What's up, e-commerce warriors? Is your e-mail marketing strategy lagging? No worries we have got your back.

You're about to dive deep into the world of email marketing for your online store. And let me tell you, this isn't your grandma's email strategy. We're talking automated campaigns that nurture customers from prospect to purchaser to promoter. Sequences that turn casual window shoppers into whales dropping serious cash on the regular.

You've probably heard how insanely effective email can be for e-commerce. But maybe you're still blasting the same lame newsletter each week, crossing your fingers that someone clicks through to buy.

According to Databox, the global email marketing market will reach 17.9 billion USD by 2027.

If so, you're leaving money on the table. Big money. Because a strategic, full-funnel email program can double your revenue when done right.

So, grab your notepad start making notes, and prepare to geek out. This detailed guide has everything you need to build an e-commerce email machine that rakes in sales on autopilot.

What is E-commerce Email Marketing?

At its core, e-commerce email marketing is using email to drive sales and revenue for your online store or business. This sounds simple but it can take many sophisticated forms, like:

• Abandoned cart sequences that recover lost sales

• Lifecycle automation that nurtures customers through every stage

• Personalized product recommendations and cross-sells

• Limited-time promotional offers and flash sales

• Drip campaigns that educate and build relationships over time

The possibilities are endless. And that's what makes email marketing both powerful and challenging to implement a cohesive email strategy.

Benefits of E-commerce Email Marketing

While I could wax poetic about the benefits of e-commerce email for days, here are the main reasons you need to go all-in:

High ROI Compared to Other Channels

Unlike paid ads that require pumping budget into them 24/7, email marketing has unbeatable ROI once set up properly. 

According to data from Litmus, email marketing drives a whopping $36 return for every $1 spent. That ROI blows other channels out of the water and is the big reason companies go so ham on email.

Owned Marketing Channel

Your email list is an owned marketing asset that no one can take away from you. Social media algorithms and ad platforms can shift at any moment, crippling your visibility and outreach. But your email database of opted-in subscribers belongs to you. That direct connection to customers is gold.

According to campaign monitor, Birchbox a beauty company increased their sales with the magic of personalized emails.

High Conversion Rates

Speaking of databases, e-commerce brands report an average 5.29% conversion rate from email! That means every 20 emails sent generates about one sale when done correctly. Numbers like that make paid advertising look downright inefficient by comparison. Email subscribers are inherently more qualified and sales-ready.

Building Long-Term Customer Relationships

While paid acquisition channels like ads and influencers are great for driving top-of-funnel leads, email allows you to nurture deeper long-term relationships with your customers. Those always-on automated drips keep people engaged and buying from you time and again over months and years. No other channel can touch email for its longevity value.

Let’s look at the case of Chubbies Co-founder Rainer Castillo. He tells how emails can help build strong relationships with customers.

Watch this video to know more.

Rainer Castillo, Tomer Tagrin (youtube.com)

Driving Revenue from New and Existing Customers

Not only is email amazing for initially converting new leads into buyers, but ongoing automated sequences ensure you keep squeezing revenue out of every customer long after their first purchase. Maybe that's through a win-back campaign that reactivates dormant buyers. Or an upsell automation that promotes accessories and consumables based on previous orders.

As you can see, email marketing sits at the core of basically any successful e-commerce operation. 

Let's dig into the main types of campaigns and flows you'll want to implement.

Types of E-commerce Email Campaigns

There are several main "buckets" that most e-commerce emails fall into. Understanding the distinctions will help you map out a complete email strategy.

Transactional Emails

These are automated, operational emails triggered by specific transactional events or customer actions. These emails are crucial because they provide clients with the information they want regarding their recent actions.

Some common forms

- Order/purchase confirmation

- Shipping confirmation

- Delivery confirmation

- Password reset instructions

- Account creation/welcome

- Review request

According to Unific, transactional emails have a 114% open rate, in comparison to other marketing emails.

For Example: Warby Parker sends this confirmation email with a UPS number that makes it easy for the customer to track the progress of the order.

Source: Really Good Emails

While typically seen as functional emails, they present an opportunity to extend your brand storytelling and drive further engagement through product education, accessory recommendations, loyalty program promotions, and more.

