Issue #193 All About Email

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #193 of All About Email!

Last week, I was inspired by Al Iverson as we explored email annoyances and must-haves, and there was an update to the Gmail Sender Guidelines.

This week, HubSpot launches a first-of-its-kind integration with ChatGPT for deep research, but should you even use it?

Let’s go! 👇

“Just Because You Can…

…Doesn’t mean YOU should” (to paraphrase the great Dr. Ian Malcolm).

🦖 This week’s email is not about dinosaurs (although I am hopeful Jurassic World Rebirth might be a return to form for the series).

However, we can’t discuss HubSpot’s big announcement last week without keeping Ian Malcolm’s wise words in mind and considering the announcement’s broader industry impact.

If you didn’t hear what happened, you can watch the 1-minute video below. 👇

💡 Didn’t watch the video? Here are the essential points:

• Marketing Teams can find the highest-converting cohorts and create tailored nurture sequences, then use the insights to launch automated workflows in HubSpot.

• Sales Teams can effortlessly analyse deal pipelines, identify at-risk opportunities, and receive AI-guided suggestions for next steps to close deals faster.

• Customer Success Teams can quickly surface inactive companies, identify expansion opportunities, and receive targeted plays to re-engage pipeline, then take those actions in the Customer Success Workspace in HubSpot to drive retention.

🚨 OK, so it’s “no code” and it’s “easy” to set up, it’s “an industry first”, but should you use it, friend?

Marketing Hype?

🤔 Marketing hype aside, is it any good?

I have not tested this personally yet (more on that later), but a deep dive from Gabe McCarthy would say it’s underwhelming.

Gabe has a 10-minute video breakdown of how it works in real life, and it’s worth a watch.

⚡️ Remember, this is a first iteration, so it’s the worst it’s ever going to be.

Buzz over Privacy?

Clark Barron asks the question, “Would your customer be OK with what you're about to do?“

Keep that question in mind as we progress with this next section.

🥳 There is a lot of early excitement in the email community about this, and I get it. It sounds impressive, but should you even be using it, friend?

🚨 The clue is in the small print at the bottom of HubSpot’s announcement. I live in the UK and use the Plus plan of ChatGPT, so I’m unable to use HubSpot’s new integration.

🔒 Why?..Privacy.

The EEA, Switzerland, and the UK have much tighter privacy controls than other regions (primarily the US) and rightly so (in my opinion).

💡 There is a brief line on privacy in HubSpot’s announcement:

You Breached Yourself

🤔 Sound’s good, right? Well, maybe not, Clark Barron summarises using the connector like this:

⚡️ Want to know more specifics? Then, Clark’s LinkedIn post is a must-read as he breaks down the privacy issues in a practical and easier-to-understand way.

🤦‍♂️ The timing of HubSpot’s announcement could be better in light of ChatGPT breaching its own privacy rules if it loses a court ruling, which could have even further implications for HubSpot’s connector (depending on your plan).

🤔 I can’t and won’t be using HubSpot’s connector, but before you decide to use it yourself, think very carefully about the compliance implications for you and the privacy and permissions of your clients.

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

I listen to a lot of music, friend, especially when writing newsletters.

When I hit the publish button each week, I’ll share the track I’m listening to and build the craziest playlist you’ve probably ever heard.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

That’s It For This Week 👋

🏝️ This is the last call for summer newsletter guest authors. If you’re interested, please reply to this email and I will send you more information.

I’ve been doing this for the last few years, and it has become an even more popular feature each year.

Emily Ryan, who guest-authored last year, still occupies one of my most popular newsletter posts of the year!

See you next week!

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Own The Inbox - 2025 Summit. Battle-tested playbooks for scaling a profitable newsletter. (Beehiiv)

• Tab Testing - Yahoo is introducing new Tabs for Yahoo Mail. (Travis Hazelwood)

• What Do You Think? - Marketers have sorta ruined digital marketing. (Jaina Mistry)

• InTwelve™ - Create accessible HTML email elements in twelve stages. (Paul Airy)

• 66 Million Years In The Making - ActionRocket x BBC Walking with Dinosaurs. (ActionRocket)

• You Can Turn It Off - Email summaries are now built into Gmail. (Techloy)

• When Everyone Gets An Email - How to Send Mandated Emails Without Destroying Your Reputation. (Bento)

• What’s Going On? - So Many Creators Are Moving to Substack. (Growth in Reverse)

• Girl’s Night In - Alisha Ramos Knew It Was Time to Change Everything With Her Newsletter. (Inbox Collective)

• Marketers Will Thank You - Stop Vibe Coding Your Marketing Tech Stack. (Naomi West)

• Don’t Panic - How to Diagnose and Recover From Deliverability Disasters. (Lauren Meyer)

• State of Email 2025 - We surveyed nearly 500 marketing professionals to bring you the insider intel you can’t find anywhere else. (Litmus)

• Deprecated - If you're relying solely on the Shopify Branded "Added to Cart" metric in Klaviyo, you could be missing 25x the number of cart events. (Stephanie Griffith)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