THE BIG BOOK

OF ECOMMERCE
EMAIL FUNNELS
10 Proven Automated Email

Funnels to Nurture &

Boost Customer

LTV
The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels

Copyright © 2020 by Sendlane. All rights reserved.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced

in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—
without prior written permission of the publisher, with
the exception of brief quotations in a book review and
certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by
copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America

Second Edition, 2020

Sendlane
10620 Treena Street, Suite 250
San Diego, CA 92131

www.sendlane.com
support@sendlane.com
 New episodes every
week to help you automate
your marketing like a pro
Listen, download, subscribe and start creating a more
predictable income stream by leveraging the power of
marketing automation in your eCommerce store.

Listen or Watch Now

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................... 5

1. Welcome Funnels ..................................................... 6

2. Abandoned Cart Reminders ..................................... 9

3. A Simple Post-Purchase Follow-Up .......................... 13

4. Transactional Post-Purchase Funnel ....................... 16

5. Personalized Product Recommendations ................ 18

6. Re-Engagement Funnels ........................................ 22

7. Product Feedback Request .................................... 25

8. Customer Retargeting ............................................ 28

9. New Product Launch .............................................. 32

10. Happy Anniversary ................................................. 35

Automation Funnels Are More Than You Think ............... 37

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 4

Introduction
If you work in eCommerce, then high ROI
from email marketing is undoubtedly your
Holy Grail — a tangible, though seemingly
mythical marketing realm that manages to
elude most businesses.
No, high ROI from email isn’t mythical at all.
It’s very real.
Successful eCommerce brands are
seeing 30%-40% of their monthly
revenue coming from email.
And what does every single one of those
brands have in common?
Automated marketing funnels.
From successful small brands like Pura
Vida, Moment Lenses, Solo Stoves, and
BeardBrand to high-end eCommerce stores
like West Elm, Target, Wayfair, Old Navy,
and so on.
| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels
All of them use automated marketing
funnels — predominantly email funnels
with cross-channel capabilities.
If high ROI from your eCommerce email
marketing feels as though it’s eluding you,
then it’s time to explore how to equip your
brand with the right automations.
At Sendlane, we’ve sent billions of emails.
And hundreds of millions of those messages
are automated eCommerce emails sent for
brands just like yours.
These funnels are working. They work
for us. They work for our customers.
They’re working for other brands. And
they can work for you too.
We have rounded up the top automated
funnels that have both proven high
ROI and are simple enough to start
implementing today.
5
 1

Welcome
Funnels
Welcome Funnels
If you don’t have an automated welcome
email funnel for your brand, then take this
as a sign — you NEED one.

When I hear from brands that don’t have

this set in place, it’s the first thing I tell them
to add because of how overwhelmingly
beneficial it is for eCommerce.

Not only do welcome emails have an

83% higher open rate than the average
newsletter, but they also generate
320% more revenue(1) per email than
promotional emails.

To add to that, they can positively impact

other important things like deliverability
and your email sender rating — that thing
that keeps you out of the Spam folder.

New leads and potential customers who

show a real interest will sign up for your
email list. But if you let that interaction
fall silent on your end, then it doesn’t leave
a good impression or any impression at all.

These are vital, so much so that it’s the

first on the list just for that reason.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 7

Welcome Funnels
Thankfully, this funnel doesn’t need to be
complicated. Simply let your brand voice
shine through when you say thank you/
hello, and use it to mark the start of a new
relationship.
The standard is three in a Welcome Funnel,
but you should adjust it to fit your needs.
The first email should be sent immediately
after someone either subscribes to your list
or purchases from you.
Here a few more important things to
consider including in your welcome emails:
• Your story
• Your mission
• Social Proof
• 
Asking for a referral
(ex. “Have a friend who might find this
interesting? Feel free to share this with
them.”)
Keep the tone of these emails warm,
inviting, or even fun if that fits your brand.
But especially, be thankful.
A warm welcome and a “thanks for joining our
list, it means a lot to us,” goes a long way.
| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels
Remember, people are human.
Warmth in your tone can leave the
impression that your brand is personable
as you go about building a loyal customer
out of a new contact.
Your first email sent can do more than say
thank you. It can explain how to get started
with a product via an instruction video. Or it
can show how to explore your brand further
by joining you on social media.
If doing so doesn’t hurt the bottom line, use
these welcome messages to offer a coupon
or free shipping to convert your automation
into sales.
These emails are all about starting things
off on the right foot and nurturing a good
relationship.
Be creative and let these emails go with the
flow of what makes sense to share during
this first interaction with your brand.
Don’t worry about the number of
emails or waiting until you think you
have everything perfect.
Done is better than perfect, and this
particular funnel is too important not
to have running on your website.
8
 2

