Email marketingautomation is a powerfulcustomer retentiontool for online retailers. The trouble is, many companies don’t know which automated email campaigns are worth prioritizing and testing.
There’s significant upside to adopting email marketing. It generates the highest return on investment (ROI) out of the most common digital channels, earning retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods businesses an average of $45 for every dollar invested, according toa 2021 study from Litmus.
Email continues to provide a high-leverage way to encourage repeat purchases, making your ecommerce business less dependent on the sometimes unreliable flow of new customers. Email marketing helps you build your brand and get better customers who spend more money with you.
Equally exciting is email’s potential to provide lasting value to your business with just a few starter campaigns—and unlike a regular one-to-onebusiness email format, you can automate this process. In fact, there are seven automated email campaigns that nearly every ecommerce business can benefit from implementing.
I’m going to walk you through which emailautomationsyou should consider, what you need to know before you start broadcasting, and how to make the most of each email.
What is email marketing automation?
那电子邮件自动化指的是软件技术t automatically sends emails from your email service provider (ESP) using specific behavioral triggers. Within ecommerce, these behaviors include signing up to a newsletter, abandoning carts, purchase rewards, post-purchase transaction emails, and more.
The benefits of email automation
Beyond helping you save time from having to manually send all those emails (can you imagine that?), there are some other key benefits to automating most of your emails to customers.
1. Personalizes the shoppers experience
According to a study published onMarketing Charts in 2021, 28% of global marketers studied said leveraging personalization effectively was one of the most difficult objectives to achieve. However, one of the easiest ways to combat that is by personally addressing customers in emails, as well as personalizing their shopping experience.
Personalizing thecustomer experiencecan mean anything from giving a customer a unique discount code for items they buy regularly to creating a complex email sequence based on their shopping habits.
2. Improves customer retention rate
As well as personalizing the shopping experience, email automation helps improve retention rates through the use of automated abandoned cart emails, cross-selling items related to recent purchases or recently viewed items, and new product announcements.
Email automation has been even more important to businesses since COVID-19, with46%of organizations refining their digital communication to focus on retention of customers since the pandemic.
Learn more:9 Customer Retention Strategies & Examples to Drive Customer Loyalty
3. Helps scale email marketing strategy
Remember the idea of sending all those customer emails manually? Ouch. One of the top benefits of email automation is scalability. According to the SalesforceState of Marketingreport, 81% of marketing organizations use automation technology (including email) to help them with growing engagement.
The idea is, as your email list grows, the effectiveness of your email campaigns don’t fall from having “too many” customers—automation works the same whether it’s sending emails to 10 people or 100,000 people.
9 automated email campaigns to send
Let’s look at nine automation workflows you can build today:
- Abandoned cart email series
- Welcome email series
- Email nurture series
- New customer email series
- Repeat customer email series
- Ecommerce email receipts
- Re-engagement email series
- Product inventory updates
- Survey or feedback emails
1. Abandoned cart email series
According to research from theBaymard Institute, as many as 81.4% ofonline shopping cartsare abandoned. That’s a lot of money left on the table from shoppers who were interested enough to add your product to their cart.
Fortunately, there’s good news: WhileBusiness Insiderestimates online retailers will lose as much as $4 trillion to cart abandonment, it also estimates that savvy ones can recover about 63% of that lost revenue. That’s why it’s crucial to have a cart abandonment strategy, and automatedcart abandonment emailsthat support it.
To maximize effectiveness, take this automated email campaign further than a single reminder email. Consider a sequence of emails, and you can continue to reap the benefits long after you push the campaign live.
When you send your abandoned cart emails is important. Though there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, we generally recommend the following as a place to start if you don’t have your own data:
- Email 1:send 24 hours later
- Email 2:send 48 hours later
- Email 3:send 72 hours later
随着时间的推移,看看你的数据来确定和how you need to adjust. Look at when conversion rates start to drop to determine when you can end the sequence. Don’t be afraid to send four, five, six or more emails, especially if that’s what your metrics are telling you. I know one company, for example, that sends a seven-part email automation to re-engage abandoned carts.
Bottom line:If people keep buying from your cart abandonment emails, you should keep sending them.
