How often should you send marketing emails? (eCommerce)

Emails play an active role in how often subscribers & shoppers buy. 

They are also an inexpensive tool to build relationships that would otherwise cost a lot. 

Now those are great reasons to send more emails for your marketing efforts. 

However, the BIG questions clients ask us are: 

“How often to send marketing emails?”

“What’s the best time to send marketing emails?” 

“How many marketing emails is too many?” 

Here's the tl;dr:

Tl;dr: 

→ How often?

Daily emails, if subscribers engage (except Sunday). Once every alternate day for new subscribers (between 3 to 4 emails). However, your email send frequency is always dependent on the subscriber lifecycle. 

→ Best time? 

For opens: Tuesdays. For conversions: Fridays. Ideally between 8 am to 6 pm. However, the best time to send emails is always based on the type of email and subscriber data (time zone, preferences, etc). 

→ Limit? 

Anything above 6 emails per week. However, it can be less, depending on the unsubscribe and spam rate. 

Want to know why and how? Here are some of the questions we’ll answer in this piece:

1. How many emails should an eCommerce business send?

2. How many emails is considered “too much marketing?”

3. What kind of eCommerce emails should I send more often?

4. What is the best time to send eCommerce emails?

5. How to decide how many emails to send?

6. How do customers react to email send frequency?

7. What is “send time personalization?”

8. How do you find the right email cadence?

9. How long should marketing emails be?

1. How many emails should an eCommerce business send?

There’s no easy answer to this. 

But first things first: you don’t want your subscribers to be among the 57% who want to unsubscribe because they’re plagued by excessive emails. 

So how many should your “sweet” number be?

To get there, let’s start with the size of your business. 

Once a week is an ideal starting point if your business is small and maintains a list of about 1000 to 2000 subscribers.

Or else, sending too many emails in a week or month would result in rapid unsubscribes. 

We were once working with a newly launched apparel brand that was eager to create an impression early on. So, they decided to blast discount emails EVERY DAY. 

The sad part was that with zero segmentation, all their subscribers received every email they sent—and within a month, their unsubscribe rate had gone up by 500%. 

Here’s the truth: most small eCommerce businesses can’t convert readers/visitors into subscribers that easily. 

But as your small business grows, you would likely find the need to segment their list AND not send the same email to every subscriber. 

So, let’s say the list keeps growing and touches 10,000 subscribers—you can then start sending 4 to 5 emails a week and thanks to segmentation, not worry about all the emails going to the same recipients. 

👉 Key takeaways: 

• One email per week is ideal for small eCommerce businesses and those just starting out
• 4 to 5 emails per week are okay if the list size contains 10,000 subscribers (or more)
• Either way, always adjust the number of emails by segmenting your list

For successful segmentation, fall back on the following:

Adjust the number of emails by creating segments on:

↪ Email frequency preferences

Not all subscribers who fall within the same segment might go by the average frequency for that segment; some might be more and some, less.

For example, a new subscriber who’s purely interested in deals may want to see more of your emails than another who has subscribed simply to see how you match a competing brand they’re buying from.

So offering a preference selection on your website at the time of sign-up can be useful—like Forever 21 does:

Also consider sending an email on preferences who may have been engaging with your emails more often earlier, but not anymore—here’s a great example from Framebridge:

👉 Key takeaways: 

• Offer an option to update preferences, right at the opt-in stage
• Stop bombarding non-engaging subscribers and launch them on your winback/unsubscribe flow

Check out: 11 High-Converting Win Back Email Examples (+ Templates)

↪ Recent purchases

Based on the nature of your business and the products you sell, define a “rule”, for example, not to send emails to someone within 7 days of buying. 

You can extend the rule to saying: for every three purchases, we’ll send an email within 10 days of the purchase seeking feedback. 

To set such rules, looking at the purchase lifecycle is worthwhile. 

For subscription businesses, for example, increasing the frequency around renewal could lead to better engagement. 

👉 Key takeaways: 

• Reduce your email sending frequency for recent purchasers
• Increase the frequency of emails around subscription renewals

↪ Point in customer journey

For new subscribers, consider sending up to 6 or 7 emails over the first week after they subscribe (including your double opt-in transactional emails).

The point here is to first welcome them and then take their attention to your brand value & product difference, finally nudging them to buy. 

However, let’s say, they’ve already bought from you more than thrice—at this point, you may want to use email for only order confirmations & use WhatsApp/texts for limited-time offers & bundles. 

