Email is on its final legs, say IT, commentators, seemingly confidently. Nonetheless, we bet that just one glance in your inbox will be sufficient to demonstrate that “you’ve (still) got mail.”
In reality, many small businesses are reviving their interest in Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns as a way to communicate with their clients in an effective, timely manner while avoiding the increasingly censorious gatekeepers of the internet. Additionally, email usage has grown steadily and healthily across the globe, showing no signs of slowing down.
This guide explains which commerce Email Marketing Campaigns are most effective and how to get the most out of each broadcast, whether you’re an experienced marketer planning your next big campaign or a beginner just starting started with Email Marketing Strategy for Ecommerce.
What is Email Marketing Ecommerce?
Email Marketing Ecommerce is the process of sending marketing messages to prospective and current consumers via email in order to sell, educate, or cultivate client loyalty. Email works best when used to send personalized, pertinent messages to segmented lists of recipients since it is a “owned” digital marketing channel, meaning the sender has complete control over the content and dissemination.
Sending transactional, promotional, and lifecycle messages via email makes it a particularly crucial tool for e-commerce. It’s a clever method to interact with customers via their mobile devices and maximize the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives.
3 Ecommerce email marketing types
1/ Transactional emails
Transactional emails: sent during checkout and other purchasing actions and are more functional in nature, sending key information to individual customers. Order confirmations, receipts, and order-shipped emails all fall within this category.
Transactional email open rates are eight times greater than non-transactional email open rates, according a Campaign Monitor report. Additionally, according to Constant Contact, the typical email CTR is 11.3%.
What gives, then? Transactional emails are anticipated, not just expected. Consumers look for them. You shouldn’t scrimp on the quality of your transactional emails due to their high engagement. Let’s start with some fundamental transactional emails that your store ought to send.
This group is divided into 4 types of emails:
1.1/ Order confirmation and email receipts
Depending on the sector, the typical open rate for a receipt or order confirmation email – Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns might range from 80% to 85%. It would be good to take advantage of the very certain attention that receipts will receive as a chance to retain a customer after an initial sale.
But first, make sure your email receipts address the most common queries consumers have, such as when they can anticipate receiving their orders, to which address you’re sending, and how they can contact you. You should only experiment with additional elements when the essentials are established.
Try recommending related products to return consumers, or give them the choice of adding an accessory or add-on to their order before it ships. Before sending out parcels to consumers, Crate & Barrel emails them to confirm their orders and invites them to add more things to their boxes.
Ways to improve order confirmation emails
- Provide the option to purchase the same thing as a gift for a friend, propose accessories for related products, or include a subscription purchasing option.
- Give a limited-time discount code or free shipping for a future purchase. This is known as a bounce-back offer, and it’s one way the revenue loss you’ll experience from a reduction makes sense because it’s frequently preferable to have the consumer return at a lower price than not at all.
- Ask the customer to join your community. If you’re selling a purely functional product, this may not work. But businesses that seek to have shared values with their customers should use their receipts as another avenue to get customers plugged into their community.
1.2/ Shipping confirmation email
Emails that confirm shipping are issued after a shipment has been delivered. They’re valuable because your consumer is already anticipating receiving their order. Also, they present a missed chance to be imaginative and wow your customers.
When trying to convert more clients, you can also think creatively. How can you encourage action and strengthen a customer’s bond with your business with the shipping confirmation email?
Tradesy promotes its referral program in its delivery confirmation email, inviting customers to give their friends and family $20 off.
When the CTAs in shipping confirmation emails are tailored to the customer’s purchase, they are very powerful. For instance, if a buyer buys a pair of men’s pants, product suggestions might concentrate on coordinating shirts and ties rather than less pertinent attire, such as a full suit or women’s clothing.
Ways to improve shipping confirmation emails
- Make it simple for your clients to follow their orders. Add a tracking number that is connected to the shipping firm and the anticipated arrival date so that customers can click once to see exactly where their order is in the delivery process.
- Encourage the buyer to recommend a friend by sending a link to the thing they bought. Implement a referral scheme with incentives to encourage word-of-mouth advertising.
- Add product recommendations that go along with a buyer’s purchase. Make certain that you’re asking customers to buy something that they’ll be genuinely interested in.
