Why Your B2B Emails Aren’t Working (And the Fix That Actually Builds Pipeline)

By Paul Slack 19-Aug-2026

In this tactical episode of The B2B Growth Show, Paul Slack and Lauren Glover are joined by returning guest Jay Schwedelson, founder of GURU Media Hub, author, podcast host, and one of the industry’s leading email marketing experts, to break down what’s actually working in B2B email, and why many of the “best practices” marketers have relied on for years may be holding performance back.

The conversation challenges a common B2B mindset: treating every email as a direct path to pipeline. With only a small percentage of buyers actively in-market at any given moment, Jay argues that email’s job is often to build familiarity, deliver useful content, and earn mindshare so your company is remembered when a buyer is finally ready to act.

From simple personalization and overlooked segmentation opportunities to AI summaries, content recency, CTA strategy, and format fatigue, the session is packed with practical ideas marketers can test immediately.

Key TAKEAWAYS

Why measuring every B2B email by immediate pipeline can create the wrong marketing mindset
How simply telling recipients who the message is for can outperform complicated hyper-personalization
Why clicks deeper in an email can signal significantly stronger buying intent
How varying email formats can combat “template fatigue” and improve engagement
Why sending fewer emails is not necessarily the answer—and relevance matters more than frequency
How multiple CTAs with different wording can increase clicks while still driving one core offer
Why “live text” is becoming increasingly important as Gmail, Apple, and other platforms introduce AI-generated email summaries
How recency signals such as “2027,” “updated August 2026,” or “based on 2026 data” can make content more useful to both buyers and AI platforms

notable insights include

Jay challenges the idea that sophisticated personalization automatically creates better email performance. Instead of spending hours dynamically inserting dozens of data points, he recommends starting with something far simpler: identify the recipient in the message itself. Calling out “For HR Leaders,” “For Network Administrators,” or another specific role immediately signals relevance without requiring an elaborate personalization engine.

The discussion also uncovers an overlooked segmentation opportunity hiding inside most email platforms: depth of click. Jay shares that, based on his organization’s campaign data, people who scroll far enough to click a link in the second half of an email move into pipeline at a much higher rate than people clicking near the top. Rather than treating every click equally, marketers can use engagement behavior itself as an intent signal.

Another major theme is breaking away from sameness. B2B marketers often build one “winning” webinar template, newsletter template, or content-download template and repeat it indefinitely. The problem? Once recipients know exactly what an email will look like before opening it, the message becomes wallpaper. Jay recommends rotating among HTML, letter-style, digest, and other formats to keep the inbox experience fresh.

Practical Guidance You Can Apply

The session provides practical guidance on:

Auditing existing emails and replacing outdated 2026 messaging with forward-looking 2027 positioning where appropriate
Segmenting audiences based on engagement behavior instead of relying only on demographic data
Testing multiple email formats rather than locking every campaign into one template
Repeating a single offer through several differently worded CTAs
Adding directional cues, such as arrows, around calls to action
Moving critical email copy out of images and into live HTML text
Creating behind-the-scenes and walk-and-talk videos that feel more human and less produced

Jay also shares how his team is using AI operationally. By exporting LinkedIn connection data and feeding it alongside other contact information into Claude, the team can identify existing connections that align with a new offer or service—even relationships someone may have forgotten about after years of networking. He also describes connecting Claude with Gamma to rapidly develop presentation and proposal materials.

Whether you’re a B2B marketing leader trying to get more from email, a demand generation professional looking for new intent signals, or a content marketer preparing your strategy for 2027, this session offers a rapid-fire collection of tests and tactics you can put into practice without rebuilding your entire marketing stack.

The bigger lesson? You don’t always need a massive transformation to improve performance. Sometimes the advantage comes from a better CTA, a fresher format, a clearer audience signal, or one small change your competitors are still overlooking.

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