sushi place recommendations, but they are below the Italian and Mexican restaurants. This could mean that the user added some Mexican and Italian dishes to the cart, and other similar users also liked sushi.

Lesson to learn: Personalization is only as effective as your use of data. And when you have an abundance of information, the right approach to sorting it makes all the difference. 

Do it yourself: Put the most relevant product or service recommendations up top, regularly update customer profiles, and give a greater weight to recent purchases.

Starbucks: Capitalizing on the moment

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events of the year in the US, and Starbucks used it to its fullest potential. Not only did the company run an ad during the game, but it also created a dedicated marketing campaign around the date. 

Starbucks sent several emails for the occasion. The first one called back to the ad’s title, “Hello again,” and reintroduced important benefits like free refills and nondairy milk: 

Then came two emails about “Starbucks Monday” — the day when the coffee company offered a free drink to its loyalty program members: 

1. The pre-launch email directly referenced the Super Bowl and focused only on the promo. The subject line “Free coffee tomorrow ☕” also emphasized the deal. 
2. Next, the Monday email reminded the subscribers about the offer and kept the minimalist design. 

Note how the second, post-game email doesn’t reference the results. This is a good strategy as it doesn’t divide the brand audience — mentioning the results, on the contrary, would have upset some customers. Plus, the message is general enough that it could have been made well in advance.

On the day of the promotion, dubbed “Starbucks Monday,” 17.6% more people visited the coffee shops than the 2025 average. Compared to a regular Monday over the same period, traffic was 26% higher. We don’t doubt that email significantly contributed to this result.

Lesson to learn: Big events, even those unrelated to your business, can be a great opportunity for a marketing campaign. Use more than one channel to promote the same deal for extra impact.

Do it yourself: Find an important local holiday or event and think about how your company can use it. Pay special attention to any routine or lifestyle changes that happen because of the occasion. For example, Monday after the Big Game is called “Super Bowl Flu,” as many people are expected to miss work. And those who won’t will probably need an extra pick-me-up — for example, an additional cup of coffee. Once you’ve planned the campaign, use automation to schedule everything.

Levi’s: Using the right tools and metrics

AI in email marketing can be a controversial topic, but embracing it can bring big results. In 2025, Levi’s partnered with messaging software Cordial to personalize and segment their communications through multiple channels. More than that, the company now doesn’t rely on opens and clicks to schedule their emails. Instead, Levi’s uses revenue-based scheduling to send messages when the customers are most likely to make a purchase. Cordial claims that their AI technology has increased marketing-driven purchases by over 35% for their enterprise retail clients like Levi’s.

Here’s an example of Levi’s approach to personalization. The items in the email directly correlate with the user’s recent purchase (which is, by the way, named in the campaign), making it extra relevant and targeted:

Lesson to learn: The basic techniques like personalization and scheduling are always effective, but your results can be improved with the right tools. 

Do it yourself: Research AI tools that make sense for your business needs and improve your processes. Alternatively, explore more advanced options that your current tech stack offers. 

John Frieda: Creating anticipation with automation

John Frieda is a hair care brand that expertly launched a new product line and got a 2x increase in click-to-open rate while 88% of the customers bought two or more products during the campaign.

The company used an omnichannel approach and engaged customers in 24 countries through paid social opportunities and emails. Ahead of the launch, John Frieda created an automated email sequence that nurtured customers and educated them about the upcoming hair product line. The brand also identified a key segment that previously bought a similar product and was especially interested in the launch. A bulk of the marketing efforts was directed at this group specifically. 

Here’s the automated campaign outline:

1. January: A website launch email 
2. January: A comparison email showing differences between an existing John Frieda product and the new one
3. February: Another comparison email, focused on other aspects of the products
4. March: Retail launch awareness emails and emails showing the before and after of using the product
5. March: A review email asking the customers to answer the survey about the product
6. May: Replenish emails reminding the buyers that they need to purchase again

The last email in the series, sent when the previously purchased product was likely to be running out, was especially effective. Within the first 24 hours, it had a conversion rate of almost 10%.

Lesson to learn: Effective launch takes more than just a one-off email on the date. On top of making several email campaigns and planning, you might need to figure out where the product stands among your other offers and what segment of the audience will be the most interested in it.

Do it yourself: Use our nurture email guide and make an automated sequence to gradually prepare your audience and make them convert. 

Learn from the best

Your brand may not have a Starbucks or Uber-sized email marketing budget, but you can definitely adopt some of the strategies these brands use. The scale might be different, but the core principles still apply. 

Invest in good tools, perfect your personalization, segmentation, and automation, and you can achieve big brand results!