1.3/ Check-in email
Many businesses risk losing customers by ignoring their input. Fortunately, gathering feedback may be as easy as asking a single question regarding the customer’s buying experience or submitting a survey.
These requests should be sent following the assumption that the consumer has already received and used the requested item. Here is an illustration of a Dairy Queen survey:
Customers can be sent to a third-party survey service for feedback, or the entire survey can be included in the Email Marketing Ecommerce. Businesses frequently achieve this by implementing a rating system (for instance, “Rate your experience”). Customers might also be directed to a survey that is available on your website. This makes it simple to encourage happy customers to begin shopping after their review is finished.
What about people who weren’t particularly pleased with their prior purchase? Here, follow-up is crucial, both to get a response and to determine how you can make things better for prospective clients.
Ways to improve customer feedback emails
Focus on customer satisfaction, not sales, so you can get your customer’s thoughts on their purchase. Track these metrics over time and look for actionable insights you can implement to improve your business.
Consider placing the customer review/survey form on your website so the customer can see related offers and products after submitting their feedback.
Include the review on the product page as user-generated content to boost future buyers’ confidence.
1.4/ Thank you email
Sending out emails of gratitude for your consumers’ contacts with your business is a fantastic approach to motivating devoted patrons. This keeps your business in their inbox and provides you with an additional chance to boost click-through rates with deals and connections to your page.
Thank you emails are twice as engaging as generic marketing emails, according to data collected through HubSpot‘s email. Compared to normal Email Marketing Ecommerce, which had a 12% open rate and 6% CTR, thank you emails had a 42% open rate and 14% CTR.
You can utilize automatically created templates or write simple text-based emails from scratch. For your business, organizations like Bee Content Design offer templates and services for various kinds of Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns. In the example below, Bee thanks its email subscribers in an Email Marketing Ecommerce.
Ways to improve customer feedback emails
- Ensure simplicity. Shorten the content and include a call to action to encourage people to keep interacting with your company.
- Employ sensible CTAs. Depending on who is reading them, a clever CTA automatically changes. Your thank-you email will become much more personalized as a result, increasing the likelihood that your customer will take action on the CTA.
- Make them compatible with social networking. Sharing your marketing emails is one of the finest strategies to reach the correct recipients. So your consumers can do that by forwarding the email itself, but if they can share it on social media, they’ll be able to reach a lot more people a lot more rapidly.
2/ Promotional emails
Promotional emails: designed to raise awareness for a specific deal or (you guessed it) promotion. For example, a Black Friday Cyber Monday email, a Mother’s Day gift guide email, a summer savings email, or a limited-time-only discount email would all fall under this category.
You can send broadcast Ecommerce Email Marketing Ideas to all of your subscribers or, more frequently, only a certain group of them. A time-sensitive promotion, a seasonal sale, a content update, monthly email newsletters, and new product releases are a few examples of broadcast emails.
Think of these Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns as notifications you send when you have newsworthy information to discuss, so carefully consider your overarching objective, offer, and subscriber group.
2.1/ New products (or services)
New goods are frequently developed in response to client feedback, therefore there is no better place to start when launching a new than with your subscribers. You can split your list depending on prior purchases, for instance if your most recent release appeals to a particular group of your clients.
2.2/ Time-sensitive deals
Create a time-sensitive promotion that relates to customers’ interests. Offer a discount on the same category of items they bought the week before. Remember, when a sale is compelling, it’s best not to let overly clever copy get in the way.
2.3/ Subscriber-only discounts
To increase your readers’ desire to make a purchase, you can always include discount codes, whether you send out a regular Email Marketing Ecommerce or build up a drip campaign regarding specific specials. Emotional marketing is best accomplished by providing a sense of exclusivity and belonging.
The Marketing Ideas For Ecommerce below demonstrates how retailer Pioneer makes use of subscriber-only discounts. The company advertises its upcoming Black Friday sale by informing members that they will get a unique promo code on the actual sale day.
2.4/ Seasonal promotions
Notifying subscribers of special offers based on approaching holidays or the time of year is a time-tested and Successful Email Marketing Campaigns. You might wish to inform your subscribers about a Black Friday sale, a sale that will take place right after Christmas, or a spring clearance sale. Also, you may make folks aware of future celebrations like Father’s Day.
