Email is an essential cog in the digital marketing machine, driving eCommerce business by directly engaging with customers, boosting sales, and building brand loyalty.
But just how important is it?
For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see an average return of $36. The return on investment (ROI) is even higher for retail, eCommerce, and consumer goods businesses, averaging $45 for every $1 invested.
When we think about the vast reach of email — Zero Bounce reports that 88% of people check their inbox every single day — this type of opportunity to directly connect with an audience is unmatched.
To make the most of these interactions, you’ll need to know the ins and outs of eCommerce emails, best practices for growing your subscriber list, how to create compelling content, and how to analyze success.
What is eCommerce Email Marketing & Why Should You Care?
Email marketing is an essential part of any content and digital marketing strategy. It involves outreach to a group of people, including existing and potential customers, with the intention of building a relationship and ultimately driving sales. There are four different types of email marketing:
- Transactional emails are automatically sent in response to a certain online action, for example, when a lead makes a purchase or signs up for an account.
- Promotional emails are written to a general audience announcing a sale or special offer.
- Newsletters are recurring emails sent to subscribers, containing updates, news, or any other type of valuable content.
- Retention emails are aimed at re-engaging or maintaining relationships with customers and renewing brand loyalty.
Together, these forms of email marketing are powerful ways to connect with customers, build trust, and boost sales. Because of its digital nature, email marketing is also highly praised for its:
- Accessibility: Provides a direct channel to customers regardless of their geographic location
- Cost effectiveness: Eliminates printing and postage costs and enables businesses to reach large audiences with minimal investment in resources
- Personalization: Email marketing content can easily reflect intake information, such as demographics and consumer behaviors/preference.
- Automation: Email marketing campaigns can be automated, either through advanced scheduling or by triggering emails based on specific actions consumers take.
- Scalability: Whether you have a few hundred subscribers or millions, email marketing can grow with your business’ needs.
- Analytics and insights: It’s easy to measure the effectiveness of campaigns with key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates.
Tips for Running Successful ECommerce Email Marketing Campaigns
A strong contact list is the foundation of your email marketing efforts. Your list should only consist of people who have chosen to opt in. These folks will ideally match your target audience and meaningfully engage with your content. With this in mind, consider some of our top methods for building a robust email list:
- Offering incentives for sign-ups, such as discounts or free shipping, to encourage immediate action
- Use pop-ups relevant to content on a specific page to collect customer contact information when a user attempts to navigate away, scrolls quickly, or reaches a certain place on the page
- Running social media campaigns to generate leads on multiple platforms
Your work isn’t done when you’ve collected a certain number of contacts. Regular efforts to clean and maintain your list will help keep engagement rates up, improve sender reputation with internet service providers, and improve customer segmentation.
So, how do you decide which subscribers to remove?
Start by removing anyone who hasn’t opened and clicked on offers in your emails for a while. Several months is usually a fair threshold if you’re regularly landing in their inbox. You should also remove any email addresses that are invalid or returned, or addresses that report your content as spam.
Crafting Compelling Email Content
While we’re on the subject — subject lines are vital. Think of them as your first impression, often the determining factor of whether your message is heard or ignored. Some subject line best practices to keep in mind:
- Personalization goes far; tailor your subject lines to different segments of your audience.
- Avoid flashy language that can be labeled as spam.
- Instill a sense of urgency by explaining that an offer is only for a “limited time” or “ending soon.”
- Ask intriguing questions that your audience can’t help but feel compelled to learn the answers to.
- Utilize A/B testing to see what resonates most with your audience.
Now that you’ve cleared the subject line hurdle, next comes the main event. Here’s how to ensure your email body lives up to expectations:
- Start off with a personal touch, like using the recipient’s name or referencing a recent purchase or interaction.
- Be clear and concise with your main messaging about what the offer is.
- Utilize high-quality images and visuals instead of too many words to highlight your products.
- Enhance your branding wherever possible by consistently using your logo, brand colors, fonts, and tone of voice to create a cohesive and recognizable identity.
A call-to-action (CTA) is a crucial element that prompts recipients to take a specific action, such as making a purchase or downloading content. A well-crafted CTA has a huge impact on the success of your email campaign by guiding recipients towards conversion. When writing CTAs:
- Use strong verbs, such as “Shop,” “Discover,” “Get,” or “Download” to encourage immediate action.
- Create urgency with phrases that convey scarcity, such as “Limited Time Offer,” “Act Now,” or “Only X Left.”
- Clearly communicate the benefits or value proposition of clicking the CTA. For example, “Save 20% Today” or “Get Your Free eBook.”
- Make your CTA button stand out, with contrasting colors, bold type, and strategic placement within your email to ensure it can’t be missed.
Types of Effective ECommerce Emails
Your eCommerce email marketing strategy will include a few different types of emails to engage customers throughout their journey, from welcoming new subscribers and promoting special offers to recovering abandoned carts, providing transactional updates, and re-engaging inactive customers.
- Welcome emails are crucial for making a positive first impression and nurturing new subscribers. They typically have higher open rates and engagement levels. Use this opportunity to make a meaningful introduction and set expectations about what the subscriber stands to gain.
- Promotional emails drive sales by offering discounts, special deals, or exclusive subscriber access. Be sure to specify the sales period and send reminders when the opportunity is ending.
- Abandoned cart emails target customers who need some sort of incentive to carry through with a purchase; this could be a discount or free shipping, or sometimes just a reminder that they items were left behind. HubSpot Integrations can help with automating this task.
- Transactional emails help to enhance the customer experience through order confirmation and shipping updates. This is an opportunity to build trust and highlight your investment in making the customer happy.
- Re-engagement emails can involve a few techniques to win back an inactive customer. It can be effective to offer a discount or some other benefit, highlight a new improvement to your business, or use social media ads to grab attention outside of a subscriber’s inbox.
