5 Email Sending and Delivery Tips for Ecommerce Marketers
Kelsey Bernius
Email is a key marketing tactic for today’s ecommerce marketer. As ecommerce companies grow, the number of marketing and transactional emails required to keep up with customer demand and marketing efforts also increases. But how do you ensure that you’re providing value (and seeing return) with this increase in email volume?
If your emails aren’t being delivered, or your competitor makes it to the inbox faster than you do, you might be losing out on revenue. Below are 5 delivery tips ecommerce senders can follow to help increase both delivery and engagement rates for ecommerce emails.
1. Reducing sending frequency can increase delivery rates
Our 2017 Global Email Benchmark Report indicates that email marketers who send a high number of emails to individual recipients each month sacrifice engagement. In 2017, SendGrid ecommerce customers lowered their average monthly send rate from 18.3 emails to 14. And as a result, ecommerce senders experienced increased engagement metrics.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) reward better engagement, so this likely plays a big part in higher delivery rates, i.e. more people getting your email! If your delivery rates are below average, you may want to consider lowering your overall monthly send rate to improve their email engagement–and as a result, delivery rates.
Check out the full breakdown of Ecommerce engagement rates and additional insights in our report.
2. Segment email streams and use separate IPs
Ecommerce senders who send fewer than 30,000 or 40,000 emails each month can send email on a shared IP. But any sender who sends 50,000 or more emails a month needs to be more strategic. Start by separating your transactional and marketing email by sending transactional email and marketing email from separate IPs.
This is a great start, but as you continue to grow, you may find more opportunities to add additional IPs and you will require additional strategy. If you really want to dive into a fine-tuned strategy for scaling your ecommerce email program, our Expert Services Team can help you set up a personalized sending plan and optimize your entire program.
3. Send a confirmation email to new recipients
Sending a confirmation email to newly-signed-up shoppers is a great way to ensure high engagement and better delivery rates. Confirmation emails allow a brand to provide a new contact with more information about the types of messages they’ll receive. It also provides a way for the recipient to re-confirm that they want email in the future–making them a lot more likely to engage with future sends.
4. Let customers opt-out
Give your recipients the power to decide how often they will hear from you. While a preference center allows customers to tell you which types of email they’d like to receive, you can also allow them to tell you which emails they’d prefer to NOT receive.
By using a tool like unsubscribe groups in Marketing Campaigns, customers can remove themselves from different streams of emails they’re currently receiving.
5. Keep it personal
Keep recipients engaged by sending personalized and segmented content. Ecommerce marketers have access to an exceptional amount of data (e.g. recent purchases, trends, and other shopping activities) that can help email marketers customize content. By creating targeted segments of customers and leveraging custom fields, you can send intentional content that’s designed just for them.
Personalized content initiates a better connection with customers, and makes it more likely that they will engage with your emails. If you’re interested in learning more about personalization as well as information on how ecommerce senders can optimize their email marketing programs, download SendGrid’s Essential Guide to Ecommerce.
