Ecommerce Email Marketing: Strategies + Software

Ecommerce email marketing involves crafting messages that cut through the noise, battling spam filters, and tracking results that matter.

By addressing these challenges head-on, you can get results for every penny you spend.

When done right, email marketing for ecommerce delivers unparalleled benefits: driving targeted engagement, fostering customer loyalty, and increasing repeat sales.

In this blog, we explain,

• What is ecommerce email marketing?
• 10 high-converting ecommerce email marketing strategies
• 5 best e-commerce email marketing software

Let’s dive in.

What is Ecommerce Email Marketing?

Ecommerce email marketing is the practice of sending targeted marketing emails to customers to promote products, drive repeat sales, and build customer loyalty.

Among all other marketing channels, email marketing boasts a high return on investment, giving you $36 dollars in return for every dollar spent. This is what makes an ecommerce email marketing unparalleled.

Email marketing is important for ecommerce because of:

• High customer retention rate
• High ROI
• Tailoring content based on user behavior and preferences
• High customer engagement rate

Types of Email Marketing Campaigns in Ecommerce

Ecommerce email marketing campaigns should be strategically sent based on a customer’s position in the email marketing funnel to ensure that the content is relevant and timely.

Early-stage customers should receive educational email newsletters about your products, while those further down the funnel get targeted promotions or exclusive offers.

Email marketing automation for ecommerce allows you to send these campaigns automatically based on customer behavior and where they are in the email marketing funnel.

Welcome Emails

Welcome emails generate 320% more revenue per email than other promotional emails. That’s why welcome emails are one of the most important ones you can send in email marketing for ecommerce.

When to send: Immediately after a customer subscribes or creates an account.

What to include:

• A warm greeting and thank you message
• A brief introduction to your brand and values
• Overview of what to expect from future emails
• Special offer or discount for new subscribers

Here is an ecommerce email marketing example by Glossier.

Email Newsletters

Use email newsletters to share valuable content like product guides, how-tos, and industry insights.

While promotional emails are for hard-sell, ecommerce email newsletters are for soft-sell where you provide value to the reader beyond just selling.

When to send: Send email newsletters 2-3 days after welcome email.

What to include:

• Product highlights include new product launches and your bestsellers.
• How-to guides related to your products
• Tips and tricks for using your products
• Case studies of how customers use your products
• Customer testimonials

Here is an ecommerce email marketing template:

Abandoned Cart Emails

While most of your revenue is locked in abandoned carts, these emails are your best bet to reclaim those lost sales.

When to send: An hour after a customer leaves items in their cart without completing the purchase.

What to include:

• A reminder of the items left in the cart
• Product images and descriptions
• Total cost and discounts
• Clear call-to-action (CTA) to complete the purchase

Here is an abandoned cart email template.

Transactional emails

Beyond serving as mere notifications, transactional emails like order confirmation emails enhance the customer experience, build trust, and create opportunities for further engagement and sales.

When to send: Send automatically right after the purchase is completed

What to include:

• Thank You Message
• Order Details
• Payment Information
• Billing address
• Shipping Information
• Link to track the package
• Return and Exchange Policy

Here is a transactional email example by Crocs.

Sale Announcements and Promotions

By sending sale announcements and promotions, you can appeal to bargain hunters and deal-seekers, encourage first-time buyers to make initial purchases and reactivate dormant customers with offers.

When to send: During major shopping seasons, holidays, or when launching a new sale.

What to include:

• Clear details on discount amounts or promotional offers
• Sale duration and any terms/conditions
• Featured products or categories
• Sense of urgency (e.g., “Limited time offer”)

Here is an ecommerce email marketing template by Canon.

Back-in-stock emails

By sending back-in-stock emails, you can use email marketing to convert potential lost sales into actual revenue and re-engage customers who showed interest but couldn’t purchase due to stockouts.

When to send: As soon as the item is restocked

What to include:

• Product Details: Name of the restocked item, high-quality product image, price
• Sense of Urgency: Mention limited quantities if applicable. Example: “Only 10 items back in stock!”
• Suggest related or alternative products

Here is an ecommerce email marketing example.

Win-back emails

Not every customer sticks with you forever. Some drift off. But they are not a lost cause yet. Not when you present them enough reasons to come back through a re-engagement email or win-back email.

When to send: After a period of 45 to 60 days of inactivity.

What to include:

• Acknowledgment of absence
• Highlight what makes your brand/products unique
• Showcase any new products or features they might have missed
• Incentive to return
• Customer testimonials
• Update on What’s New

Here is an example of a win-back email.

8 Best Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategies

In this section, we help you create an email marketing strategy to sell more through advanced email marketing.

The steps to create an ecommerce email marketing strategy are:

1. Define your goals
2. Segment your customers
3. Map out your ecommerce email campaigns
4. Automate and schedule emails
5. Analyse ecommerce email marketing metrics and optimize

Let’s look at the best email marketing strategies in detail.