Promotional Emails

On the flip side, promotional emails are what come to mind for most when thinking of email marketing - newsletters, discounts, sales, new product launches, and anything focused on explicitly promoting your products/services and driving direct sales. These tend to be more manual one-off campaigns rather than automated sequences.

For example, This email from Sauna House promotes the 15% offer to its customers. They inform their customers about the special promo code to hype sales.

Source: Really Good Emails

Lifecycle Campaigns

You send these emails following the various actions a consumer performs with your company. They act as a kind of guide, providing the information and offers at the right time for the client. Common examples include:

Common examples include:

- Welcome series after first signing up

- Shopping cart abandonment sequence

- Browse abandonment campaigns

- Post-purchase upsell/cross-sell flows

- Customer win-back sequence for inactive

- Loyalty program rewards and perks

For Example:  FOOD52 sends this email to its subscribers reminding them to empty their abandoned carts.

Source: Really Good Emails

These drips help maximize revenue at every stage of the funnel, from initial awareness down to retention and repeat purchases.

Engagement Campaigns

Not every email has to be a hard sell! Engagement campaigns like newsletters, announcements, and educational content pieces aim to deepen relationships with your audience over time. While not as immediately revenue-driven, staying top-of-mind builds long-term trust, association, and brand loyalty that fuels future sales down the line.

For Example: Ugmonk sends out this email to their subscribers, educating them on how to build an organizer set. They have also added a video link to keep the engagement rate high.

Source: Really Good Emails

Keep this full spectrum of email campaigns in mind as we start building out your master e-commerce email marketing strategy.

Components of Ecommerce Email Marketing

Now that we've covered the types of emails and campaigns you'll potentially send, let's dive into the key components that make up an awesome e-commerce email itself:

Subject Line

Like a killer book title or movie trailer, your subject lines need to create intrigue and curiosity to get subscribers to open. While clever wordplay and wit can work, focusing on ultra-clear value propositions, number/data points, and specificity tends to drive the highest open rates.

Preheader Text

This snippet of text appears alongside the subject line in many inboxes. That makes it prime real estate for expanding on the subject line or front-loading key info/offers to boost opens. Use sparingly though, as it can feel gimmicky if overused.

Sender Information

This includes both the name as well as email address listing who the email came from. For personal trust, use a real person's name instead of a company. And make sure that your email address is not too complex for the customers. 

According to Hubspot, emails sent with a real person’s name performed better than only a company’s name email.

Content and Copy

Your copy must be efficient, scannable, and direct. These are the hallmarks of high-converting email copy for e-commerce. With consideration for mobile devices, keep copy tight and focused on value, benefits, and specific calls-to-action rather than fluff or filler. Strike the right balance between text and visuals for your product and brand.

Visuals

Vibrant lifestyle and product imagery are essential for selling online. Don't rely solely on boring model shots or flat product listing pics. Use high-quality, emotive visuals from real-life settings to make your products pop and provide a sense of context.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

Every e-commerce email needs a singular, clear next step or call-to-action above the fold. That CTA (typically a button or hyperlink) should use action-oriented language making it blatantly obvious where/how to proceed toward a purchase decision.

Social Media Links

Make it easy for subscribers to connect with and follow your brand across other digital channels. Prominent social links help promote your presence and form a tighter bond beyond just existing as a faceless business.

Footer

The humble email footer is often overlooked but a super valuable real estate for things like legal disclaimers, contact info, support links, forwarding/sharing options, and related crosslinks driving further engagement.

Now that we've covered the essential components of what makes up a solid e-commerce email, let's focus on building up your contact list in the first place.

Building the Email List 

Growing an email list from zero to hero status sounds daunting. But it's 100% essential for e-commerce success, so you need to invest the time upfront.

Here are some ways to rapidly build your email database starting from nothing:

Create a Lead Magnet

One of the most time-tested list growth tactics is offering something of value in exchange for an email signup. Common e-commerce lead magnets include ebooks, exclusive discounts, content libraries, free shipping, mini-courses, free product samples, and more. The key is creating an ethical "bribe" folks find irresistible.

Run Giveaways/Contests

Who doesn't love gifts? Giveaways and contests not only allow you to capture a ton of emails by asking for an entry, but they also organically gain social traction and reach when done right. Just be sure the prize is something your ideal customers will love to receive.