One brand that creates instant trust by offering multiple opt-in options for shoppers across the funnel is Banana Republic:

👉 Key takeaways: 

• Increased sending volume and frequency is not great for all types of subscribers 
• Send out urgent promotions/confirmations to existing shoppers via SMS/WhatsApp

Now to find your frequency, here’s what you need to look into:

Calculate your ideal email send frequency by:

↪ What the email metrics say:

Continuously consider metrics such as open rate, clickthrough rate, click-to-open rate, and unsubscribe rate to discern the level of ongoing interest. 

This largely depends on the kind of email you’re sending. 

For newsletters, sending one a week seems to fetch the best open rate (38.21%), CTR (3.44%) as well as CTOR (9%).

For promotional emails, on the other hand, while one a month may be perfect for B2B businesses, eCommerce can aim for anything between 2 to 6 emails in a week depending upon the quality of deals & content. 

When we signed up with India-based eCommerce brand Myntra for example, we had no idea they send one promotional email a day—here’s an example of how many of their emails remain unopened:

‍

👉 Key takeaways:

• Monitor open rates, CTR, and CTOR to adjust the email frequency 
• Email frequency changes according to the nature of the email and the topic covered

↪ What kind of products you sell‍

For example, if you’re into snackables, your purchase lifecycle would be shorter than a makeup brand and your customers would likely look forward to more emails. 

6 emails a week is common for an apparel brand that runs various kinds of promotions—but this number may be a bit much for a lesser-known brand that’s just starting out. 

Send 2 to 3 emails a week to avoid coming across as “trying too hard.”

For a snack brand, it is usually okay to send up to 3 emails a week, especially during the holiday season—given that you have enough interesting content like snacking ideas, age-based recommendations, etc. apart from deals & discounts

For a makeup or skincare brand, on the other hand, it’s safer to stick to 2 emails if you have great deals and extend it to 3 emails only if you’re offering value-added (like tutorials) content. 

Even with the 2 email count, consider splitting them into 1 with deals and another 1 with reading suggestions to your blog or popular videos on Youtube. 

👉 Key takeaways:

• The time it takes to complete an average purchase completely dictates the number of emails sent 
• Optimize your email copy and creatives to offer value (tutorials, recommendations) PLUS triggers (offers)

↪ What kind of brand perception you hold‍

If you’re known for your flash deals, subscribers would already expect this, but let’s say you’re into luxury travel bags, multiple emails per week would just look odd.

Here are some stats that showcase this:

• Nearly 73% of all email users receive more than 10 emails per day and only about 50% of these subscribers actually open a handful of these emails
• Moreover, 32.7% of shoppers sign up for regular offers – 23% for a one-time discount – 15% actually just want updates

How do you apply this? 

If you’re a luxury brand, for example, it makes sense to send out emails only when you launch new products or restock old popular ones. 

Check out how Brooklinen, a D2C brand that sells luxury bed sheets mentions how they reach out during new launches at the opt-in level itself. 

👉 Key takeaway: Set clearly expectations about what kind of content and promotions, shoppers will receive from your emails.

↪ What competitors are doing‍

Sign up with some competing brands to see what kind of emails they send, how often, and how engaging their content turns out to be. 

👉 Key takeaway: Subscribe to key competing brands and check how often they send emails. 

You might like: Top 20 lead nurturing emails in eCommerce

2. How many emails is considered “too much marketing?”

To arrive at an answer to this, you’ll have to look at your list size. 

We don’t recommend sending more than 4 emails in a month if you have anywhere up to 2000 subscribers. An email a week can often keep your unsubscribe rate in check and with a limited list, it’s something you’ll need to do (also helps improve your sender reputation).

However, if the number of your subscribers is 10,000 upwards, sending about 4 to 6 emails a week may work well—though you may need to reduce the frequency if you see the unsubscribe rate going up – and your conversion rate becomes static.

There are two vital questions you need to ask:

- What are you promoting through an email?

- Who are you promoting an email to?

These questions are crucial because you don’t want to send the same email twice to the same recipient. 

However, you can easily send two separate emails about the SAME EVENT to a recipient. 

Similarly, you wouldn’t want to promote the same blog twice to the same recipient. 

However, if it’s a product guide with multiple use cases, it might still be okay to send more than one email—only if you can differentiate the context and not send these emails in a row (i.e. not giving a time gap between emails).

Signs you’re overdoing it:

- Many unsubscribes per week (at any point in time, if it’s more than 2%, you have to evaluate)

- Poor open rates 

- Low engagement with email CTAs

- Dropping conversion rates

In eCommerce what can also come across as “too much” is often perception—but this is something you’ll have to take care of. 

If you’re sending 3 emails per week, but subscribers feel like it’s almost 7 or 8, you have a problem. 

