E-commerce email marketing can be daunting. There are so many email types that learning the ropes can make you feel like you’re drinking from a fire hydrant. We’re here to quiet the noise. This guide makes it easy to understand everything you need to know about e-commerce email.
We’ll start with our top tips to help you outshine the competition, convert website visitors into customers, and drive e-commerce revenue. Then we’ll walk you through the emails you’ll need to know as an e-commerce marketer—with real-life examples for good measure.
Build it, don’t buy it: Build your email subscriber list yourself. It might be tempting to buy an email list (quick access to so many customers sounds like a dream), but it’s not worth it. Buying a list can negatively impact your sender reputation and email engagement metrics. You’ll drive more revenue with a smaller, high-quality email list.
Keep your data clean: Clean data is the cornerstone of every effective marketing channel. You want your demographic and customer profile information to be as accurate as possible (this will affect your customer insights
Segment your lists: Email segmentation allows you to send the right email to the right audience at the right time. That way, you’re finding the perfect balance of regular contact without veering into spam territory.
Automate, automate, automate: Automated emails allow you to send real-time one-to-one emails to customers and potential customers. Automate emails like welcome emails, curation emails, and card abandonment emails to maximize the customer experience and enhance customer loyalty.
Message with clarity: Keep your email template design and your messaging simple. Include a primary and a secondary message and cap it at that. When you include too much in your emails, users get confused about what you want them to do, and they’re less likely to convert.
As an e-commerce retailer, these are the 20 email types you need to have as part of your marketing strategy. We’ll introduce you to what each one is and provide you with a real-world example.
A curation email surfaces a selection of products likely to appeal to an e-commerce customer. Curation emails can feature bestsellers or a curated selection of products tailored to the customer’s preferences and shopping behaviors.
The cart abandonment email is an automated email that’s sent to a customer when they add an item to their cart but leave the website before completing the purchase. Simple in design and message, the cart abandonment email encourages them to return and complete the purchase. Your CTA and headline copy do a lot of heavy lifting here, so you’ll want to test different messages to ensure you’re maximizing conversions with your cart abandonment emails.
This is the email you send after a subscriber signs up to receive emails. A welcome email gives you the opportunity to introduce your brand, highlight some of your products, and offer a special, one-time discount to help convert them from email subscribers to customers. Making discounts time-sensitive is a popular approach because it creates a sense of urgency and increases the likelihood that shoppers will make a purchase.
People are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand that’s been recommended by a friend. Referral marketing can help you cut down on customer acquisition costs and increase sales. A referral email is a message sent to your email subscriber list with an enticing offer, like “15% off,” for referring a friend. Simple and effective.
Customers don’t have to know each other for your e-commerce business to harness the power of referrals. A testimonial email features real-world feedback your business has reviews. It can feature quotes from five-star reviews, or it can highlight a single project/customer in a case study (which can be especially effective in B2B e-commerce).
A re-engagement email series is sent to disengaged customers to recapture their attention. A re-engagement email will likely be similar to other offers you send, like a welcome email or cart abandonment email (discounts are common), but the messaging will be curated for disengaged email subscribers.
A newsletter is an email sent at a regular interval that keeps subscribers up-to-date with the latest news, events, and resources. The newsletter should be a content-heavy message. Your primary aim is to deliver valuable content for your audience. Any products or shopping messaging should come at the end of the email, if at all.
Special discounts and sales are a reason to celebrate… and send an e-commerce email. If you have a promotion on a certain brand or certain products, send a discount email series. It’s good practice to send customers multiple emails—announcing and reminding them of the discount—to increase the likelihood they will make a purchase.
A sale email is very similar to a discount email in that you’re offering a reduced price on your products. Sales tend to include more products than a discount email and may happen seasonally or at a set cadence.
Holiday promotion emails that promote special deals or products during holidays or seasonal events. Think: Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, Christmas, and World Oral Health Day (obviously).
A birthday email is an automated, one-to-one email sent to a subscriber on their birthday or in their birthday month. It’s common for e-commerce retailers to offer a “gift” like a discount or gift-with-purchase to add that personal touch (and encourage a customer to shop).
An anniversary email is an automated, one-to-one email sent to a subscriber on the yearly anniversary of their becoming a subscriber. It can be a simple “thank you” or contain an enticing offer.
A recommended products email is a targeted email based on a customer's shopping behavior. “Frequently purchased together” and “people also bought” emails are popular examples.
Email marketing should be a core part of the marketing strategy for any product launch. A new product launch email creates buzz and demand and educates customers on the benefits of the new product.
Nothing creates urgency quite like a back-in-stock email. These days it’s common to see a “sold out two times” or “sold out in five minutes” in email messaging. Do you think customers are wondering why their favorite brand can’t seem to make appropriate stocking choices? Nope. They’re much more likely to be clicking through to purchase before they miss out…again.
An order confirmation email is an automated email sent once the customer has completed a purchase. It includes a confirmation number and sets expectations for the shipping/delivery process.
Shipping emails include the shipping tracking number and provide details on the delivery. Some brands send a single shipping email once the shipping label has been created, while others will send detailed updates, including a notification once the shipment is out for delivery and has been delivered. What kind of shipping emails you can send will depend on the technology and tools you’re using to manage product shipping.
A thank you email is a simple message that thanks the customer for their business. A thank you email adds a personal touch to an e-commerce transaction.
Once your customer has received their product, you can email them to request that they review their purchase. Some brands run contests for reviewers, giving customers an added incentive to leave a review.
A survey email is any email that asks customers to answer questions. It can be a survey about their recent experience (online or in-store), a survey about your website, or a survey about what products they would or would not be interested in. Survey emails provide you will powerful customer insights and data.
Twilio SendGrid is the tool you need to level up your e-commerce marketing. Create dynamic digital marketing campaigns, use email templates to design to your brand, and rest assured that your emails are reaching their intended targets, thanks to our industry-leading deliverability rate.