According to Pam Neely, an open rate of more than 20% is good. A percentage above 25% is very good.

Leverage Social Media

Don't sleep on your existing social media followings as a means to rapidly grow your list! Promote your lead magnet or contests consistently across all your channels, use paid amplification tools on platforms like Facebook, and offer exclusive subscriber-only info and perks.

Guest Checkout Email Opt-In

For e-commerce brands, it's critical to capture emails during the guest checkout process. Most customers will skip creating an account, so you need that pre-purchase opt-in opportunity front-and-center for subscribers. Just be sure to clearly state your reason and use case for needing their email.

Collect Emails Offline

Don't underestimate the power of in-person and experiential marketing! Collect emails at trade shows, events, pop-ups, and brick-and-mortar stores using digital kiosks, paper fishbowls, email hand-raising tactics, and other creative means.

Exit-Intent Pop-Ups

We all know how annoying intrusive website pop-ups can be. But exit-intent triggers that only appear when a visitor is actively leaving your site can snag emails from interested window shoppers. In our experience, well-designed exit pop-ups can capture up to 10% of emails on any given site.

Data from OptInMonster reveals that exit-intent pop-ups can convert between 2 - 4% of visitors.

There you have it - plenty of ways to start accumulating subscribers from both online and offline sources. As your list grows, let's look at the key stats you need to measure.

Ecommerce Email Marketing Metrics

Simply hitting "send" and calling it a day won't cut it. To squeeze every penny out of your e-commerce email campaigns, you need a system of checks and optimizations.

Here are the most important metrics to monitor and improve:

Open Rate

This measures how many recipients opened your email. Seems basic, but it's meaningless to enjoy great click or conversion rates if your open rate sucks. Wonky open rates are often indicative of subject line or sender reputation issues that need resolving first.

According to Constant Contact, the average email open rate is 36.80%.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Once opened, CTR tells you how many people clicked on links within your campaign email. Paying close attention to which links generate the most clicks allows you to refine your content and CTAs over time.

According to Constant Contact, the average click-through rate is 1.86%

Conversion Rate

The conversion metric could represent a wide variety of "conversions" - direct sales, signups, form-fills, account creations, and so on. Obviously for e-commerce brands, tracking direct revenue per email is critical, but there may be other conversion goals like lead capturing or loyalty activations.

Bounce Rate

If you're seeing a high percentage of emails bouncing (failing to even get delivered), there could be an accuracy issue with your email list itself that needs cleaning up. Both hard and soft bounce rates deserve addressing.

According to Constant Contact, The average email open rate is 10.45%

Unsubscribe Rate

While it sucks seeing unsubs tick up, they're a fact of life in email. Still, a sudden spike could indicate an issue with your relevance, frequency, or email quality that drove people to bail en masse.

List Growth Rate

Just as important as keeping your list healthy is actively growing it over time. Most smart senders aim to replenish their unsubscribe and churn rates by at least 25-30% growth each year.

Revenue Per Email

The North Star metric for e-commerce teams. Revenue Per Email tracks how much incremental revenue was directly driven (or influenced) by each campaign sent. This allows you to easily identify your most profitable (and underperforming) campaigns.

Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate

Sometimes an overlooked stat, measuring how often people share or forward your emails can demonstrate reach and amplification beyond just your core database size. It's a good proxy for brand buzz and word-of-mouth.

ROI and Overall Revenue Impact

At the end of the day, the only metric that truly matters is your overall ROI from email marketing. Compare your total monthly revenue generated to your email program costs for a clear picture of profitability and justification.

Customer Retention Rate

While email can be an acquisition machine, it's best leveraged for keeping existing customers in your orbit over the long haul. Use cohort analysis to model how many customers stick around from their first purchase over time.

With a handle on what to measure and optimize for, here are some tried-and-true best practices to follow for maximum email success:

E-commerce Email Marketing Best Practices

Here are some of the most important best practices for maximizing the effectiveness of your e-commerce email campaigns:

List Segmentation and Personalization

Mass-blasting the same emails to your entire list is a rookie move. To maximize open and click rates through relevance, segment subscribers into targetable lists based on interests, behaviors, purchase histories, and more. Then personalize content accordingly.

