• by Jess Nelson , December 10, 2015

Emotion is a central ingredient in marketing and advertising campaigns, but it can be a guessing game as to whether it will help or hinder campaign engagement rates. Persado on Thursday released a report that provides rankings for emotion -- enabling email marketers to evaluate the best type of emotion to portray in their messages. 

Based on Persado’s content optimization platform, the report reveals which emotions generate the highest levels of customer engagement by industry, channel, region, and engagement type. The data was derived from an analysis of the effectiveness of emotional language across Persado’s customers’ campaigns.

Lawrence Whittle, chief revenue officer of Persado, says the research found emotional language can increase the effectiveness of content by upwards of 70%

The boost is further exemplified when marketers take into account the response variables between the best performing marketing message and the worst performing message. Persado claims that the success rates of the most persuasive marketing content can differ by as much as 800% from the least persuasive campaigns.

When it comes to email marketing, the most persuasive emotion for email body content can increase engagement rates by 130% when compared to the least effective emotion (fascination). Comparing the impact of the most persuasive emotion for Subject Line with the least persuasive (celebration) can further boost response rates by 42%.

Interestingly, the most persuasive email body text is often the exact opposite of the most persuasive subject line.

Excitement is a more effective emotion in email subject lines when compared to guilt, but guilt is a more persuasive content within the text of the email itself. Likewise, subject lines conveying luck perform better than subject lines conveying exclusivity but the exact opposite is true for the text of the email.

In North America the least effective emotion for marketing campaigns is challenge according to the report. Relief is an emotion that generates better engagement rates in both North and South America, but North Americans prefers content in the emotional category of gratification while South Americans respond better to urgent messages. 

European audiences, however, prefer content that illustrates intimacy.