Email 1: Remind shoppers of what they left behind
Most companies distribute discounts and promo codes immediately after a cart’s abandoned, and savvy shoppers have caught on. Some will abandon just to see if you’ll send a discount. If your go-to strategy is using offers, you’re throwing your margins to the wind.
Instead, use the first email as a simple reminder: Tell shoppers that they left something in their cart. Show them a picture of the product if your template allows. Add low-cost benefits, and include a link that takes them directly to checkout.
AWAY, a travel luggage and accessory brand, has a simple abandoned cart email with the header “Forgot something?” including an image of the abandoned item, a text description, and a link to return to the cart.
Notice this email acts as a simple reminder—without any offers attached. What is unique about this email is the witty copy beneath the header directly related to the brand.
Email 2: Handle objections
What’s the main reason people aren’t buying your products? Now’s a good time to address those objections head-on and convince subscribers that your product is worth buying.
Whisky Lootaddresses hesitations with its abandoned cart email automation, overtly listing product benefits and including FAQs to push users to complete their purchase.
If you don’t know what people’s objections are, you’ll want to ask. Add a question to your first email that solicits feedback about why they didn’t complete the purchase. Run it for a month and you’ll have a baseline of data around why people aren’t converting.
Use those insights to guide how you build out the second email of your cart abandonment series. Maybe you need to emphasize your free shipping or provide additional social proof through reviews and testimonials from happy customers.
Email 3: Offer a discount or incentive
If people haven’t converted after the first email, you’ll want to add extra motivation. Now’s the time to send a discount.
Whether it’s a percentage, dollar amount, free gift or other offer, you’ll want to use something that both compels people to actionandworks well for your margins. Run anA/B testto find out which approach is more effective for your audience.
Remember to include a picture of the product(s), if possible, and an obvious link back to the shopping cart so customers can complete their purchase.
2. Welcome email series
A welcome emailis the first email someone receives when they join your mailing list. You can have a welcome email for customers, but in this case, we’re talking about a welcome email for new subscribers who haven’t converted yet.
According to 2016 data fromOmnisend, welcome emails have an average open rate of 45%, versus 18% for promotional emails. Shoppers are actively paying attention to and engaging with these messages, so it’s a great opportunity for businesses.
As you’ll see in the examples below, an effective welcome email has several goals:
- Welcome new subscribers
- Give users an incentive to purchase
- Set the right expectations
- Connect with subscribers on other channels
Welcome new subscribers
Your first email should welcome new subscribers and introduce your brand. Craft a few sentences that begin the story of your brand, how you’re different, what you have in common with shoppers, and why shoppers should be excited.
Huckberry’swelcome email automation is clean and easy to understand, showcasing what the brand is all about and what subscribers can expect. It gives a warm welcome to a community of like-minded, adventuring customers.
Nomad’semail also does a solid job of introducing its brand. The email highlights products without coming off as overly sales-y. It refers to its subscribers as a “family,” another play on the idea of creating a community of loyal customers.
Give users an incentive to purchase
If you offered subscribers a coupon in exchange for their email address, make sure you set up your email automation to actually send the coupon code in the email. Create an obvious CTA that takes users directly to your website to redeem the coupon. If you offered a PDF or something else in exchange for an email, make sure it’s included in the first one.
Overstocksends a simple email, leading with the 15%-off incentive and personal language, like “Just for you.” It also reminds users of the free shipping benefit for an extra nudge toward conversion.
Set the right expectations
The idea of setting expectations ties in with welcoming and introducing subscribers to your brand. You want them to look forward to future emails, so tell them what you’ll be sending, and remember to reiterate the value. Will you send helpful email content, cool videos, promo codes, or something else? How will your subscribers benefit from this?
Get creative. Don’t be the one-trick online retailer who only sends discount codes. Treat your subscribers like friends, not as bits and bytes in your database.
Connect with subscribers on other channels
You might also want to link to your social media profiles and other channels where you’d like subscribers to connect. Rather than being the sole focus of an email, this could be a component to one or more emails.
Including other ways to connect is a great way to get users to engage with your brand on multiple channels, giving you more chances to stay top-of-mind.