Abandoned Cart
Reminders
Abandoned
Cart Reminders
At just under 70%, abandoned cart rates
are at the highest they’ve been in the past
five years.

Cart reminders save an average of

12%-15% revenue that would have
been lost without them.

And by adding personalization to your

automated funnel, it can increase that
average by a long shot. For your store to
thrive, you — quite literally — cannot afford
to go without automated cart reminders as
part of your marketing strategy.

Effective Abandoned Cart Reminders can

have as many as four to five messages in the
sequence, and can look something like this:

The first email in your sequence should be

clear and to the point. Use their name and
images of the products they’ve left in their
cart to personalize the email.

Try to use a large, bold button that will take

them back to their cart. Don’t add much
more than that. You want the direction to be
one way without other distractions.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels

Abandoned
Cart Reminders
The second email is equally important Something like…
because it gives a sense of urgency from
a fear of missing out on something they’re
interested in. And if all else fails, you can
use the third email to offer a discount. • “We noticed you noticing us”
via West Elm’s cart reminder emails
Another important note is to set the
automation goal as “purchase” so that if a • “Uh, oh. Did you forget something?”
conversion happens anywhere in the funnel, via TOMS shoes’ cart reminders
the automation will end. That way, you’re
not sending emails even though they’ve • “Is Your Wi-Fi Okay?” via Adidas shoes
purchased the items in their cart.
• “Your shopping bag has abandonment
Cart reminders don’t have to be email- issues” via Dote apparel brand
based only. If SMS marketing is available
with your ESP, you should also weave SMS
into your automation.
Take a look at your audience to understand
Studies show that SMS messages how playful you can be with your tone and
have a 99% open-rate(2) — yep, you voice.
read that right — making them perfect
for cart reminders as they can increase Eliciting emotion is all part of the puzzle,
the chances for conversion. and playfulness can add yet another layer
of personality to your brand.
And, finally, don’t be afraid of being
playful with your emails’ subject line It seems small but it goes a long way.
and main headings.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 11

 The Sendlane Blog
The go-to blog for becoming a top 1% email
marketer. Get best practices, tips, insights, and
training on all things marketing and automation.

Visit the Blog

 3

A Simple
Post-Purchase
Follow Up
A Simple
Post-Purchase
Follow-Up
Repeat customers are where the money’s at.
Just consider a few stats(3) to back that up:

• 
It costs 5% more to acquire a new
customer compared to keeping
a current one.

• 
It’s 16x more expensive to bring a
new customer up to the same level
as the current one.

• The probability of selling to an

existing customer is 60%-70%,
whereas selling to a new prospect
is 5%-20%.

• 
80% of your future profits will
come from just 20% of your existing
customers.

I think it’s safe to say that maintaining

a constant focus on current customers is
vital for an eCommerce business. But that
one-to-one personal touch can be a tough
thing to execute in a digital world.

However, this automated funnel aims to help.

Personalize communications based

on purchase history to humanize your
marketing, build up customer loyalty,
and encourage repeat purchases.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 14

 A Simple
Post-Purchase
Follow-Up

There are many ways to build out

Post-Purchase Follow-Up Automations
— which I’ll cover in more detail below.

But, as the name suggests, all of these

funnel types are triggered only after
someone makes a purchase.

A simple post-purchase funnel that you

can easily get started with are as follows:

That first “Thank You” email is vital.

Always say thank you. It’s polite
and humanizes your brand.

However, customize this email to your

brand. Perhaps you can include setup
instructions in this email to add to the
customer experience if that applies to the
product purchased.

The second and third emails are important

to encourage additional sales. You could
offer free shipping, a free gift with a
purchase or just a simple discount.

Whatever works for your bottom line.

