29 Brilliant "Post-Purchase Email" Examples (+ How to copy them)
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It’s no news that acquiring a new customer costs businesses 5x more than retaining one.
A double whammy: the customer churn rate stands at 82%.
This is why your post-purchase emails need to go the distance in building better relationships. Thankfully, they have a 217% higher open rate than traditional emails.
If you’re here today looking for post-purchase email ideas, you'd want to explore:
Book of the Month focuses on brevity in this post-purchase email example. Thanks to its ability to convey the message in a few words, this shipping confirmation email grabs our attention within 5 seconds.
Here are a couple of tips to ensure your post-purchase email copy is concise:
Harry's does a soft upsell in this post-purchase email template. The copy leverages risk aversion(the tendency to choose safer options over the riskier ones) to upsell—a subtle way to increase AOV.
Here's how you can upsell using with an optimized post-purchase email design:
Benefit Cosmetics' post-purchase email appeals to its customers with a street-smart language. Something that its target market of millennials and Gen Z identify with.
Here's how you can make your post-purchase email flow compelling:
Do check this: 25 Tips to Increase Sales Through Email Marketing (+ Amazing Examples)
Buckberry's post-purchase email template uses visual cues to drive home to its message. Visual cues help contain the diminishing attention span.
Here's how you can make post-purchase emails powerful:
Abercrombie & Fitch tweaks its copy to forge a personal connection in this post purchase email example. Notice how they grab our attention leading to smart upsell.
Try these relevant tips to make your post-purchase email campaigns thrive on copy:
Cooks Venture emphasizes its brand values in this referral post-purchase email. It shapes a positive brand perception so much so that 86% of customers buy from purpose-driven brands.
Communicate your brand values in your post-purchase email template using:
Chalonne offers a loyalty special, a free gift in this post-purchase follow-up email. Works well to convey that a upsell can act as a precursor for your loyalty program email.
Here's how you revamp your post-purchase emails:
Bellroy sets a standard for all the post-purchase review emails—and paints a mental image via copy.
Here are a couple of things we recommend:
Do check out: Using Videos In Emails – 19 Brilliant Examples From eCommerce Brands
Office Depot uses an animated image to supplement this replenishment email example. The persuasion triggers such as deals, search, and 10% off are mental shortcuts that make decision-making easier.
Increase your replenishment email conversions by:
Expedia gets feedback without being annoying with a one-question survey in post-purchase marketing email.
Interestingly, one-question surveys have a 36% higher completion rate than regular ones.
Here’s what you need to know before you create one:
You must also check out: 35 Thanksgiving Email Examples For 2024 (eCommerce)
Cinnabon shows how you can make your post-purchase email survey worth your customer’s time. Offer an incentive and see a 15% increase in your response rates.
Here’s some advice before you give incentives:
Decathlon aces this post-purchase review email by hijacking our mind with TRACKS TREATING YOU GOOD?
Customers might hesitate to submit reviews, here’s what you can do:
Here’s a simple post-purchase email example from Charming charlie, asking users to share photos.
User-generated content helps you convince your customers minus the heavy lifting—79% of buyers buy purely after seeing UGC.
Here’s a few pointers to help you:
Recommended reading: Email Marketing Audit – 74 Point Checklist for eCommerce Stores
Chewy doesn’t keep its customers hanging. Their order confirmation email is reassuring—the timing is precise. Automated emails like these build anticipation.
Make the most of shipping confirmation emails by:
You might also like to read: eCommerce Email Mobile Optimization: 35 Guidelines For Store Owners
Ipsy doesn't want their order confirmation emails to be plain. They personalize by calling out what shoppers have been wanting to see.
Order confirmation emails needn’t be boring, change that by:
33% of users open emails after reading catchy email subject lines. From personalization to curiosity, and questions, there are different ways to write catchy subject lines.
Here’s proven tips for high-converting post-purchase subject lines:
Rifle Paper Co. surprises us with site-wide discounts. While sitewide sales are great for new customers, they are equally loved by existing customers.
Follow these tips to make them better:
Read more: Deliver An Amazing Post Purchase Experience: 17 Ideas (& Examples)
Spirithoods knows how to woo their customers. In this post-purchase email example, they offer us a promo code of 10% for our next purchase valid for the next two weeks. This creates exclusivity for customers.
Check out other ways you can use discount coupons:
Here’s a post-purchase email example from Moo, that’s the work of a creative genius. We’ll tell you why—smart upselling that is subtle.
What can you do to upsell:
Graze pops the question running low on snacks? — this kind of question can make repeat customers feel they’re being met wherever they are post-purchase.
With a click-to-open rate of 53.6%, replenishment emails can help you get repeat sales.
For high-converting replenishment emails, do this:
Let’s face it. Static emails over time get bland. Here’s where the mystery emails come in. Case in point, Gwynnie Bee’s scratch off email.
Spruce up your mystery emails:
REI educates its customers through content in its post-purchase email newsletter.
To makes your newsletter drive sales:
Of all post-purchase emails, referral emails are the most underrated. Referral marketing generates 3-5x more than any other channel.
For high ROI referral emails:
Humans love challenges. You can take inspiration from Riff Raff & Co. where customers get a free toy, but not before getting 5 of their friends to purchase.