Mention your social media profiles, print catalog,brick-and-mortarstores and other mediums toward the end of your emails.Dannerincludes its physical store address, and links to social media at the bottom of its welcome email.
3. Email nurture series
A lead nurturing drip campaign is perfect for online stores. Lead nurturing is when you guide shoppers through each stage of the sales cycle, ultimately driving them to purchase. At my company, we use what we call the 3/47/50 rule for our approach to lead nurturing:
- 3% of your visitors are ready to buy now
- 47% of your visitors aren’t ready to buy now, but they will buy sometime in the future
- 50% of your visitors will never buy
It’s a general rule and not a scientific fact, but we find it helpful in outlining the benefits of nurture campaigns for ecommerce.
Most companies focus on the three out of 100 visitors who are ready to buy now, and then there’s the roughly half of all shoppers who will never buy no matter what we do. That means most stores are willingly leaving the 47% of potential customers unaddressed because they’re not nurturing subscribers properly. That’s where an email nurture series comes in.
Instead of blasting people with promotions every week and focusing mostly on discounts, think about how you can add value outside of an offer.
Your subscribers are people. Yes, they may want and need your product, but there’s a lot more that you can help them with. Doing so will help differentiate your brand from competitors, and establish you as an authority in your industry.
Email 1: Educate subscribers
Teach your email list something, either about your product specifically or something relevant to your product or audience. For example, takeHuel. Instead of emailing subscribers with information about meal supplements, it could teach people about:
- What goes into a good supplement
- The dangers of nutrient deficiencies and how they affect the body
- How some protein supplements are bloated with unnecessary or low-quality ingredients
- The science of healthy nutrition
- Why the different sources of vitamins make a difference on the ease of absorption
- Spotify playlists that are perfect for working out
- The best ways to style up a simple shake supplement
For almost any product, there’s an endless list of topics to write about. Here’s the thought process:
- We sell meal replacement supplements.
- We sell supplements, so we can write about nutrition.
- Nutrition is for keeping the body healthy, so we can write about health and wellness.
- Health and wellness are related to fitness, so we can write about good fitness routines.
- Our supplements help people get nutrients they need, so we can explain the science of balanced nutrition.
The concept is to take one idea and see what it leads to. All of the topics above would be interesting to a potential customer for Huel and a way for the business to stay top of mind without the need to rely on promotions.
Email 2: Help subscribers get to know your brand
You use the welcome email as the first introduction to your brand. Your email nurture series is where you can expand on your brand story.
Craft an email or series of emails that tell the story of your brand and why it’s different. Tie your brand to a bigger purpose if you can.
Uncommon Goodssent this email automation to share more information about the brand’s mission to make a positive impact on the world. It tells how they support ethical brands and artisans.
It’s a great tactic for customer retention. Consumers are more loyal to companies that support social and environmental issues.
Email 3: Embrace storytelling
Everyone loves a compelling story, so if you can find a notable one from a staff member, customer, or even your own life, use it as a topic for a nurture email. Short on ideas for stories?
Maybe a customer used your fitness products to lose 50 pounds, or you could share what originally inspired you to start your company. Whatever the story is about, it should be both interesting and relevant to your brand.
Ultimately, stories are effective lead nurturing tools because they humanize your brand and make it interesting and relatable for shoppers.
Email 4: Engage based on site behavior
如果一个用户与即时聊天,我在社会dia or via some other means that allowed you to collect their email, send a follow-up message related to that initial action.
ModClothsends an email after users have had a live chat session on their site. They also humanize the brand with a photograph of the customer support rep, including information about her hobbies and where she’s from.
The brand solicits feedback about users’ live chat experience, and they can then use that data to improve the support they provide and ultimately drive more sales.
4. New customer email series
The email you send to a first-time customer is critical. If you skip this opportunity, you could leave a significant sum of money on the table. You have the chance to start a customer relationship that leads to lifelong loyalty and brand advocacy.
The first thing to understand about new customers is that they’re in a precarious position. They trust you enough to buy something once, but they’ve probably had bad purchasing experiences before and, subconsciously, they’re afraid you might be another company that fails to deliver. If you do come up short, it’s unlikely they’ll buy from you again.
