Duration: 25:15
📧 Strategic Email Marketing Beyond the Blast
Mano, a business analyst from Odoo's marketing expertise team, challenges the outdated approach of mass email blasts with no strategy. The presentation reframes email marketing around a fundamental principle: successful campaigns deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. Using the scenario of CNM, a digital marketing agency promoting a new event management service, the talk demonstrates how Odoo's Email Marketing application enables strategic, targeted, and measurable campaigns.
The framework centers on four essential questions that must be answered before sending any campaign: Why are you sending the email (defining objectives), Who will receive it (targeting strategy), What content will it contain (design and messaging), and When will it be sent (timing optimization). This strategic foundation transforms email marketing from a scattershot tactic into a precision instrument for achieving specific business goals.
🎯 Defining Clear Objectives
The why behind an email campaign determines everything from content tone to measurement criteria. Odoo recognizes various marketing objectives including brand awareness, lead generation, customer retention, product launches, and conversion optimization. For the demonstration scenario, CNM pursues dual objectives: increasing brand awareness for their event management service while simultaneously converting leads into paying customers.
Clear objective definition ensures consistency throughout campaign creation. An awareness campaign might prioritize educational content and soft calls-to-action, while conversion-focused campaigns demand stronger value propositions and prominent action buttons. Without defined objectives, campaigns lack coherent structure and meaningful success metrics, making optimization impossible.
🔍 Precision Targeting with Favorite Filters
The who question addresses audience segmentation, which Odoo solves through Favorite Filters in the Email Marketing application. These filters define exactly which contacts receive specific campaigns based on multiple criteria drawn from across the Odoo database.
For the event management service campaign, the filter targets mailing contacts (people who subscribed to marketing communications) but adds several refinement layers. The filter includes contacts with specific tags: business owner persona, RFM active, or RFM potential. It excludes blacklisted contacts and restricts geography to Belgium, where the service currently operates.
The RFM matrix (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) represents a sophisticated targeting approach integrated directly into Odoo's contact management. To create an "RFM active" segment, the filter identifies contacts with sales orders in the last 30 days and total purchases exceeding €1,000. This targets recent, valuable customers most likely to be interested in premium services.
This filtering capability leverages Odoo's integrated nature. Sales data, contact information, custom tags, and behavioral indicators all contribute to audience definition. Marketers can save complex filter combinations for reuse, ensuring consistency across campaigns while adapting criteria as business needs evolve.
✍️ Content Best Practices and Email Structure
The what encompasses both visual design and messaging strategy. Mano emphasizes that while creativity matters, email marketing requires adherence to technical best practices that affect deliverability and engagement.
Strong structure means balanced image-to-text ratios. Too many images trigger spam filters, while text-heavy emails fail to engage visually oriented readers. Critical information must appear above the fold—the portion visible without scrolling—ensuring recipients immediately understand the email's purpose.
Catchy headlines in the subject line determine open rates, but must avoid spam trigger words while accurately reflecting content. Misleading subjects may generate initial opens but damage long-term trust and sender reputation.
Personalized content transforms generic blasts into relevant communications. This extends beyond inserting names to tailoring entire messages based on recipient preferences, purchase history, and behavioral data stored throughout Odoo.
Strong calls-to-action (CTAs) provide clear next steps with prominent buttons or links. Vague CTAs like "learn more" underperform compared to specific actions like "book your event consultation" or "get your free venue guide."
Attractive visuals must relate directly to content rather than serving as decorative filler. Images should reinforce messages, illustrate products or services, and maintain professional quality without overwhelming text content.
🛠️ Building Emails in Odoo 19
Odoo 19's Email Marketing application features a redesigned framework using the same drag-and-drop block system found in the Website application, creating consistency across content creation tools.
Creating campaigns begins with foundational elements: a compelling subject line enhanced with dynamic placeholders that insert recipient-specific data like first names. The system then prompts for recipient selection, where saved Favorite Filters apply instantly, showing exactly how many contacts match the criteria (eight in the demonstration).
The email body editor provides categorized blocks for headers, footers, images, text, and marketing elements like CTAs. Dragging blocks into the canvas creates initial structure, then every element becomes customizable. Headers can resize logos and adjust layouts. Image blocks accept media uploads and positioning controls. Text blocks support rich formatting and dynamic field insertion.
