Your Ads Win the Click. Here’s How to Make Your Emails Match Them

By Gavin Hewitson, founder of In-box

A great direct-response ad does a lot of heavy lifting. It zeroes in on the angle, the hook, and the proof, which make potential customers stop scrolling and subscribe. However, the welcome email that lands in their inbox often looks and sounds like it belongs to a different brand. That costly gap can reduce sales.

I run In-box, a Klaviyo email marketing agency, and we've worked with over 500 ecommerce brands to avoid situations like the one above. The best-performing programs treat email as an extension of the ad, not a completely separate channel. Here's how to do that, with the numbers behind it.

1. Carry the winning angle into your emails

If a specific angle is winning in your ads, it should lead both your welcome series and your campaigns. 

For Michael Gabriels, a lab-grown diamond jewellery brand, we built every peak event around a small set of angles: gift-focused framing for high-intent occasions, self-reward and aspiration for quieter periods, multi-day urgency sequences and education-led content. We used the same angles for Black Friday 2025, then for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Memorial Day and the Summer Sale in 2026. Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 orders rose from 324 to 3,393, and Valentine's Day 2026 attributed sales increased 441%.

Scott Hawaii, a Hawaiian footwear brand founded in 1932, has a story its emails weren't originally telling: Hawaiian heritage, comfort, and durability. Once the campaigns leaned into its brand story instead of spamming discounts, campaign revenue went up by 226%, and email-attributed revenue rose 121.6% year on year.

Source: In-box client email (Michael Gabriels)

2. Design the header like an ad

The header image needs to make a strong first impression, as it’s the first thing people see when opening an email. So, treat it like the first frame of an ad. Check out the rules we use for header images:

• Width: 600 pixels for desktop and 375 pixels for mobile.

• Header text: Under 10 words. Anything longer won't get read.

• Call to action: Under five words, with a verb linked to the product, and above the fold so there’s no need to scroll to click.

• People using the product: Although a product shot on its own is fine, real people using the product get better engagement.

• Logo at the top: Link it to the brand website to build familiarity.

We break down more examples in five standout email designs and what to steal from them and how to design a high-converting email template.

3. Use the same psychology, honestly

The hooks that work in ads are effective in email too. A few underused hooks in emails include:

• Choice overload: In the well-known jam study, a table with 24 flavours drew more people browsing, but only 3% of those people bought anything. On the other hand, a table with just six flavours converted 30% of browsers. One confident product recommendation usually beats a wall of 40 products.

• Loss aversion: People feel losing something roughly twice as strongly as gaining something of equal value. That said, "Your 20% off expires tonight" will land harder than "Here's 20% off".

• Social proof: Subscribers take what you say about your own products with a grain of salt, but not reviews from other customers. To build trust, use real reviews with a first name, last initial, and, with permission, a real photo.

• The Pratfall effect: Admitting a small, real flaw makes a brand more likeable in the eyes of a customer. "This isn't our fastest shipping option. It's just our best product."

One golden rule applies to all of the above: your claims have to be true. If the cart doesn't really expire in 24 hours, or the stock count isn't real, your subscribers may start ignoring every deadline you send going forward.

4. Keep the offer consistent from ad to inbox

If an ad promises 10% off, the sign-up form and welcome email should also say 10% off in the same words. Show the discount code on the final step of the form and have the button apply it at checkout, so the shopper doesn't need to leave the site just to find it.

Don't ask for a phone number on your first sign-up form. It makes 25% to 45% of prospective customers exit the form before they even see the offer the ad promised.

Source: In-box client (Scott Hawaii)

5. Send different offers to buyers and non-buyers

A first-time visitor coming from an ad needs a reason to try your product, while an existing customer needs a reason to come back. Split every campaign into two different versions: send non-buyers the welcome offer and previous buyers a separate one.

Across our accounts, roughly 80% of campaign revenue comes from ex-buyers. Your ads do the heavy lifting to drive first orders. Create revenue without paying for the click again by sending emails to existing customers.

Where to start

Start by taking your top-performing ad angle this month and rewrite your first welcome email around it. Make sure the header complies with the rules above, focus on only one or two products, and make sure the offer matches the ad word-for-word.

If you want starter layouts, our free Figma email template pack includes campaign and automation designs you can adapt to your brand. For more results, see our ecommerce email marketing case studies.

About the author

Gavin Hewitson is the founder of In-box, a Klaviyo Master Gold Partner agency for ecommerce brands. Over five years, he and his team have worked with more than 500 ecommerce brands on email and SMS. See their results at in-box.com/case-studies, or download their free Figma email template pack.