u/dagutu

My background is text-based email, and the advice everywhere is to keep it lean and avoid heavy HTML/images for deliverability. But I keep seeing gorgeous, clearly Figma-designed promotional emails from DTC brands that land fine.

What I want to understand from people who run these at scale: is it mostly that they're sending from a warm, opted-in list on a high-reputation domain, so they can get away with the design? Are they accepting the Promotions tab as the target instead of Primary? Or is there more to how they keep image-heavy email inboxing consistently?

Trying to reconcile the "stay lean" deliverability advice with what the big designed senders clearly do. Thanks.

For context, I am not from an eligible TikTok Shop for Creator country but I have an AI avatar account with mostly Tier 1 audience that got more than 500-600k views and 2k followers in 30 days since I started. It's focused on Joint pain natural remedies

Now I don't understand how to start actually monetizing, Tiktok Shop is not available, Affiliate is not available!

How did you start monetizing?

I think it's just an excuse to talk about themselves and feeling bored when that's not the topic. Because having "deep conversations" is also a jerk off for the ego.

Hi!

I have an AI avatar wellness niche account and it's got a bit of traction, but directing viewers towards the link in my bio kills reach, whereas having a DM automation doesn't work.

I tried manually sending DMs, but most people don't even see it.

What other solutions are there?

ManyChat does not work in the EU.

Hi everyone,

I just landed my first email marketing client, which is a local gym. I’ve run into a problem right away.

I’m used to using my own lead gen forms where I have full control, but this client’s web developer is being very territorial. He refuses to give me any backend access or API integrations.The only thing I have to work with is a raw CSV file.

The list consists of people who made reservations at the gym in the past. Since we are based in the EU, I am worried about GDPR and deliverability. There is no clear marketing opt-in or metadata, just names and emails of past customers.

I thought about a re-permission campaign, but I am not sure what to do.

I really don’t want to ruin their domain reputation or get flagged as a spammer on my very first gig.

How should I deal with this? Should I treat them as a "warm" list since they are past customers, or is it too risky to import them manually without a fresh opt-in?

From now on, I can ask him to implement a proper form with opt-in, but there are around 4000 past clients I would like to reach.

I want to be professional but this starting point feels like a trap. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hope everyone has a beautiful day!

A little bit of context: I used to do affiliate email marketing, was doing pretty well, I think got around 6-figures in sales at the end of last year. Due to circumstances of the niche I was in, everything crashed and burned. I need to live and I needed to find a solution fast so I grabbed bits of everything I knew and tried to make it a service. I came up with the conclusion that doing email marketing and automations for small businesses is something I could offer.

Now, this is just what I THINK it's a good idea, but don't know how to find my first clients because I have no proof of concept it actually works. The niche I was in before was quite sexual oriented (think ED supplements) so I wouldn't feel comfortable to openly showcase my work.

I tried doing an audit and showing some proposals of what I would do for some business owners I know, but all 4 offers I created had the same result: "Cool, I'll check it out" *silence*.

I feel my judgement is clouded because I lost my main income and I'm scrambling to make this work. I genuinely thought it would be a forever cozy cushion, but now I just need to move on.

Any advice on how to move the needle?

LATER EDIT: I did not ask for money for those 4 offers, I asked them if I can do it for free so I can build my case study.