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It’s reported up to 75 percent of email subscribers are inactive. If you've been doing email marketing for a while, you probably feel this pain point. We're guessing you have a list of unengaged emails you've had to prune over time and can no longer safely email them...right?
As you already know, those inactive users will only hurt your engagement metrics and also impact your deliverability reputation if you keep sending to them.
However, thanks to our Reactivate feature, you can now safely email and re-engage those subscribers. But what should you be sending them?
A re-engagement campaign — also known as a win-back email — is a single or sequence of automated emails sent to inactive subscribers with the goal of getting them to interact with your emails again.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’ve seen them in your inbox. They’re the emails with subject lines like, “We miss you,” or “We want you back.” And they work.
Studies have shown that nearly half of subscribers who receive re-engagement emails will read subsequent emails. But to experience these (or better) stats, you need to ensure your re-engagement campaign catches their attention. And to do that, you need to make sure you’re sending the right messaging in the right order.
Before you start creating some must-open emails for your re-engagement campaign, you’ll need to figure out how many you need and what each should say. To do that, you should map out your automation journey.
Here’s an example of an automation series you could use for your re-engagement campaign:
To get a better idea of what a re-engagement email series looks like, here's an example of one from Animoto.
Subject line: Get the most out of Animoto, all year long
The opening email focuses on providing value to the user, telling the reader Animoto will help them get the most of out their services. The email then uses an eye-catching infographic to give them ideas for their next project. This example gives the user a reason to come back instead of simply pushing them to engage, and that's what you want with your first email in the series.
Subject line: Did you miss out on some of these new features?
In another email example from Animoto, this message focuses on telling the reader what they have missed out on since they stopped engaging — a little stronger approach than the first one with "Been a while?" It shares new features, capabilities, and a “Learn More” CTA that shows them even more updates.
Subject line: Did you still want to hear from us?
This email is a more to the point about why the reader is receiving it. The brand is trying to find out if the reader still wants to subscribe to their emails. The email gives the subscriber the option to update their email preferences so they receive messages on topics they enjoy. It also tells them how to unsubscribe from the email, saving you the step of removing them if they no longer want to engage.
You could even follow up from this one saying that this is the last communication the subscriber will receive from you if they don't take action — update their preferences, engage with the CTA, sign in, etc.
Not every re-engagement campaign has to include several emails in the series. Here's one email that covers it all within a single email.
Subject line: Your HubSpot account will be deactivated in 30 days
This email from HubSpot gets straight to the point: If the user doesn't sign into their account within the next 30 days, their account will be deactivated. The message reminds them what type of account they signed up for and that HubSpot deactivates any account that has 120 days of inactivity.
HubSpot also includes a link to a guide that can help them get started back, in case maybe there was a question or hurdle to engaging that it could address.
While it can sound harsh to remove contacts — especially when you want to grow your lists — they are only hurting your metrics and reputation.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to jump into real examples of emails that are sure to engage your wayward contacts once again. We’ve broken re-engagement email examples down for publishers, e-commerce, apps and technology, and events — but you can use ideas and techniques from any of them for your next campaign.
From personalization to incentives, these e-commerce re-engagement emails offer audiences a little bit of everything to bring them back.
Subject line: You got this.
Again with the puppy eyes. Teespring is targeting e-commerce brands with this email, which is why it landed here. Something this email does well is providing a truly personalized experience by inputting specific stats from their account.
Subject line: Are we seriously breaking up?
Urban Outfitters proves it knows its audience with this re-engagement email. Removing an inactive customer from your list does kind of feel like a breakup, so this campaign's message is right on point. The CTAs are pretty fun too.
Subject line: Just Remember… We Just Love Treating You: Shop Our Sale & Get 20% off Everything!
What better way to woo a contact back to your brand than with a deal? 1-800Flowers.com offers the customer a 20-percent off sitewide coupon and shows them an example of a beautiful arrangement they could use that coupon on.
Subject line: There's still time!
Maybe 20 percent off is the magic number because Yoox also offers customers that discount if they make a purchase — along with free shipping. They also include a deadline to use the code, which is smart because of the customer doesn't click the link right then, chances are they won't.
Subject line: Lucky you! There’s still time to claim your prize
Instead of telling customers they want them to come back, Birchbox gives them a reason to return with this email. They offer their subscribers a free prize when they make their first purchase, using the fun “Let’s Play” CTA — and an image every girl can relate to from her middle school years. We like this different approach that varies from the typical, “We miss you,” messaging. It shows you how to combine both an offer and re-engagement message all in one.
How about a re-engagement campaign that also combines your products? That's what Paul Mitchell did with this, "We hate goodbyes," email — using the products to create a sad face. At the bottom, there's a clear CTA to stay subscribed.
Subject line: Goodbyes are hard...
At the end of your re-engagement email campaign series, it’s time to cut to the chase like in this email from Framebridge: If they don’t engage with your email, this will be the last they hear from you. That sounds so final, right? Well, that’s the point. You want to make it clear that you don’t want to waste their time if they don’t want to receive your messages anymore. But if they do, they can simply click the CTA, “Wait, keep me on the list,” to stay connected.
Subject line: We've made some improvement since you've been away
This email from Lowe's gives subscribers a step-by-step list of what's new with the brand since they last engaged. This gives the customer a variety of features and news to check out, so there's bound to be something that catches their interest.
The user has engaged with your publication in the past, but for whatever reason, they stopped and never signed up — or let their subscription lapse. Here are examples from publishers that show how to re-engage those customers.
Subject line: What you’ve been missing from Digiday
Valuable content is the main selling point for publishers, so why not remind your audience about the amazing stuff you’ve been sharing since they’ve been gone? In this email from Digiday, they include a rundown of the recent edition to give the reader a glimpse at the information and topics they missed out on. We also like how they include Digiday in the subject line so there’s no doubt who it’s from and what it’s about. (This is a shortened version of the email.)
Subject line: Get a deeper look into right now
An email like this one from The New Yorker reminds them what they’re missing (i.e. “outstanding long-form journalism”) and also includes the cost and perks to signing up. Being specific and upfront about the costs is a good idea because it doesn’t bury the lede, as these writers might say.
Whether your event has passed or is about to come up, you want to let your audience know — and that includes the inactive members, as well. An event can be a great way to catch their attention, like brands did in these examples.
Subject line: Marketing & Mixology was a hit.
No one wants to feel like they missed out on something great — which is exactly what Campaign Monitor is counting on with this re-engagement email. Following their event, they sent this email to no-shows to give them a glimpse at what they missed out on. That does two things: It gives them valuable information via event highlights (engaging them), and the email also shows them they shouldn’t miss out on future events.
For customers who have yet to sign up for the five-year celebration event, Tough Mudder is there to tell them why they should — and why they should sign up ASAP. They offer them a 25-percent off coupon and included a video of someone who had participated. Above the "Find My Event" CTA, they remind customers some events may be sold out, which only increases their FOMO (that's a good thing).
Subject line: See you in Denver next month? ⛰
Not all event re-engagement emails need to come after they’ve missed the event, as you’ll see with this one from Cotton Works. The email reminds them of an upcoming event and gives them the details about when and where to find them. Emails like this are especially effective when you’re able to use a local segment because that makes it more personalized.
Have users stopped interacting with your platform and/or emails? See if you can bring them back in with re-engagement emails like these examples.
Subject line: Did you know we’ve made big changes in the last year?
Instead of making the subscriber feel bad about not engaging with your platform, why not try the approach that Uber used? They praise the user right off the bat in this email, “[Name], it’s so nice to see you again.” From there, they detail some of the things the user might have missed since they last interacted with the company — highlighting updates, news, and improvements.
Subject line: We miss you
From the subject line to header text, “We haven’t seen you in a while,” this re-engagement email from Duolingo makes it clear why the contact is receiving the email. Again, the message is two short sentences, first posing a question and then telling the user how to take action. The CTA is a little on the lengthy side, but it is customized for the brand, which is a plus.
Subject line: [Name], we’ve not seen you in a while
Another language app, Busuu throws in an emoji in the subject line to get across how sad they are that the user hasn’t engaged with them recently. The email serves as a reminder to stick with what they started, using the CTA, “Give it another go.” The message provides encouragement and (hopefully) the push they need to re-engage.
Subject line: It’s been a while
The subject line from this Resy email is also carried over as the header of the message, followed by a series of CTAs. Giving multiple CTAs can sometimes overwhelm the user, but these are clearly defined and used as part of the overall design. One thing the brand could have done better is provide some context for what the company is all about. Resy connects users to restaurants, but you wouldn’t get that from the email. And if they haven’t interacted with you in a while, they might need that reminder.
Subject line: Hey [Name], take action to let us know if you still want to get emails from us
The branding and messaging couldn’t be clearer in this re-engagement email from Udemy. They also tell them why they should engage and offer them an incentive to do just that. While we are all about being informative with subject lines, this one might take it a bit far, considering the majority will be cut off for the user on both mobile and desktop devices.
Subject line: You’ve earned a new badge!
Who doesn’t like being recognized for something they’ve done? Grammarly is banking on the answer to that being “no one” with this email. Wanting to see what badge they earned, users might be surprised to see it’s one for not using the program — pretty clever, huh? Basically, the platform is letting the user know they ghosted Grammarly, and they want them back. They use a fun CTA that fits the branding and messaging, as well.
Subject line: The power of updates
Been a while since your user has engaged? It’s time to not only check in, but to also give them valuable, actionable information like this email from Kickstarter — because your emails shouldn’t just be self-serving. Yes, you want them to engage, but at the end of the day, if what you’re sending doesn’t benefit your subscriber, you’re wasting your time.
Subject line: We miss you on Google Maps
Nothing portrays sadness as well as puppy eyes, and this email has that image covered. Google Maps keeps the message short and to the point, which is exactly what you want your email to be like. The CTA is customized to what they want the user to do — “Contribute Now” — driving home the re-engagement effort.
Subject line: Come see what’s new!
Instead of using the “We’ve missed you,” line as the subject line, Skillshare puts it in the header of the email — and uses something more positive for the subject line about what’s new. They show and tell the user what’s new since they last interacted, and they also offer them an incentive to come back — a winning combination.
Before you hit send on a stellar re-engagement email campaign, make sure you segment your inactive audience members and have your automation schedule set up. Whether you send them updates, offers, or a “We miss you,” message, be sure it’s clear you want them to come back!
An online shopper just viewed one of the products on your website — or several, if you’re lucky — but they left before adding it to their cart and making a purchase. So, how do you not only get them back to the product page, but also push them to purchase the item? Through an email campaign, of course. And how do you ensure they open those amazing campaigns? You create engaging browse abandonment subject lines.
It’s no secret that subject lines are a vital component of any email marketing strategy. If you don’t have a good one, subscribers aren’t going to have a reason to open your message. They are one of the first things they’ll see, you know. And if they aren’t opening your browse abandonment emails, you can forget sending them back to your site with the CTA inside of your message.
Ready to learn how to craft catchy subject lines that will consistently earn you opens for your browse abandonment emails? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a glimpse into what we will cover in this intensive guide:
Anytime an online shopper views one or more products on your e-commerce site and leaves, they’ve performed browse abandonment. Unlike cart abandonment, these shoppers never actually added a product to their carts — they simply left after viewing it.
Browse abandonment is a serious issue for e-commerce stores, considering 97 percent of first-time users leave an online store without making a purchase. Of those, 85 percent never add a product to their cart. Ouch. Though, I’m sure we’re not telling you anything you don’t know.
But, something you might not be as aware of is the silver lining to browse abandonment. Did you know 42 percent of revenue is generated from browse abandonment campaigns? So, if you engage them after they’ve viewed and left your site, you can experience some serious ROI.
To best do that, you’ll need to create winning browse abandonment subject lines. And yes, some of the subject lines you create might be similar to what you’d use for abandoned cart emails — they do both involve abandonment.
But, you would want to make sure you didn’t use words like “cart” or “abandonment” in these subject lines. Browse abandoners have only viewed and left your site, so you wouldn’t say things like you “reserved items” for them or “your cart is about to expire.”
You can also be less specific with browse abandonment emails, compared to their cart counterpart, because they aren’t as far down the sales funnel. That gives you more of a chance to have fun with the subject lines, blending a bit of promotional, discount, and branding together to bring them back. Since these shoppers do have lower interest than cart abandoners, you can emphasize other factors like the return policy or free shipping, as well.
When you’re writing browse abandonment subject lines or ones for any other type of email campaign, there are a few general rules to give you the best results (i.e. opens). Here are 11 of the best ways to catch your subscribers’ attention with subject lines and make them want to read your email:
One of the other things your subscribers will see first is the “from” field. So, make sure to email them from a consistent person’s name, email address, or brand name so they automatically recognize who the message is from. We’ll dive into that topic a little more at the end, as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5py5PLLB-3o&t=1s
If you send an email marketing campaign and it has poor results, you might wonder if it was the subject line, time of day you sent it, or another factor that contributed to its demise. But if you perform an A/B test, you can put each component under a microscope to figure out what did and didn’t work. That’s why testing your browse abandonment subject lines is so important.
Try testing out these different factors with your subject line to see what your audience prefers:
You can also try out different versions and approaches when it comes to your preview text. How you create an A/B test campaign will depend on the ESP you use, but here’s what the option looks like in Robly:
Remember: You should only test one element at a time. If you try out different subject lines, body text, and designs all in the same test, you’ll never know which one worked the best. You always need to have a control version during the test, just like you would any other experiment.
We’ve put together 97 subject line examples for browse abandonment emails. Test them out with your audience, tweak them to better target your subscribers, try capitalizing the first letter of each word (and vice versa), or simply use them as a way to get the creative juices flowing.
There’s a reason you see so many brands use similar approaches when it comes to browse abandonment subject lines. That’s because they work. They are straight to the point and short enough to be seen in full, even on mobile devices — giving you a winning combination.
You’ll notice several of these are similar, with only a word or two different. So, use what sounds most natural to your brand’s voice.
Crafting the browse abandonment subject line so that it looks like it was written just for the shopper will catch their attention and make them feel more connected to your brand. We all want to be seen as an individual, instead of a faceless number on an email list.
It’s especially important to send yourself a test email to ensure the personalization is showing up correctly. Having a subject line that ends up looking like this in their inbox will do way more damage than not having their name in the subject line at all: “Hi NAME, check this out!” You want to ensure you’re using the correct format to pull their names into the line.
Also, if you don’t have their name in your system, make sure your ESP plugs something else in, like, “Hi there!” or simply, “Hi!”
If your company doesn’t have physical products, like a travel company or service, to mention, you can instead input information about what places they are interested in visiting or the type of service they viewed. Not only are you personalizing the emails for the online shopper, but you’re also personalizing it to your business.
To achieve that level of personalization, it’s important to put in the back-end work so that it’s actually possible. That means properly categorizing your products or services so your automated emails can pull in the correct information. Just like you wouldn’t want their name to show up incorrectly, you wouldn’t want to email them information on a mattress if they originally viewed pet supplies. Unless they are interested in dog beds, we suppose.
While these are specific examples of personalized browse abandonment subject lines below, you can personalize any email of the other examples in this guide by simply adding their name to them. And for the sake of the examples, we’re going to plug in “John” for the consumer’s name and “chair” and/or “lawn chair” for the browsed product.
As you’ll notice, you don’t always have to put their name or the product name to personalize the subject line. Using “you” will also make it feel personalized, so try that approach, as well.
No one wants to miss out. So, use that mindset in your campaign’s favor, showing browse abandonment shoppers they need to head back to your site ASAP. If they don’t go back, well, that’s too horrible to even think about.
While we don’t love using exclamation points too often, they can be especially powerful when it comes to creating a sense of urgency with your browse abandonment subject lines.
The online shopper viewed the product, sure, but they didn’t actually add it to their cart. So, it’s hard to say how interested they are in the specific product they looked at. Give them a chance to see other related products, in case one of them will better catch their eye.
Maybe there was a reason they left your site before adding the product to their cart and completing the purchase. Perhaps they were trying to find another item but had no luck. Or, they had a question before they committed to the product. Whatever the reason, use your subject line to show them you get it and can help.
Everyone loves a good deal. That’s no secret. But what might not be as clear is how to properly use the discount technique to get shoppers back to your site. That’s why we’ve put together these examples to give you some ideas.
While giving the shopper a discount is a great way to get them back on your site, consumers have started to become more immune to this practice — especially with brands that constantly email them about different discounts. So, like with any of the other subject line tactics we’ve mentioned, use it sparingly and mix it up with other techniques. Variety is your friend.
You probably wouldn’t want to use emojis in every subject line you send, but it can be a fun way to catch their eyes and stand out in their inbox. Plus, it shows your readers your brand knows how to have fun and doesn’t take things too seriously. You’re only limited to your own creativity and emoji keyboard with these.
YAY! The chair you like is on sale!
One thing to keep in mind when you use emojis: Make sure you understand the meaning behind the emoji. What might look like one thing to you could actually mean something completely different, so look it up before you use it. You don’t want to have any 
moments.
Use your brand’s voice — along with your creativity — to craft browse abandonment subject lines that they’ll remember and genuinely enjoy. Don’t be afraid of using a pun or two, especially if it relates to your brand.
There are several different factors that can cause you to have issues with your open rate. And while you might think you have the most amazing browse abandonment subject lines, you might still be struggling. So, try these different marketing tactics to improve your open rates, and ultimately, your conversion rates.
Just like you segment your email lists, make sure to segment your messages based on the data you have on these online shoppers — because the returning shopper isn’t the same as a first-time viewer.
You can create different messages based on the product category, product values, and past purchase history. For example, if you’re trying to get rid of holiday inventory and they view one of your holiday items, offer them a special coupon that’s not included in your other browse abandonment messages.
Or, if the item they viewed has a higher price tag, you could let them know about free delivery, a discount code, etc. The subject line isn’t the only factor that should be customized — the entire focus of the email should as well.
Another important component of segmenting your browse abandoners is making sure you’re not emailing them too often. For example, if you emailed the user a week ago about a product they viewed, you wouldn’t want to email them again for something else they viewed. You can set your messages to suppress users until after a certain amount of time, like after a month or if they view a different product category altogether.