Email Automation

Ecommerce email marketing automation cuts out the repetitive work.

Imagine your team not having to manually send welcome messages or follow-ups. Instead, these are handled automatically, saving hours of labor and reducing the chance of human error.

Ecommerce email marketing automation software offers automated workflows – the pre-defined sequences that combine triggers and actions. By sequencing these elements, you create a multi-step automated journey for your customers.

Here is an example of an ecommerce email marketing automation workflow:

Abandoned cart recovery automation: Triggered when a customer abandons the cart and sends out a sequence of abandoned cart emails reminding customers at well-timed intervals.

Email Segmentation

Email segmentation involves dividing your email list into groups based on criteria like age, location, or purchase history, and it allows you to implement personalized email marketing.

Email segmentation is the most high-converting ecommerce email marketing strategy out there.

Here is why:

• Segmented email campaigns had 100.95% clicks compared to non-segmented emails.
• Segmented email campaigns result in a 760% increase in revenue.

There are five types of email segmentation techniques:

• Demographic segmentation
  Criteria: Age, gender, location, income, education level, occupation, etc.
• Behavioral segmentation
  Criteria: Purchase history, website activity, email engagement, shopping cart abandonment, etc.
• Preference-based segmentation
  Criteria: Product interest, content preferences, etc.
• Lifecycle stage segmentation
  Criteria: New customers, active customers, inactive customers, loyal customers, etc
• Purchase history-based segmentation
  Criteria: Frequency of purchases, Total purchase value, Product categories, Purchase history trends

Personalize your emails

Email personalization is more than just adding a recipient’s name to a subject line.

Personalization as an ecommerce email marketing strategy is about creating tailored experiences that resonate with each individual, making them feel valued and understood.

The ways to do personalized ecommerce email marketing are:

• Use customer names
• Segment your customers
• Recommend products based on browsing behavior
• Use purchase history data
• Send birthday and anniversary emails
• Implement behavioral triggers
• Include location-based content

By personalizing emails, you can reduce unsubscribe rates through email marketing in ecommerce.

Achieve high email deliverability.

High email deliverability ensures your ecommerce email campaigns reach the inbox, not the spam folder. If they don’t land where they should, they’re as good as invisible.

Ecommmerce email marketing tips to achieve high email deliverability are:

• Verify your sending domain
• Maintain a clean email list
• Doing personalized email marketing
• Avoid spammy words
• Implement double opt-in
• Monitor your unsubscribe rates

Avoid overloading with promotional emails

Too many promotional emails can lead to unsubscribes and decreased engagement.

The best ecommerce email marketing strategy to reduce unsubscribe rates is to balance promotional content with value-driven emails like educational content or product tips.

Increase your CTR

Clicks are a direct path to conversions and a key ecommerce email marketing metric. The more clicks you get, the higher the chances of turning one-time buyers into repeat customers.

Ecommerce email marketing tips to achieve high CTR are:

• Segment your customers and personalize your email content based on the unique characteristics of each customer segment.
• Include clear Calls to Action (CTAs)
• Optimize for mobile
• Use A/B testing

Include User-Generated Content

The best ecommerce email marketing idea is to include user-generated content and build trust.

Feature customer reviews, testimonials, or photos in your ecommerce email campaigns.

Include clear CTAs

CTAs are the critical prompts that guide recipients toward taking the actions you want them to, such as making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource in your ecommerce email marketing campaigns.

Here are some tips to include strong CTAs.

• Use strong, directive verbs such as “Shop Now,” “Get Started,” “Download,” or “Claim Your Offer”.
• Limit the CTA to a short, direct phrase. For example, instead of “Explore Our Extensive Range of Products,” use “Browse Our New Collection”.
• Use contrasting colors that stand out against the rest of your email design.
• Include phrases like “Limited Time Offer,” “Act Now,” or “Ends Today” in your CTA.
• Position CTAs above the fold and include them at the end of the email.

Ecommerce Email Marketing Best Practices

Focus on CTR, not only on open rate.

An ecommerce email marketing best practice is to optimize your automated email campaigns not only for open rates but for click-through rates, too.

While open rates measure how many recipients open your email, click-through rates indicate how effective your ecommerce email is at driving action. CTR as an email marketing metric provides a clearer picture of engagement and the relevance of your content.

Don’t let automation keep you from email personalization.

Generic email blasts are a thing of the past.

Even though automated emails for ecommerce sound like sending generic emails to everyone in the email list, you can segment the customers and send personalized emails through ecommerce email automation, too.

Send emails throughout the customer lifecycle.

The ecommerce email marketing best practice is to be consistent in sending emails throughout the customer lifecycle.

Implement ecommerce email marketing automation workflows that address each stage of the customer journey, such as welcome newsletters for new subscribers, educational content for nurturing, and re-engagement campaigns for inactive customers.

Doing lifecycle email marketing helps convert potential customers into buyers and loyal ones.

Clean email list with list suppression features.

