There is a popular saying that goes, “If at first, you don’t succeed, try again.” This is especially true when it comes to acquiring and engaging with online shopping customers.
But conventional email campaigns only allow you to try once. Yes, you could keep spamming the customer but we all know that’s a poor solution to a much bigger problem.
Instead, a much better solution to this problem is drip email or drip email marketing.
To help you master the science of drip email marketing, here are 24 of the best email drip campaign examples. These will provide you with inspiration as well as offer insights and best practices you can follow.
Let's begin.
WELCOME DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Onboarding a new customer is tricky. Making the right first impression can lead to long-term loyalty. A drip email marketing campaign can help you subtly nudge them toward their first purchase. It can do this without sounding too commercial, pushy, or even desperate.
Here are two examples of successful drip campaigns for welcoming customers:
1. Build a Brand Identity—like Pieces
The first email welcomes the potential customer and mentions the benefits of joining their online community. It has a short write-up about its founder which makes it personal and relatable.
The second email talks about their sustainable sourcing practices and the attention to detail in their manufacturing processes. It also provides a peek into their artistic vision and their design inspiration. This provides educational content for the customer.
The third email includes customer testimonials, social proof, reviews, and a first-time discount creating a purchase nudge that is hard to ignore.
Best practices to adopt:
- Note how all three emails have a consistent design template and look like they are part of the same conversation.
- The CTA buttons are clearly defined and few in number to not overwhelm the customer with too many choices.
- The personal touches about the founder writeup and details about their design process help make the brand more relatable and overcome purchase barriers for the customer.
- Lastly, the first discount is a whopping 25% making the purchase decision more lucrative and a no-brainer.
2. Say it with Social Proof—like Sweat by Kayla Itsines
Sweat is a workout program offered by Kayla Itsiness. She has a unique take on an email drip campaign.
She uses the first email to introduce herself and offers social proof upfront by saying it’s a community of 10,000 women worldwide. The rest of the email has reviews and personal transformation stories. It also has a free trial of 7 days and a discount code to purchase.
The second email is actually pushing 2 of her best-performing blogs. Not only is she redirecting eyeballs to her content but she’s also offering dietary information for free to create more value. The discount coupon still remains.
The third email pushes the discount coupon right to the top. It gives even more personal stories of physical transformations with before and after photos.
The last email is much simpler, shorter, and direct. It mentions a 12 hour only limited period discount to purchase. We can see throughout the emailers the discount coupon and purchase urgency are being increased slowly.
Because of all the social proof and relatable client stories, this drip email marketing campaign works really well. By the time the final discount is shown, the customer has plenty of proof to believe in the product.
Best practices to adopt:
- If you have a result-oriented product or service, offer a lot of social proof. Notice how many personal client stories have been used with photos.
- Slowly increasing scarcity and urgency over emails works much better than announcing it in the first email itself. You should do it after the customer is shown enough reasons to believe and relate to your product.
- Find a way to integrate your content. Redirecting customers who are on the fence to your best-performing content is a smart move. Reading long-form content strengthens the customer’s relationship with your brand.
If nothing else, you will get new views on your content. Content customized to your customer’s interests or of value to them works best.
Learn to write welcome emails that convert. Read Welcome emails: 16 easy changes that generate 10X revenue
CART ABANDONMENT EMAIL DRIP CAMPAIGNS
As eCommerce store owners, cart abandonment is a perpetual problem and a big one. Research has shown that the average cart abandonment rate is almost 70%.
What most businesses don’t realize is cart abandonment sometimes happens unintentionally- website crash, long checkout, somebody was at the door.
This is why an email drip campaign works so well at this. It lets people get back to the checkout process when they have the time and they actually end up buying more.
Data has shown that nearly 50% of all abandoned cart emails are opened and up to 14% of them lead back to purchases. The AOV or recovered cart value is 19% higher than regular purchases.
Here are 3 examples of successful drip campaigns for cart abandonment:
3. Experiment with Incentives—like Kenneth Cole
Kenneth Cole uses a hardcore discount strategy in their cart abandonment email drip campaign.
The first email is a discount code of 15% that is valid only for 48 hours. This drives urgency and gives an additional impetus to add more to the previously selected items.
The second drip email which is sent after a timed delay and only in the absence of purchase offers an even higher discount. The second email offers a whopping discount of 20% on the purchase.
The copy here is again geared towards urgency and FOMO. It simply says, “expires soon.” This ambiguity pushes faster purchases.
