Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / Why Plain Text Emails Outperform Rich Templates
Transcript
- Lucas: Alright, let me start with a number that stopped me this morning: ninety-six percent of all commercial email is html rich, with images, layouts, buttons. Only four percent is plain text. And yet, the four percent gets two point eight times higher click-through rates. Luna: Two point eight times? That's not a marginal difference. That's a flip the script kind of number. Lucas: It really is. And the data comes from a Litmus study published late last year — they analyzed over a billion email sends across their platform. The plain text cohort consistently outperformed on clicks and replies, even after controlling for list size and industry. Luna: So why are we all still sending these beautifully designed templates? I mean, I'm guilty too. Lucas: Right. The answer is partly habit, partly brand pressure. Marketing teams spend weeks on templates. They get approved by creative directors. There's an assumption that rich design signals professionalism. But the subscriber's brain doesn't see it that way. Luna: What does the subscriber see? Lucas: When you open a plain text email, it looks like a message from a friend. No images blocked, no layout broken on mobile, no 'view in browser' link. It feels personal. The Litmus data also showed that reply rates for plain text emails were three point one times higher. That's huge for engagement metrics beyond opens and clicks. Luna: And replies are the metric that actually builds relationships. I've seen B2B companies obsess over open rates but ignore that nobody is writing back. Lucas: Exactly. There's a specific case I want to highlight. A B2B SaaS company called Groove — they do help desk software — switched their weekly newsletter from a designed template to a plain text format back in 2023. They saw a thirty-four percent lift in reply rates within two months. Their click-through rate stayed flat, but the conversations they started with customers increased dramatically. Luna: So they traded a bit of click-through polish for actual dialogue. That's smart if your goal is retention and upsell. Lucas: And Groove's CEO wrote about it publicly. He said the email suddenly felt like it was from a human, not a brand. That's the core insight. Plain text forces you to write like a person. You can't hide behind a hero image or a call to action button that looks perfect. Luna: But I imagine the objections from a marketing director: 'We lose brand consistency. Our logo isn't there. We can't track pixel opens.' Lucas: Those are real concerns. Let me address them one by one. Brand consistency — your brand voice in the copy matters more than a logo at the top. You can still use a signature, a consistent sign-off, maybe a text-based logo treatment. As for tracking, you're right, plain text can't embed open tracking pixels. But frankly, open rates are a vanity metric anyway. Click rates and replies are what drive revenue. Luna: I've heard some marketers argue that plain text only works for small, loyal lists. That if you have millions of subscribers, you need the structure of HTML to prevent chaos. Lucas: I'd push back on that. The data Litmus shared included enterprise-level sends with lists over a million. The pattern held. Now, there are cases where rich HTML is better. E-commerce, for example, where you need to show product images. Or event invitations where visual layout matters. But for a weekly newsletter or a thought-leadership update? Plain text is often the better bet. Luna: What about deliverability? Doesn't plain text get flagged as spam less often? Lucas: Great question. Yes, plain text emails have a reputation for higher inbox placement. Spam filters tend to trust text-only messages more because they're harder to use for phishing, which often relies on hidden images or obfuscated links. One study by Campaign Monitor found that plain text emails had a ninety-five percent deliverability rate versus eighty-nine percent for html rich emails. Luna: Six percentage points is meaningful at scale. If you're sending to a hundred thousand subscribers, that's six thousand more people seeing your email. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a middle ground that some teams are adopting — what's called 'lightly designed' plain text. You use a monospace font, maybe a simple ASCII line separator, a text-based signature. It's still plain text but with a bit of personality. I think that's a pragmatic approach for brands that can't go full text-only. Luna: I've seen newsletters that do that well. The Stratechery by Ben Thompson comes to mind — it's basically plain text with a few horizontal rules. It feels authoritative and direct. Lucas: Right. And Ben Thompson charges over a million dollars a year in subscriptions from that email. No fancy template. So the format clearly doesn't limit monetization. The key is the content quality and the direct connection. Luna: So if I'm a marketer listening right now, what's the one test I should run this week? Lucas: Take your next scheduled newsletter. Split your list, send half the current HTML version, and send the other half a plain text version — same subject line, same body copy, but no images, no buttons, just text with a clear link. Measure click-through rate and reply rate over seven days. I'd bet the plain text version wins on at least one of those metrics. Luna: And if it doesn't? Then you have data to support staying with your template. That's still a win. Lucas: Exactly. Speaking of testing and data, this is exactly the kind of practical conversation we try to bring every episode. And if you find these marketing deep dives useful in your own work, listener support is what keeps this show ad-free and independent. We don't run sponsors. It's just us and the research. If you'd like to help, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure at all, but it means a lot. Luna: Yeah, and honestly, every contribution goes straight into better research and maybe a better microphone for Lucas. Lucas: Absolutely. Okay, back to the topic — one more nuance. Plain text doesn't mean no personalization. You can still use merge tags for first names or company names. In fact, plain text personalization often feels more natural because it's not in a flashy box. Luna: Right. And you can also embed tracked links in plain text, so you still get click data. You just lose the open pixel. Lucas: Yes. And honestly, click data is more actionable. You know who engaged. Open data can be misleading — Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens across the board. So dropping open tracking might actually clean up your analytics. Luna: That's a great point. So the push toward plain text aligns with the industry's move away from open rates as a metric. Lucas: Exactly. The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo has talked about that before. This episode just gives you the format solution to go with it. If you're ready to test, start small. One list segment, one send. I think you'll be surprised. Luna: I'm actually going to test this on my own newsletter next week. I'll let you know how it goes. Lucas: Please do. And listeners, if you run the test, tweet us or drop us a note. We'd love to share the results. That's it for today. See you next time.