The call-to-action block exemplifies customization depth. Beyond text changes, marketers can adjust button background colors, border colors, sizes, shapes (square to rounded), and linking behavior. The interface offers both preset configurations matching established design systems and fully custom styling options.
Footer blocks automatically include required unsubscribe functionality, ensuring GDPR compliance. Headers provide branding consistency with company logos and social media links. The flexible positioning system uses arrow controls to reorder blocks without drag-and-drop coordination issues.
Dynamic placeholders extend throughout email creation. Subject lines, body text, and even CTAs can incorporate recipient names, company information, custom field data, or calculated values, enabling mass personalization at scale.
⚙️ Advanced Settings and CRM Integration
The Settings panel reveals deeper configuration options that distinguish Odoo's Email Marketing application from standalone tools. The preview text field controls the preheader visible beneath subject lines in inbox views, providing additional space to entice opens.
Uniquely within Odoo, the Email Marketing application allows changing the send from and reply to addresses. While other Odoo applications (like invoicing or CRM) use fixed sender addresses tied to user accounts, marketing campaigns can present brand addresses or department-specific addresses.
The CRM integration demonstrates Odoo's ecosystem strength. By setting the reply-to address to a sales team email alias, responses to marketing campaigns automatically create CRM opportunities without manual data entry. Each sales team in Odoo possesses a unique email alias; incorporating it in campaigns directly connects marketing activity to sales pipeline generation.
This integration provides clear ROI demonstration—a persistent marketing challenge. Campaigns directly report how many leads they generated, which converted to opportunities, and ultimately which produced revenue. When combined with e-commerce integration, the system even tracks purchases originating from specific email campaigns, attributing revenue directly to marketing efforts.
⏰ Timing Optimization Through A/B Testing
The when question addresses sending time optimization, which Odoo answers through A/B testing functionality designed to identify optimal timing patterns for specific audiences.
A/B testing traditionally compares two content versions to determine which performs better. Odoo extends this to timing tests: send identical content to audience segments at different times, then automatically deploy the winning timing to remaining recipients.
The configuration splits audiences into test groups. For example, 10% receive version A at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, 10% receive version B at 10:00 AM Wednesday, and the remaining 80% receive the winning version at the optimal time identified by test results. Marketers schedule both test variants, then define the final send date for the bulk delivery.
Winner selection goes beyond standard metrics. While open rates, click rates, and reply rates serve as traditional success indicators, Odoo's integration enables business outcome metrics. Campaigns can select winners based on number of leads generated, quotations created, or revenue produced. A campaign generating fewer opens but more qualified leads can win over one with high engagement but low conversion.
The demonstration shows version comparison interfaces displaying both campaigns linked through A/B testing, scheduled for different times, awaiting results to determine which timing converts best for the business's specific audience.
🔒 GDPR Compliance and Email Data Management
Email marketing faces stringent regulatory requirements, particularly the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) implemented across Europe in May 2018. Odoo provides built-in compliance tools ensuring campaigns meet legal standards.
Unsubscribe functionality is non-negotiable. Every campaign footer must offer clear opt-out mechanisms, which Odoo's footer blocks include by default. Clicking unsubscribe immediately removes contacts from future campaigns, with the system maintaining blacklist status to prevent accidental re-inclusion.
Mailing lists enable preference-based subscription management. Rather than single all-or-nothing subscriptions, businesses can create multiple lists around topics, product categories, or content types. The demonstration shows separate lists for newsletters, events, and prospects. Contacts might unsubscribe from event promotions while continuing to receive newsletter content, respecting granular preferences.
Double opt-in provides enhanced protection, though not universally required (mandatory in Germany, optional elsewhere). When enabled, subscription requests trigger confirmation emails requiring explicit acknowledgment before activation. This prevents bot subscriptions and ensures intentional sign-ups while demonstrating clear consent for legal protection.
Website integration enables subscription through newsletter forms embedded on any page. The form configuration allows assigning submissions to specific mailing lists, letting visitors self-select content preferences during signup. The Marketing Automation application includes pre-built double opt-in campaign templates, automating the entire confirmation workflow without custom development.
📊 Comprehensive Reporting Across Dashboards
Campaign effectiveness measurement spans multiple reporting interfaces, each serving different analytical needs. Individual campaign views display core metrics through smart buttons showing opens, clicks, replies, bounces, and unsubscribes. Clicking these buttons reveals exactly which contacts performed each action, enabling follow-up workflows.
The Reporting tab within Email Marketing provides campaign comparison views, trend analysis, and aggregate performance across time periods. This helps identify seasonal patterns, audience fatigue, or content themes that consistently outperform alternatives.
Since Odoo 18, a dedicated Dashboard application offers visual analytics with graphs, charts, and advanced metrics. The dashboard includes top 10 links analysis showing which specific URLs within campaigns generated the most clicks, informing content strategy for future campaigns. Failed delivery reasons break down bounce causes (invalid addresses, full mailboxes, spam blocks), guiding list hygiene efforts.
Performance optimization strategies target specific metrics:
Low open rates suggest subject line issues—test different lengths, tones, and content approaches through A/B testing.
Low click rates indicate weak CTAs or misaligned content—strengthen value propositions and test button placement and copy.
High bounce rates signal data quality problems—implement aggressive list cleaning, remove inactive addresses, and require periodic re-confirmation.
High unsubscribe rates point to frequency or relevance issues—analyze opt-out reasons, reduce sending frequency, or refine segmentation to improve targeting.
Poor deliverability stems from reputation issues—avoid no-reply addresses, implement double opt-in, and monitor spam complaint rates closely.
🚀 Version 19 Improvements and Future Features
The Odoo 19 release focuses on framework stability for Email Marketing, rebuilding the application on the same block system used by Website and other content tools. This unification creates consistency in user experience and ensures long-term maintainability as Odoo evolves.
Framework stability enables upcoming feature development. The roadmap includes new snippet types, particularly product snippets that dynamically pull items from inventory. These would enable automated product showcase emails that always display current pricing, availability, and product details without manual updates for each campaign.
Version 19.1 addresses a major user request: direct connection between Contact application and mailing lists. Previously, mailing contacts existed as separate entities from CRM contacts, creating friction when trying to add existing customers to marketing lists. The upcoming release bridges this gap, allowing seamless mailing list additions directly from contact records.
The Q&A clarifies that sending from different email addresses within a single campaign isn't supported—each campaign selects one sender address, though the sender name can vary. Creating campaigns requiring different sending addresses necessitates separate campaign creation.
Regarding costs and technical requirements, the Email Marketing application is included in standard Odoo subscriptions without per-send charges or recipient limits, contrasting with many standalone email marketing platforms that charge based on list size or sending volume.
🧠 Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo's vision.
Email remains one of the highest-ROI marketing channels, yet most businesses barely scratch its potential because their tools exist in silos. The fundamental problem isn't the email itself—it's the disconnection between marketing data, sales data, customer data, and transactional data. When we built Email Marketing into Odoo, the goal wasn't creating another email sender. It was recognizing that truly intelligent email marketing requires access to everything you know about your customers, prospects, and business. Why should marketers export contact lists, manually segment audiences, and then blindly send campaigns without knowing which generate actual business results? That's technological friction creating business inefficiency. Integrated email marketing means your sales team's conversations inform marketing targeting, your inventory influences campaign content, and your marketing efforts generate measurable pipeline and revenue—all visible in real-time. This is what software should do: remove barriers between business functions so each enhances the others.
🏢 Viewpoint: Competitors (Mailchimp / HubSpot / ActiveCampaign)
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
Odoo's approach to email marketing demonstrates their "all-in-one" philosophy, which creates both advantages and considerations. The deep integration with CRM, sales, and e-commerce is genuinely powerful for businesses already committed to the Odoo ecosystem—the ability to automatically create opportunities from email replies or attribute revenue to specific campaigns reduces data silos that plague multi-vendor stacks. However, specialized email marketing platforms typically offer more sophisticated capabilities in areas like advanced automation workflows, predictive send time optimization based on individual recipient behavior patterns, and AI-powered content generation at the campaign level. The block-based editor is functional but may feel limited compared to platforms offering extensive template marketplaces, advanced dynamic content that changes based on dozens of variables, or built-in image editing tools. Deliverability infrastructure is another consideration—dedicated email platforms invest heavily in IP warming, reputation management, and relationships with inbox providers to maximize delivery rates, while integrated ERP solutions typically rely on SMTP configuration and third-party sending services. For businesses seeking best-in-class email capabilities with sophisticated segmentation, extensive third-party integrations, and specialized deliverability optimization, standalone platforms may offer more depth. For businesses prioritizing operational simplicity and wanting email marketing tightly coupled with their transaction systems, Odoo's integrated approach eliminates considerable complexity at the cost of some specialized features.
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.