You want your messages to be valuable and targeted, but not pushy, bothersome, and overwhelming. Don’t make them dread seeing your messages pop up.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again — with a different subject line. For example, if a shopper doesn’t open your browse abandonment email the first day you sent it, send that same email again with a different subject line. And this time, make sure that subject line creates a stronger sense of urgency than the original one.
Speaking of sending your browse abandonment emails, make sure you’re sending them right away — like within an hour of them viewing your product. They only viewed your product, so it can be easy for them to forget about it if they aren’t reminded by your amazing subject line right away.
One email often isn’t enough to get shoppers who committed browse abandonment back to your site. It may take two or three before they feel the urge to click through and check out your products again.
You can space out these emails to go out every day or two. After about three emails, if they aren’t engaging, you can stop sending the messages — because at that point, they will probably get annoyed if you do. Here’s an example of an email series for browse abandonment emails:
Each of the emails in the series should use a different approach to win them back, and that includes the approach you take with the browse abandonment subject line. Here’s an example:
Since the “from” field is one of the first things your subscribers see in addition to the subject line, sometimes it’s the culprit for why they aren’t opening your message. So, if your “from” name is the name of the brand, try changing it to the name of a known brand ambassador, founder, CEO, or other person known to be associated with the brand. Again, this is an example of why A/B testing is important.
It’s one thing to not catch your subscribers’ attention with your subject line. It’s another thing entirely to catch their attention for the wrong reasons. If there are certain words (ex. free, exclusive, act now, etc.), or it’s in all caps with several exclamation points, the subject line is going to scream, “SPAM!” That’s going to lead your subscribers to mark it as such (if the filter hasn’t already), sending your campaign to their spam folder.
Your ESP should mark any subject lines that look like they might trigger a spam folder, and you can also look up lists of words and phrases to avoid. Basically, you want your subject lines to sound natural (something you’d say to a friend) and not include sales-y lingo.
Whether you’re sending a browse abandonment email or another type of email marketing campaign, your subject line is your first (and often only) time to catch their attention. First impressions really are everything when it comes to your email marketing efforts, so make sure you make the most of your browse abandonment subject lines in the limited space you’re given.
Just don’t forget: An amazing subject line may earn you the open, but if your content isn’t worth reading or clicking through to see more, it doesn’t matter. So, make sure you’re sending them valuable content, as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_tPhVVRNkU&t=1s
If you want to start identifying your site’s anonymous traffic to engage an even larger audience who browsed and left (while building your email list), give Retention.com a try. We can identify up to 30 percent of your site’s anonymous traffic, giving you their name and contact information so you can follow up with a browsed abandonment email.
Even if you aren’t able to win back the browse abandoners with an email, you can try other approaches with email-based retargeting based off of the other data you collect on them.
You can sign up for a 7-day free trial with up to 25 free contacts with Retention.com, so why not give it a try?
Ask anyone with an e-commerce site what’s one of their main pain points, and abandoned carts will probably be toward the top of their list. It hurts to see a shopper add a product to their cart, only to leave your site before ever following through with their purchase. (That's why we're going to give you tons of abandoned cart examples!)
Cart abandonment is an issue no matter your brand’s industry or size. The average cart abandonment rate is 70 percent, and some companies have rates above 80 percent. So yea, abandoned carts are a big issue.
While these numbers may seem high and overwhelming, there are several things you can do to help lower yours and help people complete their purchases. That’s why we’ve put together tips, techniques, and abandoned cart examples that will push shoppers to convert.
Here’s some of what we’ll cover in this guide:
To stop shoppers from leaving their carts before making a purchase, you first need to understand why this happens so you can then fix or prevent the issue.
To create a compelling campaign that drives them back to your site to finish their purchase, you first need to understand why they abandoned their cart. While you aren’t going to know each shoppers’ specific reasons for leaving (unless they leave you feedback, which is amazing!), you can learn about the most popular causes of cart abandonment.
Then, take steps to prevent or reduce the issue so that they don’t have a reason to leave their items unpurchased. (These can also help with browse abandonment.)
These are the Top 10 reasons online shoppers abandon their carts:
Luckily, you can do something about most of these issues.
Now that you understand what causes them to ditch their carts, you need to focus on eliminating those reasons as much as possible. We’ll dive into each reason shoppers abandon their carts and give you a way to prevent those issues from happening.
If a shopper puts a $20 item in their cart and then sees a $40 total when they go to check out, they’re not going to be too happy about it. That’s because it’s unexpected. And instead of searching to see what all of those extras costs are, they’re probably just going to close out of the site.
We know not all fees are avoidable (though you can include some of those costs in the product cost so there are fewer surprises). If you have to include them, let them know before they ever get to their cart. For example, run a banner at the top of your page that says “Shipping starting at $4.99.”
They shouldn’t be too surprised by taxes since those are pretty much the same across the board, but do what you can to eliminate other fees — or at least let them know earlier.
Consumers want the checkout process to be as quick and painless as possible. They don’t want to spend another five minutes filling out your forms to create an account after they’ve added items to their cart: They’re ready to make a purchase and be done.
So, instead of requiring them to create an account before checkout, give them the option to checkout as a guest. That saves them time if they aren’t interested in creating an account with your company right now.
You can, however, let them know if they create an account, you will save their information (address, billing, etc.) so that it’s all there for the next time they make a purchase. That allows you to put the decision on them.
Again, this goes back to people wanting the process to be as quick and easy as possible. Don’t make them jump through a dozen hoops to make a purchase. Only ask for the information you need (ex. address, billing, name, etc.), and keep it all on one screen so they know how much they will have to do.
No one wants to open their cart and see a total price they weren’t expecting (unless it’s lower, of course). And no one is going to keep a running tally in their head of how much all of their items cost.
To help them keep track of their costs, show them a pop-up similar to what Old Navy does in this example. They show the product details for what was just added, along with the subtotal for all of the items in their cart at the bottom.
We know delivery is a tricky thing right now during the pandemic, but that won’t always be the case — and people want their items, like, yesterday. So, offer them different shipping options with different pricing options for each. Let them control how quickly they want to receive the package and if they’re willing to pay more for it to come sooner. If it’s a priority to them, they will pay more to have it shipped earlier.
A shopper is only going to give their personal information to someone they trust. So, it’s important you build that trust with them before they go to make a purchase. Here are a few ways to show consumers it’s safe to give you their information:
It’s pretty obvious someone isn’t going to complete their purchase if the site isn’t actually working. We know all bugs can’t be prevented, but make sure you go through the checkout process to identify any possible issues. And when there are errors or the site’s down, show customers a message that you’re working to get the issue resolved.
Making a purchase online can be a bit scary for consumers, considering they’ve never seen the product in person. That’s especially true if they’ve never made a purchase on your site before or the item costs a little more.
Make sure to state what your returns policy is on the cart page and on your homepage. For example, you could put a banner that says “Free returns within 60 days” on your page, or whatever your policy is. Many brands are also extending their returns policy right now due to COVID, so you can also do that to show you care about your customers.
People like options. And when it comes to payment options, you want to give them enough so that one fits their needs. In addition to the major credit cards, you can also include methods like PayPal.
We know you can’t control if a customer’s card is declined. But by offering a variety of payment methods, like we just mentioned, that may help them find an option that will work for them.
Of course, you can do all of the things on this list and still experience cart abandonment. Maybe they found another product they liked better, or they were never that serious about making a purchase.
However, by fixing these abandoned cart examples and reasons, you can greatly reduce your abandonment rate. Once you’ve taken the time to resolve those potential problems, you can move on to focusing on bringing shoppers back after they abandon their carts with these email marketing techniques.
One of the best ways to convince consumers to visit their carts and complete their purchases is with email campaigns. And we’ve got plenty of abandoned cart examples to show you!
Remember the example we showed you above from Old Navy about giving the cart subtotal whenever a shopper adds an item to their cart? Well, this is the cart abandonment email we received after leaving those items behind. It arrived a day after we put the items in the cart and exited the site.
Here are some of the things we love about this abandoned cart example:
This email really packs a punch in terms of content, photos, design, and touching on some of the main issues that could have caused the shopper to abandon their cart.
While we are pleased with the email overall, here’s something that could have taken it one step higher:
Here’s another abandoned cart email example that was sent about a day after we left a product in our cart. Target likes to use a popular tactic of reminding them about the product by lowering the price. Check out these other techniques used in the email:
Whatever they left in the cart should be the main focus of the email. However, we feel like this email would be better if:
This email from PinkBlush mixes a sense of urgency with showing the customer what styles are popular right now (and reminding them they have great taste). From “There’s Still Time” and “Don’t wait any longer” to “More Hot Styles,” this email packs a punch with a simple approach.
The brand also uses social proof by showing other popular items, along with a star review for them. That’s a great way to get them back to your site if they weren’t sold on the original item in their cart — or as an up-selling tool.
And here are some other things we love:
One thing this email is missing:
With a clean, simple design, this email perfectly matches the look and feel of the brand’s website. Everlane sells timeless pieces that go right along with this email campaign. There’s not as much to look at in this example, but there’s still plenty to enjoy about it:
To make this email even better, they could have done these things:
When a shopper opens this email, it’s clearly from Alex Mill, and we aren’t just talking about the logo that’s at the top. The font also matches what’s on their website, making the email a cohesive extension of the brand. A few other things we liked about this email include:
What we think would make this abandoned cart example even better:
Perigold leads off the email with, “The perfect piece is still in your cart,” in large text. That’s then followed by a smaller font that reads, “And it looks even better up close. Why not bring it home?”
We like how they have the main text and then more copy below that. There’s also a menu bar at the top so shoppers can easily access any of the brand’s departments. Check out these other components we’re vibing with:
Here are just a few things we think would make this email even better:
Known for its modern, contemporary furniture, you get that same vibe in Blu Dot’s email design. Some of the other pros about this abandoned cart example include:
These are a few things we think should have been avoided to get the best response:
This email from Society6 really lays it all out there. There’s no messing around with this example. The brand lets the shopper know their cart is incomplete, and they need to take action ASAP if they don’t want to lose those items: Because no one wants to have to go looking for items again.
If that wasn’t enough goodness, we are also loving these other components they put into this email:
While we love the design of this email and some of the components, there are some things it could do better — especially one big thing:
Who doesn’t like being told that they made a good decision or have nice taste? We’ll take those compliments all day long, and that’s exactly what Food52 does with that subject line.
Once the shopper opens the email, they are greeted by fun, light-hearted content: “Your Cart Called. It’s hoping you’ll come back and see it.” They follow that up by reminding the shopper their items won’t be there forever (will see that in the next example).
What we would have liked to see them do a little better:
Creating a series of abandoned cart emails is a great practice because maybe one email’s approach will work better than another. You can space these emails out by a few days and hope one of them catches the shopper’s eye.
While the email in the example above lets them know the brand saved their items in their cart for them, this email lets them know those items might now be gone from their cart: “Oh no! We had to let the treasures saved in your cart go. But you might just be able to snatch them up again. Let’s take a look, shall we?” Pretty slick, right?
Here’s what else we like about this email:
Of course, we’ll mention a few things that might make this example better:
From the subject line to creative CTA, this email from Cater2.me has it all. And since it’s short and sweet (or maybe savory since there are tacos involved), we’ll get straight to what we love about it:
What would make this email even better? Here’s one idea:
Something we haven’t seen in the other examples yet is a personalized greeting. Those can be a great way to engage your shopper and remind them you sent this email just for them. We all like feeling special and not like a number. Check out these other components that we like from Bearbrand’s example:
As always, here are a few things we would have liked to see done differently:
Though the company has since changed its name to Drop, we like this cart abandonment email they put together. They make it clear why they are emailing this subscriber: “You left something behind” and “Looks like you didn’t finish checking out.”
Without further ado, we’ll jump into what we think could make this abandoned cart example even better:
It can be hard to put a personal touch on a branded campaign, however Peel does a great job of making it seem like it came from a real person. They include their founders’ names, signatures, and Twitter handles, which really helps shoppers feel more connected to the brand and people behind it.
As with all of these abandoned cart examples, we have to figure out a few things that might have made it better:
Anytime you can set your brand apart, you’re making some real progress with online shoppers and consumers in general. That’s what Dyson does at the bottom of this cart abandonment email with the section, “Reasons to shop at Dyson.”
They hit on several potential issues that could keep a shopper from converting, including showing they offer a price-match guarantee, 30-day money-back policy, free tools, and free 2-day delivery (which is a great turnaround that competes with Amazon).
Check out these other tactics they use to bring shoppers back to their carts:
We can’t help but think the brand missed out on the opportunity to use a vacuum pun in their email, such as, “Don’t let this offer get sucked away,” or “Time to clean out your cart.” When you have the products to back it up, go for the puns!
This email from Chewy shows a complete thought process of getting the shopper back to their cart. First, the subject line asks if they forgot something. That’s followed up by telling them they saved the item they forgot — and hey, there’s a photo of it in case they don’t remember what it was. And to round out that digital conversation, there’s a CTA to “View Your Cart.”
It’s a cohesive progression of copy that works well with the other components:
As for components they could have improved on:
It doesn’t get much sweeter than wine and a discount, right? That’s what Winc is hoping for with this email. Offering a $20 discount sounds pretty nice for a first purchase, and they top that off with a clean design.
But those aren’t the only things we’re enjoying:
Here are a few things that could make this wine more fine:
We don’t know about you, but purchasing clothes online — especially items as personal as underwear — can be a bit tricky since you can’t try them on until they arrive. That’s why we like how Mack Weldon’s email makes their guarantee a large part of this email.
If a shopper doesn’t love what they receive, they can get another pair or a refund. That’s a big selling point and one that could be the reason why the shopper goes back to their cart. Check out these other things we like about this example:
There are no glaring issues with this one, but here are a few ways they could make it even better:
The answer to that subject line is, “Yes, they definitely did, and now we’re going to tell you why you need to complete your purchase!” OK, maybe that’s coming on a little too strong, but ASICS’s approach works just as well: “You left something behind. Get it before it’s gone.”
We like how they:
As for things that could have made this email better:
Though we’re not sure if it’s actually possible for something they order out of their cart to arrive at their home (and closet) tomorrow, it’s a strong way to start off this J.Crew email. Here are other aspects we like about this abandoned cart example:
What they could have done a little better (in our humble opinion):
Let’s be clear: We are huge nerds who have an unhealthy relationship with all things Lord of the Rings — or really any fantasy novel. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can better understand why we are in love with this example from TeeFury. (I mean, do you know of any other email campaigns that mention hobbitses? Yea, that’s what we thought.)
This email has some other great things going on too:
Here’s one thing we aren’t quite sure about:
There’s no pushy language in this email from Google Express, and we like that. A simple, “We’re ready when you are,” followed by letting them know they can finish their order works for this type of campaign.
Here’s what else we like:
What could have been a little better:
Rhymes are always fun, so we enjoy this subject line from Huckberry. Once the shopper is inside of the email, they will be reminded they need to take action before their items are gone: “Our sales and inventory are often limited, and we can’t guarantee that the products left in your cart will still be available when you decide to pull the trigger.”
The brand is putting it all in the shopper’s court, while also subtly letting them know their products are popular (if there’s a chance they could be gone).
Here are other things they did right:
What they could have improved on:
Don’t get us wrong: We like making a sale as much as the next guy. However, if that’s all you’re after, you’re missing out on the bigger, more important picture. Your abandoned cart emails should be focused on building long-lasting relationships with your audience, not simply a sale.
Because if you’re able to earn their trust and loyalty, you can know they will be back again. If not for this product, then the next one they see.
That means you want your email to not only tell them they left something in their cart and what that something is, you want to engage with them. For example, include a way for them to contact you if they have questions. (And actually respond to those questions in a timely manner.)
Or, let them know how they can connect with you on social media or through your newsletter. Again, you’re in this for the long run, not simply a one-off sale. That’s how you turn shoppers into loyal promoters of your brand.
Just as a reminder, here are some of the important elements to consider when building your abandoned cart email:
Take what you’ve learned from these abandoned cart examples to craft an automated campaign that’s uniquely designed for your brand and audience. You have the tools, so now is the time to get started!
Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past decade, you’ve probably heard of growth hacking. But, you might not know what all is involved with this technique and how you can best use it to grow your business.
No worries. We’re here to walk you through it all.
In this extensive guide, we’ll cover topics including:
It’s basically a buzzword or umbrella term for strategies focused solely on growth. For the most part, growth hacking is generally used in relation to early-stage startups who need to have a huge amount of growth in a short amount of time — and done with a small budget.
If you want a “technical” definition, here you go:
Sean Ellis, founder of GrowthHackers.com, originally coined this term a decade ago to describe the sustainable growth approach used by hyper-growth companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Airbnb. But of course, even before he gave it the name, brands were already using these practices.
So then who is a growth hacker? They aren’t a replacement for a marketer: They are just different. Ellis says:
It’s someone who uses low-cost strategies to help the business acquire and retain customers. These people are sometimes referred to as growth marketers, as well, and here are some of the things they do:
The bottom line is growth hackers are intensely focused on growth, if you haven’t figured that trend out already. People who understand growth hacking are going to have a competitive advantage — whether you’re an entrepreneur, founder, growth lead, or anyone else who is trying to grow a startup.
Growth hacking is for anyone interested in acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones. Every startup is looking for growth hackers. And the reason for that is obvious because everyone wants to grow insanely fast and acquire millions of users and dollars in revenue. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
You might think these terms are interchangeable, but not exactly. Traditional marketers have a broad focus. There are several different aspects and metrics they are constantly monitoring and working on. If you’re a marketer, you know how true that is!
And while a marketer’s skills are valuable, they aren’t as necessary in the early stages of a start-up. Think about it: When you’re first getting off of the ground, you’re not looking for someone to manage a marketing team or establish a marketing strategy to help you reach corporate objectives.
No, you’re interested in one thing: growth.
That’s not to say a growth hacker is a replacement for a marketer or that one is better than the other. They are just different, like apples and oranges.
