If you work in marketing, you might have heard of the 40/40/20 rule.
Essentially, conventional wisdom tells us that the success of any direct marketing campaign depends on:
40% the List — the people who see your message.
40% the Offer — the product, incentive, and price.
20% the Creative — copy, design, and format.
Think of it this way:
If you have a banger “list” and “offer”, but your “creative” is terrible, you still have a roughly 80% chance of success.
Or if you have an amazing “creative”, but your “offer” and “list” are terrible, you have a very low chance of selling anything.
You get what I mean…
This applies to email marketing beautifully.
You could design and write the best email campaign, but if your product (offer) isn’t any good, you probably won’t make any sales.
The same thing applies when you have a great product, but your list consists mostly of freebie seekers.
Although you’ll get many people to click, once they land on the website and start seeing all the terrible reviews (or the price), it will scare them away.
You can’t fix a bad product with good marketing.
If anything, you’re just amazing at letting everyone know how terrible you are!
It’s pretty funny, actually.
And there’s actually a term for this phenomenon in Meta advertising—they call it ‘ugly ads,’ which conveys the 40/40/20 rule well.
It’s an advertising concept by Barry Hott.
According to Barry, the type of ads that tend to perform best (e.g. get attention) aren’t the polished, visually appealing ones.
They’re the unrefined ads created without a high budget or production quality.
Or as he calls them, ugly ads.
It’s a brilliant philosophy.
And when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
People hate ads.
No one scrolls through Instagram and Facebook looking for the next ad.
So when a customer sees your ad with the perfect visual and the perfect angle, their subconscious is more likely to label it as an ad and keep scrolling.
But what if you presented them with an “ugly” ad instead?
Like this homeware brand did here:
This ad selling baby chairs isn’t eye-popping or anything.
But it fits right in with the content on the customer’s feed.
It legit looks like user-generated content.
And that’s the whole point, really.
Ugly ads are more believable and authentic.
It’s the main reason why they work so well.
And you know what’s even better?
You could put together a visual like this and have a highly converting creative up and running on Meta within minutes.
There’s no need to go through multiple iterations with a graphic designer, or hire an influencer and book a shoot day.
So why am I telling you all this?
Because I believe the same logic applies to email marketing as well.
Yet, no one ever talks about sending ugly emails in Klaviyo.
I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen a low-effort, ugly email convert like crazy.
Context matters.
The angle you use to sell your products matters.
Design doesn’t matter that much.
Yet, you see email gurus all over social media posting their amazing designs.
And I can’t even blame them, because showcasing your portfolio on social media is oftentimes the best way to land new clients.
Been there, done that.
But don’t be fooled.
That same pretty email you see on your X/LinkedIn feed could be a meme and convert 10x better.
And the reason is simple:
The less your emails look like ads, the more likely people are to engage with them.
So I’m starting a movement called:
Make emails ugly.
This week’s Emails that Sell breakdown is the perfect example of an ugly email.
It’s from a meat chips brand called Carnivore Snax and written by my friend Chris Orzechowski.
It’s witty.
It’s funny.
It’s pretty damn UGLY.
You’ll love it.
Have a read below:
