Ecommerce Email Marketing – Our Top 9 Tips To Increase Sales

Last updated on February 27th, 2025 at 12:32 am

Email marketing can be incredibly effective.

In fact, according to DMA’s research, marketers estimate that the return on every £1 spent on email marketing is £35.41. That’s a crazy 3541% ROI!

Unfortunately, eCommerce companies often fail to make the most out of this marketing method, which is costing them loads of money in lost potential revenue.

So how can you use email marketing to grow your online store?

Here are our top nine tips that can help you increase sales…

#1: Use Email Marketing Software That Was Designed for Ecommerce

All of the most popular email marketing apps have eCommerce features. In theory, you could use any of them, and do just fine.

In practice, however, you’d likely be better of going with an email marketing solution that was designed specifically for eCommerce businesses.

Typically, generic apps can’t compete with specialized apps, as the latter will always be better suited for the needs of their target audiences. That’s why it’s always best to look for specialized solutions.

Arguably, when it comes to email marketing for eCommerce businesses, one of the best options on the market is SmartrMail.

It was built specifically for eCommerce and includes features such as:

• Email newsletters
• Welcome emails
• Winback emails
• Abandoned cart emails
• Browse abandonment emails
• Product recommendation emails

There’s also a library of email templates, an email pop-up functionality that includes various types of pop-ups, email automation functionality, smart segmentation functionality, and more.

Moreover, you can use SmartrMail not only for email marketing but also for SMS marketing as it has that functionality as well.

Their Standard plan starts at $19/month and their Unlimited plan starts at $99/month, so this email marketing tool is not only powerful but also affordable.

Another popular eCommerce email marketing app is Drip.

It offers powerful email marketing tools, allows you to create pop-ups, and has advanced segmentation capabilities.

There are also various analytics features that can help you eliminate guesswork and make data-driven decisions.

Drip charges are based on the number of email contacts that you have – its pricing starts at $39/month for 2500 contacts.

It’s worth noting that both SmartrMail and Drip have free trials so you can check them both out and then decide which one you like better.

#2: Use Pop-Ups to Grow Your Email List

Email pop-ups can help you grow your email list faster:

• Welcome pop-ups – These pop-ups are triggered when a visitor arrives on your website. They are a risky bet because let’s be real, welcome pop-ups are extremely annoying. You don’t want to alienate potential customers. However, when it comes to eCommerce stores, they can work well if you are using a discount as a lead magnet. After all, the potential customer likely intends to purchase something, so a discount is immediately relevant to them and might be appreciated.
• Timed-popups – These pop-ups are triggered when the potential customer spends a set amount of time on a particular page. They can work well for product pages, especially if you combine them with a discount for that particular item. Say, if a customer is looking at shoes and then you use a pop-up to offer them a 10% discount on those shoes, that might be enough to make them decide to buy them.
• Exit-intent pop-ups – These pop-ups are triggered when the potential customer is about to leave the site. At that point, you don’t have anything to lose, so you might as well make one last attempt at getting their email address. This is the least risky pop-up type.

These are just general ideas, though.

You need to experiment to find what works best for your business. So make sure that you A/B test everything!

#3: Offer a Discount as a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.

Typically, lead magnets are either free digital products such as ebooks or free online events such as webinars.

However, when it comes to eCommerce, the best lead magnet is usually a coupon with a discount code on the first purchase.

This approach allows you to kill two birds with one stone:

1. Get the potential customer’s email address
2. Nudge them towards their first purchase

Of course, you need to make sure that the math works, but keep in mind that you don’t need to turn a profit on the first sale if you can make that money back later.

So consider offering a discount that’s so good that they can’t refuse!

#4: Set Up Automated Abandoned Cart Emails

According to Baymard Institute, the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.99%, which means that almost 70% of people who put something in their shopping carts never finalize their purchases.

This phenomenon of cart abandonment is the bane of the eCommerce industry and every eCommerce entrepreneur needs to figure out how to deal with it.

One of the most straightforward ways to reduce the cart abandonment rate is to set up automated abandoned cart emails that remind people what they have put in their shopping carts.

Here are the three key components of an effective cart abandonment email:

• The subject line conveys what the email is about – Your email will likely be competing with a bunch of other emails for the potential customer’s attention, so it makes sense to make the subject line not only informative but also compelling. Ideally, you want it to pique curiosity. However, this is highly dependent on your brand image – your copywriting needs to be congruent with it. Don’t send emails with wacko subject lines if your overall brand image is serious.
• Reminder about the products in their shopping cart – Ideally, you want to list the products together with product images.
• Call to action – Finally, your email should end with a call to action that encourages the potential customer to finalize the purchase followed by a call-to-action button that will take them to their shopping cart.