Let’s break down the differences a little more:
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As we mentioned, growth hackers must experiment. Don’t worry, no beakers or masks are needed.
One of the most important understandings that a growth hacker must have is the realization that nobody knows what will work and what will fail. (If you do, you’re probably already a billionaire and don’t need to read anymore.) This applies to startup ideas, channels, and conversion optimization. That’s why it’s important to experiment.
By trying out a channel or technique in a small environment, for example, you can avoid losing a lot of resources (i.e. time or money). Then, if what you’re testing isn’t working, you don’t have to invest in it. And if it does work, you can continue exploring and figuring out how to expand on that.
With experiments, a growth hacker can ensure a higher ROI by spending time on the most effective channels. And really, that’s what it’s all about.
In the past, many companies worked with budgets that could be spent on whatever they had a good feeling about. Oh, those were the days. That was, in part, because the right tracking tools weren’t available.
However, now it’s possible to measure just about anything you could want with a website or app. So, why would you go with a gut feeling over cold, hard data? Answer: You wouldn’t. And that’s even more true with growth hacking.
A growth hacker continuously monitors the ROI of their experiments and channels. That way, they can always see the biggest opportunities and dangers and know where they can get the most profit. Data is king with growth hacking. You can’t succeed without it.
Since growth hackers have to be more involved with the product and data, there are certain technical skills they will need for the job.
If you are dependent on other people (like developers or designers) for each experiment, that will slow you down tremendously. And time is money if you want to grow as quickly as possible. So, it only makes sense that you will need an internal growth hacker (if that person isn’t you) who can handle everything you need right away.
Here are a few important skills you should have as a growth hacker:
Of course, there are many more skills they can have, and their specific skill sets will depend on what your brand needs. But, these give you a good place to start. And as you see, a growth hacker has a much more technical set of skills than your average marketer. That’s why many job descriptions will ask specifically for a growth hacker over a marketer, or vice versa, depending on what they need.
With a better feel for what growth hacking is and the type of people who are behind this technique, it’s time to see how it actually works.
It’s finally time to look at how this marketing practice works. And to do that, you need to take a good hard look at your business and figure out:
There are different ways to go about making that growth happen, and here are just two of them:
This AARRR method, also referred to as “Pirate Metrics,” was created by Dave McClure. He was a marketing director at PayPal, and he also started the tech incubator/accelerator 500 Startups. He outlined the stages of the funnel (AARRR), and here’s what each of those actually mean:
If you use this method, you can pick out key metrics for each stage to get an accurate look at how your efforts are performing. Here’s a chart with example conversion metrics from McClure:
Based on that knowledge, you can figure out whether your startup idea has traction or you should pivot to something else. Remember: You’ll want to make sure to avoid vanity metrics.
For example, if you pay for a Google Ad but then all of those visitors immediately bounce, this traffic was unqualified to start with. That tells you that you are probably targeting the wrong people and need to go back to the drawing board with your customer personas.
Getting traffic to your site is easy when you use ads. Getting qualified traffic can be a little tougher. But no matter the method, the goal is to get visitors, turn those visitors into users or customers, and retain them as happy, loyal customers.
Before you’re off to the races, make sure you have a tested product that people want and are willing to pay for it. Because if you don’t have that, all of the growth hacking in the world won’t help you.
Not only does that make sure you have a good product to bring to the masses, but it also helps you:
Just don’t think about it as a one-and-done approach. You’ll want to continue updating your product as you receive customer feedback.
When you look at growth hacking strategies, most will fall into these three main types:
Of course, there are a lot of different methods and ways to achieve growth with each of these options — and we’ll cover that more below.
What we’ve talked about so far has been about how a startup can go from nothing to tons of users and revenue. But, growth hacking is also relevant to large companies.
Many companies see growth hacking as the perfect strategy because you have to be flexible to avoid competitors, quick to take chances, and be data-driven because you don’t want to spend thousands on the basis of a gut feeling.
And those are all characteristics of a growth hacker. So, even more established brands can incorporate these strategies into their plan.
Now comes the really good stuff. Let’s go into real ways you can start implementing growth hacking techniques into your product or startup.
We mentioned this bit of advice earlier, but for your growth hacking strategy to work, you have to do it. You can throw all of the resources you want at a product, but if it’s not good, you can forget seeing a positive ROI.
Word about new products spreads extremely quickly these days — word of mouth, social media posts, etc. — and you want people to be saying only the best about your product. People trust what other people say (think about how powerful customer reviews and ratings are). And for people to say good stuff about your product, they have to like it. If you have a bad product, the world will know about it faster than you could imagine.
Do you remember the United Airlines passenger who was dragged off of a plane in Louisville, Ky. a few years back due to an overbooking? The man was left bloodied and traumatized. And if that event had happened just a few years earlier, the world might never have heard about it.
Instead, other passengers recorded the incident and posted their videos to social media. Now, those videos have been viewed millions of times. Needless to say, that was horrible PR for United Airlines.
And with your business, if your product sucks, it can disappear in less time than it took you to build it. Blunt, but true.
So, how can you avoid that type of nightmare with your business? Simple: Get feedback. You have to get your product out there as fast as possible to begin collecting feedback and keep improving your product-market fit on a regular basis.
You might think you have the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if your audience doesn’t agree, you better take note and adjust quickly. And here’s a few ways on how to do just that.
How to make sure product hits the mark
One way to ensure the product is hitting your target is to validate your product idea. An easy way to see if people want the product you’re about to create is to ask them to pay for it.
For example, you want to create an app showing people all of the best dog parks around town.
You know it will cost $500 to develop, so getting $10 from 50 people would cover the development cost problem for you. Not only that, but you would also know:
People pay for things in advance all of the time — think memberships, events, hotel stays. You often pay for things whether you end up going or not. And in some cases, you can just give them back the money if you end up not building it.
Note: We should also mention that “product” no longer refers to only physical items like clothes, cars, or food. Now when we mention a product, we’re also including software products. Facebook is a product, for example. An app is a product.
It doesn’t have to be something you can hold, so keep that in mind throughout this guide. The Internet has given us a new kind of product, and it demands a new kind of thinking.
Because of this redefinition, a product can now play a role in its own adoption. No, really. A product like Facebook allows you to share their product with other friends to make your own experience on their platform better. Clothes, cars, and food can’t do that.
Growth hackers have to understand the hidden potential of software products to spread themselves, and it’s their responsibility to transform this potentiality into a reality.
But what if you don’t have an idea for a product? You can’t really start using the growth hacking approach without one, right? Actually, if you don’t have an idea just yet, you can start for free.
For example, you can:
Once you have a place to share your content set up, start creating content around the topic or niche you want to build a business around. You’ll be able to engage with your targeted audience and receive invaluable feedback and ideas.
As a bonus, you’ll also be able to collect email addresses — and we don’t have to tell you how important that is for your growth hacking efforts (very). Start building a loyal base of followers who can’t wait to see your products whenever they launch.
To collect their email addresses, you can offer them lead magnets (ex. ebooks) in return for their address. Or create a quiz or other interactive element that requires them to provide their email address. By doing that, you’ll be well on your way to growing your contact base.
This is by far the easiest way to start a business in today’s world, and it’s completely risk-free. That’s not something you hear often!
This might sound counterintuitive, but you don’t want to target everyone out there at first with your product. For you to reach the majority of people, your product has to first win over the early adopters. These are small groups and communities that you should explicitly target.
In Geoffrey A. Moore’s marketing book, “Crossing the Chasm,” Moore hits on this idea, arguing there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (i.e. technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority. To successfully cross this chasm, as he calls it, he said you must:
So, you need to target that minority of people who will get the most out of your product. But how do you do that?
Start by creating a customer profile to identify who you should be targeting. To do that, you’ll need to understand every aspect of your product. Think about who would get the maximum benefit from your product? Describe that person as specifically as possible.
So, instead of saying your ideal initial customer is “American housewives,” go with “women ages 35 to 50 who enjoy walking their dogs on Saturdays, drinking coffee in the afternoon, and prefer takeout to cooking.”
You get where we are going with that: Describe that customer as much as possible. Once you have who they are figured out, you’ll want to target those people’s needs exclusively in the beginning. You want your product to have some buzz before it’s ever launched.
However, that’s less important with software products. Instead of taking a pre-launch approach with software, you could try something like making the service invite-only after it’s launched. Invite-only is a popular strategy because it increases the desirability of a product by restricting access. People can only buy a product when they’ve been invited by the company or someone in the inner circle.
Spotify, Facebook, and Dropbox used this strategy when they started — and so did Google when it launched Gmail and OnePlus. It’s an inexpensive word-of-mouth tactic, so you can use it to create a lot of free publicity.
Most marketing blogs you read will tell you to focus on acquisition tactics or channels and how the money is in the email list — meaning they should get email subscribers to buy their products.
They aren’t wrong, but growth hackers will tell you the money is in the customer list, more specifically. By focusing on increasing your customer retention rates, you can often increase your revenue faster and easier. Though it isn’t true for every business (ex. mobile app companies), having people drop out after their first or second engagement is a bad sign.
As you now know, growth hacking is all about achieving a ton of growth as fast as humanly possible. That means you want to scale your customer acquisitions. And luckily, there are basic techniques that will work for any product.
Note: It’s nearly impossible to do more of one of these methods at a time, so you need to figure out which one works best for your product.
Figuring out which method will work best for you just depends on your product and brand.
While you might not be able to create a viral loop of referrals, you do want to drive as many as possible. It takes the right mix of networking, timing, and just having a great product — but you can do it.
These referrals happen when your happy, paying customers recommend our product to their friends, family, and coworkers. The more people you can have talking about your brand and product, the less you’ll have to spend on acquisition. When you’re able to drive these referrals, you’ll be making easy money. And that’s a huge win.
So, how can you start encouraging referrals? You need to make sure your customers not only like your product but love it — so much so that they can’t help but share it with others. There are a few ways to tell how much (or how little) your early customers are loving you:
Obviously, the importance of revenue can’t be understated, so we aren’t going to spend more time on that right here. Instead, let’s look at the NPS.
“Would you recommend our company to a friend?” That sounds like a simple enough question. It is, but it’s a huge predictor of your top-line growth — and why you need to implement a Net Promoter Score (NPS) into your brand.
A NPS is an extremely valuable metric for growth hackers, fueling both short- and long-term growth. This metric measures the level of satisfaction and loyalty your customers have for your product — as well as how likely they are to recommend your brand or product to others. It’s no wonder brands like LinkedIn have made the NPS a key part of their growth and retention strategies.
You ask customers how likely they are to recommend you and give them a way to rank their answer. Their score ranges from 0 to 10, and here’s how they break down:
To calculate your NPS, you take the Percentage of Promoters - Percentage of Detractors. You can calculate the percentages in a spreadsheet by adding up the total of promoters and dividing that by the total number of responses. Do the same for detractors.
For example, 50 percent of your customers are promoters (meaning they answered with a score of 9 or 10), and 10 percent of your customers are detractors (answering somewhere between 0-6). (You ignore your passives in the equation). So, your NPS would be 40.
If they aren’t giving you 9s or 10s, consider that a loss for growth hacking. You need them to be all in if you are going to see those referrals skyrocket. For the passive people, you want to focus on finding ways to keep them around. Reach out to them and try to save them before they leave for another brand.
Like we mentioned earlier, you need a product that people want and are willing to pay for. Because no amount of growth will help you grow your brand if you’re losing customers because of a poor product. Retention is fueled by product quality, so you need to keep track of it to continue to grow. And that’s exactly what the NPS does.
Your NPS is the single metric you can rely on to tell you exactly how customers feel about your product. This metric can also help you identify any weaknesses that could hurt your product’s long-term growth.
So, what does a high NPS show you? It means your product matches or exceeds customer expectations and has started to make them loyal to your brand or product. Focusing on your NPS will make it easier to get into a retention mindset, where keeping your customers is just as important as acquiring them.
A NPS closely correlates with word of mouth, which can be good or bad depending on how your customers view your product. If you see you are receiving a low NPS across the board, it’s time to make a change before you try to add more customers. Reach out to customers who scored you below a 9 and ask what you could do better. Their feedback is invaluable, so take what you learn and improve.
Obviously, you want your NPS to be as high as possible. But, when you’re first starting out, you might also want to know it compares to others in your industry, region, or who have customers with similar characteristics.
You can check out this NPS comparison to see how you stack up:
The bigger the gap between you and your competition, the better chance you have to succeed (assuming you’re in the lead). The closer you are, the more likely your product idea doesn’t stand out enough just yet. And that means people will leave you if something easier or cheaper comes along.
One of the most powerful growth hacking tools comes in the form of integrations. You can increase your sign-ups by up to 50 percent by allowing people to sign up for your product or service through one of their existing accounts on Google, Twitter, or Facebook.
Integrating so that your service works with another can give you access to millions of potential customers. One example of this is PayPal (and more on them in the examples below). The company was struggling to get in with the majority of the market because few retailers were actually offering PayPal as an option.
So, what did they do? They landed a deal with eBay, which offered PayPal as an option next to Visa and Mastercard — the major players. And guess what happened next? They started growing like crazy. PayPal ended up doing so well that eBay actually acquired them a few years later.
Of course, PayPal isn’t the only service to take full advantage of integrations. Others like Spotify did the same thing with Facebook. If you decide to take this approach with your growth hacking strategy, just make sure your integration makes sense for the users you’re trying to target. Also, you’ll want to ensure your onboarding process works well so that it benefits both parties.
Churn and growth hacking do not go together. However, if you’re able to achieve negative churn, you’re in business.
In an extensive article on SaaS metrics, serial entrepreneur David Skok breaks down two ways to get this expansion revenue:
Ultimately, churn will dictate how successful your product will be.
Not everything with growth hacking has to be difficult or time consuming to figure out. Sometimes, growing is as easy as hitting the delete button.
It’s no surprise that most of us want to do the bare minimum to get by. Lazy or efficient, you tell us. So, if you delete a few fields from your form on the opt-in page, you’ll see your conversion rate go up.
However, there’s also another aspect to this that can’t be overlooked: credit cards. Sure, if you don’t require someone to give you their credit card information, you’re going to have a much higher conversion rate. But, if they aren’t giving you that information, you’re not going to make any money from them. That could also mean they aren’t serious about your product or service and will either not engage or leave shortly after.
What can you do about that, you ask? You want to make it so qualified leads stick around and complete the purchase. To do that, you need to create your user flow.
Not all leads are created equal. A lot depends on where they came from and their level of interest. Did they Google a question that pulled up your blog post — and then they clicked to read more? Did they see an ad that directed them to your landing page? Or, did they type your brand or product’s name directly into the search engine.
These users all might have ended up on your site, but they did so in three very different ways. You want to optimize the user flow based on the traffic source:
Creating a flow qualifies leads and helps increase your conversion rate.
You want the first experience customers have with your brand to be a positive one — and that starts with your onboarding. To figure out what type of onboarding will work best for your brand, you need to look at your data, research, and customer personas.
That will help you figure out a few things:
Once you answer these questions, you can better define what a successful onboarding experience looks like and what it will take to achieve that goal.
With a self-service approach, you can put together tutorials that walk users through all of the steps to using your product and how to get the most from it. Email these to them like a starter packet giving them everything they need to understand to get off of the ground.
Use the insights you collected early on to design an onboarding experience that requires zero human interaction. You can also add in-app messages to encourage users to take the next best steps.
You can also offer group demos to give users a tour of how to get set up and be successful. It’s best to offer these on a regular schedule, like Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 10 a.m. and invite users to join when it works best for them. It’s like setting up a webinar each week.
To take those demos a step further and make them completely individualized, you can offer one-on-one calls. These should be made available for your highest paying customers only. Time is money, you know. And for the most part, higher-paying accounts are going to have more complex needs.
For example, if a subscription is $5 a month, you don’t want to be wasting your time with one-on-one calls. On the other hand, the more expensive and complex the product, the more hand-holding you will need to offer.
On these calls, focus on helping the customer reach their specific goals and metrics. But even with these calls, the ultimate goal is to teach the customer how to solve their problems using the product on their own.
The level of service and attention also depends largely on the product type. No matter what you choose, make sure to provide onboarding experiences that make sense for your brand.
For the most part, the problem isn’t getting your customers to understand the features of your product: It’s getting them to understand how to benefit from those features.
Some brands with really complex products even require users to complete a formal training before they let them loose with the product. That’s not just helpful for the user, but it’s also how you can retain customers for longer.
Once you create your onboarding sequence, continue to monitor it to make sure everything is moving ahead smoothly. What you don’t want to see is a big drop-off between onboarding events.
For example, everyone has figured out how to upload their contact list into your email service provider (ESP). However, there’s a steep percentage change from uploading a list to segmenting that list.
That’s showing you there’s a conversion roadblock and that you need to address that issue. You might think it’s clear how to move from one step to the next, but your customers might not see it like you do.
Some companies like Facebook and LinkedIn — and even Retention.com — will show users what they have left to complete their profile (either by showing the numbered steps or a percentage). Again, you’ll need to test your methods to see what works best for your audience. Because, that’s what growth hackers do.
You can also use marketing automation to steer your users back in the right direction. Using the example above, if they don’t complete their profile, send them a tailored message about how to do just that. Or, if you see they haven’t used a certain feature, send them an email about how and why to do it.
You can use an ESP with automation functionality or an automation platform to set up these emails as part of a drip campaign. Set the emails to trigger when they take (or don’t take) certain actions and have different messaging in the follow-up emails that depend on whether or not they took the desired action.
These automated messages are also extremely helpful with retention efforts to keep people coming back for more.
Growth hacking isn’t just about adding tons and tons of new users. You actually have to keep those customers around if you’re going to be successful. Not only do you want to keep your customers because that’s the whole point of growth, but existing customers actually are more likely to convert again and spend more.
You’ve probably heard the saying: 10 percent of your customers are responsible for 90 percent of your sales. And that small percentage is going to be your repeat buyers. So, instead of spending the majority of your budget on attracting new customers, shouldn’t you be spending a big chunk of your money on retaining the valuable ones you already have?