You’ll have to evaluate: 

- The content you’re spreading across the week (is it being too much cognitive load?)

- The actions you’re hoping your subscribers will take (are they very different from one another?)

👉 Key takeaways: 

• Sending more than the usual number of emails has a diminishing effect on your conversion rate – while it may go up initially, it won't last as users unsubscribe (or leave you unread)
• Avoid duplication of topics within your emails 

🚀 Convertcart Pro Tip

In case you don't get opens on a particular email, consider resending the same email within a day or two with the same content but different subject line. 

Check this out: 26 High-converting examples of automated emails

3. What kind of eCommerce emails should you send more often?

This again depends on the quality and size of your list. 

However, some emails that you need to communicate through more often are:

Welcome emails

Because they set the tone of a subscriber’s first contact with your brand—what you feature in them can decide how often they will buy from you. 

In terms of frequency, some suggest sending one email for 5 days following a sign-up. 

What we’ve seen work better is sending 5 emails—

one including the actual welcome email, the next mentioning problems/challenges based on the recipient’s profile, the one after featuring product recommendations, the next one with some review snippets or brand mentions, and the final one with a purchase nudge with a discount…

Send the welcome emails over 7 to 8 days, thus avoiding appearing as “pushy.”

👉 Key Takeaway: Send a curated welcome flow of at least 5 emails, spaced over 7 to 8 days. 

Check out: 15 Incredible Examples of Welcome Emails (eCommerce)

Cart abandonment emails 

The more tactical these are, the higher the conversions. 

And even when you create a sequence, you want to make sure it’s not an email a day. 

Our recommendation? Let the first one talk about what the shopper has left behind, the second one offers a 10-15% discount, and a third one that induces urgency by featuring a timer to how much longer the cart will remain. 

Send each email within two to three days from each other. 

👉 Key takeaway: Send a maximum of three cart abandonment emails, but space each email by at least 2 to 3 days.

You might like: 40 Abandoned Cart Email Examples that Actually Win Back Lost Customers

Discount emails

The right deal landing up in the right customer’s inbox is often magical for conversions around the year. 

However, too many discount emails don’t necessarily mean too many conversions, quite often the opposite—45.8% would flag emails as spam if they thought the sender was bombarding them. Plus 60% of all emails from brands are promotional on average. 

We recommend sending no more than 4 to 5 a month on average. Tie them up with new launches/arrivals, popular holidays, or even personal dates of relevance (birthdays, anniversaries), and you can have greater success. 

👉 Key takeaway: Avoid over-sending promotional emails in one month. 

Re-engagement emails

It’s often worth it to regain space in the minds of shoppers who’d engage with your products and content once upon a time—but don’t anymore. 

To confirm that an existing customer has indeed gone idle, it’s best to wait for a window of 30 to 60 days. 

This also depends on the kind of products you sell. 

While for makeup, it’s completely okay to send such a mail after a month and a half, for furniture, you’d want to wait at least 2 to 3 months. 

👉 Key takeaway: Re-engagement emails can have a longer or shorter email cadence, depending on the kind of product.

🚀 Convertcart Pro Tip

Personalization is exactly what shoppers expect from brands (and that includes the timing and frequency). Nearly 60% of consumers want brands to use data to improve their experience. An ideal example of this: a ‘reminder of anniversary’ email flow that sends out two months before the date with an increase in frequency as the date grows closer. 

Does this work? Yes – research found that the click rate for personalized emails bumped up by 139%, compared to emails sent only once.

You might like: 30 easy-to-copy confirmation email templates (+ best practices & FAQs)

4. What is the best time to send eCommerce emails?

A good time to send during a particular day is early in the day—make sure the email reaches their inbox between 5 am and 7 am (for US audiences).

Another time that seems to consistently work for improving email metrics is late evenings, specifically between 4:00 and 6:00 pm—it has a direct correlation to people having more time on their hands. 

However, in some market research, it became clear that marketers see maximum engagement between 9 am and 12 pm – and – between 2 pm and 6 pm on most days (particularly the first three days of a work week).

Idle and non-busy times reap the best effect on email opens and clicks. 

👉 Key takeaway: Email opens peak before work hours (8 am to 12 pm) – while CTOR peaks around 4 pm to 6 pm

You might also like: Email Marketing Audit – 74 Point Checklist for eCommerce Stores

5. How to decide how many emails to send?

Too many emails are a problem for marketers and subscribers alike. Emarketer found that about 34% of all US email users ignore or delete emails from brands without even reading them. 

However, there are questions you need to look into before you settle on a definitive answer:

What metric goal are you driving through the email campaign?

Is it higher open rate, click through or conversions?

What marketing goal are you driving through the email campaign?

