3 Personalised email campaigns to increase conversions

Personalisation is a hot topic in eCommerce. And as consumers' expectations continue to get higher every year, we've rounded up 3 email campaigns that leverage personalisation and social proof to help you convert more shoppers.

As the eCommerce space continues to become oversaturated with buying options for shoppers, you might be wondering what you can do to stand out against your competition.

Since most eCommerce traffic will not convert on its first visit (traffic that you likely paid for in some way through PPC, SEO efforts, social media marketing, and other traffic driving strategies), you will need to leverage that traffic and turn as much of it as possible into conversions...somehow.

In this article, we'll cover:

• The secret to using data-driven personalisation strategies used by large online retailers like Amazon for example

• The key to unlocking higher click-through rates and conversions in your email campaigns

• 3 personalised email campaigns you can send to your shoppers

• Proven strategies to personalise the shopping experience on your site and convert more window shoppers into paying customers.

Sounds interesting? Let's dive in.

Why personalised content is the answer

You might already know that email consistently comes out as a top converting marketing channel for online retailers, which makes sense, given its exceptionally high ROI and the fact that online shoppers tend to prefer receiving personalised email campaigns over any other marketing and engagement attempts.

So how can you better harness the power of email marketing to convert more of that traffic for your eCommerce business?

Enter personalisation.

Way back when, in the early 2000s, Amazon changed the way we shop online by providing us with a highly personalised experience – both on-site and off-site – through email.

At one point or another, we’ve all received that Amazon email with personalised product recommendations. Do you remember the first time you saw that? Did you think to yourself, “How did they do that?”. I know I did.

Did you know that Amazon reportedly generates around one-third of their revenue through personalisation efforts alone?

Now, 20 years later, Amazon isn’t the only company that can wow their shoppers with data-driven personalisation. It’s also been proven that social proof is effective at winning over window shoppers, converting them into paying customers quicker.

You can use social proof, just like product recommendations, in various ways both on-site and off-site to gain the trust of your shoppers. If you want to send highly personalised email campaigns just like Amazon does, there’s no reason not to take advantage of social proof to improve your campaign’s performance and generate more online revenue.

Firstly, we'll look into why personalised email campaigns convert better, and then we'll discuss 3 types of personalised email campaigns you can send to your shoppers.

How to master the art of personalised email campaigns

When you send smart email campaigns to your potential shoppers, you can potentially generate new streams of revenue. Make those campaigns utilise data-driven, personalised content for each individual shopper, and you just might even recapture lost traffic.

The key to bringing shoppers back to your site with email is nailing a high click-through rate. And the only way to do that is by populating your email campaigns with relevant, personalised content that makes shoppers want to come back.

When you’re creating email campaigns, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• “Is this email message relevant to each individual shopper?”

• “Is this email covering a broad audience or a specific audience based on data-driven segmentation?”

• “Do my emails match the behaviour of shoppers?”

• “Does the content in my emails provide shoppers with multiple opportunities that entice them to click back to my site?”

Personalised email campaigns containing product recommendations outperform every other marketing channel

Example #1: Increase in click-through rate

Here, this merchant’s product browse abandonment emails had a 17% click-through rate when they displayed no product recommendations. The addition of personalised recommendations to the email increased the click-through rate by 29%.

Example #2: Increase in revenue

Here, personalised emails significantly outperformed the more generic email campaigns. Indeed, the email containing 12 personalised recommendations generated the most revenue.

The secret to increasing sales through sending personalised emails

While there are so many email marketing best practices to keep in mind for your business’s campaign strategy, the secret to sending emails that actually convert is in the way you personalise them. Personalisation is not just about populating the shopper’s name into the subject line and salutation, it’s about giving your shoppers interesting and relevant options to come back to your site that simultaneously builds trust on a one to one level. The email campaigns that do this best are browse abandonment emails.

To compliment your personalisation efforts, leverage the social proof you already have on your site and populate your emails with trust signals like ratings and reviews to really seal the deal.

Here are 3 types of emails that you can send to shoppers on your site to bring them back and increase conversions. Each email can be personalised to where each shopper dropped off in the shopping funnel, pushing shoppers back to where they left off.

Personalised Email #1: Category browse campaign

Send these emails to: The shoppers that click on and view a specific category, brand, or department but never actually view specific, individual products.

Display product recommendations containing: Products from the category the shopper was browsing, taking into account the best sellers within that category.

Use trust signals including: General site rating and a support and/or general product-related testimonial.

Campaign Best Practices:

• Push shoppers back to the category they viewed on your site and best-selling products within that category and related categories.

• Use straight-forward messaging with little text and more images.

• Encourage shoppers to come back with a call-to-action that leads them to the next step in the shopping funnel.

Subject Line Examples:

• “View our (category title) selection”

• “Our latest products in (category title)”

• “Our (category title) are selling fast”

Average open rate: 42%

Average CTR: 27%

Personalised Email #2: Product browse campaign

Send these emails to: The shoppers who have viewed specific, individual products on your site but did not actually add any of those products to their carts.

Display product recommendations containing: The exact product that the shopper viewed and a mix of product-related best sellers and category-related best sellers.

Use trust signals including: General site rating and a support and/or product-specific testimonial.

Campaign Best Practices:

• Use a large image for the product that was viewed and make it front and center.

• Copy should be brief with a soft call-to-action.

• Customer service-related messaging.

• Include large, high quality images and titles.

Subject Line Examples:

• “A quick reminder…”

• “Hurry, this item is nearly sold out”

• “Take another look…”

Average open rate: 52%

Average CTR: 26%

Personalised Email #3: Homepage abandonment campaign

Send these emails to: Shoppers who scanned your homepage but didn’t get any further onto your site.

Display product recommendations containing: Site-wide top sellers.

Use trust signals including: General site rating and the number of site reviews.

Campaign Best Practices:

• Point shoppers back to homepage and various options including top sellers.

• Messaging should be customer service-oriented and friendly.

Subject Line Examples:

• “Thanks for stopping by”

• “This week’s top 15 sellers”

• “We picked these items just for you!”

Average open rate: 22%

Average CTR: 16%

Best practice checklist for sending personalised emails to your shoppers

• Make sure product recommendations are responsive, mobile-friendly, and optimised for all devices.

• When inserting product recommendations into your emails, make sure that they display properly for both desktop and mobile versions (i.e. horizontal display for desktop and vertical display for mobile rendering).

• Include large, high quality images for each product to get shoppers to come back for another view.

• By using a different algorithm for each user segment based on where shoppers get up to in the funnel, your product recommendations will remain relevant to your shoppers.

• Use multiple recommendation algorithms inside one email for increased click-through rate (i.e. display a row of top sellers + a row of related products).

• Implement suppression logic and frequency caps to ensure that you send only one email to each shopper matching the furthest point they reached in the shopping funnel.

Boost your online sales with personalised email campaigns that leverage social proof

Advanced personalisation isn’t just for the big players like Amazon. You can also send highly personalised email campaigns to your shoppers to increase sales for your online store all-year-round.

If you'd like to learn more about implementing reviews and ratings in your personalised email campaigns, check out our Ultimate Guide To Conversions below: