Creating email campaigns isn’t as exciting as it looks.

Sure, there’s the thrill of nailing the campaign and seeing the engagement numbers soar.

But, in between the creative bursts, there’s tons of tedious work—drafting subject lines, personalizing emails, and analyzing endless metrics.

Rather than worrying about getting everything done, you can outsource these tasks to ChatGPT.

From drafting endless email ideas to automating sequences, ChatGPT can become the virtual intern you didn’t know you needed.

In this guide, I’ll share practical tips on how to craft the right ChatGPT prompt and generate almost perfect output.

Why Use ChatGPT in Email Marketing?

ChatGPT has 400 million weekly active users as of February 2025—one of the biggest user bases across GenAI tools, and you can get tons of benefits by making it a part of your current email marketing workflows:

• It saves time by handling repetitive tasks like generating subject lines or developing visual charts, allowing you to invest more in your email campaign strategy.

• It learns and adapts through conversations and becomes more familiar with your voice, audience preferences, and campaign goals, giving you more contextual and relevant output.

• It can spark your creativity by generating 100s of fresh ideas quickly, providing tons of reference material.

• It helps you scale email personalization efforts by analyzing customer data patterns, suggesting targeted tactics, drafting segment-specific copy, and identifying performance trends across your campaigns.

How To Craft Effective Email Prompts for ChatGPT

Integrating ChatGPT into your email marketing hinges on the clarity, specificity, and relevance of your prompts.

I’ve created a fun acronym covering all key aspects of nailing your prompts:

• Specific: Clearly define your needs

• Contextual: Provide background and purpose

• References: Provide examples or supporting data

• Parameters: Set structure, tone, and length

• Iteration: Refine and tweak based on initial responses

Specific: Be Clear and Detailed

Vague prompts lead to generic responses.

Instead of giving a vague prompt like the one below,

❌ Write a marketing email about a new product.

try a more specific prompt:

✅ Write a persuasive marketing email announcing the launch of our AI-powered email personalization tool. The target audience is E-commerce store owners wanting to improve their conversion rates.

The clearer you are about what you want ChatGPT to produce, the more likely it will meet your expectations.

Context: Set the Scene

ChatGPT can sound confident even when it’s wrong. In fact, it can hallucinate and generate factually incorrect information.

That's why setting proper context is crucial—it helps ChatGPT understand what you want it to do. Without it, you might get answers that sound right but aren't helpful.

Here’s a cheat sheet on types of context you can add:

References: Add Relevant Information

One beautiful thing about ChatGPT is its ability to learn and adapt its response based on the info you provide. The more relevant information you share, the more specific the response.

Josiah Roche of JRR Marketing says, "You can't just tell ChatGPT to 'write a casual email about X [Formerly Twitter].' It'll spit out some lifeless, salesy template. You can't just say 'use storytelling' either because it'll overdo it and be cheesy as hell.”

Roche continued, “So we built a custom GPT trained on actual high-performing emails—short, punchy, and conversational, but structured to follow a storytelling flow without sounding corny."

You can build a custom generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) trained on your company’s or newsletter data. But to start small, share examples of the content you want it to create.

• Want to generate subject lines? Share 10-15 examples of successful past ones.

• Want email copies that sound like you? Include your writing guidelines or share examples of previous emails.

• Want to improve email sequences for a targeted segment? Specify the desired improvements, goals, or actions.

Parameters: Introduce Limitations

ChatGPT can go overboard if you aren’t precise in your emails. Constraints can help. Constraints are limitations that tell ChatGPT the dos and don’ts in the final output.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to generate 10 subject lines for a flash sale email, and it generated a mix of responses—some with emojis or others too lengthy.

Once I refined the prompt with constraints, I got a more practical response.

Iteration: Don’t Begin From Scratch

Even if you meet the four criteria I shared, ChatGPT’s first response might still be half-baked, and that’s OKAY.

In fact, experts share that working with ChatGPT is more like a long conversation than a one-time event.

Michelle Nguyen, Product Owner & Marketing Manager at UpPromote, says, “Most of the time, marketers get it wrong thinking of AI [artificial intelligence] interactions as one-time events. In reality, the best results come from repeating the process. The first output that ChatGPT gives you should be thought of as a rough draft that needs to be reviewed and changed.”

