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Email Automations:
How We Grew Our eCommerce Client's Revenue By 77%
Who is 
Boie is a specialty eCommerce store that sells sustainable body scrubbers, face scrubbers, and toothbrushes.
They hired us in 2018 to help them grow their email list, implement an effective email marketing strategy, increase email-driven sales, and boost customer loyalty and retention.
When we started working with them, they had an email list with 2,000 – 3,000 subscribers and little to no email marketing strategy in place.
We eventually grew their list to over 100K subscribers, helped them scale their email marketing strategy as their list grew, and helped them transition from using Mailchimp to Klaviyo.
Part of this strategy involved creating and implementing email automation campaigns.
If you know how to effectively implement email automations, they can be an exceptionally powerful component of your email marketing strategy.
And we’re not even talking about advanced, complex automations. Even a few simple automations can help you increase sales, build brand awareness, and nurture positive customer relationships.
The best part about email automations is that they allow you to create automated processes that grow your business by targeting the three fundamental business growth avenues:
- Increase the number of customers/sales
- Increase the value of each transaction/sale
- Increase purchasing frequency
When we create email automations for clients, we focus on automations that will impact those three areas.
Below, we’ll go over six simple email automation campaigns we set up for our client Boie that delivered five-figure results.
But first, let’s discuss some background info about Boie that will help you understand the scope of our work and the decisions we made.
Increasing Sales By Reducing Abandonment
The most direct way to increase sales with email automations is by using them to recover lost sales.
By lost sales, we’re referring to cart and browser abandonment.
When shoppers browse your products or add them to their cart, they’re demonstrating interest in what you have to offer. But for some reason, they failed to complete their purchase.
New customers cost time and money to acquire. But by focusing on warm leads first (cart/browse abandoners), you can increase sales with minimal expense and relative ease.
If you can learn the reasons why shoppers abandon your products, you can create email automations that convince them to return and buy.
But even without getting into the specific reasons behind abandonment, by simply reminding shoppers of their purchase, you can recover a substantial amount of lost sales and increase your revenue.
Below, we describe the Cart Abandonment and Browse Abandonment campaigns we created for Boie.
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Cart Abandonment Automations
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Browse Abandonment Automations
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Cross Sell Automations
Cart Abandonment Automations
Cart abandonment campaigns are one of the best automation strategies you can put into place. Roughly 70% of shoppers abandon their carts, and the average conversion rate for cart abandonment campaigns is 18.64%.
In other words, there’s a lot of money on the table that you can recover by implementing this simple automation strategy.
To get these campaigns right you have to send them at the right time and send the right message.
Our first cart abandonment email went out 1 hour after the cart was abandoned. It simply reminded shoppers that their cart was still active and included a CTA they could use to return to their cart.
The second email went out 1 day after cart abandonment. To provide shoppers with an extra incentive, we offered a 10% discount if they completed their purchase.
Browse Abandonment Automations
While browsing isn’t as big of a commitment as adding a product to a cart, it’s still a demonstration of interest. You can recover a sizable amount of lost revenue by sending a simple reminder to shoppers who abandon your site after viewing a product. And if you can get the messaging right, you can convince browsers to make a purchase.
For Boie, we created a Browse Abandonment campaign that went out 2 hours after browse abandonment. We used scarcity to impel shoppers to buy by telling them that our items sell out fast and they should act now while supplies last.
We chose to use a scarcity tactic because it’s true – their products are unique and made from sustainable materials, so they sometimes run out of stock. You could try the same tactic, or run A/B tests with other tactics to see which works best. Some tactics to consider include discounts, benefits, bonus gifts, social proof, etc.
Increasing Transaction Value Through Cross Selling
In addition to reducing abandonment, increasing transaction value is another easy way to increase revenue.
Your existing customers have already demonstrated an interest in your products, and convincing them to spend more is easier and more cost-effective than converting new customers.
The simplest way to get customers to spend more is by implementing a Cross Selling automation campaign.
To cross sell effectively, you should:
Promote products that are related to what your customer already purchased.
Describe how your other products can help the customer better achieve their goals/solve their pain point.
Since Boie only sold 4 products, we created a Cross Sell email that described how the other products can help the customer achieve their goal of hygienic cleanliness.
Cross Sell Automations
Another easy way to increase revenue with email automations is by creating simple Cross Selling campaigns.
We theorized that customers who bought any of Boie’s products were clearly interested in hygienic care and top quality grooming products. By sending them emails that demonstrated the quality and hygienic value of Boie’s other products, we could generate more revenue on each transaction.
Boie only sold 4 products total. So we created a Cross Sell campaign that sent an email promoting the other products that the customer didn’t buy. The email went out 30 days after purchase.
Cultivating customer loyalty is more difficult and time consuming than reducing abandonment or cross selling. But its rewards are far greater.
In addition to having a great product that they love, creating loyal customers requires that you get to know your customer, get them to know your business, and have a series of positive interactions that create a great impression of your brand.
To build a good relationship with Boie’s customers, we started things off right with a Welcome Email automation that was sent to new subscribers. It introduced customers to Boie’s business and practices, and helped them get the most value from Boie’s products.
We used a Back In Stock automation to inform customers when their favorite products were available.
And we implemented a simple Thank You email automation to show customers that we valued their business.
Welcome Email
We sent the Welcome Email above to new Boie email subscribers 1 day after sign-up. It introduced subscribers to Boie’s business practices and value proposition (how their products were made and why they were superior to alternatives), shared guides on how to get the most from Boie’s products, and invited subscribers to shop.
The primary goal of Welcome Emails is to educate new subscribers about your business and develop a positive customer relationship. It helps them get started with your products and makes them more receptive to future promotional emails.
This email accomplished that for Boie. But it was also surprisingly effective at generating sales, garnering a 1.8% conversion rate and 5-figure earnings.
Open Rate: 45%
Click Rate: 4%
Conversion Rate: 1.8%
Back In Stock
Running out of stock of certain items is unavoidable for some businesses. And losing those sales can be frustrating. But with a simple Back In Stock email automation, you can notify customers that their favorite products are available and recover some of those sales.
As mentioned earlier, Boie would occasionally run out of stock of certain products. When this happened, shoppers were given the option to sign up for a Back In Stock email automation. And when the product became available again, subscribers were automatically sent an email notification.
This automation provided a simple way to recover lost sales. But, perhaps more importantly, it also contributed to a positive customer relationship.
It kept us in touch with those customers, rather than losing them altogether. And it made life easier for customers – they could just sign up for notifications rather than having to check back in over and over again. Customers appreciate it when businesses look out for their interests.
Thank You Email
Thank You emails are easy to overlook. They don’t seem to add much value or provide any opportunity to generate sales.
But they’re an easy and important way to cultivate a positive relationship with customers.
A simple thank you shows that you value their business, which earns their appreciation in turn. And it shows customers that they’re more than just a dollar figure to you, which builds customer loyalty.
We sent out 2 separate Thank You emails. The first went to new customers; the second went to repeat customers. As you can see, the Thank You emails have some of the highest open rates of any of our campaigns.
Surprisingly, these emails also generated a small but appreciable amount of sales.