It takes a lot more interaction and time to win over a new customer, whereas you’ve already started that relationship with your existing base. Make sure you’re continuing to nurture them and let them be your main source of referrals. Spend time driving new revenue from people who already love what you offer.
Even if you manage to earn thousands or millions of users, it takes most companies years until they are profitable. Mostly, that’s because they either wait too long to start charging customers for their product or the product doesn’t cost much.
That’s why you’ll hear companies on Shark Tank say they have millions in sales but still aren’t making a profit.
To go from zero to hero growth hacker, you’ll need to continuously look for ways to improve your product or service. For example, are your users continuing to engage after they convert? If not, why is that? Or, is there a feature that is heavily used or not used at all? Take note of what your customers are using in your product to see how you can do more of that.
For example, Uber (more on them below) is constantly improving its services and has run these experiments so far:
The company has also done standard promotional efforts, including $10 off coupons and deals like that. But as you can see, they continue to try new things and improve on its current services.
You can’t take a one-and-done approach when it comes to growth marketing. Constantly improving is what’s going to give you a sustainable business.
While your product and brand are unique, you can learn a great deal from other brands — even if they aren’t in your industry. So, we have put together 30 examples of brands that have used growth hacking and seen amazing growth.
It’s nearly impossible to talk about growth hacking without mentioning Dropbox (we already have!). Dropbox used several of the methods we’ve already covered in its growth hacking strategy (ex. invite-only after their launch, creating short demo videos, going viral, etc.), and the brand also gamified its onboarding process.
They offered existing users more free storage for linking their Dropbox account to Facebook and Twitter and sharing information about the brand on their social sites. That helped them tap into a huge audience of potential new users, which allowed them to grow even faster.
Dropbox also gave users incentives for completing tasks like sharing a file. That got people using their service, meaning it was more likely to stick around.
Most people have heard the story about how AirBnb got its start: Two guys couldn’t afford their rent, so they decided to rent out a few air mattresses and make people breakfast. Obviously, their idea worked because the company now has more than 150 million users — hosting more than 400 million users since it launched.
So, how did they go from two guys on air mattresses to millions of customers? Here’s a fun infographic that shows their steps:
One important aspect of their growth came from their Craigslist hack. When the founders first came up with the idea, they were in need of a customer base and reputation. And knowing their customer persona was someone looking for an alternative accommodation option, often on Craigslist, they offered an option for AirBnb accommodation providers to copy their listing to Craigslist.
They just had to make one click, verify the information, and post it. That gave them immediate access to a huge market of their targeted customers.
Someone likes your product, so they tell their friends about it. That’s a pretty standard referral.
But, what if you require people to share about a product in order to get the deal themselves? Basically, you require a certain number of people to take the deal to get the deal. If they don’t share about it and too few sign up, everyone could potentially miss out.
Oh, and did we mention there has to be enough people signed up before the deal expires?
That’s exactly what Groupon did. They combined urgency with the fear of missing out (FOMO) to get their users to spread the word for them. Groupon also included social share options so customers could let their friends and family know after they made a purchase (social proof).
The company still runs a countdown on its deals and shows how hot of an offer it is, along with of course the savings.
[This is also a tactic HQ Trivia uses with its VIP tickets. If there aren’t enough people who enter, no one can be a VIP.]
When Gmail launched in the early 2000s, it used an invite-only growth hacking approach to drive its growth. Again, this taps into that FOMO, which can be a powerful marketing strategy — assuming you have a product people really want.
As it turns out, Gmail did.
Gmail came out with amazing search capabilities, email management capabilities, and other tools we would be lost without today.
With any growth hacking approach, you need to make sure it’s right for your brand and is working. Yes, Google did a great job with the invite-only strategy with Gmail, but do any of you remember Google+? It was also invite-only, but we all know how that one went.
That’s because this approach works best with open tools and communities. Even though it was invite-only, Gmail users could still email people outside of the email service. Google+, on the other hand, was a closed-off social network, and the strategy backfired.
OK, so following Gmail in our list might seem strange, considering this site isn’t really around anymore — though users are still able to maintain their domains. Even though Outlook.com is now Microsoft’s successor to Hotmail, this email service makes our list because of something simple (yet effective) they did.
Hotmail added a signature line to every user’s outgoing email. Here’s what it said:
That may sound corny now, but it was the first of what is now a common practice. Think about “Sent from my iPhone,” for example. Basically, Hotmail turned each of their users into a free advertisement for their product.
A simple email signature was all engineers needed to growth hack their way to 12 million users in 18 months.
Here’s another brand we’ve already mentioned, but when a company can pull off what Facebook did, there's a good reason for it. In addition to making the site only available to Ivy League students when it first launched, Facebook also used embeds as an early growth hack.
They gave their users the option to show they were on Facebook in other places, like on their websites, blogs, and forums, by creating different badges for them to embed. And badges are still around today. That helped create billions of impressions, millions of sign-ups, and hundreds of millions of clicks each month. That’s hard to beat.
Here’s the number of monthly Facebook users worldwide from Statista to show you what we mean:
Sometimes, the best product idea isn’t your original one. That was the case with Crew when they “accidently” created Unsplash. Crew was trying to start a marketplace for freelancers and were in need of a good photo for their website’s homepage. When they couldn’t find anything good (or affordable) online, they hired a photographer.
They ended up with leftover photos from the shoot and decided to put 10 of them online for others to download for free. That soon exploded, and now they get millions of visitors who come for the free photos, and they redirect them to Crew’s marketplace.
The brand was able to put their unused products (photos) to work for them to reach a new, large market. There’s obviously a market for paid photos (think Shutterstock). But instead of trying to compete with sites like that, they gave away the product for free in an open-source format. Sound crazy?
Sure, giving quality products away might sound absurd. The point of growth hacking is to make revenue, right? That’s true, but by giving these photos away, Unsplash was able to get the attention of millions. Even brands like Dropbox took notice and helped them out. And that big audience is what you’re after so you can then find a way to monetize them.
Unsplash added links to redirect visitors to their Crew, which does cost. And that’s where the true value of this free open-share site comes into play.
With a U.S revenue of $2.5 billion last year, Uber Eats has come a long way since it was tested as an experimental service to broaden Uber’s scope of offerings. And unlike some of the company’s other experiments — think Uber Rush and Uber Essentials — this one is still around and thriving, especially during the pandemic.
Uber continues to try out different models and markets until something takes off. And that’s what a good growth hacker does.
Another brand using the free-tool technique with great success is Hubspot. The brand is known for giving away free information like ebooks, guides, and certifications that will help their users.
To receive all of these amazing free materials, people have to submit their contact information. And in 2015, Hubspot grew to 15,000 users. Now, they have nearly 100,000 in 120 countries and expect a total revenue of about $866 million for the year.
Once they hook users with their valuable content — which also helps them qualify leads and create better customer personas — then they can then market their paid subscriptions to them. If they only offered paid services, they wouldn’t be attracting as many people to their page and services.
You might argue that every good product has been created already. And sure, it may be harder to come up with a completely unique product, but sometimes, it’s not about what you offer but how you offer it.
Take Dollar Shave Club for example. There are obviously some major players in their market, like Gillette, which had been dominating the U.S. market for decades. Most investors might say the market is already saturated and there’s no way to go against such a giant. But, Dollar Shave Club proved that notion wrong.
They did that by creating a video that soon went viral. It now has more than 27 million views, propelling them as a leader in the market.
You can view this example of marketing done right here:
How do we know the video worked, besides the huge number of views? Because the video also brought them more than 12,000 orders within two days. But, their success is about more than a video. Remember, you also need a product that people want to buy and that solves a problem for them.
What they provided was an affordable razor solution delivered right to people’s homes. No wasting money or time to get one. Those might have been problems men didn’t even realize they had until they saw the video, which is even better because they can tap into that market all by themselves.
Whether you have a job, are looking for a job, or just want to network with other professionals, you probably have a LinkedIn account. But before LinkedIn, it wasn’t so easy to connect with former colleagues or get recommendations.
The brand’s initial strategy included focusing on the tech sector in Silicon Valley (a people and place it knew well) to test their concept of business networking. After seeing it worked with the targeted audience, they were able to expand to other sectors and areas — and now it’s available across the globe.
LinkedIn paid attention to what worked so they could scale the brand. That included enabling users to create public profiles that search engines would index. What that meant was that the users would organically show up in search results and get listed on the front page of Google, all without paying a cent.
They also found optimizing their homepage drove more growth than email invitations.
Once they figured out what their users valued, they began monetizing their services. They encouraged users to subscribe for quicker (and more) access to potentially helpful connections. LinkedIn now has more than 722 million users in more than 200 countries, going from $2 million in annual revenue in 2017 to $8 million this year.
If you want to see a growth-hacking company that has truly changed with the times, look no further than Netflix. They went from mailing customers DVDs as rentals to streaming shows, movies, and even creating original movies online. That shows you they paid attention to what their targeted audience wanted and continued to change.
Sure, they still let users watch what they want, but the platform has completely changed since the company started in 1997. One technique the company used when they got started was to split itself into two businesses: one for DVDs and the other for online streaming. Then, they used the profits from one to fund the expansion of the other.
Here are some other growth hacking techniques they’ve used to become the giant company they are today:
And what they’ve done has worked, considering Netflix now has more than 195 million paid subscribers worldwide — with the United States accounting for more than 73 million of those. Again, Netflix is another example of changing their product to not only meet their audience’s needs, but also changing with the digital times.
Who doesn’t love some free money? Giving referral incentives is nothing new nowadays, especially with banks and other money services. But did you know some of those programs were based off of what PayPal did to grow its brand.
Referrals helped PayPal grow the business by 7 to 10 percent daily. Yes, we said daily. But of course, that came at a cost, to the tune of about $60 million. That money was used to incentivize their existing users to refer their product to others.
Before you gasp at that amount, take a look at these numbers: The company’s eventual valuation was $46.6 billion in 2015. Now, that valuation is more than $128 billion.
Once they began experiencing major growth — acquiring 1 million users by March 2000 and then going to 5 million by that summer — they started to phase out the referrals. First, they reduced the referrals down to $5. Then, they added more verification hoops, like bank account verification, making them more difficult to get. And then eventually, they got rid of them altogether.
Something else to keep in mind is that when PayPal started in the late ‘90s, there was no social media to spread the word. No, they had to rely on word of mouth, instant messaging, blogs, and emails. You know, real old-school stuff. That makes what they did even that much more spectacular.
Slack is known as one of the fastest-growing B2B SaaS businesses, and it reinvented the way companies did internal communication. Like some of the other brands on this list, Slack decided to provide a solution for a problem people didn’t know they had. And that problem was poor productivity and increased stress because of poor communication.
So, they identified a problem and then designed a product to be the solution. They showed companies that Slack could make all of that better. They weren’t selling a software solution. Instead, they were selling a promise. In a memo sent out the to Slack team before their preview release, they were told they were selling:
They were selling the innovation, not the product. So, they used those points above to sell what they had, instead of trying to sell a “group chat system.” They defined their own market.
And in just a year, Slack grew to more than 500,000 daily active users. They now have about 12 million daily active users.
One company that took the technique of listening to user feedback is Instagram — or should we say Burbn. That was actually the name of the photo sharing app. That’s because its creativity researcher was a fan of Kentucky whiskey. He originally created a location-based iPhone app that allowed users to check in at particular locations, similar to Foursquare.
Users could also post pictures of their meet-ups. And when the team looked at how people were using the app, they realized they were posting and sharing photos like crazy on it.
So, the company decided to focus on that data and create a photo-sharing infrastructure, throwing out pretty much everything else in the app.
Without analyzing data and getting feedback, Instagram might never have been created. Now, this app has more than 1 billion monthly active users.
A major part of growth hacking is catching people’s attention. So, why not let your users do that for you? With the Shazam app, users must hold up their phones to speakers or sing to it so it can identify what song is playing. In the beginning, that wasn’t something people saw every day, so it was sure to get people talking.
Why were they singing into their phones? Why were they holding it up to their radio? When the user explained the app, they were giving the brand a free referral. Instant word of mouth works.
The app has now been downloaded a billion times and sees 20 million Shazams a day, which is the number of times a user pushes the button to identify a song that’s playing.
Swipe left, swipe right. The Tinder app has created its own catch phrase it’s so popular. This freemium business model started in 2014 with 10 million downloads and finished that year at 100 million. Tinder originally required access to a Facebook account to use the app — which made the sign-up process easier and pulled in some of their information (like interests, photos, etc.). Now, users just have to register with a phone number.
So, how was Tinder able to grow so quickly? They were able to turn dating into a game. Potential dates are filtered by interest and location. Then, users could look through the prospects and swipe right or left, depending on their interest in the person. They took dating, which can be difficult sometimes, and turned it into something fun.
Tesla has sold 318,000 vehicles so far this year. That’s pretty impressive for a luxury car brand. So, they probably have a large advertising budget like most other car brands, right? Guess again.
Tesla says they spend $0 on advertising. That’s right: They don’t spend anything to advertise their products. So, how have they seen such a big amount of growth? For starters, they are selling a lifestyle, not a product. They also use these other strategies:
Giving customers a unique experience makes them way more likely to tell others about it. So, when Tesla decided to focus their car production on made-to-order only, the company ensured they would have highly personalized vehicles people would want to talk about. There’s the exclusivity and scarcity components, which are both effective tactics to make products seem more desirable.
CEO Elon Musk is also known to answer customer feedback and complaints on social media, which helps people feel special and more connected to the brand. Their referral program is also something that catches people’s attention, ranging from giving the referrer $1,000 to a credit toward a new Tesla.
Since Tesla cars are electric, the brand is also selling customers a way to protect the environment. So, you’ve got a feel-good element, too.
You don’t need to be a video or IT professional to upload a video to YouTube. You no longer have to convert the videos in an Internet-friendly format and have an appropriate plugin before uploading to your website. YouTube handles all of that tricky stuff for you. And that’s part of the reason why this video-sharing platform has performed so well throughout the years.
It wasn’t just a video-sharing site. YouTube also provided a solution to a problem many normal people had: They didn’t know how to upload a video, or it took them too much time.
In the beginning, YouTube also needed a way to scale up its quality content so that it could bring in viewers and advertisers. Competitions provided a means to grow the content creator community.
Youtube offered its own prizes, such as an Ipod Nano for winning videos, but then extended the strategy to include partners. For example, a brand might offer a prize for the best video on a chosen theme.
Each video, no matter where it was posted, also took people back to YouTube when they clicked the link. Now, more than 2 billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month.
Groove was able to build a $5 million a year business in just three years. But things weren’t looking so good for the startup in the beginning, as it almost died altogether. They were only a few months away from running out of cash. To try and save the business, they turned to content marketing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKZKqOAzsJE&t=2s
After reading and learning as much as they could about how to use a blog to drive growth, they had their “aha moment.” They knew they had to do things differently. They realized there were no other blogs sharing real numbers and pitfalls on the path to growing a successful SaaS company.
So, they decided to share their experiences as a kind of case study, and their user base exploded. Groove realized they weren’t that special when it came to struggles, and many others were having the exact same problems. So, when life gives you lemons, you tell others about it and grow a business.
They asked their core customers what they needed information about, and they used that information to create blog topics. They also emailed influencers selectively and asked for permission to share certain pieces of content with them.
The decision to be totally transparent also led to reviews, interviews, and guest blogging opportunities, which all contributed to further email subscriber and user base growth. They did it all with a simple promise:
And from that moment, things were different. The blog had 1,000 email subscribers within 24 hours. (Of course, they wrote content on that.) Then within a month, they were up to 5,000.
Now, more than 250,000 people read their content each month, more than 5,000 customers trust them with their business, and they’re generating nearly $5 million in annual recurring revenue. Content is the only marketing channel they invest in, so it’s safe to say they’ve found their niche. Considering they were about to close their doors before they made this change, we’d say that’s pretty impressive.
If a brand was doing a cupcake giveaway, you’d probably assume they sold cupcakes or other baked goods. However, sometimes the best growth hacks have nothing to do with your business. That was the case with RJMetrics.
They used a cupcake giveaway to bring attention to their SaaS startup. You know, nothing sweeter than SaaS. They spent just $50 on the giveaway, and in return, they got a lot of love on social media from people hoping to win the cupcakes and then from the winners.
The company also experimented with giving away iPads but discovered cupcakes were actually more popular incentives. Other brands, including Advance B2B, also offered cupcakes and improved their signup rate.
As you’ve seen already on this list, content can be an impactful tool in your growth hacking strategy. Grow and Convert was able to attract more than 32,000 users in five month without having to pay for traffic using content. Here’s what they did.
They started by defining their target audience so they knew who they were creating content for (i.e. customer personas). The brand also searched Google, Quora, Facebook, and other social networks to find the most engaged communities where their target audience was hanging out online.
They then reached out to their audience to see where they thought the brand should promote content to find out the sources they trusted. After that, they joined their target communities and engaged with content there before sharing their one selective and transparently.
Grow and Convert was able to become part of a wider community and attract inbound links from the communities they were a part of (helping with SEO, too).
We all want to be at the front of the line. So, Monzo based their strategy on this applied social psychology that people want to jump in front of the others (even though they don’t like when that’s done to them).
Their mobile-only bank system encourages signups by showing people where they are in the company’s queue — seeing how many people are in front of and behind them. Users can jump the queue by referring others, which in return drives growth for Monzo. They now have more than 4.7 million people with Monzo bank accounts.
Robinhood worked with Monzo and reached a 1 million-person waitlist in the first year. So, what they’re doing works.
Social media can be an extremely cost-effective tool to promote your product. Knudge.me, which is an app that helps people level up their English-speaking skills, used social media and in-product marketing to boost its growth from 100,000 to 1 million users within six months. They also focused on retaining users and optimizing all aspects of the user experience.
The company said one of the key elements of their growth was measuring everything. That helped them analyze the gaps, as well as the trends in the app usage. They would track metrics rigorously and repeat that until they achieved the desired result.
These are some of the key metrics they measured:
They focused on doing one thing right at a time until they started getting the results they were after. Of course, that’s been a gradual process of talking to their users, understanding their concerns, and incorporating their viable feedback.