Everlane, a clothing company, advertises its Black Friday offer via email advertising. It advertises a 40% off deal and sticks out to recipients by using a lime green banner. By clicking the Buy Now link, potential customers can easily get to the website.
2.5/ Newsletter
Regular newsletters can assist with the crucial jobs of informing your audience and narrating your brand’s history. Unappreciated methods of connecting with consumers (and prospects) and maintaining contact without the use of discounts or promotions include customer case studies and brand storytelling.
The brand Rothy’s elaborates on its goal to have a positive impact on the world in the example below, highlighting how it promotes sustainability. It’s a clever strategy to take a position and communicate with clients that share your viewpoint.
Everybody enjoys a good tale, so if you can discover one from a coworker, client, or even your own business and life, think about utilizing it as the subject of a newsletter. You might mention a client who lost 50 pounds using your workout items or what made you decide to launch your company. Whatever the story is about, it should be both interesting and relevant to your brand.
2.6/ Content update
Email Copywriting For Ecommerce is often the lifeblood for new content. Consider incorporating that content in a regular newsletter or setting up new content to be sent out automatically via email through RSS if you utilize content marketing to inform current clients and attract new ones. Consider producing material that gives your new or upgraded products additional context when you can afford to make the investment (e.g., grooming tips for beauty products).
2.7/ Upsell email
When a customer shops in your E-commerce business and adds an item to their cart, an Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns called an upsell email is sent to them. It lets your buyer know that there is a more expensive or improved version of the product. With the appropriate upsell email, you may persuade clients to choose the upgraded service and increase your revenue.
2.8/ Cross sell
Cross-sell messages are triggered emails that are sent based on the receiver’s previous actions. These Email Marketing Ecommerce are sent a few days after the initial action and include the purchase history, browser behavior, and other profile data.
Lyst, an online clothing marketplace, sends a message to customers based on the brands they are interested in. The receiver can browse their favorite brands in the email window and click See More to browse the collection, as shown in the example below.
3/ Lifecycle emails
Lifecycle emails: also known as “triggered” emails, are so named because they’re sent based on what action a shopper took and where that shopper is in the customer lifecycle. For example, a cart abandonment email only sends after a customer leaves products in their cart.
Lifecycle emails are effective because they are personalized and only send relevant messages to a subset of your subscribers based on their behavior.
Even a new store owner can benefit from effective lifecycle (or triggered) emails, such as cart abandonment emails, a welcome email series, second-order emails, and win-back campaigns. Each of these Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns has the potential to impact customer satisfaction and retention significantly.
3.1/ Shopping cart abandonment emails
The average rate of shopping cart abandonment is between 60% and 85%. That’s a lot of unrealized revenue. Fortunately, you can reclaim some of those lost customers. Shopping cart abandonment emails can typically recover 5% to 11% of otherwise lost sales.
In ecommerce, abandoned cart campaigns are the closest thing to a “quick win“.
You may want to consider including an additional incentive for making a purchase, though this can lead to shoppers abandoning their carts in exchange for a discount. At a minimum, use a benefit-driven copy that entices them to return to your store with a credit card in hand.
While plain text can be effective, you may want to show the products that a customer added to their cart visually. In either case, remind them that they are only a few steps away from completing an order, and focus on the reasons why they would consider purchasing the product in the first place.
Rudy’s Barbershop sends an email to cart abandoners with a limited-time free shipping offer.
Ways to improve cart abandonment emails
- Put the main message in text format so customers will see it right away without having to enable images. Include a link back to their shopping cart so they can finish the transaction quickly.
- Remind the customer about the item(s) in their cart that are awaiting purchase so that they can regain interest in them. Highlight key features and display high-quality product images.
- Consider communicating a specific incentive, such as free shipping or discounts, to encourage them to return to their cart. If a product is running low on stock, inform customers as a courtesy while also instilling a sense of urgency.
- Make a clear and compelling call to action. Keep it brief and limit yourself to one call. Multiple CTAs are available for purchase.
3.2/ Welcome email series
Welcome emails are what you get when you give an online store your email address—you’ve probably seen them in your inbox after creating an account or signing up for a newsletter.
According to a GetResponse study, welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%. Though data varies, first purchase email automation produces three to six times more sales than a standard promotional email.
Furthermore, while a series of welcome emails may outperform a single send, engagement begins to decline after the first email in the series.
Fulton, a shoe insole retailer, is an excellent example of a welcome series. The brand offers a 10% discount code with free shipping and free returns on the customer’s order. This email is sent as soon as you sign up for the brand’s Email Marketing Ecommerce list.
Ways to improve welcome emails:
- Provide value right away. You don’t want to bombard customers with promotional messages during your one and only chance to make a good first impression.
- Within minutes, send your welcome email. Assume you offer a promo code for 10% off the customer’s next purchase in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. If someone is ready to buy right now and you don’t send them a promo code, you risk losing the sale for good.
- Establish clear expectations. Allow subscribers to easily change their preferences, inform them of what and how frequently you’ll be emailing new content, and remind them of how they got on your list in the first place.
3.3/ Second-order emails
Assume you sell video games. You may have noticed that 20% of customers buy a second controller a week after purchasing a video game console. Another 50% of customers never return.
You create a new customer or second order email campaign to increase that 20% to 70%. Simply put, when a video game console order is placed, an Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns featuring controllers is triggered a week later.
This segment of data requires you to look at Google Analytics: this segment of data requires you to look at Google Analytics. Some people will purchase the controller when they purchase the console, but a sizable segment will not, which is where you have leverage.
Ways to improve second-order emails:
- Start with your two or three top-selling products. Are there any complementary products to your best-selling items?
- Try using discount ladders to boost their effectiveness. All you did in this case was highlight a complementary product. You could also consider providing a discount on the complementary product. Alternatively, offer a discount ladder: 5%, then 10% if they don’t bite, then 15%, and so on.
- Test campaigns with your own data. Nobody can tell you what your best-selling products are, which products complement them, or when to launch the one-two punch campaign. Everyone’s campaign will look different.
3.4/ Win-back series
Win-back email campaigns come in different shapes and sizes, but they all aim to entice lapsed customers to return to positive purchasing behavior.
Assume you’ve done some research and discovered that customers tend to return and make a second purchase after 45 days. If 45 days pass without a second purchase, you know the customer is unlikely to make another purchase.
For example, suppose you have an active customer who has bought from you every 45 days or so for the past six months.
He’s recently gone missing. There have been no orders in the last 44 days. This is where a re-election campaign comes into play. Because of the unusual nature of the situation, an email would be sent to you, letting you know that you are in a unique situation and that you should be aware of it. Outdoor Voices, for example, gives inactive subscribers $20 toward online purchases of $100 or more.
Ways to improve win-back emails:
- Early testing ensures that no money is lost. The following emails are examples of what you might find if you are looking for a minimum amount to offer you. Can you get away with 5% rather than 10%? 10% rather than 15%?
- The outlook is bleak after 90 days of inactivity. If someone goes three months without purchasing, the chances of them returning are slim. This is, of course, dependent on your store and industry. Some businesses simply have a lengthy sales cycle. Just be aware that you will most likely begin to see diminishing returns after 90 days.
3.5/ Referral
Referral emails are an excellent way for a company to spread the word about its brand and the services it provides. Nielsen Marketing reports that 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.
In the example above, MeUndies provides a 20% referral coupon to anyone who is referred to the brand by a customer. Furthermore, MeUndies pays the customers who are referring $20 for each referral that results in a sale.
Ways to improve referral emails:
- Have a good headline/subject line. Make it clear and to the point and make it easy for people to see what you’re offering. Personalizing it will also give your headline extra appeal.
- Offer a good incentive. A good incentive will do wonders for your referral program. A coupon or free trial can go a long way to introducing your business to a new audience.
3.6/ Survey email
Obtaining feedback from your customer base is critical to the success of your business. Customers can help you collect data by emailing you a survey.
If you’re thinking about expanding or adding a new product or service to your offering, you can conduct a poll to see what your customers want. You can also use surveys to find out which competitors your customers like and why.
The great thing about Survey emails is that you can ask your customer base whatever you want. Take a look at Handy for example. It uses a simple one-question poll and presents it in a fun way to determine which types of cleaning services are in high demand among its customer base. Using this information, it can negotiate deals that push specific services or capitalize on demand.
