A couple weeks ago, I sent an email that broke an official El Copy Goat Record.

14 UNSUBSCRIBES FROM ONE EMAIL.

Haha!

Goodness, gracious!

I typically get 2-5 unsubs per day.

(On an email list of 5,000 folk… that’s is what I would call “killing the game.”)

Especially since I send DAILY emails.

(Which means I retain 99.93% of my list daily.. bada bing bada boom!)

So what caused this influx of unsubs?!

Did I say something offensive?

(I hope so)

Racist?

(Doubt it)

WELL…

I went back to the email I wrote that day and noticed a particularly heavy emphasis on what Ben Settle calls ‘Clown Game’.

I’ll let Ben explain it to you:

More and more younger email marketers are engaging in - and some are pretty good at - what I call:

“Clown Game”

For these guys, their emails are 90%+ entertainment.

And it can absolutely work.

I know this as well as anyone, because I did the exact same thing (writing primarily clown emails) for several years. When you get good at email and infotainment, and IF you have the personality for it (many don’t), it’s an easy and profitable way to do email.

Until it isn’t.

I realized this after about 9 years of doing daily emails.

I was doing Clown Game probably 75% of the time. And it worked a lot better back then because it was still new. People were still afraid to be entertaining, show their personality, write like they talk, take chances, be controversial, say crazy stuff.

Now?

All that’s the norm.

Might this be a turn in the tide?

Are people officially tired of all the “storytelling” marketing bros in their email inboxes?

Maybe.

So I tested this out for myself.

After I saw that huge spike in unsubs, I started to injected more Info than Entertainment in my emails…

(But didn’t completely wipe out the entertainment)

That’s where I wrote emails like…

​*Free mini course on Market Research​

​*You can niche down too far​

​*Little known daily email hack​

And a ho’ bunch of others like it.

As you read those, you'll notice they are very "teaching heavy" with a healthy dose of PERSONALITY...

HERE ARE THE RESULTS!

Those emails in particular have gotten not only the lowest unsubscribe rates out of the majority of my emails (0-1 unsubs each)…

But they maintained pace of sales with my highly entertaining emails.

(And open rates too)

So from my test…

I would consider that a PHAT OL’ SUCCESS!

The experiment of what I was really trying to figure out is…

WHAT WORKS WITH EMAIL IN 2026?

But the answer isn’t “more information.”

(Hang tight, padawan)

The answer is people want to follow someone who isn’t full of 💩.

Stories are great. Information is great.

But does your content answer the question:

1. Is this guy/gal legit?
2. Do I like him/her?

That’s the thing that I failed at via the email that got 14 unsubs.

It was entertaining as heck!

But it didn’t make people like me more or trust that I’m someone worth listening to in the Sales Writing space.

This is exactly why I’ll be doing more things like live workshops (coming soon) and going live on YouTube to answer questions… LIVE.

Cause you can’t bullcrap live.

You either know it or you don’t.

And I like showing up on camera cause you can’t B.S. that nearly as much as copy/paste templates people shill for email copywriting.

I suggest you do the same.

Start putting yourself in situations where people can see, touch, hear and feel you LIVE.

Inject your WISDOM and OPINION into your writing so they know you’re not some AI bot and silly storyteller with no substance.

(But Alin I don't have any wisdom!!!!)

Then stop fakin' it and go earn some bro!

Hope this helps.

And if you wanna hop on some YouTube Lives with me…

​SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL HERE.​

I’ll be cooking something up within the next few weeks.

Your CopyCreator friend,

Alin “No Clown Game” Dragu