While COVID-19 has slowed down growth for several companies across the globe, it’s had just the opposite effect for Microsoft Teams. Last November, the company announced it had 20 active users from growth hacking.
But then once the pandemic hit, they reached 44 million active users in March and 75 million by April. However, Microsoft doesn’t release how many of those new users turned into paying subscribers. And unlike Slack, Microsoft isn’t an independent tool, as it comes with the Microsoft suite.
People have a high level of trust in Microsoft and its offerings, helping the brand to grow its Teams users as such a high rate.
Something we haven’t really mentioned yet is using a loyalty program as part of your growth hacking. Harvest Snaps created an exclusive loyalty club for email subscribers, making them feel special and good about being a part of something that wasn’t open to everyone.
The results? After three years, the company had grown revenue from $10 million to $240 million. They also increased their social media audience to 342,000 and gained 95,000 new email subscribers. Talk about brand loyalty.
The brand also used growth hack tactics like working with influencers, social media promotions, and gamification.
Everyone has a blog on their company site. That’s pretty much a must-have for driving inbound traffic to your site. But as Buffer proved, there’s more than simply posting on your own site.
Buffer created an app to help people manage and schedule their social media posts. Through the impact of guest posts on third-party sites written by its founder, the company was able to grow its user base to 100,000. The goal for these guest blogs were to attract views, as well as repeat views.
In 2013, the company hit the 1 million mark for people who had signed up for Buffer. That number has gone above 1.5 million now.
This brand took advantage of the power of the Facebook integration, using the platform to drive traffic to its site. In integrating with Facebook, OK Cupid enabled its users to participate in quizzes, which ranged from politics to music. The interactions were linked to their personality type and profile.
Facebook’s massive audience and reach helped provide a hugely effective distribution method for the dating site. Because, who doesn’t want to know if they are more of a sad country song or headbanger?
And if you’re going to mention quizzes, you have to talk about Buzzfeed. Few can compare with how this site generates traffic out of viral shares. That’s just what they do.
Buzzfeed not only shares bite-sized entertainment pieces on its own website and social media, but it’s also become a serious news platform — covering investigations and politics.
But one of the secrets to Buzzfeed’s success and growth is its understanding of the kind of content that works in the digital age and also how to distribute that content. They do that through fun questionnaires, short articles, or more in-depth pieces. The brand shows they know what content works where and how to get it to the right audience.
In a similar style as what Dollar Shave Club created, Poo Pourri was able to go viral with their video, “Girls Don’t Poop.” The video doesn’t beat around the bush, or toilet in this case. It’s a no-nonsense video that shows the brand’s comedic side, while also showing people why they need this product.
They also include information on their sales and reviews in the video, showing people this is, in fact, a real product that they also need. Poo Pourri embraces their product and hits on the reasons why people need it. We should also mention their video has more than 43 million views.
All of the multi-million (or billion) dollar companies we mentioned started right where you are today. So, the only thing holding you back from becoming a wildly successful growth hacker is yourself.
Come up with a product idea people want to buy, figure out who your audience is, pick a growth model that works for you, and you’re already off to a great start!
To see if you’re up for being a growth hacker, ask yourself these questions:
This practice isn’t out of date, and it doesn’t matter what industry is. You just have to create a growth hacking strategy that checks all of the boxes, and you’ll start seeing results. And if you get stuck, your answer is probably just a Google search away.
You aren’t the first (or last) growth hacker, so learn from the others who have come before you. See what they did right or wrong, and learn from their success. If you find a growth hacker that’s in a different industry as you, see if they would be willing to offer advice or become a mentor. You never know unless you ask.
So, stop making excuses and get into the growth-hacking trenches!
Whether you’re an email marketing pro or just getting started, there are ways you can improve your strategy. (Trust us, your subscribers and ROI will thank you.)
We’ll cover what you need to know to create a winning email marketing strategy:
Before we dive into what you need to do to create and/or improve your email strategy, let’s first cover why it’s important to have one.
Creating a solid email marketing strategy isn’t just good practice. It’s also an important part of boosting your conversions and revenue. Just look at these statistics:
And the importance of email is only going to continue to go up as the number of emails sent do the same. By the end of 2023, there are expected to be nearly 350 billion emails sent a day. For some context, that’s 60 billion more than go out each day now.
Email is the most cost-effective way to promote your products, communicate with your customers, and reach your company’s goals. So the question isn’t if you should put together a solid email strategy — it’s how you can create the most effective one to attract and convert more leads.
We’ll share all of the insider tips, tricks, and techniques you need to know about creating the best email marketing strategy.
1. Define your audience.
Who is your ideal consumer? If you want to engage that person with your email campaigns, you need to know who they are first. And the answer is right in front of you. Your target audience is who your company serves.
For example, if you sell dog food, your target audience would be pet owners. If you sell children’s clothes, your audience would be moms, like in this Carter's email:
You get the idea. Make sure all of your email marketing campaigns are tailored to your brand’s specific audience.
2. Craft engaging subject lines.
Your email’s subject lines should tell subscribers what the email is about and why they should open it. Here are a few things to consider when crafting your subject lines:
Here are a few examples of the type of subject lines brands are sending;
We’ll cover more on personalization in the next point, so let’s focus on the length and wording of your subject line. For the length, you want to avoid ones that are 60 to 70 characters long. This is often referred to as the dead zone of subject length.
Subject lines that are 70 characters and longer tested to be the most beneficial to engage readers in clicking through to the content, while ones that have less than 49 characters tested well with open rates. And ones with fewer than 10 characters have more than a 50-percent open rate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5py5PLLB-3o
3. Personalize the emails.
A great way to catch a subscriber’s attention and let them know the message was designed just for them (even when it’s simply automated) is by using personalization techniques. Here are a few easy ways you can do that:
But don't just personalize the email to the subscriber. Remember, this is a two-way relationship you’re trying to create with the consumer. So, you should also add your brand’s personal information:
Make it even easier for your subscribers to reach out to you by including a CTA at the bottom.
4. Segment your subscribers.
One of the best ways you can create personalized campaigns is by segmenting your subscribers. When you segment your audience, you’re able to take a much more targeted approach with your email campaigns. That helps you deliver applicable, valuable, and useful content to the right people.
After subscribers fill in your form, this data will be added as a variable to your mailing list. Then, you can choose either a specific variable or a mailing list segment to send your email campaign to. As a result, every subscriber will receive the offers they’re interested in.
These are a few factors you can use to segment your audience:
These are some good starting criteria to use when segmenting your lists, but figure out which factors work best for your brand. You can use the information you’ve collected from them online, along with surveys and other data. The more you’re able to hone into what your subscribers want, the happier you will all be.
How do we know that? Because segmented lists result in higher open rates, revenue, sales leads, transactions, and deliverability.
For example, Target sent this email to subscribers with children:
5. Use email automation when possible.
Automation and marketing go hand in hand. So, we suggest you set up automated processes anytime it’s possible. And not only is it possible when it comes to your email strategy, but it’s also highly necessary.
Automated, or trigger-based, emails are ones that you send automatically based on user behavior. You can set up these Journeys, as they are called, based on several types of events, like in this example from Robly:
Here’s more on setting up and sending a welcome email series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmNI-RbCKo
Data shows that these automated emails perform better than traditional emails. They have:
Plus, sites with the best conversion rates use these trigger emails, and these emails can generate a higher ROI.
What makes this strategy so effective is that the emails hit their inboxes at the perfect time — right after they’ve completed some sort of action. So, you know these messages will be timely and provide relevant, personalized information to the subscriber.
6. Create a design hierarchy.
Your email needs to be straightforward, so no hiding the main point. Start with a headline or leading image — or combine them and put the text on the image, if it’s easy to read. Then, you can move into the body of your email, which will be in a smaller font. Think of the design as an inverted pyramid with the meat of the message at the top.
You can see a hierarchy in this email from McAllisters:
7. Conduct A/B testing.
Also known as split testing, A/B testing allows you to try out different versions of a campaign to see which one performs the best. For example, send subscribers the same email but with two different subject lines. That will show you which subject line worked best, and you can use that information to create future subject lines.
Here's an example of one that's short and sweet from Postmates:
It’s important to keep everything else the same about the campaign, except for the component you’re testing (ex. subject line). If you alter more than one thing, you won’t know which element helped or hurt your metrics.
8. Use one CTA.
This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, so there can be exceptions. However, for the most part, you’ll want to have just one CTA in your email campaign. You can repeat the CTA a few times throughout the email (we all have short attention spans).
Overstock does repeat this "Shop Now" CTA in this email example:
But, when you have different CTAs asking for different things, it becomes difficult to convert prospects. You won’t be helping subscribers buy your product when you use multiple CTAs. Most likely, they will be confused about which action to take — and that’s not good for your ROI.
9. Give them something.
Everyone likes getting something, especially if that something is free. So, send your subscribers a link to a lead magnet (ex. downloadable PDF with premium content), a free trial or subscription to your services, or a link to a video that’s only for subscribers.
You want your email campaigns to seem like a special feature only a few can enjoy, so don’t forget to reward your subscribers. You can also use exclusivity to build a deeper connection with your email subscribers.
10. Stay out of their spam folder.
You want your email marketing campaigns to engage your audience. But, it can only do that if it lands in their inbox to begin with. That means you need to make sure your email avoids spam filters.
We have a whole blog on that topic alone (linked to above), but here are some of the main ways you can keep your message from being labeled as spam:
That’s just a short list, but you’ll want to make sure you check your emails for anything that could flag them as spam.
11. Track your email metrics.
The only way you will know if your email strategy is succeeding or failing is if you monitor your email metrics. The exact metrics you look at will depend on your specific goals. For example, are you trying to increase click-throughs to a lead magnet, or are you wanting to boost your open rate?
No matter your goal, here are a few of the rates you’ll want to monitor:
Again, these metrics are a good place to start. But, there are plenty of other numbers to look at, depending on what your brand is trying to achieve with your email marketing strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Q5HM87-_s&t=1s
12. Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile.
You might design your email campaigns on a computer, but you better make sure that’s not the only place they can be properly viewed.
More than half of all consumers are viewing their email on mobile devices, so your campaigns better be showing up correctly on these smartphones and tablets. Because if they aren’t, your emails will probably end up in their Spam or Trash.
Here's a mobile view of PatPat's email:
How can you do that? Here are a few methods to making sure your email is optimized for mobile devices:
13. Pick the best time(s) to send your emails.
Sometimes, finding the right time to send your email campaigns is the difference between getting the open and heading to the Trash folder. You’ll need to look at your subscribers’ open times to see when is the best send time for your brand, but here are some of the best times to send across the board:
Those can serve as a good starting point, but just remember there isn’t a one-size-fits-all for this type of stuff. So, you’ll still need to rely on your metrics and data to find the best day and time to send your email campaigns. If your subscribers are in different time zones, you’ll want to make sure the emails hit their inbox at the right time for them.
14. Encourage social sharing.
To improve your campaigns, you can integrate your social media and email marketing strategy. You can do that by:
You can also include your social icons in the footer of your email to show subscribers your social channels, helping to continue their engagement with your brand. Wayfair even gives subscribers a hashtag to use:
Be sure to design your email so subscribers are able to share a version of the message on their social channels. That will help you gain exposure and increase engagement with your contacts.
15. Test and edit everything!
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make each and every day is also one of the easiest to avoid: They don’t test their email campaigns before sending them. That means:
Once everything is designed to your liking, you should send yourself (and a coworker, if possible) a test email. Depending on your ESP, you’ll be able to choose to send a test message from inside of the design tool and/or from your campaign builder page.
That’s how you can make sure everything works, from the CTA and other links to images. This is your chance to make sure nothing’s broken or going to send them to the wrong place. Not only is it inconvenient for the subscriber, but it also makes your brand look unprofessional. And that can cause them to mark your message as spam.
16. Be consistent with your sends.
Like with send times, there’s no hard rule on how often you should email campaigns. However, it has been proven it’s better to send emails more often than less often. You want to stay relevant to your subscribers, and it’s hard to do that if they only receive messages from you once in a blue moon.
The best approach is a consistent one. If you decide to email them once a week, for example, make sure you stick to that schedule. You can even send at the same day and time so they learn to expect your message then.
To ensure you’re sending the number of emails each subscriber wants, let them choose how many messages they receive. You can include these checkboxes with your subscription form or even in a double opt-in message. Put the power in their hands.
You want to create an email strategy that engages your audience. And if you follow all of the techniques we’ve listed above, you’ll be on the right path. But, what if you don’t have much of an audience yet? Don’t worry: We’ll help you with that too!
There are a few different ways to collect email addresses, and here are some of the most popular methods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L9MtliuHbM
Once you start building your email list, be sure to keep it clean. That means you should remove addresses that have a hard bounce, don’t open your emails after several months, or lack other engagement metrics.
A good email strategy puts quality over quantity, so don’t be afraid to remove a subscriber if they aren’t interested in your brand. You can run a re-engagement campaign to try and win them back, but if that doesn’t work, it’s time to let them go.
An important component in having an effective email strategy is picking the right ESP. The ESP is your partner when it comes to sending email marketing campaigns, and they can also take some of the guesswork out of the equation.
So, how do you go about picking the right one for your company? There are several to choose from — both with free and paid options — but we’ve put together a list of some of the top ones:
These are just a few of the ESP options out there, so do your homework to figure out which one is best for your brand. Each option has pros and cons, along with a range of package prices, so it’s just about finding the right fit.
Once you implement a solid email strategy, you can start enjoying the fruits of your labor — i.e. improved ROI, engagement, and user experience. There’s no time like the present, so start incorporating these techniques today!
Ready to start enjoying all of the benefits that come from email marketing? We’ve put together an extensive guide to walk you through the entire process, all the way from collecting contacts to hitting send.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where you send emails to leads and customers to build a relationship with them.
The thing that makes it so special is that it’s one of the only channels customers ask to receive. Email marketing allows your brand to keep customers informed, while customizing your marketing messages. It’s one of the most cost-effective and conversion-rich forms of marketing: For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return on investment (ROI) of $42. So, it’s no wonder so many are boasting its benefits.
To help you get started with email marketing, we’ve put together the ultimate guide on everything you need to know.
After reading this guide, you’ll know how to successfully send an email marketing campaign, grow your customer email list, create the best email content for marketing, optimize your campaigns, and start seeing a major ROI for your efforts. Let’s get started!
We’ve already covered how email marketing is a great way to reach your audience, but now let’s dive even deeper into why this form of marketing is so important. Because if you’re going to be spending precious time creating and scheduling an email campaign, it better be worth it, right?
Here are just a few of the reasons why companies use email marketing on the nearly 4 billion active email users around the world.
People who buy products marketed through email also spend more than those who don’t receive email offers — and that ROI is three times more than what you’ll find on social media. Now that you see it’s more a question of “how” than “if” you should get started with email marketing, we’ll break it all down for you.
Creating an email marketing strategy doesn’t have to be difficult. Really, if you cover the basics, it shouldn’t be. An email strategy includes several moving pieces, but once you understand how they work together, it’s smooth sailing.
The first thing you should do is create measurable, long-term goals. Those objectives could be things like increasing the number of subscribers by a certain percentage by the end of the year or increasing ROI from promotional campaigns. The important thing is to set goals with real numbers and deadlines that are attainable, yet still push you to be better.
Once you understand what you’re trying to achieve with your campaigns, figure out who you want to target with them. You need to know who your audience is so you can provide campaigns that meet their needs and preferences. While your target audience obviously includes your target customers, it should also include people like influencers and company staff who may influence your target customers’ decisions.
Your brand’s goal and target audience are the foundation for everything else you’ll do with your email marketing efforts. Make sure you have a firm grasp on those two things, and then you can move on to finding the right tools to make them possible.
Before you can start sending campaigns and enjoying the benefits of email marketing, you’ll need to pick an email marketing service to use. There are plenty of options available online, and most of them have some sort of free plan you can use to test out the features before you commit to them. Here are five of the best online email marketing services to check out.
MailChimp is one of the leading email marketing platforms and is known for its easy-to-use interface — perfect for beginners wanting to send newsletters and automated messages with little to no learning curve.
Robly is known for its OpenGen technology, which resends your email campaign within 10 days after the initial send (with a different subject line) to your subscribers who didn’t open it the first time.
The purpose of marketing automation is to, well, automate things — and that’s something Drip heavily focuses on. They have 18 triggers and 16 actions in their automation rule builder, which covers things like moving subscribers in and out of campaigns and synching their details to another application, such as your CRM.
For small businesses looking to combine a variety of different tools into one solution, Infusionsoft is worth taking a look at. It allows you to capture leads, manage your e-commerce sales, create email newsletters and, oh yeah, handle your marketing automation too.
Using a whiteboard-like layout, you can create multi-channel messaging journeys in Autopilot’s canvas — all before publishing it and watching the live results. Autopilot also allows you to connect apps, forms, and sites to automate your email marketing and communication tasks.
Note: It helps to know your email marketing needs before looking for a service. That way, you can see which one checks off all or most of your list.
If you have any existing email addresses for customers or leads, you can import those to start building your email list. How you can import those will depend on which email service provider you go with.
Generally, you can either manually upload an existing list from an Excel file, for example. Or, you can connect your email service account to the tool where your customer data lives — like your CRM, accounting, eCommerce tool, or others. Before you import any contacts, ensure you have adequate permission to email these subscribers. These existing contacts are a great starting point for your new email marketing strategy.
If you don’t already have email addresses to import — or you’re ready to start growing your list — you can craft an eye-catching opt-in form to start collecting email addresses. An opt-in form is your tool to gather addresses. It’s the “Subscribe Here” box you’ve seen on sites plenty of times.
Email addresses are the lifeline of your email marketing strategy, and the better qualified they are, the better the engagement will be. The purpose of your opt-in form is to make website visitors want to subscribe to your newsletter. To make sure your opt-in form converts, it should include certain components:
After you create the design and text for your opt-in form, it’s time to choose where to put it on your site. Here are a few placement options:
Then, you need to choose whether you want it to be a single or double opt-in. That just means whether or not you want your subscriber to confirm they opted in or not.