Ways to improve survey emails:
- Make your subject line appealing and entertaining. Use action words and inviting text to entice your customers to take part in your survey.
- Tell them how long it will take and what kind of incentive you’re offering. Make it clear how much time the customer will spend on the survey—whether it’s a single question or an hour-long endeavor. Also, include an incentive equal to the time you’re asking your customer base to spend.
- Instill a sense of urgency. Giving your survey a deadline will prevent your customers from delaying their responses, allowing you to collect the data you require in a timely manner.
Why Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns are key to ecommerce success
The reality of website traffic, even highly targeted traffic, is that the vast majority of new visitors to your store will never return unless you do something to entice them to do so.
By providing subscribers with an incentive to stay in touch, you can retain the traffic you worked so hard to earn by building an email list and sending compelling broadcasts.
If your online store hasn’t taken the time to implement Email Marketing For Ecommerce websites, you’re probably losing money. Here are four reasons why you should include email in your marketing mix.
1/ Email lets you build ongoing customer relationships
While search engines and social media platforms are excellent for attracting new customers, Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns remains the most effective way to maintain and strengthen existing relationships over time. The average email open rate is 19.8%, the click-through rate is 11.3%, and the bounce rate is 9.4%, according to Constant Contact data.
Email Marketing Ecommerce is one of the most effective channels for building and maintaining long-term customer relationships.
Email Marketing Ecommerce is also important in encouraging a customer’s second purchase and beyond. Returning customers are important for many businesses because it lowers the average cost of acquiring a customer.
2/ Email is incredibly effective at driving sales
Of course, certain businesses (and products) complement Email Marketing Ecommerce particularly well, and returns are never guaranteed. However, similar research has painted the same picture over the years, Ecommerce Email is a high-performing channel that frequently outperforms alternatives.
Furthermore, according to Campaign Monitor, 64% of small businesses use Email Marketing Ecommerce as their primary channel for acquisition and retention. Email marketing is unusual in that it can both drive the first sale and unlock additional revenue from your most valuable customers.
3/ Email can affect the three main growth multipliers
Marketer Jay Abraham was among the first to popularize the notion that there are only three ways to increase revenue: increasing the total number of customers (C), increasing the total number of purchases per customer (purchase frequency, or F), or increasing the average order value (AOV).
Most entrepreneurs who seek a “silver bullet” acquisition usually end up disappointed and discover that acquiring customers can quickly become costly. Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns provides a viable alternative to the acquisition rat race because it can influence all three growth multipliers simultaneously:
- Automated welcome and abandoned cart emails can increase conversion rates (C)
- Bounceback or win-back campaigns can increase a customer’s number of purchases (F)
- Lifecycle campaigns and broadcasts can automatically highlight high-value products to the right customers (AOV)
A systematic focus on all three areas will further compound your results, which is one of the main reasons why developing a deliberate commerce Email Marketing Campaigns is important when growing an ecommerce business.
4/ Email isn’t influenced by third-party gatekeepers
One aspect of Email Marketing For Ecommerce that is becoming increasingly important is that it is not subject to the whims of centralized platforms, where unplanned algorithm changes can completely derail a distribution strategy.
In contrast, organic reach for Facebook pages has been declining since 2018, as the platform continues to prioritize content from friends and family in its feed.
Similarly, climbing the Google search rankings is becoming increasingly difficult, with advertisements and answer boxes resulting in an increase in no-click searches, particularly on mobile. If you want to reach your customers on these platforms, you may have to pay more than ever before—and those costs are rising.
Ecommerce Email Marketing Tips to 5x Your Conversion Rates
Even the best Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns starts with selecting an email marketing service, developing a strategy for acquiring new subscribers, and learning how to send emails legally.
1/ Choose an email service provider (ESP)
The first step in getting started with Email Marketing Ecommerce is to select the email marketing software that will be used to build your list.
There are numerous robust and cost-effective Email Marketing Ecommerce tools to choose from, so don’t get hung up on finding the “perfect” one. You can always change providers later on. Instead, choose a well-reviewed solution that meets your requirements (e.g., pricing, drag-and-drop editors, email templates, etc.), and then begin emailing and driving sales.
2/ Start building your email list
Many online business owners will tell you that their biggest marketing regret is that they did not start collecting email addresses from the beginning. Learn from this common mistake and begin building your subscriber list as soon as possible, even before you launch your business.