If your draft needs editing, instead of starting from scratch, give feedback on what to improve.

"When results aren't good, don't just start writing new content from scratch. Instead, give detailed feedback like 'make this more conversational,' 'focus more on the exclusivity angle,' or 'include more concrete examples of affiliate success stories,” Nguyen shares.

More feedback improves ChatGPT's understanding of your writing style, so the following responses will be much better than the previous ones.

Prompting ChatGPT seems like a load of work; and, in a way, it’s a skill you need to cultivate.

These two tips from experts can help. 👇🏼

Now, let’s discuss how to actually use ChatGPT for various email marketing activities.

ChatGPT for Email Content Creation

Create Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines

Your subject line needs to be as catchy as a Taylor Swift song—impossible to ignore and leaves them wanting more.

However, writing interesting subject lines for every email can be time-consuming, especially when you're on a deadline to publish your campaign or newsletter.

ChatGPT can generate ample subject line options that you can refer to. I asked it to generate 10 subject lines within 30 characters for a welcome email for new subscribers. It came up with some really impressive suggestions in its initial response. 👇🏼

For more variations, provide ChatGPT with specific information like your audience’s preferences, word choice, tone, or particular style elements. Once I specified these, it generated really good options.

You don’t have to use ChatGPT’s suggestion verbatim. You can also use the suggestions to identify compelling, emotion-evoking keywords and draft your own subject lines.

Generate Relevant Newsletter Ideas

Use ChatGPT as an idea generator to develop fresh and interesting topics for your newsletters.

When I prompted ChatGPT to generate newsletter ideas for a newsletter targeting people early in their career journey, it gave me dozens of useful ones to explore.

You can get even more unique and relevant suggestions by including details about the topics you’ve covered in your newsletter.

Draft Email Outlines and Copy

Generating content outlines is among one of the most popular uses of ChatGPT.

I’ve found that ChatGPT generates a detailed outline, giving you sharper insights into structure, flow, and content. It helps you clarify your ideas before committing to a full draft.

Here’s a prompt I used. 👇🏼 

ChatGPT generated a structured breakdown of key sections with a subject line and title.

Most of the time, the suggestions are spot-on, but always refine them to match your goal and desired content depth.

Once you’re happy with the outline, ask ChatGPT to generate the full email or specific sections.

The key is to double-check everything. AI is a great starting point, but your personal touch makes the content truly shine.

Edit Your Email Content

Aside from writing, ChatGPT can be your go-to editor for first-round feedback.

To get useful feedback, be specific about your needs.

For example:

• Do you need proofreading or help strengthening the argument?

• Should the tone be more consistent?

• Do you need all paragraphs shortened or just a few?

The clearer the request, the better the results.

Leverage beehiiv's AI Writing Assistant

If you’re on beehiiv, you can streamline content creation using our built-in AI tools.

Instead of bouncing between ChatGPT and your drafts, you can generate emails, adjust tone, fix grammar, or translate text—all with beehiiv.

My favorite beehiiv feature is the sentence completion tool. Whenever you’re stuck writing a logical sentence, this tool generates customizable suggestions to help you get unstuck.

Craft Compelling Call-to-Action Suggestions

Well-crafted CTAs guide readers and set expectations for the click’s outcome. They create clarity and urgency that drives action.

Without compelling CTAs, your emails' conversion rate will suffer regardless of your content quality.

Most marketers default to generic phrases, but ChatGPT can help you look beyond 'Learn more' or 'Try it out' by generating relevant CTA suggestions tailored to your email campaign.

Start with a simple prompt like this one. 👇🏼

For targeted CTA results, include the email copy in the prompt. This helps ChatGPT match the tone and focus of your message.

When I tested this approach with beehiiv's product launch emails, ChatGPT delivered relevant CTAs like 'Launch Smart Popups Now'—a perfect match for our campaign messaging and audience intent.

Repurpose Long-Form Content Into Emails

Nirmal Gyanwali, Founder & CMO of WP Creative, uses ChatGPT to turn blog posts, case studies, and webinars into concise, engaging emails.