Popular Email Marketing Tools and Platforms
It’s important to choose the right email marketing platform to support your business’ unique goals. Here’s a comparative overview of three of the most widely used, with a breakdown of important features, benefits, and considerations to help inform your decision.
| PROS | CONS | |
| Constant Contact | Beginner-friendly Accessible email template editor Customer relationship management (CRM) and social media management tools included | Extensive customization requires higher-tier plan Price increases with size of contact list Templates look dated |
| HubSpot | Strong automation and CRM integration Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities Highly scalable as your business grows | Requires setup and configuration time and expertise A/B testing and other crucial features only included in higher tier packages Tech support not included |
| Mailchimp | Easy to use Extensive standard features, including A/B testing, built-in conversion tools, segment contacts Integrate with existing tools, including Salesforce, Squarespace, and Shopify | Not all templates are included with free plan Emails must be sent manually with free plan, no scheduling option Free plan includes Mailchimp branding |
Before choosing a platform to execute your email marketing strategy, it’s a good idea to lay out your goals and objectives clearly. Review complete offerings by different providers and assess how well they align with your specific needs and budget constraints.
Keeping Up With Compliance and Best Practices
Email marketing is governed by specific laws and regulations to protect consumer privacy and prevent unsolicited communications. Ensuring compliance with the latest laws and regulations should be a top priority to maintain trust with your audience and avoid any legal repercussions.
CAN-SPAM Act sets the rules for commercial email, requirements for commercial messages, and gives recipients the right to unsubscribe at their discretion. It covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” You must:
- Accurately identify yourself, including where the email domain originated
- Write only accurate subject lines
- Disclose to the recipient that the message they’re receiving is an advertisement
- Include your company’s valid physical postal address
- Provide a clear means to unsubscribe
- Be quick about honoring opt-out requests
- Keep close tabs on what contacts are sending on behalf of the company
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is Europe’s data privacy and security law for companies around the world that target or collect data related to people in the EU. Data protection, accountability, and consent are heavily covered in the hundreds of pages of regulations — all significant when we’re talking about email marketing.
Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) guards consumers and businesses from the misuse of technology, from spam to cyberthreats. It focuses on express and implied consent, identification requirements, mechanisms to unsubscribe, strict penalties for noncompliance.
By prioritizing explicit consent and respecting subscriber privacy, you’ll build stronger relationships with your audience, enhance brand reputation, and achieve better long-term outcomes. Some best practices to remember:
- Be transparent about the frequency, type, and purpose of emails
- Offer subscribers control over what content they receive
- Protect subscriber data (and explain your efforts to respect their privacy)
- Conduct regular audits to ensure that you’re complying with the latest rules and systems are up to par.
Key Metrics to Monitor for ECommerce Email Marketing Campaigns
As we mentioned earlier, email marketing platforms often offer built-in embedded analytics tools to track how your emails are performing. These tools typically provide insights into metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and engagement levels. The following are worth your closest attention:
- List growth rate: Calculated by comparing the net increase in the number of subscribers within a specified time frame relative to the initial size of your email list
- Click-through rate: The percentage of recipients who engaged with a link within your email
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of recipients who unsubscribe from your emails after receiving them
- Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that could not be delivered due to an invalid address, full inbox, server issue, or other interruption that originates on the recipient’s end
- Return on investment (ROI): Revenue generated from email campaigns compared to the cost of running them
Integrating Google Analytics with these email marketing efforts allows for more comprehensive tracking of campaign performance beyond email-specific metrics:
- Enhance segmentation: Segment your email list according to user behaviors and preferences, allowing for more precise and efficient targeting in your email marketing efforts.
- Prioritize personalization: Customize messaging, offers, and content, ensuring they are highly relevant.
- Make data-driven decisions: Optimize email content, design, delivery times, and other factors to enhance engagement and increase conversion rates.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I send marketing emails?
This answer depends on several factors, including your audience, the nature of your business, and the type of content you’re sharing. Be direct about asking your audience’s preferences and consistently delivering value — this way, you can optimize your strategy and improve engagement. Sending emails two to three times per week seems to be the optimal frequency. Data shows that once per week and four to five times per week both result in declining engagement.
What should I include in my marketing emails to increase engagement?
To increase engagement in your marketing emails, be sure to include compelling subject lines, personalized content, and strong CTAs. Use high-quality visuals and a clear layout to make your emails visually appealing and easy to read. Most importantly, provide value-driven content such as educational material and exclusive offers to drive engagement.
How can I grow my subscriber list?
The most effective way to grow your subscriber list is by offering valuable incentives, such as exclusive content, discounts, or free resources, to encourage sign-ups. Promote your email list across multiple channels, including your website and social media.
How can I personalize my email marketing efforts to achieve better results?
Personalize your email marketing efforts by using recipient names and tailoring content based on their preferences and behaviors. Segment your audience into specific groups to send targeted messages that resonate with their interests and needs.
What are some best practices for writing effective email subject lines?
For effective email subject lines, keep them clear and to the point, sparking urgency or curiosity. Use action words to show why recipients should check out your email, and utilize A/B testing for a data-driven approach.
How can I re-engage inactive subscribers?
To re-engage inactive subscribers, start by sending a targeted re-engagement campaign with a compelling subject line that grabs their attention. Offer incentives such as special discounts or exclusive content to encourage them to open and interact with your emails again. Consider segmenting your list further based on activity levels to deliver more relevant content.
Ready To Get Started?
If you’re ready to take your email strategy to the next level, get in touch with us to start the conversation. At Vital, we use a unique combination of proven strategy and cutting-edge, AI-powered innovation to help eCommerce businesses find new audiences, attract more traffic, convert more full-funnel leads, and drive more sales.