With a single opt-in, subscribers only have to fill out your sign up form and click submit. They immediately receive your campaigns and are now a subscriber.
A double opt-in means a subscriber clicks submit and then has to wait for an email confirmation. Once they receive that email, they click on the link to confirm their subscription. Here’s an example of a double opt-in:
So which one is better? It depends on what you’re trying to achieve. A single opt-in will have a higher conversion rate because there are fewer obstacles to join your list. However, a double opt-in list will be more engaged. These contacts typically will have higher open and click-through rates — and have half as many unsubscribes as a single opt-in list. So, sending the confirmation email with the double opt-in helps increase the quality of the contacts, meaning a higher chance of generating sales during time.
If you serve EU-based clients, be sure you understand and comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Do not use pre-ticked boxes, and include unsubscribe options in all of your emails.
It’s up to your company to decide whether or not it will send emails to addresses that haven’t opted in. In the United States, it’s not illegal to send to an address that hasn’t opted in, as long as you include an opt-out link in your email. (However, it is illegal in Europe and Canada.)
Some organizations have decided they’ll only send opt-in emails. Others don’t care if they got an explicit first-party opt-in or not, so long as the engagement is good and it doesn’t adversely impact their deliverability or their brand. Some are specific about the types of emails they will send to people who don’t opt-in explicitly. Others will only send cart abandonment emails to people without an opt-in, but they won’t send an unsolicited newsletter unless the person asked for it.
So, it’s up to your brand to decide what’s best. The most important thing is that your emails earn engagement, whether it’s from an opt-in list or not. If you send emails that have high open rates, high click-throughs, low unsubscribes, and low complaints, you will see your deliverability (meaning your ability to hit the inbox) improve. A highly engaged, non-opt-in list is better for you in the long run than a low-engagement, opt-in list.
Here’s more on if you can send an email without an opt-in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6AtUsP8o8M&feature=emb_title
Simply adding your “Subscribe” button to your website normally isn’t enough of a reason for people to fill in their information. Most people aren’t going to want to give you their email address if they aren’t getting something in return. You need to give them a compelling reason or offer to attract them — like a lead magnet.
A lead magnet, also known as an opt-in bribe, is something valuable you give away for free in exchange for someone's email address. You’ve seen these on various sites. The brand will offer you some sort of premium content if you give them your info.
Lead magnets can come in many different digital forms, such as a PDF, audio file, MP3, video, or other file format. It doesn’t matter what type of file it is as long as it’s free for the visitor. Their only payment, if you’d like to call it that, is providing you with their email address — which, as you know by now, is very valuable.
Here are a few popular types of lead magnets you can use to collect their addresses:
The possibilities are as endless as your imagination. Just make sure that the lead magnet is something your targeted audience will find valuable. You can place the magnet offer in pop-up windows on blogs or in the sidebar of your site.
Improve your chances of collecting email addresses by pairing the lead magnet with a relevant topic. For example, offer a downloadable tip sheet lead magnet on “How to grow your Instagram followers” on a blog about social media best practices — similar to this example. You know people reading it will find that useful, which makes it more valuable to them.
Congrats! Your list is growing by leaps and bounds at this point if you’ve imported old lists and incorporated lead magnets. Isn’t it an amazing feeling? Now, you need to focus on keeping your list as clean as possible so that you keep your engagement metrics high. What that means is that you don’t want email addresses on your lists that aren’t interacting with you. Obviously, your emails aren’t helping the subscriber if they aren’t opening them, and the inactive addresses are only pulling down your metrics.
To keep your lists fresh, it’s good practice to remove unengaged subscribers every so often. An inactive subscriber could be anyone who has not engaged with any of your emails in the past six months or more, for example.
Before you make any cuts, you can try one more time to reach them by sending a re-engage campaign. We’re sure you’ve seen these before. They have subject lines like:
This is your last-ditch-effort to see if you can get them to open your email. Sometimes people will, and sometimes they won’t.
Another option is to check in with your inactive subscribers and ask them if they’d like to update their information and preferences. That way, they’re reminded they are on your list, and it gives them control over how they want to engage with your brand.
If none of that works, it’s time to let them go. We know it can be difficult to remove a contact you worked so hard to add to your list, but we promise, it’s for the best.
No two people are exactly alike, so why would you group them together in one massive list? The answer is “you wouldn’t.” That’s where segmentation comes in. You can segment your contacts into different lists so that you can send them targeted content based on their customer profiles. And it’s easy to see why so many are using this technique: Marketers who segment their campaigns have seen as much as a 760-percent increase in revenue.
For example, if your customer has purchased children’s clothing from your brand before, they would probably enjoy a blog on “Top summer activities for kids” or “Toddler naptime basics.” An article like that wouldn’t be useful for someone who doesn’t have children, which is why segmenting your lists is so important.
You can gather data about your audience from website analytics, polls, surveys, predictive technology (AI), previous email experiences, social media analytics, or other engagement points. If you really want to know what they’re interested in, give them the power to choose which lists they’re added to as part of your email signup process. They can check the boxes next to all of the lists they want to join (ex. daily newsletter, deals, blog posts, etc.).
Here’s a breakdown of some of the top ways marketers segment their lists:
Demographics: Age, gender, education, location, income, employment, cultural affiliation
Behaviors: Buying history, search history, online engagement, social media preferences, interests, referral method
Your segments can be as simple or in-depth as you want. But when you’re first starting out, it’s best to keep them simple. Start with two or three clear-cut groups and then track the data, test your methods, and consider adding additional groups or layers to your plan.
The whole point of creating segments is to provide your audience with personalized content so they feel like what you’re sending was made just for them. And to help you do that, you’ll need to collect and incorporate what you learn from the data.
Make sure you follow where the data takes you. If your analytics show the highest engagement comes from 30-to 40-year-old women, one of your target segments should be geared toward 30-to 40-year old women. Likewise, if your data is showing more activity in Canada than Mexico, make a specific segment for Canada and target their cultural interests and relevant topics. If you’re not sure who your target audience is, take a step back and start with buyer personas.
The only way to perfect your segments is to put them to the test. Start with simple segments like locations and run some test campaigns. Try two different campaigns both geared specifically toward people in Texas, for example, and see which campaign does better. Then, use those analytics to create sub-segments to better personalize the customer experience.
Coming up with engaging content on a regular basis can seem overwhelming. One way to get a better grasp of the content is to start by figuring out what kind of message you have to share. (Because, there should always be a reason for sending your subscribers an email — not just because you need to hit your quota for the week.)
There are six basic types of email marketing content you can send to your subscribers:
Your email marketing strategy should include a mix of these content types over time so that you aren’t sending them the same kind of email each time. Give them a taste of different types of content to keep interested in reading your next message.
You should also treat your subscribers like the VIPs they are. Your subscribers are so interested in what you have to say that they’re willing to invite you into their inbox. Don’t take that for granted. Show them you appreciate them by letting them be the first to know about new products and sales.
Your content should also be useful and provide value to your customers. If you’re not sure if the email will be of use to them, think about the types of messages you get in your inbox. Which ones do you delete, and which ones do you read and enjoy? Then, think about the email you’re sending to your subscribers and if it fits in the group with the ones you’d actually want in your inbox. Emails with how-to articles, videos, and other informational pieces are good options, as long as the topic relates to the subscriber.
While useful content has a way of being longer, you don’t have to cram it all into your email message. Actually, it’s best that you don’t. Provide your reader with enough information in the email to hook them, and then include a “Read More” link to your website with the complete text. You only have a few seconds to catch their attention, and you don’t want a long, text-filled email to scare them away. Plus, that gives them a reason to click-through.
Even if your company covers the most boring topic known to mankind, your email content better not sound like it. So, make sure your content doesn’t sound like a textbook. Add in your brand’s voice, personality, and sense of humor (if that’s in line with your branding) so they know exactly whose email they are reading. That will remind them why they signed up for your emails in the first place. Your email should sound like you’re talking to someone, so when in doubt, try reading it out loud and see how it sounds.
Here are some content examples that do and don’t work to help you figure out what type of content to send:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKZKqOAzsJE
No one wants to feel like just another name on your email list. That’s why it’s so important to personalize your email campaigns. From the content topics to adding their name, there are several ways you can make them feel like you wrote the email just for them.
Most email marketing service providers will have some sort of format they use for adding in a contact’s name. For example, if you put “Hi [FNAME]!” it will pull in their name, showing up for them as “Hi John!” That beats a “To whom it may concern” any day.
You can also remind them why you’re sending them a certain piece of content. Tell them you chose this content because they liked another similar article. Or, they viewed a product on your site, and this one is similar. The goal is to tailor your message as much as humanly possible (without sounding creepy) to each subscriber.
Here are some more ideas for what you can send:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_tPhVVRNkU
Whether you’re an HTML master or you don’t even know what those letters stand for, there are ways you can create a stunning campaign design. Most email marketing services will give you a few options when it comes to building your design, including Text, HTML, and some sort of Drag-and-Drop designer tool with pre-designed templates. Your level of experience and preferences will help you choose the type of designer you’re most comfortable with using.
But no matter what type of design tool you decide to use for your campaign, there are a few components you’ll want to include in your design to get the most engagement.
For starters, the design should make your content easy to read and be appealing to the eyes. That means breaking up the text so that it isn’t one long chunk of black that makes their eyes glaze over. Keep the paragraphs to one or two sentences top, which also makes it easier for them to scan and figure out if it applies to them (which it should).
Speaking of the text, you should use a legible font that’s within the 14- to 16-pixel range that will be rendered across email clients. Your headline can be a larger font size and then move to a smaller size for the main meat of your message.
Break up your text with some interesting images. You can use original photos (highly recommended), stock images, or other graphics. Just remember to use the web-res version of the images so that your email size isn’t too large to load. Sites like Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash have plenty of free images you can download and use if you don’t have many in-house options. Don’t be afraid to have fun with the images — and make the text part of the visual component — like in this example from InchBug:
Make sure your call to action (CTA) stands out in the design by creating a colorful button for it. Your CTA is the next step you want readers to take — such as reading your blog, viewing a product, creating your label (like in the example above), or signing up for a consultation. So, it needs to be easy to spot.
With more than half of users accessing their email from a mobile device, you can’t afford to miss out on that big chunk because your email isn’t responsive and optimized for mobile. Everything in your message should be easily loadable on a phone or tablet. Also, remember that most mobile devices are smaller, so take that into consideration when laying out your design.
Some other general pointers are to keep the formatting under 600 pixels wide, use a larger font, ensure images display correctly, keep CTA buttons on the larger side so they are easier to tap with a finger, and don’t place two links right next to each other.
Decide how often you plan to send your email campaigns, and share that information with your audience. That will help your subscribers know what to expect — and keep them on the lookout for your next message — and also help you stay on track. Make sure your schedule is something you can consistently stick to so you can build trust with your readers.
You will be able to schedule your campaigns ahead of time using your email marketing service provider. Keeping an updated content calendar can ensure you’re staying on schedule and also providing a variety of content types. On your calendar, you could include the email topic, images/art needed, CTA, and type of content.
As for when to send your email, that depends on your industry. But to help you have a solid starting point, here are a few send trends from across different industries:
Pick one of those options, like Tuesday at 10 a.m., and see how your campaign performs. Then, hone in on the best time/day for your brand. You can use services like Google Analytics to get a better idea of when your subscribers are interacting with your brand.
No one wants their email campaign to end up in someone’s spam folder, especially after they put all of that work into creating it. Luckily, there are some simple ways you can avoid the dreaded “spam” word.
It might be tempting to purchase email addresses, but nine times out of 10, they aren’t worth anything. You’d rather have 100 subscribers who engage with your emails than 1,000 who don’t. And with Google, inorganic, deceptive methods of building engagement are punished.
The best way to ensure your contacts actually want to receive your emails is by having them opt-in. A double opt-in is even better. Remember, it’s all about quality over quantity. Always gain permission from subscribers before sending emails for each new email campaign, even if they’re returning customers.
This is a requirement for email marketing services, so make sure you have an Unsubscribe button or link somewhere in your email. Most of the time, you’ll find this at the body of an email.
By sending new subscribers a Welcome email, you’re reminding them that they signed up to be on your list. Be sure to send this email within 24 hours of them signing up — and the sooner you send it, the better.
Spam filters are always on the lookout for unsolicited emails and scams. Use the merge function to personalize your recipient list, and request that subscribers add you to their address book.
A good IP address is one that hasn’t been used by someone else who has sent spam in the past.
Using too many sales-like or trigger words like “cash,” “clearance,” “buy,” “needy,” “sleazy,” and “cheap,” could land you in spam. Your email marketing platform should flag any words that are known to cause spam issues.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines. Provide whatever the subject line promises in the email body.
Put your company’s address in the bottom or the email. It shows your company doesn’t just live online.
Remember: Your email campaigns are an extension of your brand, so act with the same integrity you would with all customer interactions. You can increase the odds of your emails making it to the desired recipients by taking the above precautions.
Staying out of their spam folders is great, but we know what you’re really after: open rates. You want to know that your subscribers have opened the message you crafted just for them.
A low open rate could mean a few things, but a good place to start is with your subject line. If your subject line isn’t compelling, subscribers will never click to open your email.
You can test different subject lines by using A/B testing with your campaigns — which simply means you send out different versions of the email to your list to see which one performs the best. That will show you which one performs the best so you can recreate that for future campaigns. Only test one component at a time (so the subject line in this case) so that you know which variable it was that had an effect on the open rate.
Here are some tips for improving your subject lines, which in return will boost your open rates.
You can have the most amazing content on the planet. But, if your subject line stinks, no one will ever know. Your subject line should make subscribers want to read more. That can seem like a daunting task, which is why we put together some tips that will help you craft the next must-read subject line.
Here are other tips on writing great subject lines that are sure to earn you an open:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5py5PLLB-3o
It’s hard to know if your campaigns are performing well, especially in the beginning, if you don’t have anything to go off of. While metrics vary from industry to industry and business and business, here are the average rates for all industries (rounded up to the nearest decimal):
Not sure which email metrics you should be looking at? Check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Q5HM87-_s
Now that you’ve learned how to grow, segment, and effectively reach your email list, it’s time to talk about how you can automate the process. That’s right: You can turn on your little money-making machine and let it do its thing with automated emails.
Autoresponders are a sequence of emails that are automatically sent to your subscribers. They are sent to people on your email list after that person does something to trigger the send. For example, an autoresponder can be triggered by events like joining a list, abandoning their cart, downloading an ebook, making a purchase, or specific browsing behavior.
The autoresponder’s content is something you create in advance and set up to go out after they make the set action, with help from your email marketing software. For example, you would create an email that would go out to anyone who purchases your dog food to let them know you also have dog treats.
Not only do autoresponders take some of the work off of you, but they are also a great tool for nurturing leads and turning prospective leads into customers. This type of email provides the reader with valuable information because it’s based on one (or more) of their actions.
You can make your autoresponder sequence — which is basically a series of causes and effects — as simple or complex as you want. These series, often referred to as journeys, let you set what happens when a person makes a certain action. You can also set conditions based around these actions, like if they are/aren’t on a list or have/don’t have a tag. Here’s an example of what an autoresponder journey looks like.
You can set whatever type of goal you want with an autoresponder, but here are some of the most popular options. You can choose one (or a combination) of these goals for your series:
Once you’ve figured out what you want to use your email autoresponder for, you can start to draft out the specific sequence and how long you want it to be (ex. how many days and how many emails).
There’s no set rule for how many emails you need to include in your email sequence. It just needs to be long enough so that you can reach your goal. So, the length for your autoresponder will be based on its purpose, your segments, subscribers’ preferences, and other specific factors.
After you know how many emails you want to use, you can start figuring out how you want to space them out. It’s OK to send an email once every two days for educational emails — and several in a single day when you’re running a huge sale that’s about to end.
It’s all about finding a healthy balance between your sales and “value” emails. A good way to go about it is to follow the 80/20 rule. That means 80 percent of your emails should provide value, while 20 percent are about making a sale.
Next, create an outline for your email sequence, either by typing it out or putting it directly in your email marketing platform. You’ll want to include what topics each email will cover and what CTA will be included. With an outline in place, you can begin to create the campaigns that will be a part of the autoresponder series.
There’s nothing worse than hitting “Send” on your email campaign, only for it to go out with a mistake to hundreds or thousands of subscribers. Typos, broken links, and distorted images are a good way for your email to end up in the Trash folder. Or worse, they could unsubscribe from your list because it makes your brand seem unprofessional.
The best way to avoid all of that is to edit and review your email marketing campaign before it goes out to the masses. So whether it’s a single email campaign or an autoresponder series, you need to make sure everything looks good and works before you schedule or send it out.
Read (and then reread) the subject line, from name, preview text, headline, body text, footer, CTA, and any other text that’s in the email. If that all checks out, look over the design to make sure it’s clean and gets your message across (without taking away from it).
When everything looks good from within your email marketing platform, send a test email to yourself and a friend or coworker. Make sure you view the test email on your desktop and mobile device to ensure it works on them both. If everything still looks great, check to see if your email service has flagged anything that might land your message in spam. And when it gives you the go-ahead, you’re good to go.
We’ve covered some of this information already, but here’s a quick list of some of the top questions we hear from people.
Yep. Most email marketing services will provide you with free design templates — anywhere from a handful of templates to dozens. So, all you’ll have to do is plug in your information, and you’re good to go.
Here’s a rundown of what you can do to make your campaign more successful:
Start by setting a goal for your email marketing campaigns to decide which metrics are the most important for your brand. Probably the easiest one to track is the open rate, which will give you a better understanding of how well your subscribers are receiving your messages. As the name suggests, the open rate measures how many subscribers opened the email you sent.
Another good one is the click-through rate, which shows how many people clicked the links in your email. These can be links for them to “Read More,” or you can include CTA buttons. Typically, your click-through rate will be much lower than your open rate.
Take your click-through rate a step further with the conversion rate. That will show you how many people clicked on the link and then completed a specific action, like making a purchase. The bounce rate is another good one to look at since you want to minimize this number. Your email marketing service should remove hard bounces from your lists, and some will also flag or remove soft bounces after a certain number of attempts.
