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How did you get into email development? 

It was a bit of a weird journey, and I feel like most email developers I know just fell into it too. I originally went to university for filmmaking and started my career as a videographer at a small marketing agency. Since I had a little knowledge of HTML/CSS from making Tumblr themes and WordPress sites, I eventually started working on client emails alongside, which I actually enjoyed much more than the video work.

What is an easy way that brands can improve their email code?

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your sends. I see so many brands building a template and then sticking to the same four modules for every send. Always look for opportunities to try new things, like testing out some interactivity, adding some CSS animations or even something as simple as hover effects.

What is something surprising that you have learnt since joining the legendary ActionRocket team?

I’ve loved being able to work on complex interactive email campaigns. Before joining ActionRocket, I’d only built simple ‘tap to reveal’ effects. Now, I’m chaining these together into really sophisticated, multi-layered interactive campaigns.

What’s in your toolbox?

Hardware: 

• Macbook Air 15 inch M2
• Sony XM5 headphones – The noise cancelling is so good, I don’t know how I survived my commute on the Underground before these!
• MX Master 3S mouse – I have so many functions mapped to the extra buttons that I genuinely am slower without it

Software:

• VS Code (but I am also currently testing Antigravity from Google)
• Github Copilot – I find this most helpful with repetitive tasks. If I have to update the buttons across a whole EDS, Copilot figures out what I’m doing and makes the rest of the changes for me
• Some custom CLI tooling for serving browser previews, cleaning up code and formatting

How can other developers get started with interactive email?

The “tap to reveal” effect is absolutely the main gateway into interactive emails. Once you’ve properly mastered that technique, you’ll realise that almost every other interactive email is simply a matter of chaining those reveals together. You can make a tap reveal another tap, which then reveals a third, and so on and so forth.

Is AMP dead?

I don’t think it is dead, but I’m still waiting to see a truly mind-blowing use case for it. AMP is best leveraged where there’s a strong focus on data, especially real-time information, but the sheer barrier to entry (ESP capability, email client approvals, extra time to code) remains quite high. I still find a lot of marketers who dismissed it originally thinking it was just “carousels in Gmail” but are wowed when they find out what it can do.

What’s your favorite interactive email of all time?

That has to be the BBC Dynasties email, it’s an absolute ActionRocket classic. When I saw that as a junior email developer, it first put the team on my radar and showed me the true potential of email code and just how complex you can get.

How do you see AI impacting email development in the next few years? 

I’m genuinely excited by the potential benefits AI could bring, like using MCP servers to automate simple email builds straight from Figma or other design software. We are also seeing AI testing tools that automate checking for accessibility or rendering issues. However, I still think there needs to be a human in the loop though. Email clients make changes all the time and there are weird, non standard fixes for things that an AI couldn’t figure out (double head tags for Yahoo, for example)

Much love,
Andy

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @emaillove