E-commerce
October 1, 2026
Wondering how to learn from your competitors to improve your email campaigns? It is a simple and low-cost strategy: observe the leaders in your industry to refine your own messages, without copying, but by taking inspiration from what already works.
Email marketing offers an excellent return on investment, requires little budget, and can generate sales even for young stores. The challenge is not whether you should use it, but how. Monitoring competitors who perform well is an effective way to make progress.
A word of caution, however: this is not about copying, but about adapting ideas to your brand and continuously testing. So, how do you learn from your competitors to improve your email marketing? On the agenda:
Why observe your competitors' emails?
How to subscribe to their lists effectively?
What lessons can be learned from their automations?
How to analyze their subject lines and offers?
What sending frequency should you adopt?
Let's get started.
Summary
Why monitor your competitors' emails?
Observing your competitors' emails is like getting a glimpse of their marketing tests without spending a single penny. Big brands invest thousands of euros in specialized agencies and consumer studies. You cannot read their reports, but you can concretely see how they communicate with their subscribers.
By subscribing to their lists, you discover their strategies: types of offers, tone, frequency, automations. This information helps you understand what resonates with your shared audience. For example, an online sportswear store can follow Nike, Under Armour, Rogue, Gymshark, or Ten Thousand.
The goal is not to copy, but to be inspired by them to create higher-performing campaigns. Adapt the ideas to your brand, test, and measure. It is a concrete method to improve your conversion rate without a big budget.
In addition, analyze welcome emails and follow-up series: they often reveal your competitors' priorities. Also observe the times when they intensify their mailings, such as sales or holidays. These clues help you anticipate market trends and adjust your own editorial calendar.
Convert over 2,000 customers on average per month with Qstomy.
The world’s 1st Shopify AI dedicated to customer conversion
Empowering 200+ e-commerce merchants
How to subscribe to your competitors' lists?
To start, list five or six high-performing competitors in your sector. Then, create three distinct email addresses associated with different buyer personas. Use different browsers or devices to subscribe to each list with each address.
Group all received emails into a single email client and filter them by sender into dedicated folders. The benefit of having multiple addresses is to capture campaign variations: some competitors perform A/B or multivariate testing. With three accounts, you increase your chances of seeing the different versions.
This method gives you a clear vision of their editorial strategy. You will thus be able to analyze trends and adapt them to your own planning. Remember to document your observations in a file to track progress.
To go further, use tracking tools like alerts or dashboards. Note the date of each subscription and the first emails received: this allows you to measure your competitors' reaction time and identify their priorities.
What lessons can be learned from their automations?
The first thing to observe is how your competitors welcome new subscribers. Do they use an automated welcome series? For example, Ten Thousand sends a 10% discount code in the very first message. This could be an idea to adapt for your store.
Also explore other automation triggers: abandoned cart, post-purchase follow-up, personalized recommendations. Note when and how these emails are sent. This will give you ideas for structuring your own scenarios.
Automation is a powerful lever for generating sales with no extra effort. By taking inspiration from best practices, you can set up pathways that convert. Test different approaches to find what works for your audience.
Also observe re-engagement emails: how do your competitors try to reactivate inactive subscribers? These messages often reveal special offers or convincing arguments. Adapt these ideas to build loyalty among your own customers.
How to analyze the objects of their emails?
Write down each email subject line received from your competitors in a table. Classify them by type: offer, question, urgency, list, etc. Look for trends: what percentage includes a discount? Do they use questions or strong statements? Are the subject lines short or long?
Identify those that seem most compelling to you. Do not copy them directly, but draw inspiration from them to create your own variations. For example, if you notice that subject lines with a number perform well, test that approach.
Create three subject lines for a campaign, based on your observations, and test them to measure the open rate. Over time, you can develop reusable subject line templates, tailored to your brand and your audience.
Also analyze the use of personalization: do the subject lines include the recipient's first name or references to their purchases? These details can increase engagement. Test different combinations to find the right balance.
What should you look for in the body of their messages?
The body of the message is what converts after opening. Carefully read your competitors' emails and look for patterns: do they make an offer quickly? How many words do they use? Is there a single call to action or several? How do they differentiate their products?
For example, Ten Thousand's first welcome email focuses on differentiation: "We do workout gear differently. No fads, just premium essentials optimized for you and your workout." Such an approach can be adapted to your industry.
Organize the texts by theme and use these templates as a source of inspiration for your own messages. Adapt, do not copy. Test different structures to see what resonates best with your subscribers.
Pay attention to paragraph length and the use of visuals. Some competitors favor short emails with a single link, others more detailed formats. Analyze what fits your audience and your brand image.
How to identify the offers that convert?
After 18 months of testing, a retailer in the Pacific Northwest found that the "$10 off a $50 purchase" offer was the top performer for its subscribers. They used it regularly, and their competitors eventually adopted it too.
By collecting your competitors' emails, observe the offers they make and when. Do they offer deep discounts of 40% or 50%, or rather 10%? Are the offers tied to holidays? To a specific time of the month?
