Topic
Email & retention
Flows, campaigns, list growth and keeping customers coming back, mostly built in Klaviyo.
Is there a best time to send marketing emails?
Not one that works for your whole list. Send time is about your individual subscribers, and the old advice to send on Tuesday or Thursday at 11am or 2pm has made those some of the most crowded slots in the inbox. Test a range of hours and send each person when they're most likely to open. The exception is a recurring email that goes out at the same time every week, because that trains people to look for it.
How do you email an old list without wrecking your deliverability?
Clean the list first, then send to it in batches of a few hundred, starting with your freshest leads. Check opens and bounces after each batch before you step back to older contacts, and stop when a batch is dead. Going from a handful of emails a week to thousands overnight is one of the quickest ways to burn your sending domain.
Your email list is the only marketing asset you truly own
Any platform you market on can shut you down overnight, including your ad accounts, your social channels and even your store and email software. What you own is your customers' email addresses and phone numbers, with a record that they opted in. So run every channel into one list, export it every month, and own your domain.
Can your email open rate be too high?
Yes. If every campaign you send gets 60% opens, you're almost certainly mailing a small, loyal slice of your list and ignoring everyone else. Send most campaigns to people who've engaged recently, rotate through a few segments, and send to the full list every third or fourth email so lapsed subscribers get a chance to come back.
How do you get more product reviews with photos and videos?
Ask in a sequence instead of a single email. Prime customers in the order confirmation, ask once they've actually used the product, offer a bigger reward for photos or video, remind them, then finish with a plain-text email from the founder. For customers who bought before you had a system, run a prize draw instead of discounting everyone.
What should be in a Shopify welcome email flow?
Seven emails that each do one job, and one rule: the flow stops the moment someone buys. Skip the branching paths and split tests until you're running a proper testing programme. A simple welcome series with great emails will beat a clever one with average emails every time.
Questions on Email & retention
- Are giveaway email subscribers worth it?
They can be. Don't write them off until you've checked what that group of subscribers actually went on to spend.
- What should I write about in my e-commerce marketing emails when I run out of ideas?
Mine your product and your customers before you invent anything. Reviews, customer stories, FAQs and deep dives on every ingredient or component will give you more emails than you can send.
- What percentage of e-commerce revenue should come from email marketing?
At least 25 to 30%, and in a strong account I aim for around 40%, split roughly 50/50 between campaigns and flows. If email is down in the high teens, the account isn't healthy.
- Can you embed a video in a marketing email?
Practically, no. Outlook, Hotmail and most of the other common inboxes break it. Link to the video instead, hosted somewhere with no distractions.
- Should I fix my email pop-up or my welcome flow first?
Fix the pop-up first. If it's converting at 1 or 2%, too few people are getting into your welcome flow for a redesign to make much difference. Keep testing the pop-up until it's converting at around 7 to 8%.
- What is a good email open rate for an ecommerce store?
I want to see 40% plus on campaigns. If you're sitting under 30%, you're probably sending to a lot of dormant inboxes.
- What is a good sign-up rate for an e-commerce email pop-up?
I aim for around 7 to 8% on an email sign-up pop-up, and I treat anything under about 5% as pretty bad.
- How often should a small e-commerce brand send marketing emails?
At least one good email a week, and keep it consistent.
- Is SMS marketing worth the cost for a small e-commerce store?
It depends on your market and on how often your customers buy again. I treat it as a small, isolated bet and work out how many extra sales it needs to pay for itself.
- How do you run a one-day flash sale by email?
Send four emails: something's coming, set your alarm for this time, the deal is live for three hours only, and ending soon. Send it to one segment, like your VIPs, and keep it to email and social.
- How do I warm up a new email domain before sending at volume?
Authenticate the domain properly first, including DMARC. Then use the new address for everyday email and run an inbox warm-up for at least a week before you move your automations or any volume across.
- Why is my email marketing revenue declining?
Partly because everyone else got better. AI and tools like Klaviyo have lifted the baseline so far that the inbox is full of good email from your competitors, and attribution now gives email less of the credit. Email revenue is down across the board.