On the other hand, if you deliver on the customer experience, new buyers are more likely to become repeat customers who support your business for years to come.
Email 1: Welcome email
When to send:Immediately.
Similar to the series for new subscribers, the email for new customers welcomes them into your community, performs more brand indoctrination, and explains what’s next.
How long will it take for their order to leave the warehouse? When will it arrive? What’s your return policy? This is also a great time to suggest related products, but it should have an obvious link to what they just bought, which will help avoid coming across too pushy.
Email 2: Check-in email
When to send:~3 days later.
Check in with customers and ask them how everything went. Consumers are used to being ignored by companies during this process, and you can stand out by asking them to get in touch if they need anything.
Make it easy for them to get in touch. Tell customers to replay directly to the email rather than making them submit a contact form or support request.
Email 3: Product arrival
When to send:2 days after the product should have arrived.
This is a simple email informing customers that their product should have arrived. Ask them if the product did in fact arrive and, more importantly, if it arrived safely. Knowing about potential problems as soon as possible is better than letting a frustrating situation fester. This also shows that you’re proactive in providing support.
Email 4: Product review
When to send:~4-5 days later.
This is another simple email you can use to solicit feedback. This helps to drive sales because today’s online shoppers use customer reviews during the purchase process.
According toThe eMarketer Ecommerce Insights Report, almost a quarter of consumers said they always look at customer reviews, while 40.8% said they use them often. Ask customers to leave a review for your product if they were satisfied with their purchase.
This email fromJ.Crewsolicits feedback from customers, sending them to a survey for each recent product purchased. It also indicates that the customer reviews can end up on the website (presumably as testimonials).
Email 5: Time-sensitive promotion
When to send:~5 days later.
Create a time-sensitive promotion that relates to customers’ interests. Offer a discount on the same category of items that they bought in the week before.
Living Social经常使用邮件自动到期交易mations, emphasizing how little time is left to snag the savings. They could take it a step further by offering personalized recommendations based on users’ browsing behavior.
Email 6: Follow-up promotion
When to send:~1 day after the time-sensitive promotion.
Follow up on your promotion. Remind them of the time limit, such as if there’s only 24 hours left.
Here’s Living Social’s follow-up email to the example above, sent 24 hours later. The brand simply changed the “Today Only” language to “Second Chance.”
5. Repeat customer email series
回头客占reven的近四分之一ue, although they only make up 11% of the customer base, according to aStitch Labs reportabout customer loyalty. You’ll have an easier time creating an entire automated email campaign targeted at strengthening relationships with existing customers than trying to attract new ones.
Repeat customersshould be treated differently than your new customers. They know, like, and trust your business, and that trust is founded on previous positive experiences.
What repeat customers need is relevant information and products that solve their problems. So with your repeat customers, your job is to focus more on offers related to customer interests and being helpful.
Email 1: Checking in
When to send:2 days after the product should have arrived.
This first email, like the check-in email for new customers, should make sure the delivery went well and the product arrived as expected. Depending on the product, this could also be a good time to ask for a review.
Email 2: Personalized recommendations
When to send:4 days later.
因为这些都是回头客,你知道更多about their preferences. That makes it easier to send a product offer tailored to them. The best part? You don’t need to discount prices or offer a promo code. Simply curating personalized product recommendations is providing value enough.
Booking.comuses shoppers’ browsing and search history on their platform to offer up related destinations. They highlight the low prices available and the benefits of their customerloyalty program.
6. Ecommerce email receipts
电子邮件收据是一个虚拟的销售和金矿revenue: That means that they’re the perfect place to make an offer and encourage your customers to take other kinds of action.
Optimizing your email receipts is relatively straightforward. Take your default email receipts with pertinent information, such as a transaction number, name/photo of the purchased product(s), shipping details, how to contact support, and payment information.
Then add the extra stuff, like product recommendations, links to your social media profiles, or even clickable pre-populated social posts about how they can’t wait to receive their product.
Kalelee Creationsemail receipts sent through Etsy show where the package is shipping from and to, plus a direct link to track it.
There’s also a personal note from the founder, plus a coupon code for future purchases.
