13 Ecommerce Email Examples to Generate Revenue from Your Store

Running an ecommerce store, your livelihood depends on your ability to hook and retain customers through digital marketing.

Targeted social media posts are useful for specific situations, but nothing compares to the power of email. With email, you can contact your customers directly, without fighting algorithms or search engines. 

It’s no surprise that 59% of people prefer communicating with brands through email over other platforms like text or social media.

Email also makes it easy for anyone to harness innovative technology. Automation, artificial intelligence, beautiful coding, segmentation: these tools (and many others) help you reach your audience and retain customers with relevant and timely content.

Read on to discover over a dozen ecommerce email examples to generate revenue from your online store. Use them to inspire your own campaigns.

13 ecommerce email examples to generate revenue with relevant content

Email is naturally more effective than other marketing platforms because it’s direct. You have an instant line of communication with your customers and leads. 

Also, customers tend to prefer email because it puts them in control. The average consumer has between two and three email addresses: usually one for personal use and another strictly for marketing material.

If someone decides a brand isn’t sending useful or interesting content, they can simply unsubscribe from the list. Social media, direct mail, and on-screen ads don’t offer that luxury. 

Research shows consumers—particularly younger generations—are willing to sacrifice some privacy for more personalized online experiences. For example, 44% of generation Z say they don’t mind providing personal information in the name of personalization. Not only that, but 68% say websites should know what you need before you tell them.

These points are especially important for ecommerce. Running an ecommerce store, your revenue depends on the digital experience you provide. Email can help you offer highly personalized and relevant content based on each customer’s unique behavior. Here are a few ecommerce email examples to generate revenue.

1. Welcome emails

Start your relationship with new subscribers on the right foot with welcome campaigns. 

Welcome emails boast an average 50% open rate. Optimizing your welcome emails with hard-hitting copy and resources can boost engagement and, ultimately, more revenue.

Jettly’s welcome email is conversational, informative, and explains the benefits of booking through Jettly. It also includes a series of resources in a bullet list to improve the subscriber’s experience and educate them about the industry.

2. Onboarding series

Fifty percent of consumers around the world consider themselves “belief-driven” buyers. In other words, they’ll reward or punish a brand based on its values or lack thereof. 

An onboarding series is useful for promoting your brand’s mission, values, and social impact. Beyond brand building, you could also use an onboarding series to explain complex concepts or products. 

3. Cart abandonment emails

In brick-and-mortar stores, customers rarely abandon their full shopping carts. In ecommerce, however, nearly 70% of customers will abandon their carts, on average.

Automated emails can help you recover lost revenue by sending reminders to customers who abandon their shopping cart. 

Food52 gets straight to the point with their cart abandonment emails. It includes a picture of the product and builds urgency by letting the customer know they won’t hold onto them forever. 

You could also embed reviews, user-generated images, or a discount code in your abandonment emails.

4. Browse abandonment emails

With automation and behavioral tracking, you can recover lost sales before customers even add items to their cart. 

When someone looks at different items on your site, send them a follow-up email. Remind them about the product’s benefits. Include some reviews, user-generated photos, and possibly even a coupon.

5. Product announcement emails

Naturally, when you start carrying new products, you want your subscribers to know about them. However, not every product will interest every customer.

Used enhanced segmentation features to send different product announcements based on factors like:

• Geolocation 
• Age group
• Gender 
• Number of children
• Browsing data
• Engagement level

Campaign Monitor found that marketers enjoyed 760% more revenue after launching segmented campaigns. 

6. Back-in-stock emails

But cart process optimization can’t help you prevent abandonment if your items are out of stock. 

When you’re out of a favored item, you lose sales. Your customers are disappointed, and no one wins.

You have two options: First, you can offer to send customers an email when the item comes back in stock.

Your second option: use browsing behavior data to identify when a customer views an out-of-stock product and automatically send an email. 

7. Replenishment emails

Amazon’s Subscribe and Save program is attractive for brands because it ensures a customer will consistently spend money with your brand over the millions of other choices out there. 

If you sell consumable products—like beauty products, supplements, or food and beverages—you can reap the benefits of setting up automated replenishment emails. Calculate the time it would take an average customer to exhaust their supply. 

With supplements, this is easy. Time your reminder email to send ten days before the customer’s supply should run out. That’ll afford them time to reorder and receive their shipment before they run out. 

Chewy does a fantastic job of sending replenishment emails for essential consumables like dog food and treats:

8. Transactional emails

Transactional emails—like shipping notifications and confirmations—deliver 8 times higher open and click rates than other emails.

Not only that, but they also generate 6 times more revenue. The key is to optimize your transactional emails. Using automation, you can instantly include things like

• Upsells
• Reviews and user-generated photos
• Coupons for future purchases
• Buttons to download your app

9. Cross-sell or upsell emails

You can also send special campaigns just to cross-sell items. Take Amazon, for example. The ecommerce giant drives 35% of its revenue from personalized product recommendations. 

Follow the same strategy for your ecommerce email marketing. Use automation and browsing behavior to send personalized upsell campaigns like Dollar Shave Club did here:

10. Win-back campaigns

No one wants to remove subscribers from their list. However, removing inactive subscribers is greatly beneficial to the health of your list.

Win-back campaigns can help you re-engage old customers. Keep your copy relatable and conversational and consider including a hefty discount code to entice customers to buy.

For their win-back email, eMeals included a link to some free recipes along with a 20% off discount for reactivation.

11. VIP or loyalty campaigns

For most businesses, 20% of customers tend to generate 80% of revenue. Within that top 20%, certain customers still spend more than others. 

It’s important for ecommerce businesses to take care of their loyal customers. VIP or loyalty programs are both awesome tools to make your best customers feel valued.  

12. Price drop emails

Cart and browse abandonment happen for several reasons. For several customers, price plays a significant role in their purchase decisions. 

Fortunately, automation and behavior tracking can help you reach out to customers when a product goes on sale or clearance. When a customer views a product but doesn’t convert, your system will take note. When the price drops, that’ll trigger an email to go out to everyone who viewed the product page.

The Entrepreneur Store alerted this subscriber about course price drops based on her previous purchases and browsing history:

13. Birthday emails

Who doesn’t love feeling special on their birthday? Happy birthday emails generate 342% more revenue and 481% higher conversion rates than standard campaigns. 

Take advantage of that statistic with personalized birthday greetings. Include a generous discount code or offer for a free gift with the subscriber’s next purchase. Even if the customer doesn’t spend money, they’ll remember that you cared enough to wish them a happy birthday.

Wrap up

These ecommerce email examples to generate revenue can help you send the most relevant content. Relevant and timely content translates into better conversations with your customers and, eventually, more sales. 

Powerful email marketing tools like automation, segmentation, and behavioral data make it easy to send personalized campaigns, such as:

• Cart abandonment emails
• Win back emails
• Replenishment alerts
• Browse abandonment emails
• Optimized transactional emails
• Date-based campaigns
• And many others

Ready to discover how automation can help you build connections with your customers and drive ecommerce revenue? Check out the full range of CM Commerce features now.