While the earlier email gave 48 hours, this one mentions no clear timeline. Thus the customer will not risk pushing the purchase decision.
Best practices to adopt:
- If you are doing timed discounts, upping the percentage over subsequent emails is better than keeping it constant and sending repeated reminders.
- Keeping a deadline is key to making discounts work. Discounts work better if a sense of urgency is conveyed. Offering a discount in perpetuity makes no difference.
- It is also important to mention that while discounts work well, do not make them a habit. Do not condition buyers into abandoning carts on purpose waiting for the discounts to kick in. This would have the reverse effect.
Do read: Healthcare Email Marketing: 26 High-Converting Examples (+Templates)
4. Build Trust with Customer Reviews—like Birchbox
Birchbox uses a very different approach from Kenneth Cole for its abandoned cart drip email. They have a two-pronged approach:
The first is tempting customers with a discount. This is for customers who might have not completed the purchase due to pricing issues. However, when we see the email the discount isn’t what is highlighted.
They’re pushing for urgency more than anything else. Complete your order before we sell out. The discount is just there below to make the decision a no-brainer.
The second approach is for customers who might not have been sold on the products themselves. Here Birchbox offers products that are similar but are bestsellers and have high ratings. Notice, in particular, they show the rating stars and have a link to read reviews.
Don't forget to read: How Many Emails To Include In An Abandoned Cart Workflow?
This also works as a good upsell strategy because impressed customers might end up including the suggested product in their cart as well.
Best practices to adopt:
- Notice in the second email the cart items and suggested products have their ratings shown and links to read reviews. This is a great use of social proof to build customer confidence and trust, thus, prompting purchase.
- Sometimes discounts are not the best strategy. It’s best to keep testing and experimenting to analyze the causes of cart abandonment. With this campaign, Birchbox gets solid data on what works - discounts or suggested products.
- Keep testing various incentives to see what your customers respond to. Multi-prong drip email campaigns are a great way to do that.
- Cart abandonment drip email marketing can also be combined with upsell offers including suggested and complementary products to increase overall cart value.
You might also like: 30 Best Email Marketing Examples In eCommerce (2024)
5. Nail Customer Service—like Man Crates
Man Crates understands there can be several reasons for cart abandonment. Rather than try and predict what they are and address them, they instead just go all out on customer service.
Their drip email is about being really helpful and offering friendly, personal, customer service. Their email gives customers a glimpse of the items that are left behind and a personal plea to reach out to them in case of any doubts.
They provide a proper helpline number and obviously the CTA to go back to the checkout process. The helpline number is then repeated again in the image along with the email id. They also mention their customer champion’s name at the end of their email.
Best practices to adopt:
- The copy and the design of the drip email are brand-led and relatable. Instead of going with a discount incentive or urgency-led tactics, they chose to go with a more helpful approach.
- Customers really appreciate this kind of no-holds-barred access to customer service representatives. It makes the brand more human and appealing.
- Keep your contact information near the CTA button so that customers can get any doubts cleared.
- Offering a direct line of communication helps build brand trust and leads to customer loyalty.
Don't forget to check out 25 Abandoned Cart Email Examples that Actually Win Back Lost Customers
PROMOTIONAL DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Data tells us that 50% of prospects aren’t ready to buy just based on their first interaction with you.
Once some time has passed, they can be nudged towards purchase through education or financial incentives. A great way to do that is through a promotional drip email campaign.
Once new leads sign up, you can use a variety of incentives to influence them towards purchase. These incentives can be discounts, reviews, social proof, educational content, etc.
Drip email marketing is particularly good at converting customers. Research has shown that nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than usual customers. Proving that the cost and effort of a drip campaign are well worth it.
Here are two examples of successful drip campaigns for promotions:
6. Leverage Urgency—like Leesa
The first email from Leesa uses creative copy with a powerful incentive. Offering a Black Friday sale in July. They also mention upfront that this is a limited-time offer pushing urgency.
The second email begins with informing customers that the sale will end soon and mentions the huge discount they are offering.
The third email is for the customers who still did not purchase. For them, Leesa mentions that the offer has been extended. Once again offering the same discount as before. The time limit isn’t mentioned to communicate urgency.
Best practices to adopt:
- Leesa tweaks the concept of urgency across emails. The first one tells the customer it’s a limited period offer. The second one mentions the exact time left. The third one gives a second chance to customers who missed out earlier.
- What Leesa could have done better in this drip email series is put a countdown timer in their third email. That would have bumped up the urgency factor and pushed customers to purchase.
- Lastly, what Leesa did is leverage the concept of a Black Friday Sale. This is a term that customers are already aware of. It already carries the connotation of massive discounts and don’t-miss prices. By offering a Black Friday Sale out of season they’re getting an edge over the competition.
7. Make it Personalized—like Patagonia
Patagonia uses a very clever weather-based drip email marketing sequence. They use weather data as a trigger for a promotional email drip campaign. Weather-based email campaigns use local weather data customized to the buyer’s geography to send customized offers to them.
This works really well because the offers and products are customized to solve current needs. The first email in this sequence was received by the user when the temperature was 5°C outside and he was thinking about getting new winter clothes.
Patagonia triggered the first email with cheeky copy and relatable humor while, of course, solving for the current need the customer had.
The rest of the email sequence is minimal with just clear CTAs and tailored product suggestions. With an idea this clever they don’t need to complicate it with anything else.
Best practices to adopt:
- The targeted messaging makes this an ideal campaign for personalized promotions. This automatically increases the odds of conversion.
- The success of such drip email campaigns lies in accurately anticipating customer needs caused by environmental changes.
- Time is of the essence when it comes to urgent needs. Therefore the gap between the trigger and the drip email sequence needs to be as less as possible so the customer does not find an alternative brand to solve his need.
- Straightforward CTAs are key in such drip email marketing sequences because the customers are in a hurry and are primed for the purchase. Complicating the purchase process or using too much copy to educate might have the opposite effect.
UPSELL DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
According to research, the probability of getting a new customer to purchase something is 5 to 20% but for an existing customer is 60-70%.
When we quantify the impact of upselling and cross-selling recommendations, data shows that transactional emails that include upsell or cross-sell product recommendations have 20% higher transaction rates than those that don’t. Imagine the revenue that you’re missing by not including them.
This is why creating an upselling email drip campaign is essential for business growth and driving revenue.
For existing customers, offering products that are complementary or an upgrade to their previous purchases is apt. Upselling drip emails require an informational component that explains the urgency and importance of adding products or upgrading them.
The desire to purchase more is a human instinct. There’s some amount of dopamine being released when you do it. Not incorporating it into a buying cycle is leaving money on the table. Getting the timing right is crucial because customers are more open to the idea of purchasing additional products during this cycle.
For example, when you buy a surfboard you will favorably consider buying some wax for it. It’s why people end up walking in malls with 4 to 5 shopping bags instead of one.
Here are 2 examples of successful upsell drip email campaigns:
8. Upsell Smartly—like Etsy
Etsy does a really smart upsell email drip campaign. It literally hits two birds with one stone. Not only does it summarize the upcoming order, but it also functions as an upsell email.
It shows your order, a small note from the small business owner, a chance to chat with them or ask them any questions, and lastly other best selling products from the same shop. It’s very subtly done and nowhere does the brand scream, ‘buy more’.
Best practices to adopt:
- Sometimes drip email marketing can be done with just one email as well. The above email works perfectly and serves its functions.
- Your upsell emails need to be smart and customized. The recommended products need to be relevant to the previous/current order.
- Instead of saying buy more, try and imply ‘this will also benefit you’ or ‘this bundling of products works better.’
- Customers are usually in a good mood when they’ve been told their order is on its way. It’s a good idea to capitalize on that opportunity to sway them to purchase more at the same time.
9. Complement with educational content—like British Airways
Once you join the loyalty club at British Airways they trigger a hyper-personalized drip email marketing sequence. They offer their members a chance to double their air miles by booking a flight in the next 45 days.
The mail begins by including information about the member’s current points status. This creates a desire to earn more miles and points, thus, priming customers for purchase.
There are multiple CTAs to push urgency and make the offer more appealing. By putting a 45-day deadline BA also pushes urgency on the customers.
An automated upsell email drip campaign for a travel provider usually follows this sequence:
Upsell offers triggered by opt-ins to loyalty programs and newsletters.
- Offer deadline-based discount/ incentive (Email 1)
- Educational content on popular destinations and spots (Email 2)
- Offer again closer to deadline focusing on urgency and FOMO (Email 3)
The BA drip email largely follows the same sequence. Their minimal design template and efficient copy add to the success of this sequence.
Best practices to adopt:
- One of the key points in the British Airways drip email sequence is how the educational content about destinations follows after the discount offered on flights. This makes it even more lucrative and easier for the customer to take advantage of the offer.
- Offering photos and links rather than selling the destinations makes the upsell easier and sort of a no-brainer for the client.
- BA is already preempting the research the client is going to do and offering it to them.
- Furthermore, these destination options can be customized as per the client’s current geography and interests or depending on the time of the year.
- Upsell offers that are supported by educational content and data have a chance of doing better than ones that aren’t.
EVENT AND BIRTHDAY DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Not only are birthdays and events a great way to connect and build relationships with customers but they’re also a great way to begin engaging with customers who’ve not visited your store in a while.
Data has shown that birthday emails perform way better than the usual promotions.
They have:
- 481% higher transaction rates
- 342% higher revenue per email
- 179% higher unique clicks
Birthday drip email campaigns are a must to generate customer goodwill and a great opportunity to earn revenue by incentivizing purchase through incentives.
When it comes to doing brand events, an email drip campaign is a great way to drive registrations and boost attendance. It allows you to send timely reminders, send FAQs and push for registrations through an automated process.
Here are 2 examples of successful events and birthdays drip email campaigns:
10. Build Brand Recall—like HubSpot
Most event drip email marketing sequences consist of the first email being a ‘Save the Date’, the second being the actual invitation, and the third being the final reminder or RSVP push.
HubSpot has a much better strategy for this. To begin with, the sequence is only activated once you register for the event. Once you do, the first email is a thank you email with an add to the calendar widget. This allows you to be reminded about the event on your local devices.
The second email contains a link to frequently asked questions, a link to the agenda or flow of the event, and more details. Notice how they’ve squeezed in a referral link that you can send to other friends to invite them. They’ve also re-sent an add to calendar link and a special booking section to meet with the team.
The third email is sent a day before to remind them of the event and to be there on time. They subtly push for early arrivals by stressing how it’s on a first-come, first-serve basis. This further builds anticipation and a sense of exclusivity.
Best practices to adopt:
- Notice how the entire drip email sequence has the same minimal design look and copy. This builds recall for customers.
- All the emails are personalized in terms of being addressed to registered customers. All of them end with the contact details of a person which is the same through all three emails. This helps build trust and a sense of credibility towards the event and the brand.
- The add event to the calendar link is a great idea. It makes sure reminders are set on personal devices so even if they don’t check their emails, their phone will remind them of the event.
- The second email with all the FAQs is a great way to send educational content and solve doubts to maximize participation.
- Lastly, both the second and third emails have links to invite friends which is a great way to grow attendance as nobody likes to come along to such events.
11. Build Long-Term Relationships Smartly—like Lee
One of the most common friction points for brands trying to do an email drip campaign is collecting the customer’s date of birth. Most customers might not be inclined to fill this out.
Instead, Lee approaches this with a very unique process. It incentivizes people to fill in their birthday information. Not only do they use this email as a re-engagement tool, but they convert it into three other re-engagement opportunities for the brand.
They connect with the customer to ask them about their birthday. Then, they connect with the customer on their fake birthday every year and then connect with the customer on their actual birthday. It’s a great excuse to keep interacting with your customers and creating occasions for purchase by offering discounts.
Best practices to adopt:
- What Lee shows us is sometimes the gap between an email drip campaign can be really large. It doesn’t matter as long as the subsequent emails are expected. This is what they do so well. They use the first email to set up the other two.
- Incentivizing here works at two separate levels — gathering customer data and then using that information to prompt purchase on two separate occasions. It really is a very comprehensive approach towards drip email marketing.
- Lee uses a single email drip campaign to collect data, create re-engagement opportunities, prompt purchases, and create customer goodwill. It ticks off all the right boxes.
POST-PURCHASE DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
A lot of online businesses think that a successful purchase is the end of the marketing process. It’s not.
Even after a purchase, there are critical touchpoints that need to be addressed. These include collecting feedback, thanking the customer, and recommending future purchases.
Research shows thank you emails have an open rate of 42.51%, a CTR of 18.27%, and a conversion rate of 10.34%. These figures are higher than other emails by 2.5x for open rates and almost 8x for click-through rates. Data tells us that return customers spend up to 5x as much.
Comparison data shows that post-purchase emails which include either: a discount code, product recommendation, friend sharing link, social media sharing prompt, or a feedback request, their open rate increases by 14.6%, their click rate by 64.7%, and their conversion rate by a whopping 2200%.
In a competitive eCommerce marketplace, you need to have a base of loyal, repeat customers to guarantee sales. Post-purchase email drip campaigns are the tools by which you can convert one-time shoppers into repeat customers and over time into hardcore brand loyalists.
They are also instrumental in collecting feedback through ratings and reviews. Customer feedback helps a brand build social proof. This social proof helps convince future customers. It’s a never-ending cycle. Creating post-purchase drip email marketing campaigns is essential.
Here are two examples of successful post-purchase drip email campaigns:
12. Collect Feedback and Make it Interactive—like Bellroy
Here’s Bellroy’s post-purchase, feedback gathering, all-in-one drip email.
It’s activated 30 days post-purchase giving customers enough time to have actually used the product well and become familiar with it.
It has a link for ratings and reviews and the copy is great. Notice the subtle prompts about a 5-star rating and the copy which assumes that you would have enjoyed the product.
Apart from gathering feedback, it prompts customers to read and post stories about their products on social media.
Lastly, it even has a call for upselling and cross-selling both with photos of complementary products. It really covers all bases. In a single email drip campaign, they collect feedback, push customers to connect over social media, and present product recommendations for further purchase.
Best practices to adopt:
- The email begins by reminding the customer that it’s been 30 days since the purchase. This is crucial because it makes them realize that by now they know the product. This timing is apt for feedback.
- The copy is quite suggestive and has a lot of positive reinforcement for the product. It’s bound to put the customer in a positive frame of mind to write a favorable review or give a high rating. Even when they display a rating, it’s a full 5 stars.
- What Bellroy could have done better is give an incentive to customers to join their social media or post stories about their product to increase their user-generated content.
- Instead of showing generic product categories at the end, they could have personalized recommendations for customers based on their interests and shopping behavior.
13. Be an All-Rounder—like Parade
Another great example of a post-purchase drip email marketing sequence is this one from Parade.
Instead of doing the usual, “these are the products and your order is on the way”, Parade uses this as an opportunity to reiterate its brand values and product USPs.
The drip email also contains a code for free products that is redeemable through social sharing. This means more people are introduced to the brand through WOM and the brand grows.
Lastly, they include a tracking link, a customer care touchpoint, and a link to their social media inviting customers to join.
Best practices to adopt:
- It’s a really comprehensive take on a post-purchase drip email sequence. It has educational content, discount, referral, tracking, social media, and customer care all packed into one.
- The copy is minimal and the design is vibrant and playful.
- The referral mechanism for claiming the free products is a smart way to get current customers to refer new ones.
- The email drip campaign creates anticipation for the product, builds future product purchase intention through USPs, and does it all in a single email.
RE-ENGAGEMENT DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
In a way promotional and re-engagement drip email campaigns have a lot in common. Both are designed to get customers to purchase again.
While promotional campaigns are mostly used for large-scale discount festivals or events to get customers to buy more overall, re-engagement drip email marketing is specifically done for customers who have failed to make purchases in a while.
It is targeted towards customers who no longer open your promotional emails or show up for regular discount-led purchase opportunities. This is an email drip campaign sequence that is triggered after customer inactivity for X days.
Here are 2 examples of successful re-engagement drip email campaigns:
14. Be Convincing—like Dollar Shave Club
DSC is a great example of a re-engagement drip email marketing series. They start their first email with a simple discount. The copy is humorous and not subtle.
They upfront ask if they can bribe you back with a discount. This makes it more relatable and funny for the customers making the offer harder to ignore. It also makes the customer feel important and special.
If customers still don’t opt-in, in the second email they mention how they’re offering better service now and this allows for more flexibility in delivery. The customer can now dictate the shipping schedule and quantities.
If the customer still doesn’t opt-in, the last mailer has two parts. It mentions how they’re no longer a monthly club and that they’ve increased their product list and range. The final bit is an exclusive offer on a starter set for only USD 5.
Best practices to adopt:
- Note how all the CTAs have an incentive built into the copy and the design across the drip email series is uniform and consistent with the brand colors.
- The brand uses multiple methods of convincing customers to come back including discounts, one-time deals, more flexible service, and delivery options, and even a bigger product range.
- All emails and options include financial incentives to return. This is a kind of a last-ditch effort so the brand doesn’t hold back in terms of offering massive discounts and special prices.
- The brand also takes into account they don’t know why customers stopped shopping with them, which accounts for the various tactics they’ve used.
- A good addition to this drip email marketing sequence would have been a feedback or customer support section where they could’ve asked why the customer isn’t returning.
15. Walk Down Memory Lane—like Netflix
Netflix is no stranger to canceled subscribers. How they convince customers to rejoin is what matters.
They have an excellent drip email marketing sequence that functions as or can be termed as a win-back drip campaign.
The first drip email begins with a confirmation of cancellation and a simple link to restart the service. This email is more to remind the customer that their wishes have been adhered to.
What Netflix does quite well is scattering a bunch of customer service links or contact us links throughout the email. This is an attempt to understand why the customer canceled.
The second part of the email drip campaign is repeatedly sending ex-customers a list of new releases including movies and TV shows they’re missing out on. These are sent periodically over three months.
The last email in the personalized drip email series is a simple list with a minimal copy of their product USPs. Watch what you want, when you want, on the device you want — without any commercials.
All of these emails contain entertainment options that are customized for a particular user based on their earlier watch history. They also include picks from “Their List” to remind them of the movies they liked or had marked out to watch. This is a great way to also highlight one of their key product features.
Best practices to adopt:
- Instead of using any discounts or incentives, Netflix tries to use rationale, nostalgia, and education to win back customers.
- It uses devices like nostalgia when it talks about the users’ list to try and entice them to return.
- The last email is a brilliant example of using product USPs. It's a simple throwback to why a customer joined Netflix in the first place hoping they will rejoin when reminded of core product benefits.
In summation, we have seen the several ways in which an email drip campaign can be used to achieve and overcome a variety of business goals and problems.
But it’s also important to keep optimizing these drip email sequences to keep increasing chances of conversion and improving open rates.
BROWSE ABANDONMENT DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
For every visitor that views a product and doesn’t buy, there's another penny lost.
Browse abandonment campaigns can help reduce this as emails are sent right after a site visitor views a product/category page but leaves without buying or adding to their cart.
Here’re two browse abandonment emails that can help you understand better—
16. Let testimonials be your cheerleader—like Everlane
Customer reviews and testimonials have more credibility and for good reason. All thanks to social cognition— customers are more likely to trust people like themselves.
The conversation opens with customer reviews that are welcoming and not pushy. The copy is written in a larger font which enables cognitive ease. Cognitive ease is the ability of the brain to process information.
Best practices to adopt:
- Mention the star rating along with the total reviews. This helps prospective customers to use that as a base to determine its credibility.
- Reviews must include all aspects of the product. For instance, the reviews in Everlane’s email include easy-to-wash, fabric, zero fading, and the like.
- Use the brand color for the CTA button to maintain the visual hierarchy.
- Highlight your sustainability practices and values to shape a positive brand. With the rise in awareness of sustainability, 72% of customers are buying more sustainable products compared to five years ago.
17. Use Micro-influencer social proof—like Sleep Eight
Social proof is the best form of trust signals and social proof from micro influencers has its charm.
45% of micro-influencer followers tried the recommended products and services.
This is because customers can relate to micro-influencers better than celebrities.
Sleep Eight uses customer reviews in its browse abandonment emails to nudge customers into making a purchase.
The reviews include their opinion about how the product is making their lives easier. With a 5-star rating, customers will be more convinced to buy the product as customers will only buy from businesses having no less than a 3.4-star rating.
Best practices to adopt:
- Use nudges like free trial, free shipping, free returns, and interest-free payments to reduce risk aversion and encourage new product trials.
- A single CTA is enough to drive conversions; too many CTAs are highly likely to cause friction.
- A 60:30:10 color palette can evoke users to interact with the emails.
Recommended reading: Why your Browse Abandonment emails Don't Work (& Winning Examples)
STOCK ALERT DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Stock alert drip campaigns are designed to convey low-stock alerts, back-in-stock alerts, wishlist alerts, and discount alerts on low or back-in-stock products.
These drive a sense of urgency and compel customers to take action and have an open rate of 65.32%.
Here’re 4 examples of stock alert drip email campaigns that have made a mark—
18. Send a stock alerts + nudges—like SONOS
The wait is over is a psychological trigger that piques the user’s interest. Sonos offers free shipping which is a brilliant nudge that is hard to turn down. 90% of customers say that free shipping is the best incentive to shop online.
Best practices to adopt:
- Free returns encourage new product trials by reducing risk aversion. 67% of customers check the returns policy before making a purchase.
- A 100-day return is a suitable duration for returns as 63% of customers expect retailers to allow up to 30 days to return.
