Transactional emails play a special role in e-commerce. Since they contain the necessary and most important information for your customers, they contain a marketing potential that is far too seldom used. In this article, we will tell you what transaction emails are exactly and how you can use them profitably for marketing your online shop in the future using simple processes.
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What Are Transactional Emails?
Transactional emails are automated emails that are sent as a result of certain visitor actions or after business transactions. So it is not a newsletter-newsletter UT e-mail that is interfaced to send based on the recipient’s actions.
Examples of such transactional emails include:
- Order confirmations
- Shipping confirmations
- Delivery confirmations
- Returns receipt confirmations
- Registration confirmations
- Registration and deregistration confirmations
- Notifications of comments on social networks or blogs
- Bills
- Reservation confirmations
- Password requirements and changes
- Double opt-in mailings
- And similar…
Transactional e-mails therefore mainly play in
- Online shops
- Online portals
- Booking systems
- Forums
- Social networks
And comparable systems play a major role.
Transactional e-mails are created once in the e-mail software and then always sent automatically when the so-called trigger – i.e. the triggering event – occurs in the system by the recipient. This means that every transactional email is triggered and controlled by an individual action on the part of the recipient.
Advantages Of Transactional Emails
Transactional emails have three decisive advantages over any regular newsletter: Because transaction emails are always triggered by the recipient’s actions and the content relates directly to the occasion, transaction emails have an extremely high personal relationship.
Transactional emails are also expected from the recipients. After all, customers want to know whether their order has been received, when the long-awaited item will be shipped or when the selected item of clothing will be available again in the right size. And what could be nicer than a booking confirmation for the next vacation !? So customers expect transaction emails to be sent.
This in turn means that you, as a retailer, should ensure that your transaction emails are delivered, as the attention of your customers and thus the marketing potential of these emails is enormous. Statistics confirm this consideration: Transactional emails are opened more than twice as often as normal newsletters.
The Most Important Transaction Emails For Your Online Shop
In an online shop, email communication usually begins with a transaction email in the form of a registration confirmation when a new customer registers for order in your online shop. The order is usually placed afterward.
The customer should then immediately receive an order or booking confirmation including an invoice, and a shipping confirmation should also follow at the appropriate time.
Transaction emails for returns management are downstream in the communication. These mailings form the basis of e-mail communication for online shop operators.
Of course, this foundation can be expanded at will. How about, for example, a feedback request 7 days after the goods have been dispatched, a purchase reminder if the purchase was for everyday products, newsletter mailing workmailing works, or a reactivation if, for example, your customers have not bought from you for 6 months !?
The Legal Framework For Transactional Emails
Transaction emails such as order confirmations contain important information about a purchase. Therefore, the transmission of such transactional emails is permitted and sometimes even legally required without the recipient’s separate consent.
However, transactional emails may then only contain the necessary information – additional advertising content is not permitted. Additional consent from the recipient has therefore required a to newsletter-newsletter ut add promotional content to transactional emails.
Such consent can be obtained through a so-called opt-in, similar to when subscribing to the newsletter. In addition, as usual, every email must also contain an opt-out, i.e. an option to unsubscribe. Only then is it allowed to include advertising content in transactional emails.
However, there are certainly gray areas and different interpretations of the laws. For example, according to Section 7 (3)UWG, goods that are similar to the previously purchased product may also be advertised in transaction emails. In case of doubt, however, courts usually decide in favor of the consumer, so it can help to consult a lawyer at this point if you do not have the express consent of the recipient.
Nevertheless, due to the above-average opening rates, the marketing potential of transactional emails is so high that it is worth overcoming this hurdle. Professional email marketing software enables you to obtain the necessary consent using an automated opt-in so that you can easily use your transactional emails for your marketing in the future.
Email Marketing Automation
Implement Transactional Emails In a Way That Saves Time And Resources
Transactional emails can of course not be sent manually under any circumstances. After all, you can’t sit in front of the screen all day and send an order confirmation every time someone has made another purchase in your online shop. These processes must function fully automatically. In short: transactional emails need email marketing automation.
Using e-mail marketing automation, you simply create the respective transaction e-mails once in your newsletter software and define for which event and at what time interval the corresponding mailing will be sent. As with regular newsletters, variable data such as salutation, purchased products, prices, and the like are then supplemented via dynamic fields.
In this way, the transaction emails can be expanded as required and cleverly integrated into your email marketing process. For example, you can include feedback requests and purchase reminders in the campaign as well as the necessary order or shipping confirmation. A professional newsletter software offers you an interface to your shopware and clear tools for campaign management.
Shopware vs Shipping Software: Why You Should Send Transactional Emails With Professional Newsletter Software:
Depending on the shopware, your sales system may already offer you a solution for sending transactional emails. The offer is tempting: In this way, you do not have to transfer the data to additional newsletter software and the transaction emails are sent directly from your shop system.
The problem here, however, is that shop and booking systems are not specialized for sending e-mails. In concrete terms, this means that you are very certain that you do not offer any design options for your mailings, the dispatch does not take place via “whitelisted” servers and you usually also have no evaluation options for your transactional emails.
In this way, you would not only be wasting the tremendous marketing potential that the transactional emails bring with them, but you also run the risk of the emails not even being delivered. Only the dispatch via whitelisted servers with a correspondingly high sender score as professional newsletter software has, ensures that your e-mails are delivered.