A few others you can look at include unsubscribes, list growth rate, spam complaints, forwarding rate/email sharing, engagement over time, and overall ROI.
It depends. We know that’s not a great answer, but the best day and time to send will depend on your industry and specific company. You can try sending them at different times to see which ones get the best results. While the specific moment that’s best to send emails varies, here are a few trends across the board that can help you narrow it down:
Pick one of those options, like Tuesday at 10 a.m., and see how your campaign performs. Then, hone in on the best time/day for your brand. You can use services like Google Analytics to get a better idea of when your subscribers are interacting with your brand.
There are six main categories of email marketing campaigns:
Each campaign you create and send should serve a purpose. It needs to provide some sort of value to the reader, whether that’s an important piece of information, coupon, or helpful article. Don’t send campaigns just for the sake of it.
Start by creating a goal for your email campaign, whether that’s achieving a certain open or click-through rate or reaching a certain number of engaged subscribers. Once you have your goal set, you can then put things in place to help you reach it. Then, go down this checklist:
No. For starters, if you buy an email list, you could be violating the rules of consent under the GDPR. Another reason to steer clear of this practice is that reputable email services won’t allow you to send emails to lists you’ve purchased. If you attempt to email these lists (which will be low-quality anyway), you’ll harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.
Yes! Email marketing is a cost-effective way for your brand to reach customers and leads. More than 80 percent of B2B marketers send email newsletters as part of their content marketing strategy, and newsletters are an important part of any marketing strategy. Oh, and did we mention for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average ROI of $42.
When someone visits your site, you want to connect with them and convert them. At least, that’s what would happen in your perfect marketing world. But, without their email address and other data, it can be hard to make that connection, especially if they don’t take some sort of action on your site.
That is, unless you use email retargeting. You can use this practice to engage with a variety of people:
Whether you’ve never heard of this marketing term before or are just starting to implement it into your strategy, you’ll find what you need to know for every step of the email retargeting process.
Here’s what we will cover in this email retargeting guide:
Without further adieu, let’s jump into what email retargeting is, why you should consider using it, and how you can start enjoying the benefits it offers for your business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrwXkq_pVao
Email retargeting — or email-based retargeting (EBR) — is the practice of sending emails to people based on information about their behavior and interests. With retargeting, you can:
Retargeting uses technology (like cookies or cross-device ID) to identify website visitors. A browser cookie places a small file into their browser when they visit a site in the same way Amazon does to keep items in a user’s shopping cart.
Once they are identified, those visitors are matched to a partner network database of contact records (with opt-ins), and the end-user is sent email addresses of people. This is the type of information you can see once you have their email address:
With email retargeting, unlike with display retargeting, the end-user pays once and owns the contact record forever. And as long as there’s an opt-out link in the email sent to these contacts, the end-user can email that contact record for as long as they want to.
Here’s an example of what email retargeting looks like:
After a browser cookie records their website activity or they spend a certain amount of time on a page, you can use their collected email address to contact them. Email retargeting works behind the scenes and is a practice most businesses can easily add to their email and direct mail marketing strategies to grow customer acquisition.
That’s the basic concept for how email retargeting works, so let’s dive into why you should consider adding this tool to your marketing strategy.
Whether you run a business, head up marketing, or are a blogger looking to grow your subscriber list, there are ways email retargeting can benefit your efforts. Here are just 10 of them:
The more comfortable you get with using email retargeting, the more benefits you can start enjoying from it. But don’t just take our word for it. Moz says that compared with a normal ecommerce conversion rate of between 2 percent and 4 percent, the rate for email retargeting conversions can be as high as 41 percent. Let that sink in for a minute.
Ready to start enjoying those benefits with your marketing efforts? Then it’s time to add email retargeting to your website.
The exact steps to add email retargeting to your site will depend on which platform (like Retention.com) you use. However, the general setup process includes:
But when should you use it? There are a few different scenarios where email retargeting can have the biggest impact when you:
There’s really not a bad time or place to use retargeting. The purpose is to follow up with visitors who haven’t fully engaged with you to (hopefully) convert them in the future. Or, you could use it to nudge old customers who drop in that you haven’t seen around in a while.
When you try out something that’s completely new, it can be difficult to tell if it’s working or not. It’s only natural to want to see a positive ROI for using email retargeting. To do that, you need to know how to get the most from your retargeting efforts — and what to avoid if you want the best results.
Here are three mistakes people make that hurt their retargeting efforts:
By avoiding these mistakes, you’re making the most of your email retargeting strategy — and setting yourself up for the best ROI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plYr3NwUdOY&list=PLO-1NFZxoPmb7WYhWte5OK6F4d8I5acGU&index=6&t=0s
Now that we’ve covered some of the no-nos associated with email retargeting, let’s talk about what you should be doing to reach your goals with some of the top best practices.
Reach out to them ASAP. If you’re using retargeting to trigger an email campaign, send the email as quickly as possible — like within an hour. That way, they remember they visited your site and will continue with their activity and/or engage with your brand. You don’t want them to be confused about who you are when they see your message pop up in their inbox. (And people have short memories these days, so don’t wait to send it!)
We can’t stress this enough: Reach out to the contacts you’ve acquired several times. Sending them one email about your product isn’t enough. You need to put them in a welcome series campaign (like three or more emails) to nurture this new lead. Check out this welcome email example from NetGalley that covers all of the basics:
Here’s an example of a successful email frequency that one of our clients uses:
That’s going to give you the type of ROI you’re after. You have to put in the work if you want to see positive results. Not sold on sending so many emails? Just remember the rule of seven in marketing:
People need to interact with you at least seven times before they act.
No matter your industry, products, or services, there’s a great (and simple) message to send to the contacts you’ve collected right off of the bat. And here’s that winning subject line for that email:
It tells them right away why they are getting your email and reminds them they did, in fact, visit your website. No one is going to get mad about a subject line like that, and it isn’t creepy in the least. After that, your subject lines should tell exactly what the email copy will be about. Maybe you’re sending them a quiz, recipe, or fun activity.
As for the email body content, stick to email marketing best practices:
This email from Krispy Kreme is short, (definitely) sweet, and straight to the point. The CTA is front and center, and the fonts and colors matched what was on their site at the time this campaign was sent.
Whatever you offered them in your email content, make sure it’s exactly the same on your landing page. You want the landing page to deliver on whatever you promised them in the email. Again, it’s all about consistency.
This landing page from Impraise matches the design for the guide, as shown by the cutout image, and the text matches what was advertised in email campaigns.
The more traffic you drive, the bigger your email retargeting program can be. However, the higher quality traffic you drive, the better your email retargeting program can be. And we all want great traffic sources, right?
To do that, try to show your email retargeting script to high-quality traffic. That means adding the script to places like:
When you’re ready to take your email retargeting game to the next level, start incorporating these techniques.
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760-percent increase in revenue. So, there’s no denying how beneficial segmentation can be for your marketing efforts. And that’s true when it comes to email retargeting.
One of the best places to put the script to segment the contacts is on the Cart page. Then, you can send them a Cart Abandonment email (more on that below). Or if you’re a publisher, you could add the script to the highest threshold of engagement.
Another good way to segment (and follow up) is if they visit a product or offer page. You can then send them:
Whatever page is the furthest visitors can go on your site without converting (that’s practical) is a good place to start to segment them. Then, you can expand your reach from there once you start seeing the ROI you’re after.
You should also remember you’ll collect both new and old email addresses during email retargeting. Make sure you don’t treat them the same. You can exclude your current subscribers from the campaigns you send out to the new addresses you collect, focusing on the ones who look like they are about to make a purchase — and offer them a no-brainer incentive so they follow through.
Cart abandonment obviously is a major issue. The average cart abandonment rate across all industries is 70 percent, and ecommerce sites lose about $18 billion in sales revenue each year because of it. Wouldn’t you like to see those numbers go way down? You can use email retargeting to do just that.
When you add the script to your Shopify store, for example, you can target visitors who, for whatever reason, didn’t complete their purchase. When that happens, you can send them an email reminding them there’s an item in their cart and then provide them with the link so they can buy it immediately. Make the process as easy as possible to improve the chances of them converting. The fewer hurdles there are to make a purchase, the more likely they are to do it.
Now that you have a better idea of when and how to use email retargeting, let’s cover some examples of what this practice actually looks like. Here are examples of email retargeting campaigns and which segments to send them to.
Who doesn’t love a discount or something free? Offering a free gift to someone when they leave your site is a great way to reel them back in, whether they are an anonymous visitor or haven’t engaged with you in a while. Target your offer to what they viewed on your site, like in this example from Wayfair that offers free shipping:
We’ve already covered why this one is important, but it can’t be overstated. You don’t want to miss out on a hot lead who abandoned their cart. Send them an email letting them know they forgot something in their cart, or send them a discount if they buy it now (like free shipping).
If someone has bought from you in the past, they are more likely to buy from you again. You can send a series of product upsell and cross-sell emails soon after a purchase. Here’s an example from Grammarly:
Now that you’ve finished reading the guide, you have everything you’ll need to know:
Still have some questions? Check out our frequently asked questions section below.
Email retargeting is pretty new to the scene, so you’re sure to have some questions about how it works. Here are five of the top questions we hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FStza7C9Txw&list=PLO-1NFZxoPmb7WYhWte5OK6F4d8I5acGU&index=3&t=0s
Now that you have a better understanding of what email retargeting is and how it can benefit your business — from ecommerce to publishers — all that’s left to do is pick an email retargeting platform and get started!
California took a big step this year, passing the first consumer privacy act in the country. It’s the only state to give its residents similar protections to what you’d find in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Act allows them to see how their information is being used and gives them more control over the sharing of their data.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018, Assembly Bill No. 375, went into effect in January 2020. That has left many brands wondering what that means for them and their consumer base. Not only do the companies want to ensure they are being compliant, but they also want to do it quickly.
To help you with that, here’s what we will cover in this guide:
Let’s start with the basics of the Act — what it is and isn’t — and how it could affect your brand.
As the name suggests, this bill is focused on protecting consumer privacy. That includes how companies use and/or sell their personal information and data, giving consumers more control over how that’s handled.
The bill grants consumers the right to:
The main point of the bill is to give any California consumer the right to demand to see the information a company has saved on them. It also allows consumers to see a full list of the third parties that data is shared with.
Here’s the timeline for the California Consumer Privacy Act:
We have passed that grace period, so companies need to get on the fast track for becoming compliant.
The CCPA impacts all companies that serve California residents and have at least $25 million in annual revenue. It also affects companies of any size that have personal data on at least 50,000 people — or that collect more than half of their revenues from the sale of personal data. Your brand doesn’t actually have to be based in California to be included in this bill. It only matters if you reach people who live in the state and also fall in a covered category.
The CCPA doesn’t apply to:
If any of the criteria above fits your company, you’ll need to take steps to become compliant now — because this law is already being enforced.
The bill describes personal information as information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked to a specific consumer or household. Here’s the list shared in the bill of what all that includes:
Don’t let that list overwhelm you. Here are a few specific examples pulled from that of what is considered personal information:
If you’re using any of that information and fit the criteria for businesses included in this bill, you will need to become compliant right away if you aren’t already.
You’ve probably heard of the EU’s GDPR by now. The CCPA was put into place to protect consumer information, so in that respect, it’s similar to the GDPR. Here are a few other similarities the two share:
However, that’s about where the similarities end. The GDPR regulates what disclosures companies can make to data subjects. It also oversees the procedures for data breach notifications, data security implementation, and more. It also includes additional rights for the data subjects, like the right to rectification, be forgotten, and not to be a subject of a decision based on automated processing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agdv3Z4Ay40
On the other hand, the CCPA is more limited and mainly focuses on consumer privacy rights and disclosures made to consumers. While it is less comprehensive than the GDPR, that doesn’t mean it has a narrow scope or can be ignored. This Act still requires companies to make some major changes to become compliant.
Another major difference between the two is how they approach opt-ins and opt-outs. With the GDPR, users must opt-in to give their consent. However, with the CCPA, companies can simply include an opt-out (Unsubscribe) option in their messages — instead of having to earn the opt-in to begin with. Businesses can’t sell personal information after they receive an opt-out request unless the consumer gives you authorization allowing you to do so again. Also, companies have to wait at least 12 months before asking a consumer to opt back into the sale of their personal information.
Remember: Being GDPR-compliant doesn’t mean being CCPA-compliant, or vice versa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnLFBjr91g
The California Consumer Privacy Act is light on requirements for security and breach response compared to the GDPR. However, the Act does give fines (more on that below) for companies that expose consumer data because of a security lapse or breach. It also allows courts to offer “injunctive or declaratory relief,” or, “any other relief the court deems proper.”
Companies aren’t required to report breaches under the Act, requiring consumers to file complaints before fines are possible. So, the best course of action to improve security is to know what data the CCPA defines as private and take steps to secure that.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a magical switch that you can flip to ensure all of your consumer data is compliant with the CCPA. So, we’ve put together this overview to show you how to comply from start to finish.
In addition to covering your bases with the collected consumer data, there are other actions companies are required to take by the Act. Businesses must make two or more designated methods available to consumers that allow them to submit requests for information. That includes, at minimum, a toll-free telephone number and a website, if the company has one.
Companies must also disclose and deliver the required information to the consumer free of charge within 45 days of receiving a verifiable request from the consumer. You can extend that time period by an additional 45 days, when reasonably necessary. But, you must provide the consumer with a notice within the first 45-day period. You can’t require a consumer to create an account with your business to make a verifiable request.
Staying CCPA-compliant is a continuous process, just like it is to add new consumers to your database.
[And a side note for Retention.com’s customers: As long as you make the appropriate privacy policy adjustments as we’ve covered here, Retention.com is CCPA compliant.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxyErp7fyQ
If you receive a consumer request, there are a few things you will need to do. The specifics will depend on their request, like if they want you to disclose the information on their data vs. they want to be deleted.
But generally, there are a few steps you can start with after receiving a request:
Again, this is why it’s important to properly classify consumer data from the start. Yes, it takes extra effort at the beginning, but it will save you greatly in the future if/when you receive requests.
Companies will have 30 days to comply with the Act once regulators notify them of a violation. From there, if they don’t resolve the issue, the company can face a fine of up to $7,500 per record. Unintentional violations are subject to fines of up to $2,500 per violation.
Also, companies that are affected by a data breach because of unreasonable information security can be ordered to pay fines between $100 to $750 per California resident involved with the incident — or damages, whichever is greater — in a civil class-action lawsuit. Remember that with statutory damages, the consumer doesn’t have to prove they incurred an actual financial loss. They just have to show the company violated the law.
Companies who aren’t compliant are risking significant fines when you factor in each impacted customer and/or non-compliant action.
With little leadership on the matter on the federal level, it’s not much of a surprise that California created its own privacy law. More states are sure to take note of what the Golden State is doing. So, even if this Act doesn’t affect your business now, something similar might soon.
Companies need to make smart decisions about how they handle their data security and privacy practices. If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s shown companies they should constantly monitor their systems for possible threats.
While this bill might not be as much of a burden on security as the EU’s GDPR, at least in some areas, things can always change. The true effects of the CCPA might not be seen for years. But, it’s clear consumer privacy will continue to be a hot topic across the country and beyond.
Most businesses have sent some form of email marketing, whether it’s a welcome email, newsletter, promotion, or other campaigns to engage their audiences. Email is a great way to reach consumers, considering about half of the world’s population are email users.
The best email campaigns include a branded design, clear call to action (CTA), and valuable information that will help you achieve your marketing goals. But beyond the formatting and content, you better make sure your email campaign is in compliance with current laws and regulations.
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act) was created to protect consumers from spam emails, which continue to hit inboxes across the globe. In March 2020, spam messages accounted for 54 percent of email traffic, according to Statista.
While that number might seem high, it’s actually decreased since 2018 when it was 55 percent and in 2012 when it was 69 percent. And the CAN-SPAM Act is in place to push that percentage even lower by regulating commercial email messages.
You’re probably wondering what that means for your business, considering most send some sort of email messages to their audience. We’ll cover everything brands need to know about this legislation to ensure they stay compliant, including:
So before you send your next email, make sure your brand is staying CAN-SPAM compliant. (Because trust us, you don’t want to face the possible penalties — scroll down to the end if you’re brave enough to see those monster numbers.)
Signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003, the CAN-SPAM Act established the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial emails — requiring the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce the provisions.
Basically, this law:
Here are some of the Act’s general requirements:
Now that we’ve covered some of the basics (more on that below), let’s dive into who has to follow these rules.
Put simply, this act is for anyone sending commercial messages — not just bulk emails. What exactly constitutes a commercial message, you ask? This is how the law defines it:
Anything that is designed to sell the recipient something would fit this description. For example, if you send an email about an upcoming seminar, this could be considered a “commercial product or service” because you’re asking them to pay for registration.
That description also includes emails that promote content on commercial websites. It is important to note that the law doesn’t make exceptions for business-to-business (B2B) emails, so this isn’t only for business-to-consumer (B2C) brands.
The law states that the CAN-SPAM Act applies to initiators and senders of commercial email messages, so let’s define those two terms:
Don’t let these terms fool or confuse you. Marketers in a single email message who are not designated senders are still considered “initiators,” according to CAN-SPAM, making them liable under any of the provisions that apply to initiators. That means these marketers are still prohibited from using deceptive headers and subject lines, and they are required to include an opt-out link.
Commercial emails can have multiple initiators and senders, like when a company has a marketing affiliate send commercial emails advertising the company’s products. Both the company and the marketing affiliate would need to be CAN-SPAM compliant.
That’s because the marketing affiliate is an initiator due to the fact that they transmit the email. The company is an initiator because it procures (intentionally pays or provides other considerations to another person to initiate the message on their behalf) the transmission of the email and a sender because its products are advertised in the email.
To safeguard against potential liability issues, the people or entities involved in the joint marketing campaigns should make sure they have:
These people and entities should also audit all third-party service providers and marketing affiliates on a regular basis to make sure they are compliant.
