Inside Email Love’s Growth
Back in early 2023, I was managing a small email inspiration site alongside my full-time job, with a bit of freelance work on the side to keep things interesting. Then, in April, I received an unexpected message from Rob Hope, the original founder of Email Love and onepagelove.com. Rob and I knew each other from the email and web design community, and we’d even met when I visited South Africa a few years back. Now, he was looking for someone to take Email Love to the next level, and he thought I might be the right fit.
After a night of thinking it over, I realized this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So, I decided to buy Email Love from Rob and wind down my own site to focus on growing it, even as I continued with my day job. Rob was incredibly supportive, guiding me through the transition and setting me up to take over seamlessly. Soon, I got into a steady rhythm, adding new emails to the gallery daily and setting up automation to keep the platform growing.
Since then, Email Love has grown from a side project into a full-fledged resource. Here’s a look at what we’ve achieved in the past year and where we’re heading next.
What we’ve achieved since taking over Email Love
When I acquired Email Love, my goal was clear: to make it a must-have resource for email marketers and maybe generate some extra income.
Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve accomplished so far:
- Website Traffic Growth: One of my priorities was building Email Love’s visibility. Thanks to regular content updates, improved site functionality, and community engagement, we now see consistent growth, averaging 4,000+ unique visitors and 18,000+ pageviews per week. Visitors are highly engaged, exploring multiple pages each visit. This growth shows Email Love is becoming a trusted resource for email marketers, even though this is a highly competitive space.
- Email Subscriber Expansion: The email list has tripled from 2,000 to 6,600 engaged subscribers.
- Sponsorships Secured: I knew early on that for Email Love to grow sustainably, it needed to be profitable. After all, even a small website like this costs $$$ to run. I decided sponsorships were the right monetization model and used my background working at Email Service Providers to connect with relevant brands. I reached out to Massimo, the CEO of BEEFree, who became our first sponsor despite modest traffic at the time. This partnership established early credibility, and we’ve since secured sponsorships with Customer.io, Kombai, Braze, Sinch, and ZeroBounce. Each sponsor aligns with our mission, enabling us to expand without compromising the site’s accessibility.
- Content and Feature Enhancements: When I took over, Email Love’s gallery had around 800 emails. Today, it’s grown to over 2,500+ curated designs across different industries and styles, all chosen to inspire with purpose. Alongside this growth, we introduced features like login accounts, saved collections, “like” buttons, and Dark Mode previews. These tools help users personalize their experience, organize their inspiration, and understand how designs appear across clients.
These achievements signal that Email Love is resonating with the community, and I’m excited to keep building on this momentum as we enter the next phase.
How we achieved this growth
Hitting these milestones involved a mix of strategy, community focus, and operational efficiency. Here are the core tactics that helped us grow:
- Content Curation and Expansion: From the start, I was committed to making Email Love’s gallery more than just visually appealing; each email needed to provide actionable insights. I added 5-10 new emails almost daily, covering a range of industries and use cases, so that users could consistently find fresh, relevant inspiration.
- User-Centric Features: Listening to feedback, I introduced features like login accounts, saved collections, and “like” buttons to let users tailor their experience. These tools make Email Love a more personalized resource, allowing users to organize and revisit favorite designs, which they’ve found invaluable for their creative processes.
- Community Engagement: Building an engaged community has been essential to Email Love’s success. Through regular posts on social media, weekly newsletters, and features like the Email Peeps blog series—where I interview email professionals about tools, trends, and their workspaces—I’ve created opportunities for users to learn from and connect with industry peers. The Guest Curators program has also added diversity, allowing experts to contribute their favorite emails to the platform, making Email Love a community-driven space.
- Email Love Journeys: offers marketers a clear view of complete multi-step email campaigns, such as welcome series, abandoned cart flows, and re-engagement campaigns. Unlike other platforms that only show individual emails, Email Love Journeys will allow users to see every step of these campaigns, making it easier to understand how cohesive, multi-step strategies are designed and executed. This is fairly unique from what I’ve seen in the market.
- Automation and Efficiency: Managing daily operations and growth required efficiency, so I set up Zapier processes to automate routine tasks. This freed me up to focus on big-picture strategies and community engagement while ensuring smooth daily operations.
These efforts have centered on making Email Love a valuable, user-driven resource. By keeping connected with our community, prioritizing useful features, and working efficiently, we’ve scaled Email Love while staying true to its mission.
The vision ahead: Email Love 2.0
Looking to the future, Email Love 2.0 will transform the platform into an all-in-one resource for email marketers. We’re considering features that go beyond inspiration, focusing on practical tools, data-driven insights, and career opportunities.
Here are a couple of ideas we have in the pipeline:
- Email Love Trends will provide real-world performance data on email design, timing, and frequency, helping users make strategic decisions about their own programs.
- Email Love Jobs will introduce a job board to connect email marketers, designers, and developers with companies seeking their expertise. Unlike broader job platforms, Email Love’s job board will be specialized and industry-focused, ensuring a higher quality of job listings and talent. I basically want this to be the anti-Upwork.
- Email Love Brands will enable you to dive deeper into your favorite brands, showing you every email they send and exposing key metrics and stats about their email program.
- Pro Membership options will unlock exclusive insights, reports, and tools for email professionals who want to dive deeper into strategy and trends. Our goal with these features is to address the needs of email marketers at every level, making Email Love not only a source of inspiration but a comprehensive toolkit for success.
Reflecting on the journey so far, I’m incredibly grateful for the community that’s grown around Email Love. The platform has evolved in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated, thanks to the support, feedback, and engagement from email marketers, designers, and developers who use it daily.
As we look to the next phase with Email Love 2.0, I’m excited to keep expanding the platform’s value. Beyond inspiration, we’re creating a toolkit that empowers email professionals to succeed in a constantly evolving field. To everyone who has been part of this journey—thank you.
Much love,
Andy
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @emaillove