Email Templates & Meta Ad Performance — 2026-04-05

Working session with Diana Henry (Didion) covering email template standardization, Constant Contact workflow research, and Meta ad fatigue impacting recruitment.

Attendees: Diana Henry (Didion), Melissa Cusumano (Asymmetric), Michal Bielerzewski (Asymmetric)

Overview

Two primary issues drove this session: (1) Diana discovered the existing email template's black-background team photo section was impossible to replicate when she tried to update headshots, and (2) recruitment applications are down ~35%, with a single over-saturated Meta ad identified as a likely contributor. The call also surfaced a broader workflow gap around reusable content blocks in Constant Contact and an under-spend against the monthly ad budget.

Key Decisions

• White background for team photo section. The original images were pre-composited with a black background baked in — not transparent PNGs placed on a colored row. Switching to white makes the section replicable by Diana without agency involvement. (Rationale: replicability and client autonomy over future team changes.)
• "Talk to your..." header box changed to blue. Matches the footer color and creates a more cohesive design now that the black team section is gone.
• Mobile layout workaround accepted. Centering text labels in desktop view forces correct stacking on mobile. Given that 78% of email opens are on desktop (per Constant Contact analytics), this tradeoff is acceptable.
• Meta ad strategy shift. The "Will you help us push us forward?" ad is over-saturating feeds. The platform is defaulting to the older "B" ad set due to its longer performance history. Melissa will investigate campaign settings to prioritize newer creatives.
• Constant Contact Sections research deferred. The Sections feature allows duplicating content within a single email but does not appear to offer a cross-campaign saved-block library. Melissa's team will research whether this is available via a different feature or paid add-on before any rebuild is considered.

Action Items

Asymmetric Applications Group

• [ ] Update "Customer Email 1" and "Prospect Email 1" with white-background team section and blue header box — prioritize these two first so Diana can share with sales team by EOW
• [ ] Apply the same white/blue changes across remaining built emails
• [ ] Research Constant Contact's Sections feature (or paid add-ons) for cross-campaign reusable content blocks
• [ ] Investigate Meta campaign settings to deprioritize the old "B" ad set and surface newer creatives
• [ ] Send proposed OKRs document to Diana for review

Diana Henry

• [ ] Finalize "Customer Email 1" and "Prospect Email 1" by EOW to share with sales team (meeting with them same day ~2–3pm)
• [ ] Review LinkedIn recruitment campaign proposal and advise whether to proceed (noted: recruitment roles can fill quickly, making timing sensitive)

Topic Notes

Email Template: Black Background Problem

Diana attempted to update team headshots and found she couldn't replicate the black background — the original images had the black baked in at the design stage (Michal's composites), not applied as a Constant Contact row background color. When she swapped in new PNGs, white boxes appeared around the photos.

Resolution: Raphael (digital specialist) confirmed the fix: change the row background from black to white. Going forward, all team photo sections will use white backgrounds so Diana can swap headshots independently.

Constant Contact bugs observed during testing:
- Purple checkmarks and white lines between team photos appeared in test emails but not in the platform preview — likely a rendering quirk in certain email clients/browsers (Edge vs. Chrome showed different results)
- Mobile stacking issue: text labels under team photos did not stack correctly; centering the text in desktop view resolves this

Constant Contact: Reusable Sections Workflow

The team explored whether Constant Contact supports a "snippets" or saved-block library (analogous to HubSpot's saved sections). Current finding:

• The Sections feature groups content blocks and allows copying within the same email
• There is no apparent cross-campaign saved-block library in the current plan
• Rows can be dragged between sections within an email, but cannot be saved to a global library

Melissa will assign research to the team to determine if this is a plan limitation or a feature gap, and whether an add-on resolves it. No rebuild of existing emails will be considered until this is confirmed.

Broader principle raised by Diana: Agency deliverables should be built for client replicability — templates, sections, and assets should be structured so the client can update and reuse them without agency intervention.

Meta Ad Performance & Recruitment

Problem: Recruitment applications are down ~35%. Diana reports repeatedly seeing the same "Will you help us push us forward?" ad in her personal Meta feed, suggesting ad fatigue.

Root cause hypothesis: The platform is defaulting to the older "B" ad set because it has more historical performance data, even though newer creatives are available and showing better reach metrics when they do run.

Planned response: Melissa will review campaign settings to force prioritization of newer ad creatives and introduce messaging variety.

Ad Budget & Targeting

Under-spending the budget cap likely reduces ad visibility. This will be investigated alongside the creative prioritization issue.

Geofencing / targeting notes:
- Meta: Already Wisconsin-specific; appropriate for general recruitment targeting
- Google: Better suited for fine-tuned radius-based targeting
- LinkedIn: Proposed for high-level role recruitment (e.g., CEO); cost details noted in the LinkedIn campaign proposal — Diana to review

Related

• ^[1]
• ^[2]