Gyanwali uses a prompt like “Summarize this 1,500-word article into a 150-word email highlighting key takeaways and linking to the full piece.”

This approach can help you drastically reduce the time spent adapting material for multiple channels.

Localize Email Content for Global Audiences

Jeff Page, Head of Growth at Topview (an AI-powered video marketing platform), shared a fascinating ChatGPT use case. His team uses it to adapt email content with cultural nuances and local market trends.

"This approach has been successful in our APAC expansion, where culturally adapted emails saw 52% higher engagement than directly translated ones," Page shares.

If you have a global subscriber base or plan to expand into specific regions, ChatGPT can help with content localization.

You can ask for localization suggestions with the prompt below:

I customized the above prompt for North America, and it gave me detailed suggestions on localizing the newsletter content.

ChatGPT also shared important language nuances like using "Social Insurance Number (SIN)" instead of the U.S.-centric "Social Security Number."

These tiny details can make your content more authentic and memorable to the target readers.

ChatGPT for Email Campaign Automation

Set Up Automated Email Sequences

Use ChatGPT to generate automated email sequences like welcome emails, customer onboarding, or re-engagement campaigns.

The output was a detailed outline with the subject line for each email, time delay recommendations, and email copy suggestions.

Such a detailed breakdown can help you scale email automation by sparking ideas in your head.

Then, you can head to your beehiiv account or your current email service provider (ESP) and start building the sequence.

To make the process even faster, instruct ChatGPT to draft email content for each email.

Here’s the prompt I used:

Draft Personalized Email Messages

Automation ≠ Non-personalized emails.

Your readers want to hear from another human being (aka YOU), but personalizing dozens of similar responses quickly becomes an overwhelming drain on your valuable time and creative energy.

Offload this work to ChatGPT.

Provide your subscribers’ responses to ChatGPT and ask it to identify common patterns and categorize them by intent.

This approach will give you a bird’s eye view of your subscribers’ expectations.

Once you have the categories, ask ChatGPT to write personalized email templates for each category.

For example, if you receive many collaboration request emails, use the prompt below.

ChatGPT for Email Segmentation and Personalization

Brainstorm Email List Segmentation Ideas

Like Spotify's uncanny ability to create the perfect playlist for your mood, email segmentation delivers the content your subscribers find relevant and worth consuming.

Such content leads to higher email engagement.

However, coming up with perfect ideas for list segmentation can be time-consuming.

Feed ChatGPT your newsletter performance data and ask it to identify segmentation opportunities using the following prompt. 👇🏼

Once you have a list of ideas, head to your ESP to build segments.

In beehiiv, building audience segments is one of the easiest tasks.

You can create three types of segments:

• Static: Create fixed segment groups based on one-time conditions. The segment stays unchanged unless modified.

• Dynamic: Set segment conditions, and the system automatically adds or removes subscribers based on their behavioral data.

• Manual: Upload your email list, and segments remain unchanged until you modify it.

For static and dynamic segments, choose conditions like subscriber data, acquisition sources, or engagement information (take inspiration from ChatGPT’s suggestion).

Here’s how a segment might look in beehiiv:

Generate Tactics To Collect Subscriber Data

The successful segmentation lies in how you collect your subscribers’ data.

By default, a sign-up form and your ESP will give you much-needed data like engagement history, unsubscribe rate, open rate, etc.

However, to build more behavioral segments, you need to look beyond the obvious, and ChatGPT can suggest some non-typical but practical ways to improve data quality.

Here’s a prompt I used:

Smart data collection tactics like using short surveys in welcome emails or 1-click poll buttons sound practical while keeping your signup process simple.

Personalize Email Content for Different Segments

Once the segments are ready, ask ChatGPT to draft email copies for different groups.

For example, if a segment contains active subscribers with over 60% open rate, ask ChatGPT to draft an appreciation email to share a special coupon.

If a segment consists of readers interested in filling out your feedback form, get ChatGPT to draft personalized emails with a survey link.

This was a basic response, and it shared questions in the email, which wasn’t the aim.

After clarifying the question type and email purpose, I got a much better copy.

