Report
Marketing Benchmark Report: Email & SMS | Q2 2026
See the latest in email & SMS marketing performance with our quarterly benchmark report, including key metrics, industry insights, and expert analysis.
Partnering for Performance: Award-Winning Campaigns Driving ROI
By Lauren GannonSVP, Creative
Published on June 29, 2026
Marketers face growing pressure to deliver more meaningful, personalized, and measurable experiences across channels. At Zeta, our award-winning Professional Services teams are ready to help marketers meet those challenges by supporting their campaigns, extending their strategies, and maximizing the impact and ROI of every touchpoint.
This year alone, campaigns supported by Zeta earned 36 industry awards, reflecting the real-world outcomes that brands can achieve with the right blend of strategy, creativity, and execution. By working alongside agencies and in-house teams, we aim to help marketers unlock the full potential of their marketing efforts, turning moments into powerful brand stories.
Below, we spotlight a few of the standout campaigns—each a reflection of what happens when we build, push, and create together.
Ashley: Bedroom Mattress Journey
The Ashley Bedroom Mattress Journey addressed a crucial challenge facing retail brands today: how to drive incremental revenue and repeat engagement through email in an increasingly crowded inbox.
Ashley needed a smarter, more effective way to inspire both longtime customers and prospective shoppers to repeat purchases in key categories like bedroom furniture and mattresses—without relying on overly promotional messaging.
The opportunity wasn’t just to sell more, but to transform email into a more relevant, helpful part of the customer’s shopping journey.
Our solution was a highly personalized, automated email journey rooted in data and behavioral insights. Leveraging purchase history and engagement signals, we created a flexible, always‑on experience that dynamically delivered the right products at the right moment for each customer.
Every touchpoint was intentionally designed—from clean layouts and warm, confidence‑building copy to curated product galleries, seasonal offers, and aspirational imagery—so the journey felt like guided shopping rather than traditional marketing. Data dictated not just audience targeting, but the creative itself, ensuring every message delivered clear value to the individual shopper.
The results validated the power of this approach. The campaign drove a 20% incremental uplift in conversion rate and a 4% increase in orders per customer, alongside strong engagement metrics including a 17.7% average open rate and 8.8% average click rate.
Beyond performance, the program strengthened Ashley’s broader email automation strategy, establishing a scalable, data‑driven foundation for future growth and proving that personalization and timing can meaningfully elevate both customer experience and business impact. The journey attracted recognition from the Communicator Awards, Hermes Creative Awards, IAC Awards, and VEGA Awards.
Tourism Ireland: Welcome & Nurture Email Series
The Tourism Ireland Welcome & Nurture Email Series set out to modernize how Ireland introduces itself to travelers around the world. Tourism Ireland faced a growing challenge: new subscribers across 13 global markets and six languages were receiving an outdated, one‑size‑fits‑all welcome that lacked personalization, visual impact, and cohesive storytelling.
The opportunity was not only to welcome subscribers, but to nurture inspiration over time—building excitement for Ireland as a destination while respecting where each traveler was in their individual journey.
Our solution was a thoughtfully sequenced welcome and nurture program built around storytelling, flexibility, and data‑driven relevance. The series introduced subscribers to Ireland’s culture, landscapes, and experiences through destination‑led visuals and rich narratives, supported by a modular design system that allowed for global consistency with local adaptability.
A key innovation was the creation of tailored next‑step emails for both engagers and non‑engagers, ensuring the journey stayed relevant regardless of interaction level. AI‑driven personalization further enhanced the experience, delivering smarter targeting and more meaningful content at scale.
The program delivered meaningful, measurable lifts across engagement metrics. The new welcome and nurture experience drove a 33% increase in engaged website sessions, alongside a 26% increase in click rate across select campaigns, signaling stronger subscriber interest and deeper interaction early in the journey.
