We get it. Engaging consumers in email can be challenging. As marketers, we’re constantly looking for new strategies, ideas, tips, and tricks. Sometimes you don’t have to look any further than your customer’s first name, and sometimes you need to think more out-of-the-box. But in a world where the email noise is loud, almost deafening, one golden rule to capturing consumers’ attention is to practice contextually relevant communications.

In the latest edition of our RealTime Email Innovators case studies, we’re celebrating three of the most inspiring and successful campaigns of the quarter.

Using LiveCalendar, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay found a better way to drive concert ticket sales during its annual Food & Wine Festival. Enabling email recipients to add their favorites directly to their calendars meant that the theme park company could provide valuable information right within the calendar notification as well as follow-up with more personalized information and a call-to-action to purchase seats. The email was so successful that it became the “control” template for other parks to promote similar events.

Trendyol, a large and rapidly growing mobile fashion commerce company in Turkey, met its objective to increase total sales in its men’s sports and sportswear categories. To provide customers with a one-to-one experience and quickly capture their attention, the retailer personalized its campaign with the recipients’ name on a football jersey. Click-through rates, response rates, and conversion rates soared.

Last but not least, retailer Ulta Beauty created an elegantly designed email that increased engagement via a Year in Review campaign. Sent to its most loyal customers, the email displayed five different major points of personalization using each customer’s specific real-time shopping data. The email made each recipient feel special, quanitified how much they’d saved over the year, and encouraged them to reach the next loyalty tier to earn more rewards. Recipients responded very favorably, spending much more time engaging with this email than any others.