ChatGPT for Email A/B Testing

A/B testing is the gold standard to improve your email’s performance backed by hard cold numbers.

beehiiv’s CEO, Tyler Denk, is one of the biggest advocates for running A/B tests—and for good reason. When you see results this impressive, it's easy to understand why:

But before you jump into using ChatGPT, here’s a detailed guide on how to run an effective email A/B test.

Let’s see how to leverage ChatGPT for running split testing.

Generate Subject Lines Variants for A/B Testing

Feed ChatGPT the ‘Control’ version of the subject line and ask for variants. Also, share your goals and any specific guidelines for creating the variants.

Here’s a prompt to copy. 👇🏼

Once you’re ready with the variants, head to your beehiiv post and toggle the A/B testing button ON.

Add the test variants, set the duration, and select the sample size (% of your total subscribers). You can test up to 4 subject lines simultaneously.

Generate CTA Variants for A/B Testing

Experiment with different call-to-action variations to see how conversion and click-through rate varies.

ChatGPT can quickly generate multiple CTA options to test against each other.

Use this prompt. 👇🏼

For beehiiv’s product launch email, ChatGPT suggested a detailed response with compelling CTA copy, lead-in sentence, and placement suggestions.

You can test almost every email element—from subject lines to layout, depending on your ESP.

If you are pumped to improve your email performance, here’s an email A/B testing cheat sheet to create specific ChatGPT prompts. 👇🏼

ChatGPT for Email Campaign Analysis

I will discuss ChatGPT use cases for email data analysis in three steps:

• Analyze your newsletter performance: Using data to see what resonates with subscribers

• Understand reader engagement: Uncovering why certain emails perform better than others

• Craft better email strategies: Generating specific improvements for your next campaigns

Analyze Newsletter Performance

Subject lines are your first impression—they determine whether subscribers open your emails or scroll past them. 

By analyzing which subject lines perform best, you can identify patterns that drive engagement.

Upload your campaign data in .CSV format and use the prompt below to get comprehensive insights:

For deeper insights, consider email client differences.

Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail each render subject lines differently, which impacts how subscribers view and engage with subject lines. Ask for this analysis to understand platform-specific performance:

To understand the trends and patterns across a range of campaigns, ask ChatGPT to analyze email performance during a specific quarter or month.

Based on the response, you can get a holistic view of your subscriber journey and identify which content drives the highest engagement and also ties to overall revenue.

To make these insights more fun and easy to analyze, ask for visualizations.

While numbers are effective, bar graphs and heatmaps allow you to spot patterns you might have missed.

Understand Reader Engagement

Don't stop at surface-level metrics analysis.

Push ChatGPT to really understand the factors driving subscriber behavior.

For example, if ChatGPT highlights that the unsubscribe rate increased in the last month of the quarter, ask it to identify the subscribers’ behavioral signals correlated with the change.

If it suggested that email engagement was lowest in the last month of the quarter due to a lower deliverability rate, ask ChatGPT to identify the reason behind it.

Running such an analysis makes you more vigilant towards your email communication—both technical and human aspects.

Generate Actionable Insights

By this stage, ChatGPT has already processed a wealth of data about your audience's behavioral patterns, content preferences, and engagement triggers.

This accumulated context means it is uniquely positioned to generate targeted, specific, and highly relevant recommendations that address your concerns.

Whether you want to build a subject line checklist or revise your email sequences, ask away.

Here are the prompts you can use:

For newsletter optimization:

For subject line and preheader text:

For welcome series automation:

Make ChatGPT Your Email Marketing Intern

Think of ChatGPT as your eager intern—quick, capable, and full of ideas but still in need of guidance. Sometimes, it will surprise you with spot-on content. Other times, it’ll need some nudging (or a complete do-over).

That’s not a flaw—it’s the nature of working with AI. It’s about how much effort you put into refining the prompts, tweaking outputs, and giving feedback to support your email marketing goals.

ChatGPT can speed things up, spark ideas, and get you past creative roadblocks, but the final touch—the thing that makes your emails worth reading—will always come from you.

To bring generative AI (GenAI) into your workflows, I recommend getting started with beehiiv, as it offers built-in AI tools to help you write email copy, translate content, and refine it for maximum impact. 

Since beehiiv AI is built specifically for email marketing use cases, you’ll get much more targeted and relevant output. 

Join beehiiv today.