Are you attempting to build brand awareness? Are you trying to bring back cart abandoners? 

Your marketing goal is another facet to freeze on before you decide how many emails to send. 

👉 Key takeaway: Goals dictate the number of emails to be sent – like an engagement strategy may have more emails than cart recovery emails.

What is the nature of your audience?

Which segment of your audience you’re trying to target is equally important—in the early stages, you may want to send more emails than when shoppers are repeatedly buying. 

However, if you’ve targeted the same recipients multiple times, it may be time to check up on their behavior—which emails they are opening, at what time, or, if they’ve opened an email repeatedly(CTOR), etc. 

👉 Key takeaway: Segment shoppers by interest and lifecycle – for example, you could send more emails to new customers (and vice versa).

What is your industry average?

For example, perishable foods would need a different email frequency compared to something more durable, let’s say, microwave ovens—you get the drift?

👉 Key takeaway: Adjust the sending frequency by the type of product on offer and buying patterns.

What kind of content do you create?

So, if you have lots of deals going on throughout the year, frequent online events, or even have great content on your blog, consider increasing your frequency. 

👉 Key takeaway: Increase frequency when you have actual updates like events, new products, sitewide sales, etc.  

Are you running any drip campaigns?

You wouldn't want to send a discount about a completely irrelevant product if:

• they are already receiving your cart abandonment flow
• or, they just exited off a flow a few days ago

This is why you must avoid sending bulk emails to anyone who is receiving / recently received a flow. Other than that, also consider assigning a limit on how many emails are to be sent per week to each contact. 

👉 Key takeaway: Avoid sending non-relevant emails to shoppers in a flow.

Are there signs of disengagement?

You don’t want to send emails to someone who, let’s say, hasn't shown any interest in opening your emails the last 10 times. In such instances, it’s better to seek feedback, send an email on preference edits, or even automatically reduce the cadence. 

👉 Key takeaway: Skip sending emails to non-engaging subscribers too.

Is it the holiday season?

The holiday season is THE time to increase your sending frequency – all while ignoring the best practices, we’ve outlined. 

‘Cause it's all about grabbing attention – that can include sending early at 4 AM. 

Remember: Most shoppers keep a dedicated email for receiving promotional emails. About 45% of all shoppers admit to signing up for emails only for offers. McKinsey’s report supports this by showing that nearly 67% of all shoppers want targeted promotions. 

👉 Key takeaway: Increase your email frequency around holidays.

Where are you onboarding / What triggers are activated?

If you have a shopper signing up from your cart abandonment flow – send as many as 3 emails. However, ensure each email you send out acts as a welcome and cart abandonment email – rather than sending out separate welcome and cart abandonment emails.

If you have a shopper signing up after completing a purchase, send them transactional emails, as and when they are triggered. However, avoid sending out any generic promotional emails for at least 7 days. 

What email should you use during that period? A personalized post-purchase follow-up, complete with targeted promotions, recommendations, and ideas about their last purchase.

👉 Key takeaways:

• Adjust your email frequency based on the source of subscriber signup – and, if time-specific actions (like browse/cart abandonment) are triggered – or, if your products have a short purchase span in general
• Offer extremely personalized email copy when catering to time-specific triggers or signups from high-value locations of your site (like the thank you page)

6. How do customers react to email send frequency?

The answer to this question depends entirely on whether you’re sending them too many emails or sending them too less. 

After all, according to a Baymard study, only 20% of all sites allow consumers to update their newsletter preferences – causing many to hit “unsubscribe.” 33% of US consumers said they didn’t want to receive emails—unless they were relevant, well-timed, and carried personalized benefits. 

Let’s find out what kind of impact either can have on recipients. 

Too many emails: 

❌ Spam alert

Subscribers are put off when businesses appear desperate for sales. 

❌ Email fatigue

This is also just as real—because one recipient of yours has likely subscribed to many other businesses and receives more than they can even pay attention to. 

❌ Unfollows on social media

According to a Deloitte study in 2023, nearly 69% of all shoppers who received way too many promotional emails from a particular brand, ended up unfollowing those brands on social media as well. 

And you don’t want to add to that.

Too few emails:

❌  Low interest

Fewer emails can make subscribers get interested in other products and competitors, and switch without notice. 

❌ Low engagement

This is true even if the recipients love your brand and would love to get more emails from you. 

❌ Low conversions

With fewer emails, you’re likely to miss out on relevant selling opportunities. 

Overall, shoppers tend to engage better with emails that are actionable. 

👉 Key takeaway: Sending fewer emails is a great way to be forgettable as a brand, which entirely negates the purpose of email marketing. 