ThriftBooks, on the other hand, curates personalized product recommendations at the bottom of its e-receipts. This is an effectiveupselling and cross-sellingtactic.
7. Re-engagement email series
Over time, your subscribers may start ignoring your emails. A re-engagement, or “win-back,” automated email campaign can reignite interest. OneReturn Path studyfound that nearly half of users who receive these emails will open and engage with subsequent ones.
But that’s not all. You also want to do this to show Google and other email providers that people actually want your emails.
While there are a few ways to run automated email campaigns like this, there are some fundamentals to remember:
- Begin with a reminder
- Follow up with an amazing offer
- Inform subscribers that you’re going to delete or unsubscribe them soon
- Unsubscribe inactive users
Here’s the re-engagement campaign structure we use for clients (we send it to subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked an email in 60 days):
Email 1: Meaningful discount
If subscribers haven’t responded to our first email sequence, introduce a meaningful discount paired with a compelling message to make a return visit.
How big of an offer can you make that won’t tank sales? It could be a discount, free gift with purchase, or even a product bundle. Keep your margins in mind, but if there’s a time to offer a steeper discount than usual, that time is now.
You want to use something that’s going to push customers to your site to buy. Be willing to lose money on this sale—once customers are reengaged, they’ll spend more money with you in the future. And that’s when the real profits come in.
Blue Apronsends two of these re-engagement emails, two days apart. The first email highlights a $30 offer for resubscribing to the meal kit delivery service on the same day.
The second email highlights a seasonal product offering, instilling a sense of urgency to purchase before it runs out, plus a reminder of the $30 offer.
Email 2: Removal from list
Kindly inform subscribers that they’ll be deleted if they don’t respond or make a purchase.
Give them a specific date or period of time to take action so they don’t put it off for later. This is a good place to remind customers about the offer you made in the last email.
Email 3: Unsubscribed
If they haven’t responded, follow through with your word and unsubscribe users. You’ll also want to let them know that they’ve been unsubscribed, in case they missed the first email or didn’t have a chance to respond.
Include a link where they can easily resubscribe to your email list or adjust their email preferences. This is also a good time to give a final reminder of your offer.
8. Product inventory updates
Similar to the idea of re-engagement, you can also send customers inventory updates. When an in-demand item in your store has come back in stock, you want your customers to know about it!
“Back in stock” update emails are also a relatively untapped goldmine—these emails have an average open rate of just over 65% and a click-through rate of just over 19%, according to research fromBarilliance.
Inventory update emails are easy to optimize too—if it’s just one item back in stock, then you can dedicate the whole email as a call to check out the product page, like Bloomscape for example:
However, if you regularly have a lot of items coming in and out of stock, notifying your customers every time might get annoying. So, you can also optimize these emails according to personal preferences and behavior triggers.
For example, if a customer adds an item to a wish list or they select to be notified when an item is back in stock, you can send them a personalized email letting them know, like Huckberry:
When an item Huckberry sells goes out of stock, customers can opt in to be notified when that item is available again. So even if lots of items are back in stock, your customer gets a personalized experience by only receiving relevant information.
9. Survey or feedback emails
Feedback or customer satisfaction survey emails are also another type of email prime for automation. While these emails might not have a direct influence on your general revenue like abandoned cart emails, they are nonetheless important.
Sixty-seven percent of customers will consider leaving a review for a positive experience, while 40% will consider leaving a review for a negative experience, according to research fromBright Local.
The key is to provide an experience so good your customers feel almost an urge to talk about it.
However, there are a few different types of surveys (some easier to complete than others):
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
- Customer effort score (CES)
- Product-market fit (PMF)
Each type will require a different kind of email. However, the most popular type is NPS, since it’s usually only a single question, like in this example from Squarespace:
These simple, but effective emails help you determine whether your products and customer services are hitting the right mark—which in turn helps inform the future direction of your business.
Tips for making email marketing automation effective
Mind your “from” name and email
“从”字段的名字的电子邮件是什么shows up in inboxes. Here, you want to use something that’s familiar to subscribers. In many cases, you’ll want to use your brand or company name, like the brands here:
If your brand has a strong personal element, like Martha Stewart or Oprah, use someone’s actual name.
