eCommerce Email Marketing Tips & Strategies
From building lists to drafting campaigns, I've got the insider tips to start serving up eCommerce email marketing realness that has your customers coming back for seconds.
My Take on eCommerce Email Marketing
Email marketing retains its crown as one of the most effective yet underutilized tools for connecting with customers. But it doesn’t have to be complicated or spammy. I’ve picked up tons of insider tips and strategies to help you serve up savvy campaigns that engage subscribers and drive real results.
First, mindset matters. Despite recurring claims of its demise 🙃, email is still going strong with higher conversion and ROI than most digital marketing channels (see full stats here). The reality is customers actually want to hear from brands they love! The key is providing ongoing value through your messaging, not constant sales pitches.
With the right mindset covered, focus your efforts on automation and personalization. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Welcome new subscribers with a friendly onboarding series. Guide fresh leads through valuable content while offering an initial discount to encourage sign-up conversions.
Set up workflows to target customers based on behaviors like abandoned carts. Strategic post-browse or cart recovery messaging prompts purchase completion with timed offers.
Leverage purchase data to recommend relevant products. Further monetize existing buyers through intelligent cross-sells while nurturing product affinity.
Surprise and delight! Send birthday promos, customer appreciation sales, or exclusive sneak peeks. Simple personal touches make subscribers feel special and eager to buy again and help you stay top of mind.
Squarespace makes sending marketing emails easy through their built-in marketing automations, allowing you to easily create sequences based on subscriber behaviors or schedule one-off email blasts to announce promotions. You can even customize order confirmation messaging based on products purchased with just a few clicks. However, if you want to go a step further and do some advanced segmentation and targeting, ConvertKit and Squarespace Commerce integrate so naturally that they make the perfect pair.
When executed strategically, email marketing forms the backbone of any ecommerce marketing strategy. Optimize message relevancy, provide ongoing value, and honor subscriber consent, then watch as your list becomes one of your most valuable business assets for customer retention and lifetime value boosting. I’m excited for you to uncover the full potential of this channel for your brand!
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Common eCommerce Email Marketing FAQs
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An effective welcome email series guides fresh subscribers through valuable content while offering an initial discount to encourage engagement. Maintain momentum by sending 3-5 emails over the first week covering:
A genuine thank you and overview of upcoming email content
Tips, tricks and recommendations based on subscriber source
Links to blog posts, how-to guides, or other resources
Exclusive promo code for first purchase to prompt action
With Squarespace email campaigns or ConvertKit, you can easily set up automated sequences or scheduled messages personalized with merge tags like {firstname} to help things feel personalized!
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Did you know roughly 75% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout? That adds up to nearly $4 trillion in lost ecommerce sales every year. But with targeted messaging, you can recover 10-15% of abandoned cart revenue easily.
Strategic abandoned cart recovery emails deployed within 24 hours prompt purchase completion by clearly highlighting original items left behind coupled with urgency-inducing perks like discounts or free shipping.
Best practices include:
Refresh cart contents with product images/details
Limit copy to focus solely on finishing transaction
Offer time-sensitive promo code or free gift
Share testimonials reinforcing purchase decision
Leverage Squarespace’s automation tools to trigger abandoned cart emails based on active cart session length. Then use Squarespace’s built-in eCommerce analytics to track recovery rates and optimize messaging for increased sales.
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Core email automations cover the entire subscriber lifecycle. Must-haves like welcome series and abandoned cart recovery can increase conversions. While post-purchase follow-ups and special occasion messaging boost engagement and lifetime value.
If you need help writing the copy for your emails, my Customer Connection Kit, you get complete templates tailored to critical customer journey touchpoints. From confirmation to shipping and review collection, easily customize communication to match brand voice.
Additional automations to consider:
Browse abandonment for high-interest site visitors
Customer win-back for period inactive subscribers
Waitlist notification for out of stock products
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Determining optimal email frequency is a careful balance. Send too often and subscribers get annoyed. Too seldom and they forget who you are. Typically best practice is to aim for:
2-4 emails per month for a general subscriber list
Weekly for very engaged followers signed up for things like newsletters
Only on special occasions for one-time purchasers
The key is providing value, not cluttering inboxes. Use email as an opportunity to share advice, build community and make emotional connections. Then track engagement metrics in your email marketing platform of choice to see what works best for your audience.
These analytics will usually tell you what you need:
Open and click-through rates
Bounce or abuse reports
Unsubscribe volume
Upticks in site traffic or sales around sends
Let your data determine the ideal pace and tweak things if you see fatigue setting in. The goal is inbox anticipation, not annoyance!
Top 3 eCommerce Email Marketing Resources
ConvertKit
My number one favorite email marketing platform! Super powerful yet still easy to use and (bonus!) plays super nice with Squarespace Commerce.
Squarespace Email Campaigns
If you’re looking to keep everything under one roof, Squarespace’s built-in email capabilities are simple but extremely effective.
Flodesk
For the design-minded, this one’s for you! It has some built-in commerce capabilities and it’s easy to link to Squarespace via Zapier.