By pairing destination‑led storytelling with modular design and smarter personalization, the series successfully reignited engagement at scale—transforming Tourism Ireland’s onboarding into a more dynamic, performance‑driven lifecycle experience that garnered recognition by the AVA Awards, Communicator Awards, IAC Awards, and VEGA Awards.
Nothing Bundt Cakes: Loyalty Welcome Series
The Nothing Bundt Cakes Welcome Email Series was designed to transform new subscribers into long‑term brand advocates by immediately highlighting the value of Nothing Bundt Cakes’ loyalty program. The challenge was clear: while new members were joining, many weren’t fully aware of the exclusive perks, rewards, and benefits available to them—or how to engage meaningfully with the program from the start. Nothing Bundt Cakes needed a welcome experience that could educate, excite, and motivate action, while also collecting first‑party data in a way that felt seamless and rewarding rather than transactional.
Our solution was a three‑touch, personalized welcome journey that introduced members to the loyalty offering with clarity and momentum. Each email played a specific role—announcing the program, showcasing perks and exclusives, and reinforcing immediate value—while guiding members toward deeper engagement.
Personalization was woven throughout the series to make messaging feel relevant from day one, and an instant incentive was used to accelerate participation and encourage early interaction. Just as importantly, the journey was built to capture meaningful first‑party data through a frictionless experience, enabling smarter personalization and future lifecycle messaging.
The welcome series delivered strong, measurable performance across the funnel. The campaign achieved a 24% true open rate, a 6.4% click rate, and a 5.4% conversion rate, demonstrating that early‑stage education paired with immediate value can drive real action.
By combining personalization, incentive‑led engagement, and clear storytelling, the Nothing Bundt Cakes Welcome Series successfully turned onboarding into advocacy—earning industry recognition for excellence in lifecycle and CRM marketing from the Communicator Awards, AVA Awards, and IAC Awards.
AirMedCare Network: Ireland Your Way 25k Giveaway
The Ireland Your Way Giveaway campaign set out to solve a unique engagement challenge for AirMedCare Network (AMCN): how to engage prospects, current members, and past members while introducing a bold new promotion the brand had never attempted before—an international travel giveaway.
The core challenge was striking the right balance between aspirational wanderlust and practical value for an audience of adults 45+, many living in rural areas, who prioritize family protection, health, and financial responsibility. Ireland, while visually compelling, was not an obvious or familiar travel destination for many in this audience.
The solution was a fully integrated, cross‑channel campaign that transformed a simple giveaway into an emotional, high‑energy brand moment. Ireland Your Way invited audiences to “dream big,” offering a $25,000 trip to Ireland—or a cash alternative—while meeting users with friendly email messaging, eye‑catching social creative, digital advertising, and a welcoming, image‑rich landing page inspired by the Emerald Isle. The campaign paired stunning visuals with a streamlined entry experience, ensuring the promotion felt exciting yet accessible, while reinforcing AMCN’s ongoing relationship with its members across every touchpoint.
The campaign generated more than 50,600 entries and over 302,000 page visits, alongside 22.6 million impressions and more than 200,000 clicks across paid and owned channels.
Strong engagement across email and social confirmed that the message resonated deeply with the audience, successfully blending aspiration with trust. In doing so, Ireland Your Way elevated a branded sweepstakes into a meaningful connection moment—driving engagement at scale while earning top industry recognition for integrated digital execution from the AVA Awards, Communicator Awards, IAC Awards, and VEGA Awards.
The Complete List of Awards
These examples are just a handful of our favorite award winners this year. Here is a complete list of the Zeta-designed campaigns honored across top industry competitions so far in 2026.
AVA Awards:
VEGA Awards:
IAC Awards:
Hermes Creative Awards:
Communicator Awards:
And those are just the awards from 2026. Zeta and our clients have won more than 100 awards in recent years.
Let’s Create Something Special Together
Whether you’re starting from scratch or scaling your next campaign, Zeta’s Professional Services teams are here to help you craft high-performance campaigns and strategic marketing programs.
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