Mobile Optimization

No more avoiding it - optimize every component of your email campaigns for flawless rendering and experience on mobile devices. Large call-to-action buttons, single-column layouts, small file sizes, and responsive templates are must-haves.

Compelling Subject Lines and Preheaders

Spend as much time honing the subject line and preheader copy as you do the actual email content itself. Use them in tandem to arouse curiosity and demonstrate clear value propositions to drive opens.

Clear Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Every email should have one singular, ultra-clear call-to-action button or link designed to simplify conversions. Use action-oriented copy reinforced by contrasting colors and whitespace for maximum visibility.

According to Digital Oasis, button-style CTAs had 6.5% greater conversion rates than image-style CTAs.

Optimizing Send Times

Not all send times are equally created. Through testing, pinpoint your audience's peak engagement windows for when emails are most likely to get opened and engaged. Then lean into those hot windows for promos and campaigns.

Abandoned Cart Emails

If you only send one automated campaign, make it an abandoned cart recovery sequence. Most brands see a 10-30% recovered revenue boost just by deploying triggered cart reminders promptly.

Cross-Promoting Other Channels

While email should be the centerpiece, it's most effective when amplified across an integrated omnichannel approach. Promote your social handles, reference ad campaigns, and create interconnected journeys that move fluidly.

Making It Easy to Unsubscribe

As counterintuitive as it seems, including clear unsubscribe instructions and links boosts trust and reduces automatic filtering/blocking in inboxes. Don't make subscribers hunt to opt out.

With your list primed and campaigns ready to rock, let's turn to the automation side of e-commerce email marketing that truly unlocks the scalability and revenue potential.

Email Marketing Automation for E-commerce

\When you can automate your email marketing then why send it manually?

 It's the magic ingredient that can raise the ante on your email marketing campaign. Let’s understand how.

What is Marketing Automation?

At its core, marketing automation is all about creating intelligent triggered campaigns and journeys based on each subscriber's behaviors, interests, and stage of the funnel.

Instead of generic batch-and-blast email blitzes, automation allows your campaigns to automatically adapt to hyper-personalization in real time without manual effort.

Some key examples of automated emails for e-commerce include:

Examples of automated e-commerce emails

1. Welcome series:

A sequence of emails sent to new subscribers or customers, introducing them to the brand, sharing valuable content, and potentially offering a special discount or incentive.

Source: Airbnb

2. Abandoned cart reminders:

Automated emails sent to customers who have added items to their cart but failed to complete the purchase, reminding them of their abandoned items and encouraging them to complete the checkout process.

Source: Really Good Emails

3. Product recommendations:

Personalized emails suggesting products based on the customer's past browsing or purchase history, helping to drive cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

Source: Sendlane

4. Replenishment reminders:

Automated emails reminding customers to replenish or reorder products they may be running low on, based on their typical purchase cycle or product consumption patterns.

Source: Origin

5. Win-back campaigns:

Automated email sequences designed to re-engage inactive or lapsed customers, offering incentives or special promotions to encourage them to make a new purchase.

Source: Rufflebutts

6. Post-purchase flow:

Automated post-purchase emails thanking customers for their orders, providing tracking information, soliciting product reviews, or suggesting complementary products.

Source: Really Good Emails

These automated sequences get triggered behind the scenes. Based on specific subscriber behaviors, actions, and attributes in emails. That means they show up at the perfect time when their message will be most impactful and effective.

Just as importantly, automation allows you to extend your marketing reach way beyond what any human could manually manage at scale. While a marketer has limited hours in the day, automation empowers you to automatically deploy unlimited campaigns 24/7 with zero additional effort.

When combined with smart segmentation and personalization rules, this unlocks next-level revenue performance while freeing you up to focus on other priorities.

How to Segment Customers for E-commerce Email Marketing

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: blasting the same one-size-fits-all emails to your entire list is a surefire way to sabotage performance and profitability.

Instead, make segmentation and personalization fundamental to your e-commerce email strategy. That means dividing subscribers into specific lists and cohorts, so your messaging stays hyper-relevant to their unique profiles.

Some common ways to segment customers include:

Demographic Segmentation

Basic demographic criteria like age, gender, income level, household status, and more allow you to broadly bucket customers with (assumed) similar lifestyles and purchasing behaviors.

