What Happened:
In an interview with Lifecycle Letter, lifecycle strategist Carmen Lee explained how lifecycle teams actually keep tabs on competitor emails and why each method serves a different purpose depending on whether you’re looking for real-time sends, design inspiration, automation benchmarks, or high-level trend signals.
Lee explained that tools like Milled, Really Good Emails, and Email Love serve distinct jobs, ranging from live market visibility to automation and design benchmarking.
She cautioned that competitive email research should inform testing and prioritization, not drive copy-paste execution, emphasizing that customer context and brand fit matter more than mimicking top-performing emails.
More Insight:
Lee framed competitive email research around three distinct tools, each with a different job. Milled shows what’s happening right now. Really Good Emails surfaces proven design and automation patterns. Email Love adds context by aggregating trends across industries, send cadence, and flow structure.
Milled is where Lee looks for real-time signals: subject line themes, seasonal pivots, and how brands adjust messaging during high-volume periods. It’s fast, lightweight, and useful for spotting patterns.
Really Good Emails and Email Love come into play later, when teams are thinking about structure. Seeing welcome, abandoned cart, or post-purchase flows side by side helps teams evaluate whether they’re underbuilding automation or defaulting to familiar layouts without questioning if they still work.
“You should focus on your own brand and what works for your customer, not try and copy another brand just because it works for someone else.”
Lee also stressed that competitive research shouldn’t become a weekly obligation. During peak moments like November, it often drops off entirely, and that’s intentional.
“Looking at competitor emails is great for staying up to date, but it’s not the thing that moves the needle. Testing what works for your own customers is.”
Her takeaway was simple: use competitor emails to expand your thinking, but not to dictate your strategy. The best lifecycle teams use these tools for ideas, not instructions, and keep decisions grounded in their own audience and data.