How To Spy Your Competitors Email Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing, your competitors can be one of your greatest sources of insight.

Think about it—if someone in your niche is successfully running email campaigns, growing their list, and making conversions, wouldn’t you want to understand how they’re doing it?

Not to copy them, but to learn what’s working, what their audience is responding to, and how you can adapt smart strategies to your voice and goals.

Email marketing is one of the most direct and personal ways to reach an audience. But it’s also where a lot of experimentation happens behind the scenes.

Subject lines, content structure, call-to-actions, even the timing—your competitors are constantly tweaking these. And by taking a closer look at their approach, you can start building smarter campaigns of your own.

In this guide, we’re diving into practical, ethical ways to monitor your competitors’ email marketing strategies—and more importantly, how to use what you discover to build a stronger, more thoughtful approach to your own email campaigns.

Let’s get into it.

Why Keeping Tabs on Competitors’ Emails Makes Sense

No, we’re not talking about anything shady or secretive here. In fact, most of what we’ll cover in this article is totally public-facing and fair game—like signing up for their newsletter or studying their opt-in offers.

Keeping an eye on your competitors’ email marketing strategy helps you:

• Benchmark your efforts: Are you under- or over-communicating? Is your content engaging enough? Are you being too salesy—or not salesy enough?
• Stay on top of industry trends: If everyone in your space starts using countdown timers in emails or pushing a certain type of lead magnet, it’s worth paying attention.
• Spot opportunities: You might notice gaps in their content or customer experience that you can step in and fill with something better.

The truth is, your competitors are probably watching you, too. So let’s make sure you’re staying a step ahead.

How Do I Spy My Competitors Email Marketing Strategy?

1. Sign Up for Their Newsletter (Like a Regular Person)

The easiest—and most effective—way to monitor a competitor’s email strategy is to subscribe to their newsletter using a personal or separate business email.

What to watch for:

• Welcome sequence: What’s the tone? How many emails do they send? How quickly?
• Design and layout: Is it text-heavy? Are there product images, gifs, CTAs?
• Subject lines: Are they punchy, curiosity-driven, formal, casual?
• Frequency and timing: Weekly? Bi-weekly? Do they email on specific days?
• Calls to action: Are they driving readers to a sale, blog, webinar, or something else?

Pro tip: Create a dedicated inbox folder to track and categorize these emails. Over time, you’ll start to notice patterns—like seasonal promotions, specific campaign styles, or how they re-engage inactive subscribers.

2. Use Free Email Monitoring Tools

There are a few tools (free and paid) that can help you track email newsletters from multiple sources without clogging your inbox:

• Milled (https://milled.com): Archives marketing emails from tons of brands. Great for ecommerce inspiration.
• Really Good Emails (https://reallygoodemails.com): Curated examples of high-performing emails, categorized by type.
• Owletter: Automatically captures changes and trends in your competitors’ email marketing. A bit more advanced, but worth looking into for bigger campaigns.

You won’t always find your direct competitors here, but these tools are fantastic for trendspotting and understanding what high-level marketers are doing.

3. Analyze Their Lead Magnets and Opt-In Flows

Look at how your competitors are getting email sign-ups in the first place.

Visit their site and pay attention to:

• Popups and slide-ins: Are they aggressive or subtle? Timed or behavior-based?
• Lead magnets: Do they offer a free ebook, webinar, discount, or template?
• Landing pages: Are they clean and conversion-focused? Are testimonials included?
• Segmentation: Do they ask what kind of content you want? Industry? Interests?

Pro tip: Complete the sign-up process with multiple personas (if appropriate). For example, if you run a tool like MailDrip.io, you might test signing up as a solo creator and again as a small business owner to see if the email paths differ.

4. Reverse-Engineer Their Campaign Strategy

Once you’ve been getting their emails for a few weeks (or months), start looking for:

• Promotional cycles: Are they pushing sales around certain holidays? Do they launch new products quarterly?
• Content strategy: Are they focused on education, selling, storytelling, or community-building?
• Personalization: Are they using your name? Referring to past actions or preferences?

Start building a timeline or spreadsheet of their tactics. You’ll be surprised how much you can uncover by simply being observant.

5. Test What You Learn (With Your Flavour)

Here’s the golden rule: Don’t copy—adapt.

Just because something works for a competitor doesn’t mean it’s right for your audience. Use your insights as a springboard for your experiments:

• Try a subject line style they use, but tailored to your tone.
• Launch a similar type of welcome sequence, but with your unique story or offer.
• Match their frequency—if it feels like they’re staying top-of-mind without annoying people, test a similar cadence.

And of course, test, test, test. Every audience is different.

How MailDrip.io Makes This Whole Process Easier

Now, let’s talk about bringing this all together with a tool that simplifies the backend.

MailDrip.io was designed to help creators, small business owners, and personal brands run smart, simple, drip email campaigns that convert.

Here’s how MailDrip.io can help you apply what you’ve learned:

✅ Schedule emails with precision – Match (or outperform) your competitor’s timing without needing to manually hit send every time.

✅ Build beautiful sequences – Easily replicate the kind of welcome journeys and follow-ups you’re seeing from others, but in your own voice.

✅ Free templates – No need to start from scratch. Choose from ready-to-send designs inspired by top-performing emails.

✅ Pay-As-You-Go pricing – Only pay for what you use. Whether you send weekly, monthly, or launch seasonal campaigns, we scale with you.

✅ Segmentation made easy – Target specific types of leads based on their behavior, interest, or how they signed up—just like the pros.

When you combine competitor insights with a flexible platform like MailDrip.io, you’re not just copying—you’re building smarter, more intentional campaigns based on real market data.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is it ethical to spy on competitors’ emails?

Yes, as long as you’re using public channels (like signing up for newsletters), you’re simply doing market research. Avoid deceptive practices like impersonation or data scraping.

How long should I monitor competitors before taking action?

Give it at least a few weeks—enough to catch a welcome sequence, a few newsletters, and any promotions. A full season (90 days) is ideal to understand larger campaign cycles.

What if my competitors aren’t running great email campaigns?

That’s a sign of opportunity. Take note of what they’re not doing—like personalization, consistency, or value-driven content—and build those strengths into your own strategy.

How do I know what works from what I observe?

Look for repeated strategies. If you see certain layouts, subject line types, or CTA placements used again and again, they’re probably working well enough to stick with.

Conclusion

Peeking into your competitors’ email marketing isn’t just about catching up—it’s about getting inspired and staying competitive in a space where attention is everything.

By understanding how others in your space communicate, promote, and convert, you can craft email strategies that are more targeted, more human, and more effective.

So, what’s one thing you’ve seen from a competitor’s email strategy that you think you could do even better?

Try it with your own spin—then make it even easier with MailDrip.io.
Get started today →