Image Credit: reallygoodemails.com

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 15

 4

Transactional
Post-Purchase
Funnel
Transactional
Post-Purchase
Funnel
As mentioned before, there are different
types of post-purchase funnels that you
can create. The automated funnel listed
above gives you a basic funnel you can
build, but this one is like the 2.0 version;
it definitely takes it up a notch.

This type of Transactional Post-Purchase

Funnel is an email automation triggered by a
purchase which then heavily communicates
the order-to-delivery process while
encouraging repeat purchases. It does include
types of transactional emails like those
mentioned above, but not every single one.

It gives your brand the advantage of giving

a one-to-one feel to each customer, only it’s
fully automated. This funnel type has other
benefits too. For instance, this funnel would
include order confirmation emails that tend
to have open-rates as high as 70%.

And 64% of customers(4) view this type of

email as the most valuable they receive
from brands.

The tricky part with this funnel type is

figuring out how to get your marketing
toolset to execute this funnel correctly.
Suppose you use Shopify for your online
store. In that case, order confirmation,
shipping, and delivery emails can be
handled through other integrations with
your platform. Each of the other emails
can be handled through your ESP as a
basic post-purchase automation.
If that’s the case, run tests to get the
timing right so that your funnel flows
well and isn’t choppy.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 17

 5

Personalized Product
Recommendations
Personalized
Product
Recommendations

While Amazon seems to have pioneered

profitable recommendations, you don’t
need to be Amazon to send these
Personalized Product Recommendations
to your customers.

These types of emails are another great

way to gain sales from previous customers.
Studies across multiple industries
found that product recommendations
accounted for more than 30% of
eCommerce revenue(5), making these
a MUST-HAVE for eCommerce brands
that plan to survive a highly competitive
marketing world.

There are two main ways you can

send these recommendations:

1. Y
 ou can build out a single automation
that uses a couple of product
recommendation emails in the
automation funnel

2. You can include these product

recommendation emails in another
funnel type, such as a post

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 19

Personalized
Product
Recommendations

Both should be reasonably easy

to execute if your ESP or marketing
automation tool has an easy way to
create these recommendation emails.

For the first example, you could create

a funnel that triggers once someone
subscribes to your list.

A few days later, if they haven’t

purchased anything, you can send
a product recommendation email.

Include reviews about your products and

user-generated content to boost your
perceived value to your contacts.

You can add this email type to a welcome or

post-purchase funnel to test how it affects
the ROI of your automations, too.

Don’t worry about these being perfect right

off the bat. Give them a try for 1-2 months
to benchmark your current standing and
then tweak areas in your funnel and test
again to see how it impacts ROI.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 20

 Turn online shoppers
into loyal, lifetime customers
with email & sms marketing

Sendlane helps you generate more revenue, increase retention,

and automate personalized experiences for your customers.

Try for Free

 6

Re-Engagement
Funnels
Re-Engagement
Funnels
Sometimes, love fades. Those once active,
loyal customers might stop opening your
emails or buying products from you.

It happens, but what should you do?

Just scrub your contact list of them
and call it good?

Sure, you could, but only as a last resort.

These people already know your brand,
they bought multiple things from you.

Reigniting that brand love will take less

money and time than trying to replace
them with a new customer.

According to Experian, re-engagement

emails have an average ROI of $28.50
for every $1 spent.(6)

On the flip side, the average cost to gain

a new subscriber costs roughly $55.24
per contact.

So the math is simple:

Better retention = better profits.

That’s why a Re-Engagement Funnel is vital

because it addresses the inactive subscriber
issue head-on — and on autopilot.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 23

 Re-Engagement
Funnels
The purpose of this funnel is two-fold:
1. To win back inactive subscribers
or customers to become active and
loyal again
2. To keep your list clean or anyone who
isn’t interested anymore
Image Credit: reallygoodemails.com
The first one positively impacts your ROI,
and the second positively impacts your
email health score and deliverability, so
it’s a win-win on all accounts.
You should have an automation set up to
trigger after a subscriber hasn’t opened
and/or clicked through your campaigns
for that last 3-6 months.
When they hit that mark, send them an email
or SMS message encouraging them to come
back. If you have their phone number, using
SMS is a great way to get attention quickly.
Your subject line here needs to grab
attention. Tell them you miss them, use
an emoji or two (not more though), and
keep the length short.
Inside the email, keep things to the point
and offer them a special discount for
coming back to you. If they don’t open,
click or purchase, send another email in
a week. If the same thing happens, send
another email 20 some days after that one.
If they don’t respond to your efforts, then
that’s when it’s good to scrub your list of
them. Keep the people engaged with you
and refrain from annoying those who aren’t.
This funnel will help you do that while
increasing sales.
24
 7