The takeaway—the stronger the incentive, the greater the inclination to work for it.
To make your contests fun:
Birthdays are fun, and so are birthday emails. Need Supply offers a 20% discount.
What do the numbers say?
As per data—481% higher transaction rates, 342% higher revenue per email, 179% higher unique click-through rates, and 53% higher open rates.
For birthday emails that slay:
Sure, rewards programs are appealing, but why are your signups low? It’s not because of the lack of incentives but the number of steps required to sign up.
Apart from easy sign-ups, you can offer:
We recommend you to check out: 25 Product Launch Email Examples That Drove Massive Sales (+Templates)
Mello sends a post-purchase follow up email to their customers explaining that $1 from every purchase is donated to a nonprofit organization.
Here are a few tips:
You'd also like to read: 12 eCommerce Brands Acing Cause Marketing in 2024
In the post-purchase email series, your customers need reminders about why they chose you in the first place.
In fact, 88% of customers believe authenticity is important when it comes to deciding what brands they’d like to support.
Founder emails don’t have to be dull:
You'll also love reading: How to Increase Email Marketing ROI (Updated 2024)
People appreciate gratitude and you don’t have to offer anything expensive but a simple discount promo code is twice as enough.
Here’s a post-purchase email example from Alpatauri offering a 10% voucher for being a loyal customer.
We suggest:
You know how to write a post-purchase email, but it's only as effective as the customer segments you target.
Segment your customers based on new customers, high-value customers, and frequent customers. Here’s what your can do:
For new customers, send thank you and welcome emails, immediately after purchase. Don’t forget to brief them about customer support details and the next steps.
Right after 3-4 days send a how-to product guide with a detailed explanation. Point them toward demo videos and resources.
Post 1-2 weeks after the purchase, send an email requesting a review. You’d also have to send a brief survey to ask for feedback. Offer an incentive for high response rates.
You might also like: 30 Best Email Marketing Examples In eCommerce (2024)
A chunk of your customers would have bought from you about 2-3 months ago. You’d want to send a re-engagement email asking about their intentions. Offer a discount or a promo code to persuade them to make a second purchase.
We recommend you offer flexible payment options such as BNPL methods to encourage buying. 48% of customers use BNPL options to buy products they can’t afford.
Send personalized product recommendations based on order history. Make sure you send recommendations based on product usage, location, and lookalike audiences.
And there are replenishment emails. Offer complementary products for cross-selling. Close it up with automatic restocking options. Here’s one from Chewy, you’d want to follow.
High-value customers have a high LTV and contribute to 80% revenue of eCommerce brands.
Your post-purchase emails to this segment must have early access deals, exclusive offers, pre-launch offers, and limited-edition drops.
You can top it off by sending a personalized thank you email from a key individual or someone your top management.
Post-purchase email campaigns fail because they’re sent in silos. You need an email sequence that goes through all the touchpoints.
Send your order confirmation emails immediately after the payment goes through. Don’t forget the essentials—order summary, product images, breakdown, order number, and most importantly your customer support information. So, customers know where to contact, in case of shipment delays.
This should come right after the product is dispatched from the warehouse. An order tracking link and an option to receive text updates is mandatory. You don’t want your customers waiting.
You can make it better by adding a shipping progress bar. It’ll serve as a reference point for your customers.
Don’t sit back and relax. Once the shipment is delivered, inform the customer their order has been delivered to the shipping address. Thank the customer and include a link to your return policy.
Send a survey email to learn how customers feel about their recent purchases. Send this 2-3 days after receiving the order. We strongly recommend you use a rating scale like NPS to frame your survey questions.
Keep in mind, ask no more than 5-10 questions. Make sure your customers can fill them in 10 minutes. For specific insights, a multiple-choice question survey with options to form works best.
Plus, other tips you’ll find helpful:
Send an email requesting a review 14 days from the date of delivery. Here’re a few tips to better your review request emails:
Once a considerable time has passed. Send replenishment emails after the typical usage cycle ends. For instance, if the average shampoo bottle of 200ml lasts 30 days. Send it a week before they run out.
You can drive more sales when you send 2 replenishment emails in a sequence. Anymore, will lead to unsubscribes.
Here’re a few pointers to optimize your replenishment emails:
While this is your standard email workflow, loyalty program invites come in quick sessions for your high-value customers.
Here’s a checklist that you can always come back to when necessary:
If you can be specific in your communication, they’ll trust you more for it. Wondering what updates can be sent as post-purchase messages? Here’s a quick list.
The idea is to send customers content and updates that relate to them and have contextual relevance. On the side, make sure you also fix HTML and technical elements.
Build a strategy around one central thing—your post-purchase email needs to be noticed. Sending it too early or late can lead to their emails piling up and your mail getting lost. And you don’t want that to happen.
The average person gets 21 emails per week from various brands. So it’s a good idea to restrict the number of emails to 2–3, giving at least a day’s gap between them.
Most eCommerce store owners don’t see post-purchase emails as a serious revenue stream.
Ask them about the importance of post-purchase 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 post-purchase email marketing.
Engage can help you do the same - Book a free demo.
We’ll show you: