Ecommerce brand managers have certainly seen email automation in action in marketing campaigns. Email automation is a tool used in email marketing so a brand can stay engaged with its audience and customers using relevant messaging. Automation is when you personalize and predefine rules about subscribers to trigger specific email messages to send out.
Why is Email Automation Important?
Automation is essential to any business trying to improve or grow its brand awareness, revenue, customer loyalty, etc. It is a method to personalize your messaging and set up a “hands-free” emailing strategy. Email automation can help personalize customer experiences, cater to customer needs, improve customer retention, increase productivity, eliminate human error, and increase work quality.
Real-Life Example: Let’s look into the future here. If you had a lawn mower programmed to start up by itself, mow the lawn perfectly every time the grass got long, and store itself back in your garage all on its own, think about how much time you would save every week.
Top 10 Email Automations for Ecommerce Marketing:
1. Welcome Series
The welcome series is the most important automation a business can set up; it’s the holy grail. A welcome series is triggered when someone subscribes to your newsletter or mailing list, typically through a pop-up form on a website or when making a purchase. You can use this flow to introduce yourself, get to know the customer, build a relationship/trust, and introduce products. Ideally, this automation will drive the initial sale.
Invesp says that welcome emails, on average, generate up to 320% more revenue per email basis than other promotional emails.
Buck Mason does a great job keeping their welcome email simple yet visually appealing and informational.
2. Abandoned Cart
The average cart abandonment is approximately 70 percent, according to Moosend. When about 50% of people who click on cart abandonment emails make a purchase, you could lose thousands of dollars in revenue because you still need to implement an abandoned cart series. The main goal for implementing an abandoned cart series is to reach out to that 70% of people interested in your product but have yet to make a purchase and persuade them to convert to increase your revenue.
3. Browse Recovery
Browse abandonment flows are similar to abandoned cart flows and serve a similar purpose, increasing revenue. A browse abandonment email flow is triggered when a customer views a product on your website but does not add the item to their cart. When browsing, many people get distracted and don’t move forward with a purchase. Setting up a browse abandonment flow will remind these customers about the product they were once looking at, educate them more about that particular product, and drive them back to your website to help influence a purchase.
According to Klaviyo, Email flows that generate the highest revenue per recipient (RPR) are the Welcome Series at $1.88 RPR, Abandoned Cart Series at $3.42, and Browse Abandonment at $0.88 RPR.
Schnee’s browse recovery email is an excellent example that details the products viewed and recommends additional products to browse.
4. Post Purchase
A post-purchase flow is a series of emails sent to a customer after they have purchased a product. There are various ways you can personalize this automation. For example, you can include thank you messages, product reviews, cross-selling, etc. These emails will help convert the customer from a one-time buyer to a repeat customer. It is imperative to have repeat customers because they drive a very high amount of revenue and grow brand awareness by promoting your product.
According to Klaviyo’s research, post-purchase messaging sees a 217% higher open rate, over 500% higher click rate, and 90% higher revenue per recipient than your average email campaign.
Millbrook Tack leaves its customers with a clean message thanking their customers and leaving them feeling appreciated.
5. Back-In-Stock
Many companies are experiencing some sort of supply chain difficulty and are having trouble providing their customers with the products they want. An out-of-stock item can be frustrating for both the business and the customer. Companies are losing out on potential revenue, and customers cannot buy their desired products.
Implementing a back-in-stock email series is a straightforward way to help solve this issue. This email aims to remind the recipient that they were interested in a product that is now back in stock. The intent is to spark interest again and influence a purchase. Barilliance states that these emails have an average open rate of 65.32%, the highest among any other flow/series.
Below is an example of a clean and concise back-in-stock email from Buck Mason.
6. Winback
A winback email series reaches out to subscribers or customers who have been engaged in the past but are no longer opening emails, clicking emails, or making purchases. These emails encourage people to engage again and, ideally, make a purchase.
According to Klaviyo, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. Research also shows that 45% of subscribers who receive a winback email will go on to open future emails from your brand.
Duckworth details the company’s core values to help convince viewers that they support a good cause when purchasing a Duckworth product.
7. Never Purchased
This flow is triggered when someone meets the qualifications of the “never purchased” segment. This audience segment is subscribed to your email list but has not yet made a purchase. The series typically consists of 3-4 emails that are primarily education based and are built around persuading the reader to convert.
If your never purchased series is struggling with conversions and needs a little help, adding a discount in the last email is always an option to increase transactions. When people are unsure about purchasing a product, they just need a slight nudge in the right direction to help justify their decision. That is where this flow comes into play
8. Order Confirmation
If you have ever ordered a product online, you have seen an order confirmation email. These emails typically have a thank you message, order details, shipping information, and a view order button. All of this information needs to be sent to customers immediately after purchasing because customers expect these to confirm that their order has been received.
These typically have very high open, click, and conversion rates. The view order button provides the customer an option to go back to the website to look at the products they just ordered and those they have not ordered but could be interested in. This results in more revenue than one would think. Example: Maybe they forgot to put something in their cart.
This very informative order confirmation email by THELOSTCO answers every question you might have.
9. Shipping Confirmation
Waiting for a product after ordering it online can often feel like you are waiting for a birthday gift. Most people want the ability to track their package to see where it is and when it will arrive. Providing customers with this option is important because it can help build brand loyalty and relationships.
Shipping confirmation emails have some of the highest engagement compared to all other email flows, with open rates frequently reaching over 80%. Like the order confirmation series, you should be utilizing this high open rate to direct people to your website to inspire another purchase.
Athletic Greens does an excellent job of including simple shipping tracking information and a “refer your friend” program.
10. Cross-Sell
Setting up a cross-sell flow is very important, especially for companies that offer a wide array of products. This flow is an easy way to target customers' interests and use them to your advantage to help drive a sale.
This flow is triggered when someone purchases a product in a specific category. From there, you can set up various other emails offering the customer products similar to the one they have recently purchased.
According to Vero, 49% of customers say they have purchased an item they didn’t intend to initially because of a personalized recommendation.
Here is a clean and attractive cross-sell example for The Dollar Shave Club.
Email Marketing Automation is a Powerful Tool
Automated email flows are triggered by subscribers’ actions, which enables you to personalize their digital experience with your brand. These ten email automations will help build strong relationships with your subscriber base, ultimately leading to selling more products and growing revenue.