Build an ecommerce email marketing strategy that leads to a clean email list and improves deliverability and engagement by removing invalid, inactive, or duplicate addresses.

List suppression features of email marketing tools help prevent emails from being sent to users who have opted out or bounced previously.

Choose the best ecommerce email marketing software.

Features and ease-of-use of email marketing software impact your success of ecommerce email marketing ideas.

Evaluate the best tools for ecommerce email marketing automation based on:

• Is the platform easy to use?
• Does it provide all major ecommerce automation workflows?
• How effective is abandoned cart recovery?
• How easy is it to customize email templates?

5 Best Email Marketing Software for Ecommerce

The 5 best ecommerce email marketing software are:

• Retainful
• Omnisend
• Mailchimp
• Activecampaign
• Brevo

Let’s look at these tools in detail.

1. Retainful

Retainful is the best ecommerce email marketing software that features easy-to-setup email automation. Every feature is tailor-made for ecommerce store owners like you.

It has seamless ecommerce email marketing automation at its core and is very simple to use – you wouldn’t need a 3-page manual to automate emails.

You can create targeted sign-up forms and popups that collect the email addresses of your visitors and help you grow your email list.

This ecommerce email marketing platform’s advanced segmentation feature allows you to group your customers based on many pre-defined or custom criteria and do personalized email marketing.

Coming to crafting your emails effortlessly, it has an intuitive drag-and-drop editor – no code required.

Standout features:

• Easy-to-setup email automation
• Pre-built automation workflows
• One-click abandoned cart recovery
• Pre-designed email segmentation templates
• Targeted sign-up forms

Price tiers and Email Volume:

• Free plan: 500 Emails
• $9/month: 10,000 Emails
• $19/month: 20,000 Emails
• $49/month: 50,000 Emails

2. Omnisend

Omnisend is an omni-channel ecommerce marketing platform – that combines email, SMS, and push notifications.

It provides email marketing automation for ecommerce, allowing you to set up automation workflows for cart abandonment, browse abandonment, post-purchase emails, welcome emails, and more.

It allows you to include dynamic content using customer data and behavior, ensuring each recipient receives a tailored message.

This ecommerce email marketing tool offers various tools for email capture: targeted popups, landing page builders, sign-up forms, and exit-intent popups.

Standout Features:

• Enhanced customer journey mapping
• Dynamic content and advanced segmentation
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics
• Ecommerce focused features

Price tiers and Email Volume:

• Free plan: 500 Emails
• $16/month: 6000 Emails
• $59/month: Unlimited Emails

3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a full-fledged digital marketing hub, giving you multichannel campaign support, website-building tools, reports, and ecommerce email marketing automation. It covers almost all of the bases a small business needs to get started.

This best email marketing software for ecommerce allows you to have a taste of almost all its key features with a free plan. You just have to sign up with your email to access the one-step email automation, the marketing CRM, multichannel marketing tools, and pre-designed email templates.

Standout Features:

• Enhanced automated customer journey
• AI suggestions for crafting emails
• Both pre-built and custom email templates
• Surveys and feedback creator
• Landing page builder

Price tiers and Email Volume:

• Free plan: 1000 Emails
• $4.60/month: 5000 Emails
• $6.87/month: 6000 Emails
• $137.41/month: 150,000 Emails

4. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign’s automation capabilities allow users to create complex, automated workflows that can trigger personalized emails based on specific actions, behaviors, or time intervals.

Beyond email marketing, this tool offers a built-in CRM system designed to manage and nurture leads throughout the sales funnel.

This ecommerce email marketing platform also enables site and event tracking, allowing users to monitor subscriber interactions with their website and other digital assets.

Standout Features:

• Predictive sending and content
• Dynamic content personalization
• Comprehensive CRM features

Pricing:

• Free trial is available
• $29/month: 1000 contacts
• $49/month: 1000 contacts, Landing page builder, and more features

5. Brevo

Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is an ecommerce email marketing software and has evolved to become a comprehensive customer relationship management suite.

This best email marketing software for ecommerce offers a clean interface for creating automation workflows, with options to create your own or use one of the pre-built templates.

Using this email marketing tool, you can build and design custom landing pages to capture leads, promote offers, and drive conversions.

Standout Features:

• A/B Testing
• CRM integration
• Dynamic content blocks
• Landing page builder

Price tiers and email volume:

• Free plan: 300 emails/month
• $25/month: 20k emails
• $65/month: 20k emails + Push notifications and landing page features.

Wrapping up!!

To do ecommerce email marketing effectively, focus on what truly matters: relevance and timing. Craft emails that resonate with where your customers are in their journey, not just their inboxes.

Implement all the best email marketing strategies for ecommerce stores to increase revenue without burning cash.

Use data to drive your decisions – optimize for click-through rates, not just open rates. Do personalized email marketing to make every interaction feel tailored and meaningful.

Choose the best email marketing software that is cost-effective and meets all your needs.