Product
Feedback
Request
Product
Feedback Request
Asking someone’s honest opinion about
something close to your heart isn’t an easy
thing to do.

One of two things can happen:

1. They say something that makes you

feel really good, or

2. They tell you the truth and it’s less

than stellar

The latter scenario tends to be so

uncomfortable that we avoid the topic
altogether. But that avoidance tends to
leak into running an online store.

Product Feedback or Review Requests are

important, but fear of a bad review or poor
feedback makes many store owners shy
away from asking.

But, trust me, you really shouldn’t avoid

this. Feedback is super powerful for your
business if you analyze it correctly.

You can learn what customers like, what

they don’t like, and gather information
on your products or customer service to
improve in areas where your competition
is failing.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 26

 Product
Feedback Request
And gathering product reviews is also
essential since 95% of online shoppers
look at reviews(7) anyway. There are
numerous other benefits such as increased
trust from transparency, better social proof,
impact to SEO, better visibility in Google
Shopping, and much more.

At different stages of the customer’s

journey, there are different ways to craft
a funnel.

You should have feedback request

automations triggered for events like these:

• 3 days after their order was delivered

• If they buy but then cancel before
it’s shipped

• If they return an item

• If they leave a poor review

Depending on your toolset, exactly how

you execute these automation funnels will
change, but they’ll help you gather valuable
data on how to improve your customer
Image Credit: reallygoodemails.com
experience and business decisions in the
long run.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 27

 8

Customer
Retargeting
Customer
Retargeting
Automated funnels don’t need to be solely
email-based.

Good marketing mixes in the various

channels that work for your brand and
blends them to help you grow your
business. Customer Retargeting Funnels
are precisely that. They give you a chance
to mix your email marketing with SMS and
retargeting ads to turn casual shoppers
into customers.

This type of funnel’s capabilities become

even more powerful if you utilize a marketing
automation tool that tracks user behavior.
Since they can personalize the retargeting
for a better one-to-one approach.

Retargeting alone is powerful — people

who see a retargeting ad are 70% more
likely to convert.(8) But mixing it with your
highest ROI marketing channel (email)
and personalization efforts amplify the
effectiveness of your marketing as a whole.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 29

 Customer
Retargeting

A tracking pixel on your site would retarget

customers with ads on social, while your
email and SMS work to get in touch with
them personally and on autopilot. However,
they’re all working together to make the sale.

Test your email’s subject lines and any

discount offerings. Keep the copy to the
point. Does free shipping convert better
than a discount? Does the conversion rate
change if a holiday is coming up? Test
SMS and look at conversion metrics in your
funnel to see if they help increase sales.

Don’t be afraid to test something new.

The best results can come from unexpected
places, but you won’t know unless you try.

Image Credit: reallygoodemails.com

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 30

 eCommerce
email academy

The Ultimate Step-by-Step

Email Marketing Course for
eCommerce Marketers
Learn how to make email marketing the #1 revenue
driver for your business. Get 57 video lessons, 10 course
modules, PLUS the exclusive launch bonuses including
expert interviews, case studies, checklists and more.

L E A R N M O R E & G E T S TA R T E D
 9

New Product
Launch
New Product
Launch
Announcing new products is nothing new.
Brands like Kickstarter have built entire
businesses around giving people a platform
to launch new products to the world.

But launching a new product to your

eCommerce store can be a big deal for
companies that craft or create products
themselves. If you’ve been gathering
feedback on your products —hopefully,
through the use of feedback funnels —
then you’ve likely learned that your new
product will resonate with some or all of
your customers.

Building anticipation around a new product

and helping it sell is what the New Product
Launch funnel is all about.