Before you start building your email list, keep in mind that you will need permission to follow up with prospects and customers over time. To do so, subscribers must “opt-in” to hear from you, which you can encourage in a variety of ways.
2.1/ Set up a pre-launch page
Although paying customers are required for true product validation, having an engaged email list full of potential customers is a close second.
Set up a basic landing page on your domain before you officially open your doors to paying customers, inviting visitors to stay informed by entering their email addresses. Don’t beg; instead, write copy that describes what’s exciting about your upcoming product and provide strong incentives for early adopters where appropriate (e.g., early-bird customers get 20% off on launch day).
2.2/ Collect emails from sales and customer accounts
Customer accounts are useful to businesses because they require customers to share relevant information, such as their email addresses, and they make purchasing history easier to track. The disadvantage is that many customers find it difficult to create an account for a single shopping destination.
Giving customers the option to create an account after their first order is a good compromise. Customer accounts are optional with Shopify, and you can send customers direct invitations encouraging them to activate an account after they’ve completed a purchase.
2.3/ Place opt-in forms across your site
To expand your list, you must directly ask people to sign up. So it stands to reason that the best place to ask is on relevant pages throughout your online store, where they are already engaged. Just make sure you’re not jeopardizing your site’s design and creating a negative first impression. Place your signup forms in the following locations first:
- Your navigation, header, or footer. Although these locations are likely to have lower overall conversion rates than a dedicated landing page, the number of subscribers they generate will add up over time, especially if you offer a first-time customer discount.
- You’re About Us section. “Customers don’t sign up for email, they sign up for your brand”, writes marketer Bob Frady. Your brand and offers are the backbone of your value proposition and a subscriber’s incentive to give you their email address. If your About Us page is effectively communicating your company’s vision, it’s an excellent place to encourage customers to subscribe.
- Your website’s blog or resource pages. You’re already attracting prospects looking for information if you’re using content marketing to educate your customers and rank in search engines, so including a targeted opt-in form inline or in the sidebar of your blog can help move them down the funnel.
- A form that appears as a pop-up. Set pop-ups to appear when a visitor is about to leave, so you don’t interrupt their experience. Exit-intent pop-ups only show when the search bar or back button, giving you a second chance to collect their email. To create pop-ups, use Shopify App Store apps such as Privy, Sumo, or JustUno.
2.4/ Accelerate sign-ups with lead magnets
Too often, online businesses assume that the prospect of receiving a newsletter is enticing enough to entice people to subscribe. Marketing is all about messaging and measuring results, and “get our weekly emails” is not an enticing message.
Consider making a genuine offer as an added incentive for visitors to share their email addresses. Here are some tried-and-true methods:
- Offer special deals and discounts. Discounts should be used with caution because they can reduce your margins by teaching customers to always wait for deals. Discounts frequently make financial sense if they keep a prospect you were going to lose anyway, which means they can be an effective motivator for customers to leave their email addresses.
- Run a sweepstakes or a competition. Although contests have the potential to attract a large number of signups, the inherent disadvantage is that the people you will attract are looking for free stuff. Use a giveaway to break through the noise or to jumpstart your list, but don’t rely on them to build a long-term engaged audience.
- Access to educational materials. Customers benefit from knowing more about certain consumer products. No one wants to be “good at cameras,” as developer Kathy Sierra argues in her book Making Users Awesome; they want to take beautiful photographs. Consider creating a free piece of content that provides tangible value to your target customers and puts them in the buying mood. The most effective lead magnets provide something that visitors can immediately apply and highlight a need that your product can fill.
2.5/ Ask for emails in person
Less scalable approaches to email collection, particularly those available in the physical world, have hidden value. If you sell your products at pop-up shops, take one-time orders from friends, or already have a physical storefront, you’ll come across a number of opportunities to directly ask customers for their email addresses.
The same concept applies to physical calls to action: packaging inserts and small cards shipped with orders can include discounts or offers for returning customers—just set up a separate page that customers can access by entering the link from the insert into their browser.
3/ Send emails legally
Email Marketing Ecommerce is an example of “permission marketing”, a term coined by marketer and bestselling author Seth Godin, which means that people can opt-in and out of their relationship with your brand as they see fit. The relationship you build with your email list must be permission-based, not just from a marketing standpoint, but also from a legal standpoint.