There is an exemption in the CAN-SPAM Act for relationship and transactional messages, which are both, by definition, not commercial messages. To determine whether an email contains any transactional or relationship content, see if the message does one or more of the following:
If your message contains any of that information and no commercial content, it’s a transactional or relationship message.
However, these messages still need to follow the basics of not containing false or misleading header information. That header information includes the:
Besides that, these messages are otherwise exempt from the CAN-SPAM Act’s requirements.
While the transactional and relationship category can be helpful, what about other types of “non-commercial” email messages? We’re talking about:
Where do these fall?
A newsletter isn’t normally construed as either a commercial message or transactional or relationship message, for example. However, what if it’s supported by a paid advertising or has a general promotion for a conference that requires a registration fee? That’s where the primary purpose test comes into play.
The FTC established rules for determining the primary purpose of a message that includes both commercial and transactional or relationship content — as well as commercial vs. non-commercial content.
If messages include both commercial and transactional or relationship content, they should be treated as commercial if either:
The FTC explained the use of the term "substantial" does not refer to volume, but instead to the nature of the content. According to the FTC, the transactional or relationship content that appears at the beginning of the message must be something recognizable as transactional or relationship content, such as account balance information.
Additional related information, like recent account activity, could be provided below the commercial content. The FTC clearly noted that simply stating "Your Account" at the top of the message would not be sufficiently substantial.
The FTC believes placing transactional or relationship content at or near the beginning of the message will allow recipients to quickly identify messages providing transactional or relationship content without having to scroll through the commercial content.
Messages that include both commercial and non-commercial content that is not transactional or relationship content will be deemed commercial if:
According to the FTC, this net impression test is designed to evaluate the message in its totality and looks to the impression the entire message makes on the reasonable recipient.
Factors relevant to the net impression evaluation include the:
If the sender draws attention to the commercial content, the message may leave the impression that it is commercial. The FTC has noted nothing in its rules or guidelines prohibits senders from formulating its messages in ways that result in a net impression that is not commercial.
Many brands often participate in forward-to-a-friend email marketing campaigns. These campaigns encourage consumers to forward emails that advertise or promote the company’s products and can be conducted in one of these methods:
The company is considered the initiator and sender under CAN-SPAM if it procures the origination or transmission of the forwarded email. That can happen in one of two ways:
But beyond that, simply encouraging a consumer to forward a message without something more is permissible and not subject to CAN-SPAM liability. Furthermore, consumers who forward commercial emails without being offered an inducement or consideration are also not subject to CAN-SPAM — even though they would technically be considered initiators under a strict reading of the Act.
Does this Act affect nonprofits? The answer is “maybe.” There are no exemptions for nonprofits. However, the FTC has acknowledged that “it is possible — or even likely — that messages between a nonprofit and its members could constitute ‘transactional or relationship’ messages.”
That statement might boost the argument that certain messages to associate members fall under the transactional or relationship category if they are given to the members in the course of delivering benefits that the members expect to receive. However, association emails to non-members would most likely fall outside of the transactional or relationship category.
And of course, not all email messages to members would automatically be considered transactional or relationship.
Emails that market products (ex. shirts, books, or seminars) would obviously be included in the Act — while fundraising emails may fall outside of the CAN-SPAM Act umbrella. So, it’s best for nonprofits to err on the side of caution and incorporate compliant best practices. That can also include ensuring every subscriber has opted into your list, preferably twice. Double opt-in subscribers are less likely to complain that they never signed up.
Beyond how many times the user opt-ins, there are two specific types of opt-ins:
For example, express consent is when someone gives you their email address because they want to receive an email from your nonprofit. This most commonly occurs when someone visits your website and leaves their email address in your signup box to receive your emailed newsletter.
Implied permission would be when a donor makes a gift through your donation page and shares his or her email address with you on that form. No matter which type of consent it is, the best practice is to send an email immediately and ask the subscriber to verify that they opted-in by replying to that email or clicking a link.
If you’re still reading, we’re going to guess that means you send at least some amount of commercial emails. And if that’s the case, you’re going to need to follow the regulations set out in this law. Really, these are best practices that any good marketer should be following anyway.
Here is your CAN-SPAM compliance checklist of dos and don’ts from the FTC:
Most companies will place a majority of the information requirements in the email footer. Here’s an example from a JOANN email’s footer with their compliance information (ex. unsubscribe link, physical address):
While it might seem like a lot of work upfront, once a template with all of the CAN-SPAM Act requirements is set-up, that template can easily be used for all future emails.
Third-party email service providers like MailChimp, Robly, and Constant Contact can also help make it easier to stay compliant, by including Unsubscribe links in your design templates and marking possible spam concerns. However, the burden still rests on your company to ensure you’re not missing the mark.
We also need to mention there’s a section of the CAN-SPAM Act dedicated to regulations on sexually explicit emails. Yep, they lumped commercial emails right on in there with pornography. We won’t spend a huge amount of time on this section, but here are the basic rules:
No graphics are allowed on the “brown paper wrapper.” That makes sure the recipients can’t view sexually explicit content without an affirmative act on their part — like scrolling down or clicking a link. However, this requirement doesn’t apply to people receiving the message who have already given affirmative consent to receive the sender’s sexually oriented messages.
This law allows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate unwanted mobile service commercial messages — meaning commercial emails that are sent to email addresses associated with a wireless device, like 555-1111@att.net.
So, the FCC has enacted rules addressing messages like that which include:
Unlike the FTC’s opt-out requirements for commercial email messages, this opt-out requirement requires companies to have express prior authorization before initiating a mobile service commercial message.
A commercial message is presumed to be a mobile-service commercial message “if it is sent or directed to any address containing a reference, whether or not displayed, to an Internet domain listed on the FCC’s wireless domain names list.”
There is no liability for sending a message where a domain has appeared on the FCC’s list for fewer than 30 days, as long as the person or entity does not knowingly initiate a mobile service commercial message.
You can check the FCC’s wireless domain names list within 30 days of sending any commercial emails to addresses associated with a wireless device to ensure compliance. If you see that the domain in issue does appear on the list, you’ll need to follow these two steps:
Primarily enforced by the FTC, the CAN-SPAM Act has pretty steep fines if you’re found to be noncompliant:
Take a second to imagine paying the max violation fine for each email on a 10,000-subscriber list. Not something you want to think about, right? That’s why it’s so important to stay compliant with this law.
Also, more than one person can be held responsible for the violations:
Remember: This penalty is the maximum dollar amount per violation, so the FTC will take into account the degree of culpability, any history or prior such conduct, ability to pay, and the effect on the ability to continue to do business.
The FTC also has a civil penalty leniency program for small businesses that establishes criteria that they will consider when determining the propriety of a penalty waiver or reduction for small businesses that aren’t in compliance.
There are also certain aggravated violations that may increase fines. The CAN-SPAM Act allows criminal penalties (including imprisonment) for certain actions:
In certain circumstances, the law can also be enforced by other federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), state attorneys general, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). There is no private right of action.
And to keep states from passing stronger anti-spam laws that could raise standards and make compliance more complex, the CAN-SPAM Act stipulates that it supersedes any state-level anti-spam laws:
We’ve covered all of the basics involved with the CAN-SPAM Act and how to stay compliant in this guide. But in case you have some more specific questions or a quick answer, here are a few FAQs:
Q. What if an email combines commercial content with transactional or relationship content?
A. It’s common for emails sent by businesses to mix commercial content and transactional or relationship content. When an email contains both kinds of content, the primary purpose of the message is the deciding factor.
To make that determination, think about this:
So, when a message contains both kinds of content – commercial and transactional or relationship – if the subject line would lead the recipient to think it’s a commercial message, it’s a commercial message for CAN-SPAM purposes.
Q. What if my company sends emails with a link so the recipients can forward the message to others? Who is responsible for CAN-SPAM compliance for these messages?
A. Whether a seller or forwarder is a “sender” or “initiator” depends on the facts. Deciding if the CAN-SPAM Act applies to a commercial “forward-to-a-friend” message often depends on whether the seller has offered to pay the forwarder or give the forwarder some other benefit.
For example, if the seller offers one or more of these things, they may be responsible for compliance:
Or if a seller pays or gives a benefit to someone in exchange for generating traffic to a website or for any form of referral, the seller is likely to have compliance obligations under the CAN-SPAM Act.
Q. What’s the difference between the CAN-SPAM Act and the Canadian Anti-Spam Lawn (CASL)?
A. For starters, the CAN-SPAM Act is for the United States, and as the name suggests, the CASL is for Canada. But beyond the obvious, here are a few other differences.
While there are other differences, there are some commonalities between these two provisions. For example, they both have guidelines on how you can make it easy for recipients to opt-out of further communications (usually by providing the link to a one-click subscription center or a reply-to address you check regularly), a hard rule that opt-out requests must be honored quickly, and instruction that you are responsible for monitoring communications sent from other organizations on the recipient’s behalf.
Q. How is Retention.com legal, considering the CAN-SPAM Act?
A. This is a question we get all of the time, so we have plenty of resources to answer this for you. Here’s a video you can check out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agdv3Z4Ay40&t=2s
Of course, if you have other questions or need clarification, visit the FTC’s website.
When an online shopper leaves one of your company’s products in their cart, you send them an email letting them know. (At least you should be doing that!) But, what if they — like most potential customers — never actually make it to the cart? Simple. You turn to a browse abandonment strategy.
And we’ll help walk you through all of the steps involved with converting these lost shoppers into customers. Here’s what you’ll learn about browse abandonment in our extensive guide:
In case you’re new to this term or need a bit of a refresher, here’s a definition of browse abandonment:
We guess you could think about it like online window shopping.
They enjoy looking at your products but, for whatever reason, never added the item to their cart to make a purchase.
Unlike with cart abandonment, this practice doesn’t involve the shopper putting anything in their cart. So, it’s like a step before cart abandonment, you might say. But, that doesn’t mean it’s any less important to re-engage these shoppers. Actually, it’s just the opposite.
Once a person commits the crime of browse abandonment, what should you do? (OK, it’s not a crime, but it sure does sting, doesn’t it?) The answer is simple: Send them an email.
We’ll go into more detail about what the email should look like, but it’s just an automated, targeted message to shoppers who viewed certain products on your website. The email serves as a reminder to the shopper that they expressed interest in an item.
And if you’re already saying that you don’t have time for something like that, might we remind you that it’s automated. So, you set it up and let the email boost your ROI. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
We’re sure you’re already putting a lot of effort into recovering users who abandoned their cart, right? However, not as many resources focus on the browse abandonment users. And we are here to tell you that’s a mistake.
Consider these statistics:
Each view, visit, click, and search done on your site is a shopper expressing some level of interest in your products. You just have to figure out how interested they are in making a purchase and what you can do to encourage that conversion.
A data-driven approach that leverages browser behavior data — including browse abandonment — could be the key to unlocking higher conversions and ROI. Browse abandonment emails are key to your conversion rate optimization strategy and have been shown to convert six times more than other marketing channels.
You can use email-based retargeting platforms like Retention.com to collect the email addresses for browse abandonment visitors.
While converting traffic is a great goal, it’s also important to effectively re-engage your website visitors. By using browse abandonment emails you can push them back to the spot they left off, no matter where they are in the buyer’s journey. Even if they don’t end up making a purchase right then, you’re laying the groundwork to nurture that relationship.
So, the question isn’t if you should incorporate this marketing practice but how you can start using it now.
Before you can start putting your browse abandonment email campaign to work, you’ll need to build a browse abandonment series. You can create that series via your email service provider (ESP).
Here are components you’ll need to figure out when creating your browse abandonment email strategy.
You need to know who you want to send the emails to. For example, do you want to target everyone who abandons a browser, or do you only want to reach a specific audience within your list?
The performance of browse abandonment emails can be improved by segmenting and changing the message and tone for different customer groups, tailoring content by on-site behavior. You can also highlight selling points like next-day or free delivery.
When you send the emails and how many you send can have a big impact on the campaign’s results. For example, someone casually viewing a pair of shoes on your site doesn’t want to be bombarded with emails encouraging them to buy them. So, the frequency and volume of the emails needs to match the shopper’s level of interest.
Here are things to consider when trying to gauge their intent:
Overall, a good starting point is to send one or two emails. You’ll be able to get the product back in front of them without overwhelming them.
As for how quickly you want to send these emails, time is of the essence. Remember, they only browsed the product (it’s not in their cart), so send the email within a few hours (day at the latest) of them leaving your page.
After you know who you want to reach with the email, when you’re going to send, and how many emails you want to send to each shopper, it’s time to start laying out the different components of the email. Here are some best practices for creating engaging browse abandonment emails.
The first thing the recipient will see is the email’s subject line, so don’t let it disappoint. It’s either going to get them to open the email or send it to their Trash. The purpose of the subject line is to tell them why you’re emailing them and encourage them to check out whatever they were viewing.
Here are some examples of browse abandonment subject lines:
Stick with something that’s short, sweet, and to the point. You can add in a touch of personalization or an emoji to help the email stand out, as well.
This browse abandonment email from American Giant uses the subject line, “Did you see something you liked?” Then the body text says, “Hi there, we noticed that you were browsing our site but that you haven’t checked out yet.”
They then encourage them to reach out to Customer Service if they have any questions. That’s helpful because the visitor might have left the site because of an issue.
Once they open your email, you want to make it worth their while. And luckily for you, browse abandonment emails don’t have to be in-depth or flashy when it comes to the content. Actually, it’s better when they aren’t.
Here are the basic elements you’ll want in the body of the email:
All of these components make it easier for the user to recollect what they abandoned.
Take this Target browse abandonment email for example:
The only text in the email is, “It’s an *add-to-cart* kind of day.” That’s followed by a clear CTA: “Shop now.” It doesn’t get any more basic than that, and it works! Below the CTA, Target shows the photo, description, and price for the item(s) that they browsed, followed by the “Check it out” CTA.
If you want to take your email a step further, you can include a “Recommended for you” section with related products. Since they were only browsing and didn’t actually add it to their cart, they might want to see other options. That’s exactly what Target does at the bottom of the email:
Consumers are becoming more comfortable with email retargeting, to a certain extent. And as more brands are focusing on browse abandonment, shoppers will come to expect this type of message.
To help yours stand out from the pack, add personal touches, like putting their names in the subject line or email. That will show them:
While this email marketing practice isn’t new, you still want to be careful with how personal you get. People know their online behaviors are being tracked, but there’s a fine line between personalized and stalker.
For example:
You can also find more ideas about what to send your contacts in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_tPhVVRNkU&feature=emb_title
Just like you want to send the browse abandonment email shortly after they leave your site, you also want them to head back to your website ASAP. You can do that by creating a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO).
For example:
Want more inspiration? Check out these browse abandonment emails from a variety of brands.
This email approach is popular with several brands, including Columbia. They send browsers a message letting them know the price has gone down on something they viewed, along with other items they might like.
We like their CTA, “Reveal New Price,” because it gives the recipient even more reason to click it. If for nothing else, they are probably just curious to see how much it costs now. While they don’t include the price for the main item (because of the mystery CTA approach), they do include the price for the recommended products.
Anytime you can tailor the content to your brand, do it! LEGO does a great job of staying true to the brand’s voice and products with the text, “Like what you saw? Make it yours in a snap!” They go with a simple CTA, “Shop Now,” followed by the product description below.
But, instead of simply displaying the product they browsed, they include the text, “Go ahead, take another look,” above it. Again, that helps set their messaging apart from the dozens of others consumers receive on a daily basis. LEGO ends the email using their products to represent support, deliveries, and parts, so you have to love that.
This browse abandonment email from Adidas is a little bit longer than your average one, but it works for what they’re trying to do. “Is your wi-fi okay?” is a fun and easy way to see why they left your site before making a purchase.
Something else we like about this email is how they share reviews for the product they viewed. Consumers love to see what other people have to say about a product, so this brings that information straight to their inbox. They even included a review that wasn’t four stars, which gives the brand credibility.
This email from Framebridge comes off more like a deal message, which is especially effective for when someone has been looking at several products within a category. They start out the email with “We see you have great taste,” which shows this email is targeted to the recipient, without being too straightforward about what they browsed.
They follow that up with “Top Products Hand Selected for You,” with photos and the CTA, “Start framing now,” for the different options.
Still have some questions about using browse abandonment? Check out these FAQs.
Q. When should you send a browse abandonment email?
A. The best time to send one is within an hour or two after a visitor browses your ecommerce site and leaves without placing an item in their cart. The sooner you send the email, the more likely they are to remember viewing the product. And by waiting an hour or two, you give them time to go back to the site if they planned to.
Q. Are there ways to prevent browse abandonment?
A. While email retargeting helps after a visitor has already browsed and left your site, pop-ups and other forms of communication on your website can help reduce the chance of them leaving without making a purchase. On-site messages can tell the visitor the product they are looking at has a limited availability, offer them a discount, or see if they want to speak to customer service.
These kinds of messages can be incredibly effective in moving customers further down the purchasing funnel, which ultimately reduces browse abandonment.
Q. Is it OK to send a second browse abandonment email if they don’t engage with the first?
A. Absolutely! Here’s an example of how you can space them out:
Q. Can you use browse abandonment on your Shopify site?
A. Yes. While Shopify doesn’t offer browse abandonment automations directly on their platform, you can use third-party integrations or an ESP that integrates with Shopify.
Q. How does Retention.com help with browse abandonment?
A. At Retention.com, we focus on email-based retargeting. For us, that means using identification technology — usually cookies or cross-device ID — to identify anonymous website visitors. Those visitors are then matched to a partner network database of contact records (with opt-ins), and the end user is sent email addresses of people who aren’t already on their list.
So, we can identify some of your site’s visitors, from browse abandonment and beyond. Check out this video for more information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrwXkq_pVao&feature=emb_title
Stop losing potential customers, and start targeting them with browse abandonment campaigns. Considering most site visitors never put anything in their cart — like 95 percent of them — you don’t want to miss out on the chance to reach this large audience.
So, start by creating an automated browse abandonment email series that will help bring some of that lost traffic back to your site!