Before you launch, use your website, social

media, and email to tell your audience that
you’re working on something new and invite
them to opt-in to a segmented VIP launch
list. This can help build anticipation around
your launch and make your customers feel
like they have the inside scoop.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 33

 New Product
Launch

As you near the day of your launch, tease

your customers with a scheduled email
telling them to keep an eye on their inbox
in the coming days for the VIP Launch.

Schedule your launch email to go out

to your list and give them a chance to
preorder your new product, even offering
an additional incentive for them to do so.

For all the people who didn’t opt-in to

buying your new product, trigger an
automated feedback request email to
learn why they didn’t. For all the people
who did, trigger a feedback request to
learn what they liked about the new
product and what they think about it.

Image Credit: reallygoodemails.com

34
 10

Happy
Anniversary
Happy
Anniversary
Anniversaries are important to remember in
any relationship, including the relationship
you have with your customers.

Automated Anniversary Funnels not only

show that you haven’t forgotten about your
dear loyal customers, but they also help you
gain new repeat sales and added customer
loyalty to boot.

In fact, these types of emails produce 7x

more revenue(*) than email promo blasts do,
so there’s certainly a good reason to use them!

As the name suggests, this automation is
designed to go out on the month, week or
day that marks an important event. It could
be on their birthday, the anniversary of
the day they signed up to your list or the
day marking their first purchase from you.
Granted, each of those would need its own
segmentation/automation.
But they all play a role in recognizing
something important — which is why
they’re so effective at generating income.
But the basic idea here is that you should
set up a way to track each person’s first
purchase through your ESP and then six
months or one year later, automatically
send a Happy Anniversary email or SMS to
each person.
If you can’t find an exact way to do this
with your ESP, there could be a workaround,
such as segmenting your list based on
purchases made between specific dates or
adding a tag that triggers that automation.

The easiest way to get started is to focus on
the anniversary of their first purchase.
Depending on your ESP or marketing
automation tool, the way you can execute
this will be different.
This may be possible to execute through
your eCommerce platform too. But dig
through your toolset to see what’s possible.
If there’s a will, there’s a way.

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 36

 +

Automation Funnels
Are More Than
You Think
Automation Funnels
Are More Than You Think
I hope you’ve enjoyed this eCommerce
Automation Funnel book. There are more
than a few that you can start using as soon
as you wrap up reading this final page.
While automated funnels need time and
attention from time to time, that shouldn’t
keep you from using them.
Just to emphasize their place in your
marketing strategy, here are a few
benefits to what marketing automation
and automated funnels can offer you.
• They can automate more of your
one-to-one and personalization
tasks better in a digital landscape
• They collect more soluble data that
can prove powerful for your growth
• They give you more time to focus
on marketing methods that work
and to test new things is areas that
are working for your brand
| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels
Those three things cannot be oversold,
not today in a world where every brand
is competing for people’s attention.
The brands that keep in touch and who
make an effort to stand out the right way
in customer’s inboxes are the ones that
are winning now and who will outpace the
competition in the years to come.
These 10 automated funnels, when backed
with personalization and user behavior
data, can help you do just that.
Take them. Use them. Make them
your own. They’re designed to help
eCommerce stores thrive.
We built Sendlane to help eCommerce
store owners like you make the most of
your email marketing automation efforts.
If you’re interested in Sendlane or have
questions about our platform, feel free
to reach out at any time. Again, thank you
for downloading this ebook. I hope it helps
you have an awesome marketing year!
Catch you next time,
The Sendlane Marketing Team
38
References
1. https://www.wordstream.com/blogs/2017/06/29/email-marketing-statistics

2. https://www.redeye.com/insights/blog/sms-marketing-vs-email-marketing-who-wins

3. https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/10/customer-retention-statistics.html

4. https://chamaileon.io/resources/order-confirmation-email-best-practices/

5. https://www.barilliance.com/personalized-product-recommendations-stats/

6. https://www.pinpointe.com/blog/ultimate-email-subscriber-re-engagement-guide

7. https://learn.g2.com/customer-reviews-statistics

8. https://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2013/11/20/15_Stats_Retargeting.html

*http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3751/birthday-anniversary-emails-
generatemore-revenue

| The Big Book of eCommerce Email Funnels 39