- Post-purchase support is crucial when it comes to customer experience.
You'd also like to read: 25 Tips to Increase Sales Through Email Marketing (+ Amazing Examples)
19. Use copy to highlight stock alerts—like Polaroid
The impact a good copy can have on conversions is impeccable. It increases sales by invoking an action from the customer.
Polaroid uses urgency in its copy and compelling visuals to drive conversions. From writing interesting stories to crisp product descriptions, Polaroid captivates the reader’s interest. Using action words in CTAs is a great hack to increase conversions.
Best practices to adopt:
- Make product recommendations from the same category to enable product discovery. Use this as an opportunity to upsell and cross-sell similar products.
- Use a white background to ensure readability.
- Tweak the copy and use different words for categories like “fan favorites” to grab attention. Case in point, fan favorites instead of best sellers or favorites.
20. Use high-quality product images—like Snowe
High-quality product images form a critical part of the purchase decision. 75% of customers decide to buy solely based on product decisions.
The images in the above example show the product in context making it more relatable. It creates a positive impression on the buyer to check the product.
Best practices to adopt:
- Make sure the key messaging is conversational and addresses the first person.
- A risk-free guarantee encourages the customer to try the product and eliminates buyer’s remorse.
- Including a referral link gets more conversions since recommendations from friends have more weightage.
- Mention your physical store address to increase footfall to your store.
21. Let customers know that they won’t be left out—like Public Rec
Out-of-stock situations needn’t be the end of the road for the customers. Out-of-stock emails serve as an opportunity to inform customers that a product is unavailable for purchase.
Public Rec sends an out-of-stock email to its customers which is an opportunity for future conversion.
You’re on the list is a hero message that grabs the attention of the user smoothly. The use of contraction makes the messaging informal and conversational.
Best practices to adopt:
- Including social media handles is an easy way to increase social media followers organically. It increases your reach, builds a social list, and helps in creating UGC.
- Free shipping, free returns, and free exchanges are great persuasive nudges that influence purchase decisions.
WINBACK EMAIL DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
22. Use loss aversion to win back customers—like Felix Gray
Humans are wired to avoid losses and that’s what the loss aversion bias states. Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where the pain of losing something is 2x more powerful psychologically than the joy of gaining.
Felix Gray uses loss aversion bias in its win-back email nudging users to use their FSA dollars before it expires. For starters, FSA stands for Flexible Savings Account is a special account where you set aside an amount of money for certain out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.
FSA is exempted from taxes in the US.
Best practices to adopt:
- Using visual cues in your email drip campaigns can help increase the click-through rate of your emails. Images like the one above convey a positive impression of your brand.
- Using FOMO and countdown timers goad users into making a purchase.
- Educate your customers about special schemes or benefits like in this case, Felix Gray explaining FSA.
23. Show customers that you miss them—like Aillea
Concern and care are the two cornerstones of customer centricity. Aillea enquires about how things are since the last purchase. This is a subtle attempt to winback customers by showing different product categories.
The four categories help customers in product discovery without leading to choice paralysis.
Best practices to adopt:
- When having two different CTA buttons, ensure that they are in different colors to avoid causing friction.
- Highlight eco-friendly best practices as customers are turning to environmentally friendly products since the last decade.
UNSUBSCRIBE EMAIL DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
If you haven’t heard from someone in a long time, the best you can do is to check in on how they’re doing, and Unsubscribe email drip campaigns are the one for the occasion.
24. Check in on your customers—like Cuisinart
Cuisinart sends an unsubscribe email providing options to customers to unsubscribe or change their preferences.
Customers may not like receiving promotional emails but instead may prefer to receive other emails. This gives customers space to breathe and not receive irrelevant emails.
Best practices to adopt:
- Use images in your unsubscribe emails to emphasize the purpose. Cuisinart uses images of eggs as visual cues to elicit responses from people.
- Make unsubscribing easy with a one-click option and offer to update email preferences.
- Include social media links as a way to stay connected with them.
- A single opt-out makes unsubscribe easier. Instead of sending another confirmation email, redirect them to a confirmation page to unsubscribe.
How to optimize your drip email marketing sequence
Pick a single objective and divide different approaches or content into separate drip email campaigns. You can test versions of the following:
- Sequence variations
- Frequency variations
- Subject lines
- Images
- CTAs
- A/B test all the versions with small customer sizes.
