5 ways to use “Thank you” emails to increase your sales

One of the most successful email remarketing tactics is sending thank you emails following a purchase. These emails are usually sent with a day or two after the order was completed to thank the customer for the business and to make sure that the experience was satisfactory.

Aside from thanking the customer and providing this basic information, retailers can use these emails as email remarketing opportunities to get these customers back to their stores, increase repeat sales, promote certain products, and more. 

 Why “thank you” emails are such a great opportunity

Thank you emails, also known as “order follow-up” emails enjoy relatively greater open and click rates. Furthermore, in Gmail accounts these emails tend to find their way to the Primary folder, making them more visible to the users. As seen below, these emails generate relatively high engagement rates, with open clicks reaching over 42% and click-through rates reaching 18%. Depending on what you include in the email itself, statistics from over 500 online merchants show that repeat purchases reach an average of 10%!

That’s one in every 10 customers that will purchase again following these emails. However, in order to reach these numbers, you need to provide incentives for repeat purchases. Here are some tips on how to do it.

Tip #1 – Keep subject lines simple

Although this may seem obvious, it is important to remember that since order follow-up emails enjoy high engagement rates, you should make sure that the user immediately identifies them as such. Top performing emails use very short and simple subject lines, such as “Thank you for your order”. You can add the name of your online store to the subject line itself (e.g. “Thank you for your order at <store_name>”). Another term that is commonly used is “Order Confirmation”. Another effective tactic is to include the order number in the subject line.

Tip #2 – include coupons

Once the recipients opened the email, you can use the opportunity to bring them back to your store. One of the most effective methods is, of course, discounts on the next purchase. Our statistics show that coupons can more than triple the conversion rates (purchase rates). The most commonly used discount rate is 15%. It also proves to be much more effective than a 10% coupon. Make sure to set an expiration date for the coupon. The most common expiration periods are 30 days and 10 days but sometimes it would be smart to add sense of urgency and offer a shorter epiration date like a 24 hours coupon.

Read more here about how to maximize the effectiveness of  your emails with coupons

Tip #3 – use personal product recommendations

Another effective tactic is to include personal product recommendations in the order confirmation email. In this case you can recommend cross-sell or up-sell product recommendations (such as a case or cable to go with a new phone), and/or up-sell recommendations such as Top sellers from the same category.

Advanced email marketing services like Remarkety that analyze the shopper behavior and purchase history data can suggest a variety of automated product recommendation options, including:

• Customers who have purchased X have also purchased – this type of recommendation displays other products that have been purchased the most by customers who have also purchased product X. The recommendation will not display products that have been already purchased by the recipient.
• Other customers have purchased X together with – this type of recommendation displays other products that have been purchased the most by other customers together with product x (i.e. in the same order).
• Abandoned cart items recommendation – this type of recommendation analyzes the products that were abandoned by the recipient and displays top selling products for this category or products that have been purchased the most by other customers together with the products that were abandoned by the recipient.
• Stores best seller: Show the customer you most popular products.
• Best sellers from customer’s favorite category: This will display top selling products from the same category as the product being viewed or recently purchased.
• Latest products (New arrivals) from the website: Customers love to hear what is new, price drops, etc.

Tip #4 – Build multi-tier rewards programs

You may be familiar with multi-tier rewards programs. These multi-tiered rewards programs enhance retention by incentivizing customers to buy more and climb their way up to the next tier. This model has been also adopted across all e-commerce segments. Whether its points, stars, miles, or simply the number of purchases or the total amount spent, the idea is pretty much the same – to set a goal (the next tier), let the customer understand how far are they from the goal, and tell them what they will receive once they reach this goal. Order confirmation “Thank-you” emails are a great opportunity to do so. Remarkety has a built-in integration with different reward points services. Here is an example of an email that implements this strategy:

Tip #5 – Ask for feedback

Asking for feedback is always important, but it is especially important after a purchase to ensure that the experience was satisfactory, that the fulfillment was according to expectations, and more. Customers like to feel that you care about their experience and especially if something went wrong, the fact that you asked them about it and then took steps to solve their problem will earn more points and keep them satisfied. Data driven marketing solutions allow you to set certain feedback questions based on the purchase data. For example, you can easily set up a segmentation and ask for feedback only when a purchase is over a certain amount. This can be used to ask for feedback on the delivery of large packages. Another example is asking for feedback on a specific product or category. In this case if the product is relatively new you can set up the condition to ask clients about their experience with the product.