Ecommerce email marketing is everything a shop sends to its own list. This article is about what to send once the weekly discount has stopped working. The list is yours, one more message costs close to nothing, and no auction decides who sees it. So the channel deserves better than a standing offer.
Plenty of shops end up there anyway. They send a discount because discounts work, and then the list stops answering unless money comes off the price.
If the mechanics of the channel are new to you, our wider guide to email marketing covers permission, tools and the shape of a programme. Everything below assumes a shop and a list already exist.
What ecommerce email marketing is really for
It has three jobs, and the sale you get this week is only one of them.
- Turning a first order into a second one.
- Catching the people who nearly bought and stopped.
- Staying in mind between purchases, which is the job nobody plans for.
An offer does the first job badly and the third one not at all. Consequently a programme made of offers teaches people to wait for the next one.
The discount habit, and what it really costs
A discount works because it removes a reason to hesitate. It also removes margin from every order that would have happened anyway.
Send enough of them and the rhythm becomes obvious. Customers learn it, then they hold off until the next one arrives. Meanwhile the emails with no offer go unopened, because the reader already knows what is inside.
The trap is that discounting always looks like it worked. Revenue arrives, the report looks healthy, and the lost margin sits in a different spreadsheet.
When a discount is the right answer
Sometimes it clearly is. Old stock, a real seasonal event, or a nudge to somebody who has never ordered: each of those has a reason behind it.
So apply one test. Can you say why this offer exists today? If the honest answer is that a fortnight went by, the offer is a habit rather than a decision.
Where ecommerce email marketing does its real work
Automated messages do the steady work. They go out when somebody does something, so they land while the reader still cares. Once written, they keep running without you.
Four of them matter most: the welcome, the abandoned basket, the sequence after an order, and the win back. Broadcasts fill the gaps in between.
The abandoned basket
Somebody added an item and left. Few signals are clearer, although the signal weakens as soon as the reader's attention moves on.
Send the first reminder the same day, then one or two more. Our piece on abandoned cart emails works through the timing and the wording. Keep the first message helpful rather than pushy, since plenty of people simply ran out of time.
The days after an order
Somebody who has just ordered is paying attention. They have handed over money, so they now want reassurance that it was a good idea. A receipt is often all that arrives.
Use the space to remove doubt and set up the next visit. Delivery expectations, care instructions and a note on what pairs with the item all earn goodwill. Post purchase emails deserve a plan of their own. You already hold the address and the permission, so you never have to buy that customer twice.
Win back, and knowing when to stop
People drift. A short sequence to somebody who has not ordered in a long while is worth sending once.
After that, let them go. Our note on win back emails covers where that line sits. Mailbox providers watch how people react to a sender. So a list crowded with the indifferent can cost you the ones who care.
The data ecommerce email marketing runs on
A shop holds data a service business can only envy. Every order records what somebody bought and when, and every visit records what they looked at.
So connect the shop to the sending tool properly before writing anything clever. Order history, basket contents and browsing behaviour are what make a message specific. Without that link you have a newsletter tool and a guess.
Check what actually flows across, too. Integrations differ in what they carry. So confirm that basket contents and product names really arrive, rather than the order total alone.
Segments a shop actually needs
Most shops overthink this. Four segments you maintain beat twenty that nobody ever touches.
- On the list, never ordered.
- One order, and it happened recently.
- Several orders, arriving on a rhythm.
- Lapsed, with nothing for a long while.
Each group needs a different message, and the difference is obvious once the groups exist. Our guide to email segmentation goes further into how to build them. Start with these four, since they match decisions you already make.
What to write when there is no discount
This is the part shops usually find hardest, so it is worth being concrete.
Useful email for a shop tends to fall into a few shapes. All of them give a reader a reason to open the next one.
- How to choose between two products that look similar.
- What arrived this week, with a reason it is worth a look.
- A customer photograph and the story behind it.
- Answers to whatever your support inbox keeps receiving.
- The person who makes the thing, and how they go about it.
None of that costs you margin. Better still, it works on people who would never respond to a price cut.
The arithmetic behind an offer
Before the next discount goes out, do the sum on what it costs you.
A worked example, with round numbers chosen to make the arithmetic easy rather than to describe a typical shop. Say an order is one hundred and the goods in it cost you seventy, so the gross profit is thirty. Take ten off the price and the profit drops to twenty. A third of the profit has gone, much of it to people who would have bought anyway. To stand still on profit you now need half as many orders again.
Run that sum with your own margin and you will know how much extra volume an offer has to produce. Quite often the answer is more than the offer will ever deliver.
Staying out of spam when you send often
None of this matters if the message lands in spam. Shops tend to send often, and frequency raises the cost of a careless list.
Keep the list clean and remove people who never open. Make unsubscribing easy, because somebody who cannot leave will press the spam button instead. That single press does more harm than a lost subscriber ever could.
Also send from your own domain, with the authentication records in place. A shop borrowing a shared sending address inherits the reputation of every other sender on it.
Measuring ecommerce email marketing without guessing
An open only means a hidden image loaded. Some mail apps load those images for the reader, so the count flatters you. Lean on what happens after the click instead. Revenue per email sent is the number a shop can act on.
Divide the revenue from a send by the number of people who received it. Track that figure across months rather than per campaign, since one good week proves nothing.
Then read the automated flows separately from the broadcasts. They behave differently, and averaging them together hides both. Watch unsubscribes per send as the cost side of the same trade. Finally, look at the share of total orders that email touched, because that is what tells you whether the channel is growing.
How often a shop should send
There is no correct number, and anybody who offers you one has not seen your list.
Frequency is a trade. More sends usually bring more revenue this month and more unsubscribes across the year. So move it slowly and watch both sides at once.
If unsubscribes climb while revenue stays flat, you have gone past the point. Pull back one send and wait a month before changing anything else.
Where ecommerce email marketing stops working
It cannot fix a product people do not want. Nor can it rescue a shop nobody visits, because a list grows out of traffic.
A small list with no visitors arriving is a symptom rather than a cause. Fix the traffic first, then the emails have something to work with.
The channel also struggles where the thing sells once in a decade. Mattresses and boilers do not reward a monthly send, although they do reward one good email at the right moment.
Building an ecommerce email marketing programme in order
Do it in this order, because each step pays for the next.
- Connect the shop to the sending tool, so orders and baskets flow through.
- Write the welcome sequence, since it meets everybody who joins.
- Switch on the abandoned basket reminders.
- Add the sequence that follows an order.
- Then build the four segments and start sending real editorial.
- Finally add a win back sequence for the people who drifted away.
It is easy to do this backwards. A shop begins with a newsletter, then finds it hard to write one every week. Meanwhile the automated messages that would have paid for the whole thing never appear at all.
None of it has to happen at once. One flow live and working beats six half built, and the shop keeps selling while you write the next one.
Frequently asked questions
What is ecommerce email marketing?
Ecommerce email marketing is everything a shop sends to its own list, from basket reminders and order follow ups to newsletters and offers. The list belongs to the shop rather than to a platform, so one more message costs almost nothing. The automated messages tend to do more of the useful work than the weekly broadcast everybody remembers, because they arrive at the moment a customer has just done something.
Do discount emails actually hurt a shop?
Not on their own, although the habit of them does. A discount removes a reason to hesitate, and it also removes margin from orders that would have happened anyway. Send them on a predictable rhythm and customers learn to wait for the next one. Keep offers tied to a real reason, such as clearing old stock or a genuine seasonal event, and the rest of the programme keeps its value.
Which ecommerce email marketing flows should I build first?
Start with the welcome sequence, then abandoned basket reminders, then the messages that follow an order. Those three reach people at moments when they already care, so they earn their keep quickly. Add segments and regular editorial once the flows run on their own. A win back sequence belongs last, because it works on the smallest and coldest group of all.
How often should an online shop email its list?
There is no single right number, since it depends on what you sell and how often people replace it. Treat frequency as a trade rather than a target. Watch revenue per email sent rather than revenue alone, because a falling per email figure means you are spending attention faster than you are earning it. If a busy season needs more sends, say so in advance and offer a way to opt out of that run by itself.
What should I send when I have nothing on offer?
Send the things a customer would ask you anyway. Your own support inbox is the easiest source, because any question that arrives twice is an email waiting to be written. Product comparisons, care instructions and the story behind whoever makes the thing all work the same way. None of it costs margin, and it reaches people who would ignore a price cut. Keep a running file of half ideas, so the next send never starts from nothing.
Why do my shop emails end up in spam?
Usually because of who you send to rather than what you write. Inactive subscribers, a buried unsubscribe link and a borrowed sending address all push mail towards the spam folder. A sudden jump in volume does the same, so build your sending back up slowly after a quiet spell. Check also whether the mail really is in spam or simply in a promotions tab, since only one of those is a problem.
How do I measure ecommerce email marketing properly?
Measure ecommerce email marketing on revenue rather than opens, because an open only means a hidden image loaded. Revenue per email sent is the figure to follow, and it works for flows and broadcasts alike. Read those two apart, since averaging them hides how each performs. Agree an attribution window before you start and keep it fixed, otherwise every reporting change will look like a result.
How long does ecommerce email marketing take to show results?
It depends less on the calendar than on how often the trigger fires. A basket reminder can only work when somebody abandons a basket, so a busy shop learns faster than a quiet one. Flows usually show their worth first, since they reach people who already sit close to buying. Broadcasts take longer, because their value builds as the list grows. Judge ecommerce email marketing over quarters rather than weeks.
Is ecommerce email marketing worth it for a small shop?
Usually yes, because ecommerce email marketing costs very little per message and the list belongs to you. A small shop with steady traffic should start with a welcome sequence and basket reminders, since those two catch orders that would otherwise slip away. It matters less when nobody visits the shop yet, since a list grows out of traffic. Fix that first.