These trends can reveal a strategy. Apply what you learn to your own offers, but always test. What works for a competitor won't necessarily work for you, but it gives you a solid foundation for experimenting.
Also, look at introductory offers or flash sales: how do your competitors create urgency? These tactics can be adapted to your campaigns to boost conversions.
How to evaluate your competitors' sending frequency?
Sending frequency is a key indicator. Some successful e-merchants send five or more emails per week. Track how often your competitors write to you, and on which days and times. Do they send more in the morning or in the evening? At the beginning or end of the week?
This data helps you calibrate your own calendar. If your competitors send more than you, it might be a sign that your audience is waiting for more content. But be careful not to spam: test different frequencies and measure unsubscribe rates.
Adapt these trends to your strategy, keeping in mind that quality takes precedence over quantity. One relevant email per week can be more effective than five generic emails.
Also observe seasonal variations: some competitors increase their mailings during the holidays or sales. Anticipate these periods to plan your campaigns and stay competitive.
How to use your competitors' A/B tests?
By subscribing with multiple addresses, you can sometimes observe variations in your competitors' campaigns. This reveals their A/B testing. For example, the same email might have two different subject lines depending on the segment.
Note these variations and try to understand what they are testing: subject line, offer, visual, call to action. These clues give you ideas for your own tests. You can also spot elements that remain constant, which probably indicates what works.
Use this information to structure your own experiments. Test one element at a time, measure the results, and iterate. This is a proven method for continuously improving your performance.
Finally, pay attention to segmentation tests: some competitors send different emails based on purchasing behavior. These strategies can inspire you to personalize your campaigns.
How to structure an effective competitive intelligence system?
To get the most out of this monitoring, organize your observations. Create a dashboard with received emails, subject lines, offers, and frequencies. Classify them by competitor and campaign type.
Schedule regular reviews, for example once a month, to analyze trends and adjust your strategy. Note what works, what fails, and ideas to test. This discipline allows you to stay up to date and react quickly to market changes.
Competitive monitoring is not a one-time action, but a continuous process. Integrate it into your marketing routine to stay competitive and innovative.
Use collaborative tools to share your findings with your team. This fosters creativity and ensures everyone is aligned on identified best practices.
How can you adapt these lessons to your brand?
The goal is not to copy, but to get inspired. Each brand has its own voice, audience, and values. Take your competitors' ideas and adapt them to your context. For example, if a competitor uses humor, find your own tone.
Test each adaptation on a segment of your audience before rolling it out widely. Measure open, click, and conversion rates. What works for someone else might not work for you, but it gives you a starting point.
Finally, stay one step ahead by innovating. Use these learnings to improve your campaigns, but don't forget to create unique experiences that build customer loyalty.
Involve your team in this process: share your observations and encourage brainstorming. A diversity of perspectives can reveal opportunities you wouldn't have seen alone.
How does Qstomy help improve your emailing?
Qstomy, the Shopify AI agent, can enrich your email marketing strategy by leveraging data from your customer conversations. By analyzing frequently asked questions, objections, and preferences, Qstomy helps you personalize your messages and offer relevant promotions.
For example, Qstomy can identify the most requested products, purchasing times, or cart abandonment reasons. These insights allow you to create more targeted emails, with product recommendations tailored to each customer.
Additionally, Qstomy automates order tracking and customer service, freeing up time for you to focus on creating high-performing campaigns. By combining competitive analysis with Qstomy's data, you maximize your chances of conversion.
Qstomy also helps you segment your audience based on buying behaviors, making your campaigns more relevant. Test these recommendations to improve engagement and loyalty.
What checklist before launching your email monitoring?
Before starting, here is a checklist to structure your approach:
List of competitors: identify 5 to 6 high-performing players in your sector.
Account creation: prepare 3 email addresses with different profiles.
Organization: filter received emails into dedicated folders.
Analysis: note subject lines, offers, frequency, and automations.
Adaptation: test ideas on your audience and measure.
In short, observing your competitors is a powerful method to improve your emailing without a big budget. Adapt, test, and measure to find what works for your brand.
FAQ
How long does it take to see results? It depends on your sector and your ability to test. Generally, a few weeks are enough to identify trends.
Should I copy my competitors' emails? No, it is better to take inspiration from them and adapt them to your brand to remain authentic.
How to avoid falling into spam? Test different frequencies and monitor unsubscribe rates to find the right balance.
To go further: E-commerce SEO strategy for category pages - Qstomy, How to build an e-commerce Facebook Ads strategy? - Qstomy, How to improve sales conversion rates in e-commerce? - Qstomy, Using conversations to improve merchandising without betraying the customer - Qstomy, Definitions of e-commerce conversion rates: cart, online, transaction, high - Qstomy, E-commerce CRM and customer support: using the right data to respond better - Qstomy, E-commerce internal linking strategy for SEO - Qstomy.
Enzo
October 1, 2026
