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5 Shopify Transactional Emails to Optimize Right Now

In a world of options for consumers, finding new customers for your Shopify store can be costly and time-consuming.

A better strategy is to leverage your existing customer base to fuel future purchases — it’s easier and up to 5 times cheaper than finding new customers.

How can you do this?  

One simple way to boost your sales is to market to your existing buyers through transactional emails — those traditionally boring Shopify email notifications sent after a customer purchases a product.

If you’ve been sending your Shopify customers a plain order confirmation email, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to increase your revenue and sell more products. 

Your transactional emails don’t have to be boring and straightforward. They can be beautifully customized with your store’s branding and offer special promos, deals, and personal product recommendations. 

The goal is to drive customers to come back and buy more.

Since transactional emails are required by law, every customer receives them. By not optimizing them, you’re missing out on more sales and customer retention. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the five most important Shopify transactional email templates for you to optimize to get the most out of your post-purchase emails.

What is a Shopify transactional email and why is it important?

Email marketing becomes easier when your customers are already expecting your email.

Transactional emails are automated emails sent from your ecommerce store to the buyer after a commercial transaction on the store's website. Consumers have learned to expect this communication after making a purchase.

They are not only essential for providing great customer service but are also legally required by law to show transparency and inform the customer they have made a purchase.

When it comes to email performance, transactional emails such as order confirmations, order status, and shipping confirmations receive some of the highest open rates and click-through rates when compared to promotional emails like newsletters or bulk email campaigns.

People are eager to open post-purchase transactional emails to confirm their order information is correct, understand estimated shipping dates, etc. 

It’s a no-brainer to optimize these emails that your customers are already receiving and engaging with to boost retention and sales.  

Adding product recommendations when you send transactional emails can boost your sales by 15% quickly, and convert your first-time buyers into repeat customers over time.

5 Shopify transactional email templates to optimize for customer retention

Did you know that the probability of selling to a new customer is only around 5% to 20%? But, this probability is boosted to nearly 50% when selling to existing customers! Shopify email templates will help you do just that. 

Shopify has over 25+ email notification templates, but we’ve narrowed down the list to these top five that you need to optimize today to retain more customers and generate more revenue.

1. The customer account “thank you for signing up” email template

You should be collecting your customer’s contact info in two different ways — through sales and new account creation.

You’ll often see online stores offering a special discount of 10-20% off a customer’s first order when they sign up for an account on your site.

After signing up for an account with your Shopify store, your customer will receive an automated email welcoming them. 

This on-boarding email should include:

  • Catchy, intriguing subject lines 
  • Personalized friendly greeting using their first name
  • Brief description of your store and what products you sell, including a short bio of yourself or your company
  • Calls-to-action to follow social media links and to read blog posts on the store’s website
  • A one-time limited offer coupon discount for signing up, such as “10% off first order” using their first name as the promo code “EMILY10”
  • The ability to opt-in to further promotional emails
  • An unsubscribe link, which is legally required as part of the CAN-SPAM Act

The point of these welcoming emails is to get engagement right away from a potential customer. Engagement could mean anything from checking out your most popular products to sharing a link with their friends or messaging you directly. The goal of such engagement is, of course, to encourage them to make a purchase for the first time. 

2. The Shopify order confirmation email template

When your customer places an order, they should instantly receive an automated order confirmation email.

This is to verify to your customer that their order was received, provide an email receipt for their purchase, and confirm billing information.

By law, your confirmation email must clearly state it is a transactional email, so be sure to write “Order Details” or “Order Confirmation” in the subject line.

The order confirmation email is the most engaged-with transactional email. So it’s the perfect opportunity to include more than just order details—it can also be another selling opportunity. 

Underneath the order’s information is a prime spot to include  “recommended products” or “customers who bought this item also buy” related to the purchase. These are referred to as product cross-sells and upsells. You can even highlight a new or seasonal collection that you’re promoting. Usually, two to four products are recommended.

3. The shipping confirmation email template

You should send out the shipping confirmation email to inform your customer their package is on its way. 

To clarify which order you’re shipping, make sure to include details:

  • The expected delivery date, with trackable links
  • Information on which item has been shipped, including the order number
  • The address the package is being shipped to
  • The shipment total

The information above is the baseline of what you should send to customers.

But don’t stop there — shipping confirmation emails receive a high open-rate and should include more calls to action to promote new purchases and engagement. 

What to include to optimize your shipping confirmation emails:

  • Special discounts or promo codes for being a repeat customer
  • Add product recommendations or similar products that complement what they’ve just purchased 
  • Links to follow your store on social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok

4. The abandoned checkout email template

Abandoned checkout emails are a game-changer for nudging people to complete their purchases at your Shopify store.

When a customer is logged in and adds products to their shopping cart, starts checks out, but leaves without completing their purchase, you can send them a personalized email to encourage them to finish their transaction.

Use a subject line such as “Are you ready to finish your order?” or “Oops, you forgot to check out!” to remind customers to finish purchasing their order.

One of the biggest reasons people abandon their carts is high prices, but you can send your customer a one-time use discount with an expiration date. They’ll likely feel more urgency to complete their checkout. 

5. The shipment delivered email

Of all the transactional emails, the shipment delivered email confirmation has some of the highest open rates because customers are excited to see that their package has arrived.

Shipment delivered emails can generate additional revenue easily by suggesting recommended products based on the customer’s shopping history. 

As a general rule, you shouldn’t recommend a product your customer has already purchased before. Using UpOrder, you can use your customer’s shopping history to recommend new products they haven’t yet browsed through or purchased.

Additionally, shipment delivered emails are prime spots for including your store’s blog posts and sign-up links to receive promotional emails—growing your opt-in email list! 

Try UpOrder — transactional email templates for Shopify 

By default Shopify emails don't let you customize them to align with your brand or include promotions—that’s where UpOrder comes in. 

UpOrder is a Shopify app that makes it easy to optimize and brand all of your transactional emails to increase sales and repeat customers

Brands using UpOrder gain an average of 14% in new revenue by driving repeat sales through personalized product recommendations and dynamic discount codes. Not to mention, the ability to easily monitor your transactional email performance from clicks to new revenue generated.

You can do this all with no designer or coding required using UpOrder's drag-and-drop email designer. 

Need some inspiration to image how much better your transactional emails can be? Checkout these brands already using UpOrder to see how thye’ve supercharging their transactional emails. 

Download the UpOrder app and start generating more revenue for your Shopify store today.

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