7 Ecommerce Email Marketing Tips, Backed by Statistics

As marketers, we rely on data to point us in the right direction for our email campaigns. In the ecommerce industry, data is even more critical when you aren’t seeing your customer face to face.

Today, I’ve got key ecommerce email marketing statistics that will help you boost your email ROI and get the most use out of one of your most important marketing channels.

Email Statistics on List Building

When it comes to email marketing, getting your list building right is half the battle. So capture more emails the first time by using these tips.

Tip #1: Specify your offer with landing pages, and use dynamic sign up forms:

According to our study, landing pages have the highest sign up rate at nearly 23%. A great landing page can do so much, not just for building your email list but also for pre-segmenting your customers automatically by interest.

landing pages

We also found that using a more dynamic and gamified pop up worked better for ecommerce: the Wheel of Fortune sign up form had a 10% success rate for merchants, over general popups which only had a 3% success rate.

Unsurprisingly, standard and static sign up forms performed the worst at only 1.3%. This makes sense when compared even to popups, which are much more dynamic and capture your customer’s attention easier.

Tip #2: Don’t be afraid to ask for information

While most research on the internet says you should ask for as little information as possible, we found that asking for three pieces of information in a sign up form yielded better results than forms with more or less information.

Sign up forms asking for three pieces of information had a 10% sign up rate, while asking for 2, 4, or 5 pieces of information only yielded an 8% success rate.

But what should you ask for? We studied which combinations worked best when you asked for an email address. Surprisingly, asking for a phone number worked really well in a sign up form, earning a 10.15% sign up rate.

Don’t be afraid to ask for information

I think most agree that these results are surprising as a phone number is quite personal, however it makes sense when thinking about B2B ecommerce, where asking for a phone number at sign up is more standardized.

Customers are also much more used to giving out their first name to online merchants. Email + Name was quite successful, coming in at a 7.4% success rate.

While many online merchants tend to ask for a customer’s birthday, they were more hesitant to divulge that information. Asking for a birthdate with an email address had a 6.7% rate of sign up.

Asking for a customer’s gender performed the worst at only a 5.93% subscribe rate.

My advice? Shoot for email, name, and birthdate for your sign up forms. This improves sign up rate while getting you crucial information that will help for both personalization and segmentation.

Email Statistics on Campaigns

When it comes to email campaigns for ecommerce, getting the “when” right is a lot of testing and retesting.

While you won’t be able to avoid that, I can at least steer you in the right direction with some helpful data we gathered last year.

Tip #3: Benefit from email campaigns in November, but don’t neglect the first half of the year, when emails perform better overall

It may come as no surprise that November is the best performing month for email campaigns. In fact, email campaigns sent in November welcome a 16% open rate and a 3.5% click-through rate.

Benefit from email campaigns

This makes perfect sense: with the holidays approaching and Black Friday/Cyber Monday peaks throughout this month, it’s not a shocker that customers are more likely to open and click through during this time period.

Not only are customers more susceptible to ecommerce deals, merchants are sending a high volume of campaigns during this time period too.

With that said, the first half of the year performs better overall in comparison of open rate and average click through rate. This is largely due to the lower volume of emails that customers receive, making them much more likely to not be overwhelmed by the amount of messages in their inboxes.

Tip #4: For the best open rates, send your campaign during a typical work-day break. For best click-through rates, stick to the morning.

So when is the best time to send email campaigns during the day? As it turns out, there are a few patterns when we compare open rates and click through rates by when a campaign is sent.

By open rate, the best time to send an email is 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 4:00 pm. Emails received around those time frames are more likely to be opened. This makes perfect sense for customers, as these hours tend to fall in line with the average workday’s beginning, lunch break, and end.

best click-through rates

However, when it comes to click-through rate, the hours shift a bit. It turns out that no one has time to click through in the afternoon: click-through rates were best in emails that were received at 6:00 am, 8:00 am, and 1:00 pm.

Tip #5: Avoid sending email campaigns during the end of the month

Now that we know which months and times of day perform best, let’s look at which days of the month work best for ecommerce email marketing.

As it turns out, email campaign engagement drops off after the middle of the month. The best dates to send an email fall on the 1st, the 4th, the 11th, and the 19th of each month.

Avoid sending email campaigns

We can see in the graphic above that engagement is strong in the beginning of the month, but open and click through rates drop during the last 10 days of the month. So for best results, avoid sending your email campaigns at the end of the month.

Email Statistics for Automation Workflows

When it comes to email marketing for ecommerce, sending them manually can turn into a chore if you have a lot of subscribers.

Many merchants turn to automation to take some of the workload off, so they can focus on what they do best: running a great online store.

So how should you go about email automation? I’ve got the stats to help you out.

Tip #6: An series of 3 emails works better than just a sole message

As the above tip would suggest, a 3-email series works much better than a one-off message, regardless of the goal of the campaign.

Across the board, whether we’re comparing a welcome, abandoned cart recover, or customer reactivation automated campaign, a series of 3 emails is always more effective.

Sometimes, just how much more effective can be surprising: welcome campaigns perform 90% better when sent as a series of 3 emails.

emails works better

Abandoned cart recovery performs better as a series too, earning 63% more orders for online merchants.

Even reactivation campaigns prove that some customer need just a little more convincing, earning 75% more orders than solitary email campaigns.

Tip #7: Focus on abandoned cart recovery automation workflows for the biggest ROI

Now that we know how many emails to send in an automated workflow, which automations work the best for ecommerce?

As it turns out, order confirmation emails get opened and clicked the most. Emails sent confirming a recent purchase are opened at a rate of 64.4% and are clicked-through at a rate of 17.6%.

In fact, most emails sent after a purchase perform well. Emails sent asking for feedback after a purchase is completed have an average open rate of 59.1%, but they perform much weaker in terms of click-through rate at about 9%.

Focus on abandoned cart recovery automation

However, when it comes to order rate, there is a clear star among the automation workflows. Abandoned cart recovery email series perform the strongest when we compare how well the campaigns convert at a 2.39% order rate.

This is all despite having a much lower open and click through rate among automation workflows.

By all means, don’t neglect your other automated workflow email campaigns, but focusing on nailing the abandoned cart recovery campaign should be one of your top priority.

Ecommerce email marketing can be tricky as there are a lot of moving parts and aspects to think about. However, by using the data cited in this article, you have a head start in creating amazing email marketing campaigns that your customers can’t wait to see.

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