Geographic Segmentation

Location, location, location! Segment by zip code, city, state, country, or other geographic boundaries to cater campaigns to things like climates, cultures, taxes/fees, shipping zones, holiday schedules, and more.

Behavioral Segmentation

How subscribers interact with your campaigns, products, and brand provides a wealth of insights into their motivations and prime opportunities

Purchase Frequency

A powerful way to segment is by bucketing customers based on their purchase frequency and cadence with your brand. You've got your whales who buy repeatedly, impulse one-and-done buyers, and everyone in between.

Hitting each with the right campaigns at the right frequency is crucial. For example, you may want to promote subscriptions and memberships to your high-frequency buyers to lock in that recurring value. For infrequent buyers, hitting them with irresistible offers and reminders helps reactivate their interest.

Average Order Value (AOV)

Similarly, segment by historical average order values to identify your big spenders versus bargain shoppers. Those with high AOVs may appreciate premium product/line spotlights and VIP treatments. Lower AOV customers could use bundle promotions and upsell journeys to increase their cart sizes over time.

Cart Abandonment

This one's a no-brainer - anyone who views product pages, and adds to a cart, but ghosts before completing checkout deserves special nurturing through automated cart recovery campaigns. Timely reminders and incentives bring these high-intent prospects back to seal the deal.

Lifecycle Stage

From newcomers to veterans to churned sleepers, updating customer profiles based on their active lifecycle with your brand is essential. Your campaigns should look very different when speaking to fresh leads versus long-time loyalists needing a win-back spark.

Engagement Level

Beyond Just Purchases also monitors engagement levels like email opens, click-throughs, website activity, social follows, reviews contributed, and similar indicators of someone's enthusiasm. These signals determine who gets prioritized for your hottest campaigns.

As you collect implicit and explicit data on your customers, combine these segments for precise hyper-personalization. For example,

High AOV / High Purchase Frequency = VIP appreciation campaign

Low AOV / Low Engagement = Win-back with can't-miss promotion

High Engagement / No Purchase = Education stream to drive conversion

The possibilities are limitless when you can unify all these demographic, psychographic, and behavioral signals into living, breathing customer profiles that update with every interaction.

Top Email Marketing Software for E-commerce

Okay, so you know all the campaigns to build and how to properly segment for personalization. Let's talk about tools!

While there are dozens of email marketing platforms out there, certain providers cater specifically to the unique needs of e-commerce senders. Here are some of the top email software options for online stores:

Klaviyo

Source: Klaviyo

Klaviyo is the most popular and powerful e-commerce-first email platform. It offers native integrations with all the major shopping carts and merchandising capabilities like dynamic product feeds. They are pros in lifecycle campaign automation triggered by deep e-commerce data captures.

Omnisend

Source: Omnisend

In addition to standard email capabilities, Omnisend layers on SMS marketing, shipping tracking, e-commerce automation and more making it an all-in-one command center. They're lesser known than Klaviyo but up-and-coming fast.

Drip

Source: Drip

Built by e-commerce vets, Drip combines robust marketing automation with cool features like AI-powered product recommendations and customizable visual workflows to map out your full journey planners.

Privy

Source: Privy

For newer or budget-crunched e-commerce brands, Privy wraps exit-intent pop-ups with basic email automation and SMS at an affordable starting point ideal for capturing growth early on.

Active Campaign

Source: Active Campaign

Active Campaign provides CRM and marketing automation features in addition to emails. You can effortlessly categorize your audience and create complex workflows here.

None of these will be a magic "set it and forget it" solution. However, they provide the technological infrastructure and e-commerce-tailored features to operationalize the automated campaigns, segmentation, and data integrations we've covered.

Conclusion

When executed strategically, email marketing for e-commerce brands can be a significant growth driver. A number of brands we are working with see up to 40% revenue from email marketing alone.

At Copypower Media, we tend to incorporate a mix of campaigns, including transactional, promotional, lifecycle, and engagement emails, to boost revenue growth.

We have seen tactics like incentives, contests, and referral programs also work wonders with email and SMS.

Last but not least…

Copypower Media is here to help you scale your revenue growth with email, completely hands-free.

Book a free consultation with us to find out how we are crushing it with email and SMS for brands just like yours—every single day.