Many messages look like they were designed for the inbox and email users of 2001. Yes, that’s 25 years ago, almost as long as the commercial lifespan of email.
On the surface, at least, the typical email message looks a little more modern today. We don’t see many three-column email designs anymore. About 4 out of 5 emails are optimized for mobilecompared to 50% or less ten years ago.
The bigger problem with email design
It goes deeper than button or font size, and covers an area we haven’t talked about enough until now. Today’s email messages are disconnected from how people behave online. They haven’t changed much since the heady days of 2001, when promotional email crossed the line from novelty to business necessity.
Back then, inboxes were quieter, even as the spam flood started to increase. People’s attention spans were longer and the way they read messages was largely linear. The average reader opens an email, starts at the top and scrolls through the message. Subject lines were important, but they weren’t fighting for attention in a battlefield of notifications, apps, and endless scrolling.
Fast forward to 2026. The people who read our emails have been retrained by attention competitors like TikTok, Instagram Stories and Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts and a constant stream of digital interruptions.
The environment has changed and human behavior has evolved along with it. But email marketing has remained largely unchanged. One reason for this impasse may be the long-standing battle between email and social media for attention and budget. Email still has the edge in trust and conversions, but marketers have always known that email can also learn from social media.
Dig Deeper: How Compelling Email Design Can Impact the Customer Journey in Ecommerce
What TikTok reveals about how attention actually works
Now’s the time to take a closer look at the changes channels like TikTok have brought about and how email could benefit from them. I’ve been exploring and experimenting with TikTok for work lately, and here are my observations.
A behavioral look at TikTok
TikTok didn’t succeed because of trends, dances or viral sounds. It has succeeded because it forces creators to face reality.
Attention is never accepted on TikTok. Attention is borrowed, negotiated and easily withdrawn. Creators have seconds – sometimes less – to justify why someone should keep watching. They know that if they don’t get that attention immediately, the thumb will move on without hesitation or regret.
This has made TikTok the greatest real-time experiment in human attention we’ve ever had. Creators learn what sparks curiosity, what creates momentum, and what causes immediate disengagement.
Email marketers, on the other hand, optimize for the inbox rather than the human. Open rates, subject line length and best practice formulas dominate the discussion. Normally we don’t investigate the deeper question: how people actually decide what to do.
The three-hook model that stops the scroll
Successful TikTok content rarely relies on a single hook. Creators stack multiple hooks to grab and hold attention. Most TikToks have three hooks:
- A visual hook – movement, contrast or disruption that catches the eye.
- A verbal hook introduces curiosity, tension, or a pattern break.
- A hook reinforces or reframes what is happening, often adding intrigue rather than explanation.
These hooks work together. They are not optional extras. This is how makers stop the scroll.
This is where email crosses paths with TikTok. Technically, email also has all three hooks.
- Subject lines are verbal hooks, while preheaders provide supporting context.
- Design and layout provide visual cues.
- The inside headline or opening copy block can increase curiosity or momentum.
Here’s the difference: TikTok uses these hooks as a set, while email treats these elements as separate, often accidental decisions rather than as an intentional system.
Dig Deeper: B2B Marketing on TikTok: What You Need to Know
Email’s dependence on a single hook
Most email campaigns expect the subject line to do almost all the heavy lifting. It should be short, clear, compelling, on-brand, benefit-oriented, and clickable all at the same time. Meanwhile, the preheader is often wasted or automatically generated. The header or opening copy defaults to context setting instead of intrigue.
This approach made sense twenty years ago. In a quieter inbox, a decent subject line was enough to grab attention. Today it is a fragile strategy that puts significant pressure on a single decision point.
TikTok creators don’t rely on one hook because they can’t afford it. Email marketers still do that, mainly because they always have.
Early CTAs and momentum on TikTok
One of the most notable structural differences between TikTok and email is the way each handles calls to action. On TikTok, creators don’t wait until the end to ask for involvement. They introduce micro CTAs early and often – low-effort actions that build momentum, such as:
- “Keep watching.”
- “Watch until the end.”
- “Respond if this sounds familiar to you.”
Email tends to save the CTA for the bottom of the message. A typical message contains one primary action after all the explanations. This format assumes readers will still stick around long enough to find it.
The traditional model no longer reflects how people consume content. People don’t wait until they reach the end of the message to make decisions. They make them on the go.
Curiosity as a driver of attention
TikTok thrives on curiosity. Open loops, unresolved questions, and partial information are not tricks. They determine how people decide what to pay attention to.
Email marketers often treat curiosity with suspicion. They push subject lines toward clarity, safety, and brevity, creating a sea of short, generic messages that look interchangeable in the inbox.
The irony is that curiosity does not replace relevance. It precedes it. TikTok creators understand that attention is earned first and value is delivered second. Email marketers often strive to deliver value before attracting attention.
Dig deeper: Your apps and social channels rely on email more than you think
Email needs a new mental model
Instead of remodeling the top layer of email to look like TikTok, we need to change the assumptions we bring to the channel.
We need to redesign email to accommodate interruptions, not to provide ideal reading conditions. Let’s think of engagement as momentum, not a single click. We must accept that attention is earned in stages and not simply taken.
TikTok shows how people actually divide attention. Email marketers can apply these insights without copying the platform.
- Intentionally stack subject lines and preheaders.
- Use opening lines to earn the scroll, and don’t explain the email.
- Test CTAs earlier in the message.
- Design for scanning, interruptions, and decision-making in seconds instead of minutes.
- Most importantly, stop optimizing email like it’s still 2001.
The next era of email is about catching up with people
The biggest advantage of email over social media in all its forms is that marketers own the channel. The increasing pace of algorithmic change highlights the risks of building a marketing program on leased land.
But this is not the time to rest on our laurels. Email must evolve to stay relevant to today’s digital consumers, and that evolution won’t come from new templates or a tighter character count. It will come from understanding how people allocate attention, make decisions and interact with content – and then design email messages to accommodate those changes.
TikTok creators are already doing this. Not because they’re trendy, but because they have to. The ability of email is not to compete with TikTok. It’s about learning from what TikTok has revealed about the people marketers are trying to reach, and incorporating those insights into emails that are more engaging and valuable.
Dig Deeper: 3 High-Impact Tactics to Drive Email Engagement
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Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the supervision of the editors and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of it Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
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