Did you know that, for eCommerce brands, it’s industry standard that email marketing should drive between 25-35% of your total revenue? And that automated emails should make up 50% of that email-generated revenue?

We know that email marketing is one of the easiest and fastest ways to boost revenue profits from the customers who are ALREADY visiting your site. According to Klaviyo, an eCommerce marketing platform that we love, email automation flows are defined as “a single email or series of emails sent to a subscriber based on a behavioral action that triggers the flow to begin.” Email automation helps you connect and engage with your eCommerce customers, and serves as touchpoints that help you build and nurture trust and relationships with your subscribers, while also driving revenue.

Today we’ll be diving into the top 3 automations your eCommerce brand needs to drive revenue and best practices for each.

Where do I start?

Let’s talk about the three most important automations: Welcome Series, Browse Abandonment, and Cart Abandonment. These three flows alone should result in around 80% of revenue from overall email automation, and serve to capture the lowest hanging fruit in terms of building relationships with your subscribers and keeping your brand top of mind.

We know that it’s not likely for someone to purchase from you the first time they visit your website - it typically takes between 5-15 touch points before someone trusts you enough to loosen the purse strings. Interestingly enough, sending a series of welcome emails yields around 51% more revenue than a single welcome email. 

That’s why the Welcome Series is the creme de la creme of automations for eCommerce brands. Here, you’ll introduce your brand, your brand’s story, and top selling products or services with their differentiators in the market to potential first-time customers. 

In today’s world, we know that consumers put their money where their mouths are in terms of choosing which brand to support, and this gives your subscribers the chance to learn more about you and your products without pressuring them too much to purchase right off the bat. 

Best Practices:

• Put the most important content above the fold. Attention spans are short, and communicating your main point within the first 3-6 seconds of opening the email is critical.
  
  
• Provide 1-2 clear CTAs. Think about what the next logical step is for the consumer to take if they enjoy your email - don’t leave them wondering where to go. Is it to visit your “About” page, “View All Products”, “Shop Now”?
  
  
• This flow should contain between 3-7 emails, so don’t worry about trying to cram everything in the first email. You don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers! The optimal number of emails will depend on your audience and keeping an eye on a consistent drop off or unsubscribe rate within the flow.
  
  
• Provide a discount code! Incentivize your consumers to give your brand a chance by offering free shipping or a small discount code for their first purchase. 
  
  

Ever start online shopping and then get distracted by that Instagram notification or realize it’s time to make dinner? In comes the Browse Abandonment flow. This serves as a reminder to your subscribers of the items they viewed - sort of like a recap of their digital window shopping. These emails are also a great way to lure subscribers back to the site since, like we mentioned above, most people (almost 92%) don’t make a purchase the first time they visit a site and need a few nudges to make that decision.

Best Practices:

• Segment this flow by potential customers vs. existing customers so you can tailor the messaging appropriately.
  
  
• Use this as an opportunity to include additional product options and suggestions beyond the specific product(s) they viewed, as this allows for upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
  
  
• For potential customers, remind them to use the discount you gave them in the Welcome Series (if you offered one)!
  
  
• It’s also a good idea to take a look at outgoing marketing campaigns and prioritize them accordingly - for some audience segments, it could be more likely for them to convert off of a new product launch email than off of a Browse Abandonment email.
  
  

This flow focuses on your most bottom-of-the-funnel potential new customers. These people are SO close to completing their purchase - they’ve chosen their favorite items and added them to their cart - but haven’t checked out yet, so the flow serves as a gentle (or not so much) nudge for them to take the leap.

Best Practices:

• This flow should consist of 2-5 emails that create a sense of urgency for the customer to check out before these products sell out or their discount/cart expires.
  
  
• These emails should be sent between 1-4 hours after someone adds items to their cart, with a follow up reminder between 1-2 days after that. Three out of four shoppers who have abandoned carts say they plan to return, but you don’t want to chance that, do you?
  
  
• It’s a great idea to segment and optimize your messaging based on the value of the cart. For example, a customer who has a cart value of $15 vs. a customer who has a cart value of $350 are likely to respond differently to offers. What’s the Average Order Value (or AOV) of your customers? What messaging has worked well for you in the past?'
  
  
• This is a fantastic place to include testimonials or UGC from other shoppers. This serves as a way to add “social proof” and show how beneficial the product has been to someone else to entice a purchase.

I’ve already mastered these... Now what?

Nice! You’re in the game now and should start to see your email-generated revenue on the up and up. It’s crucial to check in on your email content and flow logic every month or 2 to make sure it’s still relevant, there’s no broken links, etc., but you’re now limiting any revenue from falling through the cracks.

Here are some additional flows you can implement to drive even more revenue and customer engagement:

The post-purchase email is sent after a customer makes a purchase, and should always be sent within a few hours. It’s beneficial to include a message to thank the customer for their purchase to show good faith, and this is a great place to send content for how to use the product, your recommended best practices, outfit ideas, recipes, how-to videos, etc. You can also include an email in this flow to ask for a product review, which should be sent after a customer has actually received their purchase (so keep in mind your average shipping time). Remember, this flow does not contain order confirmation emails or tracking information once their items are shipped - those will come straight from your eCommerce platform such as Shopify. 

Did you know?

• Thank You emails see a 67% average open rate and a 6.3% average click-through rate (CTR) - typically, customers expect these and are intrigued to read more content you’ve provided around what they’ve purchased.

2. Replenishment Flow

For most products outside of clothing, they have a life expectancy that you can estimate. Think of skincare, food or beverages, makeup, supplements, etc. - you know how long it should take the customer to finish it. The Replenishment Flow is a great way to pop into your customer’s inbox at just the right time to remind them to re-up.

These emails have the highest click-to-open rate of any type of automation, about 50-60%, so this is also the perfect place to upsell and cross-sell your customers by showing product recommendations or related products they might like based on their purchase history. 

The Winback Flow is sent when customers haven’t made a purchase or subscribers haven’t interacted with your emails in a determined amount of time. This is a great time to offer a discount that expires to create a sense of urgency, or test additional content to see what clicks with your audience.

Winback emails may not be first on your list of email automations to implement; however, it’s a great way to continue to engage your audience and test new strategies. 

Anything else I should know?

With any automation, it’s important to segment your audience accordingly. By dividing your audience into groups with common characteristics, you’ll be able to send the most relevant emails to each subscriber, and avoid over-communicating with your audience. This will not only increase your engagement rates, but ultimately drive more revenue.

It’s also important to optimize your emails for mobile viewing. According to research by Adresta, an email that displays poorly on mobile devices gets deleted within just 3 seconds 70% of the time, and up to 15% of recipients will even unsubscribe!

A few other key components to optimize and keep an eye on:

• Keep your branding consistent 
• Incorporate clear, easy to find CTAs 
• Create an easy eye path for the best user experience
• A/B test constantly to continue improving your email strategy

Now that you have a better understanding of the top email automations to drive revenue for your eCommerce business, we hope your mind is buzzing with ideas. Email marketing can sometimes get snubbed from the overall advertising and marketing strategies, but once you realize how critical it can be to your bottom line and other metrics such as average order value and the lifetime value or your customers, you’ll never turn back.

Do you have any questions about which email automation platform is a good fit for your business, or do you want to level-up your current email marketing? Contact us today - we’re happy to give a complimentary consultation.

Resources 

Klaviyo 

Mailchimp 

Campaign Monitor