As far as your actual email address, make yourself accessible. Avoid the standard “noreply@yourcompany.com” email address. If people want to email you, whether to ask a question, give feedback, or something else, they should be able to. Use something like “hello@yourcompany.com,” “support@yourcompany.com,” or “shop@yourcompany.com.”
Choose an effective subject line
The subject line is the first impression and will ultimately determine whether your emails are opened or not. Brainstorm several subject lines for every email you send and test two to three subject lines for every email.
Over time, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t, and you can apply those learnings to increase the effectiveness of your email automation campaigns. Here are some best practices:
- Avoid “sales” and other overused words.They don’t always trigger spam filters, but many subscribers will ignore them.
- Personalize whenever possible.Include their name in the subject line or preheader text, and send personalized offers based on user preferences.
- Keep it brief.Most people scan their inboxes, so make it easy on them. Use 50 characters or less.
- Don’t go overboard with promotion.Avoid hype, all caps and exclamation marks. Sell the benefits, but be honest and straightforward about it.
- Don’t mislead your audience.If your email contains a coupon code for a 10% discount, don’t try to trick them into opening the email by saying something like “Dinner?”
- If possible, include somesense of urgency.
Use the preheader text
After the “from” name and subject line, recipients see the preheader text. Often, this is the first line of the email or the standard “View email in browser,” but you actually have the ability to customize it.
You want the preheader text to continue the tone in the subject line and maintain the excitement so that people open your email automations.
Keep it focused
Once someone’s opened your email, you’ve won half the battle. Now you want to encourage click-through.
Make the next course of action as simple as possible, giving them one main offer or CTA. If you have multiple offers or CTAs, make it clear which one is the priority with your design hierarchy.
Remember mobile
More than half of people open email on smartphones,per Litmus, so it’s important to optimize your emails for mobile devices.
Manyemail service providersdo this automatically, but it’s important to test across devices to maintain a positive and consistent experience.
Best email automation tools
Let’s look at a few top marketing automation software for Shopify merchants: Klaviyo, Shopify Email, and Mailchimp.
Klaviyo
One top email marketing tool for automation isKlaviyo. When you link Klaviyo to your Shopify store you can unlock powerful features such as specific segmentation based on shopping behavior and self-sending messages.
You also get the ability to sync all your Shopify data to figure out what makes customers click or bounce.
Klaviyo has a massive library of automated workflows you can use to launch an effective email marketing campaign in minutes.
Shopify Email
Native to the Shopify app, you can also useShopify Emailto help you craft amazing automated emails from scratch or via email templates. Using a drag-and-drop editor, you can manage all your campaigns within the Shopify platform—saving you money from having to use another ESP.
Mailchimp
Another popular email marketing tool and CRM isMailchimp, which also has a direct integration with Shopify. Mailchimp differs a little from the other providers here by having AI-powered insights—giving you recommendations that help boost engagement and sales. You can also start with Mailchimp for free and only pay as your email list grows.
Create your automated email marketing campaigns today
Now that we’ve covered seven automated email campaigns you can try, as well as some best practices, make your way through this list to set up your sequences. Shopify'smarketing automationfeature makes it very simple to get started.
Unlock more profitable campaigns with emails that trigger based on purchase history, key milestones, and other actions taken across your online store.
We’ve even included pre-built templates for essential campaigns with the timing and conditions ready to go live. Welcome messages, post-purchase upsell emails, and customer win-back campaigns are turnkey and easy to activate, all without leaving the Shopify admin.
Remember, the sooner you start, the better. Every day without these campaigns is a day you could be generating more sales effortlessly.
About the author:John McIntyre is the founder ofDrop Dead Copy,an agency that helps ecommerce stores increase sales with email marketing.
Ready to create your business? Start your free trial of Shopify—no credit card required.
Email automation FAQ
Why is email automation important?
How do you use email automation?
To create automated email sequences you need to have an email service provider (ESP) that includes automation features (such as Klaviyo, Shopify Email, MailChimp) and an email list to send your emails to.
With these two things in place, you can set up email sequences that trigger on specific behaviors, such as buying items, signing up for a newsletter, abandoning carts, and more.