Do people still read emails? Yes. Just not the way you think, Dayana Kibilds

Dayana Kibilds, VP of Strategy at Ologie, delivers a rapid-fire 25-minute session at EvolveDigital Toronto on how people actually read email — and how to write accordingly. She opens by debunking the myth that email is dying: 58% of people check email first thing every morning, email consistently outperforms social media in both conversion rate and ROI, and adoption grows with life responsibility rather than declining by generation. The central challenge she identifies is that email volume has risen sharply (accelerated by AI-assisted content generation) while available reading time has not — creating a structural attention deficit that writers must design around, not blame audiences for.

Kibilds cites a Litmus 2022 study showing the average email gets nine seconds of attention — but only among those who actually read it. A third of recipients glance at an email for two seconds or less. Her core argument is that communicators must design every email to deliver its full message in two seconds, using fundamental formatting and language principles rather than clever tricks or technology.

On the sender field, she argues the debate about person-name versus brand-name senders misses the point: the sender should be whoever the reader is most likely to recognize. She illustrates with a Cornell giving-day example where emails from an unfamiliar dean's name performed far worse than branded Cornell sends.

On subject lines, Kibilds challenges the widespread goal of 'getting the open.' The subject line's job is to tell readers what is in the email so they can self-select — not to generate curiosity. A Litmus study found 54% of people open email because it is relevant; only 19% for personalization. She recommends six-to-nine word subject lines that summarize the email's content and action, not describe it vaguely. Real urgency (a deadline, a capacity limit, an expiring offer) works; fake urgency ('today,' 'right now') erodes trust. On personalization, she notes first-name drops are universally recognized as database fields and recommends second-person language ('you,' 'your') over name insertion.

On emoji usage, she advises restraint: only use emojis that add universal context or emotion, always at the end of the subject line, never replacing words. She flags accessibility as a key reason — screen readers read the hard-coded emoji name aloud, which can radically change meaning.

Inside the email, she advocates for simple language at a seventh-to-ninth-grade reading level, demonstrating with a Hemingway App analysis of a real university email that rendered as a 'red brick wall.' Her practical tip: speak the email aloud first, because spoken language naturally lands closer to the target reading level. For links, she insists every CTA needs a verb plus context — what, when, or why — never 'click here' or 'learn more' alone.

Kibilds closes with a visual demonstration of reading patterns. Single-action emails follow an F-pattern, so key information must be placed in the top, left, and middle zones. Newsletters are read by headings only, so headings must tell the complete story. She shows a before-and-after of a Tito's Vodka fundraising email, demonstrating that rewriting with F-pattern structure and bold emphasis shifts reader attention from sponsor branding to the actual donation ask.