If you break the law, you could face severe penalties. To begin, become acquainted with the following rules and regulations:
CAN-SPAM. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. CAN-SPAM sets rules around commercial email.
GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation is meant to protect the personal data of individuals within the European Union.
CASL. Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation—it helps protect Canadians while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the global marketplace.
Disclaimer. The information in this guide is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a lawyer who specializes in this area if you have any specific questions about the legality of sending email.
Foundational metrics to track email marketing performance
1/ List size and growth
Growing your email list is the same as growing your business. Whether you collect emails from customers or website visitors, the larger your email list, the more potential customers you can reach to increase sales—the it’s next best thing to revenue.
Use your Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns service provider to see how many new subscribers you’ve added on a weekly or monthly basis, or between your most recent broadcast emails, to keep track of this simple but important metric. You should also monitor your unsubscribe rate to see how many people unsubscribe from your email list.
2/ Open and click-through rates
An open rate is a percentage that indicates how many of the emails successfully delivered in a campaign were opened by subscribers. A typical open rate ranges from 21% to 25%.
When you first start out, you will notice that your open rate is usually higher. Your subject line also has a significant impact on your open rate—the more compelling the subject line, the higher the open rate.
A click-through rate is a percentage that indicates how many emails successfully delivered in a campaign received at least one click.
According to Mailchimp, a typical click-through rate is two to three times the conversion rate of your online store or about 3% on average. Why? Because you have a highly targeted group of people who have opted into your content on your list. Your email’s calls to action and images have a significant impact on your click-through rate.
While open and click-through rates measure different behaviors, when combined, they reveal information about how engaging your emails are. When the numbers are lopsided—for example, if many people opened an email but only a few clicked the call to action—you can see what changes should be made.
3/ Deliverability and list of health
The hard bounce rate ranges between 0.36% and 0.91% on average. A hard bounce is an email that is returned to the sender due to an incorrect email address. If the email is delivered to the intended recipient, they have the option to report it as spam. If you are consistently flagged as a spam sender, your deliverability rates will suffer for all subscribers.
Spam filters are relatively simple. Emails are graded based on a variety of factors. If the email’s score becomes too high, the email server flags it as spam. Regrettably, each server is unique and constantly changing. As a result, what is considered spam on one server may not be considered spam on another. As a general rule, you should avoid:
- Being too “salesy” by using all caps, exclamation marks, and trigger words like “free”
- Big images with very little text, because many spam filters don’t recognize images
- Emailing old lists you haven’t properly maintained over the years
Human spam filters are even more sophisticated. Nobody can tell you why someone clicks the spam or abuse button, but there are some general guidelines. You should avoid buying lists or sending emails without explicit permission, being ambiguous about when you’ll email, hiding the unsubscribe option or making the unsubscribe process unnecessarily difficult, and leaving unengaged, inactive leads or customers on your list (though, you can and should eventually mount a reactivation campaign for those inactive leads).
Many email service providers, particularly those that prioritize deliverability, consider a 0.1% complaint rate to be a reasonable threshold. This means that for every 1,000 emails you send, no more than one person will mark them as spam or abuse.
4/ A/B test results
When conducting an A/B test, three groups of recipients are formed: an A group, a B group, and a C group. You’ll use your analytics to determine which message performed better by generating more engagement or sales after sending two variations of an email to the A and B groups. The winning version, whether A or B, will then be sent to your final pool of recipients (C).
A/B testing allows you to send high-performing Email Marketing Ecommerce with confidence by first testing specific messaging, design and calls to action with a smaller segment of subscribers.
5/ Revenue
Revenue is, of course, how much money is coming in the door. How much of your total revenue can be attributed to email marketing? According to Sanocki, many successful stores get about 20% of their total revenue from their email channel. Email Marketing Ecommerce also increases customer lifetime value, which is the amount of money spent by a customer over the course of their relationship.
Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns are one of the best things since it’s a low-risk channel to experiment with when you’re just starting started. Create a basic email list, launch your first cart abandonment campaign straight away, then gradually refine your approach until you have a comprehensive plan in place. There is no better time to begin than right now.
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