• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, May 4, 2011

Email content designers need to be mindful of the difference between art and commerce. So, ideapark's Brian Brown said designers need some emotional detachment from their work.

Even a beauty may not show statistical effectiveness.

Brown said one email redesign had him so proud he "personally wanted to marry" it. Then, it was sent out and results were negative. "Got its but handed to it" versus the incumbent design, Brown said.

"You need to go with the winner and sort of move on and not get attached to these things," Brown said.

Said Litmus marketing director Justine Jordan: "One of the challenges is convincing a designer that statistics are important."