7. What is “send time optimization?”

Put simply, send time optimization is to send emails when recipients will most likely click on them, read them, and click through them to take action. 

You can drill down to create more personalization by seeing the best time per week and even per day. 

Other ways to optimize send time:

- Based on geographical location. 

- Based on a list’s behavior. 

- Based on separate time zones. 

- Based on individual behavior/preferences. 

If you ask us, the best way to optimize send time is to look at individual data, gathered from past behavior around clicks, opens, and click-throughs. 

Choose a tool that helps you pick a suitable window for each recipient based on their history of highest email engagement. 

In such a case, the more you use the tool, the more data it can collect, and over time, the more precise your send time optimization can be. 

No matter how you choose to optimize your send times, consider:

→ How will it benefit the customer?

Is it content they would want to read given what they’re searching for? Or a deal they can use to buy something that’s sitting on their wishlist?

→ How will it benefit your relationship with the customer?

Will its timeliness leave the recipient with a better impression of your brand? Will it make them look forward to more emails from your end?

👉 Key takeaway: Put yourself in the shopper's shoes and optimize your send times – for example, you would want to send office stationery reminders around the 15th to 20th of every month (ideal time for submitting reimbursements). 

8. How do you find the right email cadence?

What is email cadence: Email cadence encompasses the frequency and timing with which a business sends out emails. 

There’s no one right cadence for every eCommerce business because:

The number of products varies. 

The amount of content varies. 

More than 2 emails per week can be a bit much when you have fewer products and the price range is limited.

However, 5 emails in a week can work if you have many categories & subcategories. The same goes for constantly changing deals. 

The best way to find cadence is to segment your email list. 

In this case, you may want to send emails to new subscribers more regularly. 

On the other hand, you may want to send emails to repeat purchasers only when there’s a deal that will likely hook them. 

What we’ve noticed is: the above email cadence is really working only if you have consistently good open, click-through, and click-to-open rates.

So, to take the guesswork out of the picture, create an email preference center on your website. 

This lets the subscriber have complete control while increasing the likelihood of them actually engaging with your emails. 

Here’s an example from ASOS:

👉 Key takeaway: Give shoppers full control over cadence instead of trying and testing send times and frequency.

Don't forget to read: Top eCommerce Email Marketing Trends For 2025

9. How long should marketing emails be?

The ideal length of a marketing email depends on several factors, including the email’s purpose, audience, and content.

However, general best practices have emerged based on research and analysis of successful campaigns.

Audience Preferences

Different audiences may prefer different email lengths. B2B audiences might appreciate more detailed content, while B2C audiences often favor brevity.

Type of Email

- Transactional emails, such as order confirmations, should be concise and to the point
- Educational or nurturing emails can afford to be longer if the content provides value

Mobile Optimization

With the majority of emails being opened on mobile devices, shorter emails tend to perform better because they’re easier to read and navigate on smaller screens.

Purpose and Call to Action

The clarity of the CTA often dictates the length. If the goal is a simple action, like clicking a link or making a purchase, a shorter email is effective.

eCommerce marketing emails should generally be concise. Studies suggest that emails with around 50 to 125 words tend to have the best response rates.

Emails within this range often strike a balance between being informative and retaining the reader's attention.

While the ideal length of eCommerce marketing emails generally falls within the 50 to 125-word range, the key is to focus on clarity, relevance, and engagement.

👉 Key takeaways:

• eCommerce emails are shorter than B2B emails
• Transactional emails have to be extremely crisp
• Optimize emails for viewing on mobile devices
• Keep the email copy length between 50 to 125 words

🚀 Convertcart Pro Tip

A/B test your email cadence as you would with your email copy. Start by following the best practices outlined in this article, but don’t be afraid to go beyond the suggested timings (as long as your unsubscribe and conversion rates don’t falter).

Recommended reading:

eCommerce email marketing: The complete guide

The Right Way to Calculate Email Marketing ROI in eCommerce

30 Amazing eCommerce Email Templates (from 6 industries)

30 Slightly different Black Friday emails (that actually get attention)

Transform Email Marketing Into A Revenue Machine

Most eCommerce store owners don’t see email as a serious revenue stream.

Ask them about the importance of email marketing, and you'll hear: “we don’t really have a major strategy,” “we mostly use generic templates,” or “we just send emails to people on our list.”

BUT AT THE SAME TIME:

There are stores out there that drive 30%+ of their revenue from email marketing.

Engage can help you do the same - Book a free demo.

We’ll show you:

• workflows we can create for your store,
• proven ways to drive 30% or more $$ from email alone, and
• successful templates and strategies from your industry (and others).