- Analyze all the results to see which campaign performed the best. Notice audience engagement throughout the entire cycle.
- Ask for detailed feedback from your test group or sample. Ask prospects if they’re happy with the frequency, schedule, and content of the campaigns.
- Choose the best parts of all the campaigns to make your final, winning email drip campaign.
A good question you might have at this stage is, how do I compare or what metrics do I use to pick the winning email drip campaign?
Here are the parameters you can use for choosing the best drip email sequence:
- Calculate the sales difference before and after a running campaign to judge its success rate. For A/B testing, see which option or sequence has created maximum sales within the test group.
- Benchmarking open rates and click-through rates are other metrics you can use to identify the best subject lines and content to use. Click-through rates also help identify which Call To Action works best.
- The sales difference can also be used to identify which upselling product recommendations work best and which cross-sell products club together for future opportunities.
- Unsubscribe rates are another metric that can help identify the frequency and number of emails to use within a drip email sequence.
Wrapping Up
Automated sequences can help you nurture leads, increase sales, understand buyer journeys, and maintain steady customer engagement and loyalty while saving time and effort. You just have to set them up once and then they run pretty much by themselves.
In terms of setting up, we know that drip email campaigns perform at least 2 to 3 times better than bulk emails. If combined with three or more marketing channels, this number climbs even higher to as much as 250% purchase rate on average.
In terms of priority, start with cart abandonment and customer re-engagement drip email sequences first. They are the most crucial and are highly effective in driving revenue.
Don’t be afraid to check out your competition. Sign up for their newsletters, shop on their sites, analyze their emails, learn from their shortcomings and make sure your drip email marketing sequences are better and different.
Remember your store is unique and so is your brand. Let this uniqueness drive your content and tone. Let your content reflect who you are and why you started your business. There are a few things that can have a more direct impact on your customers.
If you’re personalizing for the brand, make sure you also personalize for your customer.
The desired effect to keep in mind is that while all the emails are automated, the customers must feel they were designed and personalized especially for them alone. Research has shown that email personalization in subject lines increases open rates by 26% and delivers 6x higher transaction rates.
Lastly, the most important statistic is that 62.66% of customers feel ‘happy’ and ‘excited’ to respond to a personalized message from a retailer. Imagine the customer delight factor that you can create!
Through these many examples, we’ve seen the potential of a great email drip campaign, the versatility of drip email marketing in solving online business bottlenecks, and the parameters by which to measure their success.
Now, all that’s left for you to do is design, test, implement and watch your revenue potential explode!
Email Drip Campaign 101
1. What is an email drip campaign?
If a conventional emailer is a guy standing on top of a car with a bullhorn yelling, drip email is a close friend in a coffee shop listening to your concerns.
An email drip campaign is a series of customized, perfectly-timed messages that are sent to customers automatically, triggered as per their behavior.
Drip email marketing is so effective that:
- Its open rates are 80% higher than single emails.
- Average click-throughs are 3 times higher.
- An email drip campaign generates 50% more sales-ready leads.
- Companies that do drip email marketing well generate 80% more sales at 33% lower costs.
The question isn’t whether you should be using drip email, it's what you should use it for.
Depending on your goals and the customer segments you’re targeting, your email drip campaign needs to be customized.
Here are some of the parameters you need to consider:
1. Setting an overall goal. Whether this is to increase overall awareness, welcome new customers, announce promotions, reduce cart abandonment, or conduct events, it’s important to have a concrete, predetermined goal.
2. The number of emails to include. The answer to this question depends on:
- The customer segment you’re targeting
- The industry you are in
- The lifecycle of your products
Usually, the sweet spot for drip email campaigns is 3 emails or messages. Keep testing to see if the third email is converting or not. If results aren’t great, consider adding a fourth, or if it's too annoying try cutting down to two emails.
3. Creating triggers. Triggers are specific customer actions that activate the predetermined email flow. Once activated you must decide the series of steps and templates the workflow must follow.
The workflow includes conditions like what if the customer clicks on any of the CTAs, or doesn’t open the email, or simply waiting for a few days between emails, etc.
Take a look at this trigger flowchart that visually explains the sequence:
4. Personalize content. Do not send random templated responses to your customers. Keep in mind your goals and customize the content according to the email flow you’ve decided.
5. Evaluate results and calibrate. It’s important to also know which customers need to be removed from an email drip campaign. For consistently high results it’s best to keep testing different templates, tweaking the flow, and analyzing data.
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