Here’s an example of a simple, yet effective abandoned cart email with the subject line “Quick heads up…”:

You should always send at least one abandoned cart email but you may want to experiment with sending several of them over the span of a few days. Just be careful and don’t overdo it. You don’t want to annoy your customers!

Also, consider implementing the sales psychology principle of scarcity that says that we value scarce things – the less available something is, the more we want it.

If you let people know that their abandoned shopping carts will expire in a few days, they might be more inclined to take action and finalize the purchase.

#5: Set Up Automated Product Recommendation Emails

Amazon is the most popular online store in the world.

What that means for eCommerce entrepreneurs is that Amazon sets the standard and then everyone else needs to figure out how to live up to those expectations.

Say, there was a time when people were okay with getting generic product recommendations via email.

However, that time is long gone, since now everyone is used to personalized product recommendation emails that cater to their individual preferences.

After all, that’s the experience people get when they shop on Amazon, so that’s the experience that they expect to get everywhere else as well. But how can you provide it as a small eCommerce business?

Fortunately, both SmartrMail and Drip offer a product recommendation functionality that allows you to do that.

We recommend investing time in setting up your product recommendation system as these personalized emails can generate a lot of sales.

You can also combine personalized product recommendations with limited-time promotions – send them an email with a product recommendation and let them know about the opportunity to get that item with a discount.

This can work especially well for more expensive products that people may procrastinate on buying.

Also, as time goes on and you collect more sales data, you might start noticing patterns.

Maybe people who buy product A tend to then buy product B? In that case, it would make sense to send a product recommendation email for it soon after the customer purchases product A.

Analyzing sales data like that is especially important for eCommerce businesses that have large product catalogs because figuring out what you should recommend to whom can help you significantly increase sales.

#6: Send Promotional Broadcast Emails

Broadcast emails are one-off emails that you send to your email subscribers to inform them about something time-sensitive.

Say, if you are preparing to release a new product, you can use broadcast emails to update your subscribers about it and then launch it.

Broadcast emails are also great for various seasonal sales as well as for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and similar events.

You can also get creative and use them to celebrate days that are relevant to your niche.

Say, a cat food store Cat Person once sent out this email with the subject line “How much do you really know about your cat?”:

#7: Start an Email Newsletter

No one wants to be bombarded with endless sales pitches.

That’s why you need to be careful and not overwhelm your email subscribers with sales emails. But how can you stay in touch with them, then?

Consider starting a weekly, biweekly, or monthly newsletter where you share valuable content.

The most straightforward format for this is a link roundup where you share links to articles, videos, and podcasts relevant to your niche, plus any company updates that you might have (e.g. an upcoming sale).

You can also take it to the next level by producing original content – say, you might use your industry connections to interview various experts.

Having a newsletter gives you an excuse to reach out to your email subscribers on a regular basis so that you would stay top of mind with them.

Moreover, continuously providing free value allows you to gradually build trust over an extended period of time, which can help you establish a loyal customer base.

#8: Master Email Copywriting

Copywriting is all about selling via the written word.

So if you want to increase your sales with email marketing, you need to master email copywriting.

That’s a huge subject that we can’t adequately cover in this post due to space limitations, but here are some tips that you might find helpful:

• Have a compelling subject line – Your first task is to get the potential customer to open your email. This means that you need to craft a subject line that both grabs attention and piques curiosity. How you go about this should be consistent with your brand image.
• Use the Hook, Story, Offer copywriting framework – Draw the potential customer in with a hook (subject line), tell them an engaging story (body copy), and then present them with your offer (call to action). This may not make sense if you have a large product catalog, but it might work well if you are only selling a few products. It takes some creativity, but we believe that this narrative approach to copywriting can be really effective when executed well.

• Have a clear call to action – You should always end your emails with a call to action that encourages the potential customer to check out the product in question. It should be followed with a call-to-action button that will take the potential customer to the product page.
• Use the P.S. section to convey important information – When people open an email, but can’t be bothered to read it in its entirety, they typically skim it but then read the P.S. section. That makes it a perfect place to reiterate important information that they might have missed in the body copy.

Our friend, Jim Edwards, wrote a best-selling book called “Copywriting Secrets”, so if you want to improve your copywriting, consider checking it out. You can get it for FREE!

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

#9: Make Sure That Your Emails Look Good!

Online marketers are still debating which approach is better:

• Plain text emails that look like emails you would get from a friend
• HMTL emails that are beautifully designed and include relevant images

As usual, the answer is “it depends”, but in the eCommerce industry, HTML emails typically perform better.

That’s why we recommend investing in email design – you want your emails to be easy on the eyes and consistent with your brand image while showing off your products.

Both SmartrMail and Drip offer email templates so you can start there and use Really Good Emails for inspiration.

You might also want to consider hiring a graphic designer that specializes in eCommerce emails to help you create a unique look and feel.

You can find freelance graphic designers on Upwork.

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