Why we built the Email Data Accelerator
For as long as I’ve worked in marketing, and especially during my time running Maybe Later, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself.
Teams have data. They have dashboards, reports, benchmarks, and engagement scores.
And yet, when it comes to deciding what to do next with email, there’s often a pause.
Not because people don’t care,a nd not because the data isn’t there.
But because data on its own doesn’t tell you where to go next. Insight does.
But insight takes time and space to develop — three things most teams don’t have much of because there’s always something more to do.
Email marketing is the best testing channel we underuse
Email marketing is one of the few channels where you can:
Run meaningful A/B tests without huge budgets
Personalise content at scale
Segment audiences based on behaviour, not assumptions
See results quickly and learn from them
In theory, it’s ideal for learning. In practice, it’s often underused.
Not because teams don’t know these features exist, but because using them properly requires planning, follow-through, and the confidence to try things that might not work the first time.
And when teams are busy (which they always are), this kind of work is easy to deprioritise.
Even though it’s often the work with the biggest long-term impact.
When email becomes everyone’s noticeboard
There’s another layer to this, and it’s more human than technical.
Email is a slightly strange channel. It feels more official than a social post. More permanent. More visible.
Because of that, email often sits across multiple teams and functions: fundraising, comms, digital, sometimes policy or programmes too.
Slowly, email becomes the place where:
Everyone wants to share their update
Every message feels important
The newsletter becomes a catch-all
For the people who actually own email — often general comms or digital teams — this makes it incredibly hard to treat email as a strategic channel.
You start reacting instead of planning. You send broadcasts because they’re quicker than pushing back. You rely on assumptions about what “works” because there isn’t time to test properly.
And without evidence, saying no, or even not yet, becomes much harder.
Why audits and workshops aren’t always enough on their own
Before creating the Email Data Accelerator, we tried the obvious things.
Audits helped teams see what was happening.
Workshops created energy and ideas.
Planning sessions gave everyone a sense of direction.
But there was a gap. Without time built in to test, reflect, and learn, teams drifted back to old email marketing habits. Not because the thinking was wrong — but because delivery pressures took over.
We realised the problem wasn’t knowledge.
It was how and when learning was happening.
From email reporting to insight over time
The Email Data Accelerator was built around one simple idea:
If you want email to work differently, you have to learn from it differently.
That means:
Looking at patterns, not one-off results
Running tests that are connected, not isolated
Creating space to reflect before jumping to the next send
Treating insight as something you build over time, not extract from a single report
The Accelerator runs over several months (usually 3-4) for a reason.
It gives teams enough runway to form hypotheses (“supporters engage more when…”), test them in real campaigns, see what holds up over time, and make decisions with evidence rather than gut feel.
How the Email Data Accelerator actually works
The Accelerator creates a clear rhythm for learning.
Teams review performance regularly, decide what to test next, and deliberately build space to implement and reflect. Testing isn’t something squeezed in between campaigns — it becomes part of how email is planned and evaluated.
Over time, this approach helps teams move away from one-off optimisation and towards a more intentional email programme that supports longer-term engagement.
What changes for teams
The most interesting outcomes aren’t just in the metrics (although those matter).
What we see more often is:
Teams feel more confident pushing back on blanket sends
Clearer conversations about why something is being sent
Newsletters are becoming more intentional, not just habitual
Email feeding insight back into fundraising, comms, or sales — rather than sitting in a silo
Email stops being “the place where everything goes” and starts becoming a channel with a purpose.
Who the Email Data Accelerator is for
The Email Data Accelerator isn’t about quick wins or surface-level optimisation.
It’s for teams who:
Want to move beyond broadcast emails and one-off campaigns
Are willing to test, learn, and adapt over time
Care about building confidence and capability, not just performance spikes
It won’t be right for every organisation, and that’s fine.
But for teams who feel stuck between knowing email could do more and not quite knowing how to get there, it creates a different way forward.
A different way of working with email marketing
We built the Email Data Accelerator because we were tired of seeing good teams held back by time, confidence, and process — not by lack of ideas.
Email marketing has huge potential when it’s treated as a learning channel, not just a delivery one.
And with the right structure, space, and support, that potential becomes much easier to unlock.
If this way of thinking about email resonates, the Accelerator will probably make sense.
And even if it doesn’t, I hope this gives you language (and permission) to think differently about how email fits into your organisation.
