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How To Use E-commerce Email Segmentation To Increase Sales

Beefree team
Beefree team
Dec 9, 2019
How To Use E-commerce Email Segmentation To Increase Sales
How To Use E-commerce Email Segmentation To Increase Sales

Email marketing is one of the most effective tools for E-commerce. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Constant Contact, more than 90 percent of respondents consider email marketing crucial to their company's overall success. The scale of email communication is staggering, with a whopping319 billion business and consumer emails being sent and received every day. The impact of email marketing on consumer behavior is evident, as 34 percent of consumers express a higher likelihood of making a purchase through email marketing campaigns.As email marketers, it is essential that the right message is sent to the right person. Email segmentation helps with this.In this guide, you’ll learn why e-commerce email segmentation is so powerful, plus six ways to segment your email subscribers and increase sales.

Why E-commerce Email Segmentation Matters 

Email marketing is one of the oldest digital marketing channels, yet it still outperforms video marketing, social media, and content marketing.Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook have become the internet’s town square. Everyone is trying to shout the loudest to get the attention of their market. As a result, the average CTR for e-commerce brands on Facebook hovers around 1.5 percent — but the average CTR for retail brands using email is 3.39 percent, over 100% better than Facebook. Email is a more personal and direct method of communication than social media or other marketing methods, and that’s largely why it’s so successful.

These average numbers show how the statistics of top performers are being dragged down by mediocre performers, skewing the results. In reality, personalized emails can deliver up to 760% more revenue than emails that aren’t personalized.Not only are you able to get more people to interact with your emails and land on your website by sending customized emails, but customer satisfaction is also higher because you’re showing subscribers things they care about. When they care about your messages, they’re less likely to stop opening your emails or unsubscribe.Whether you’re a new e-commerce business or you’ve been in the game for a while, email should have a prominent role in your marketing plan. If you need help getting started with advanced segmentation, there are plenty of email marketing agencies that can help out. You might not have an issue producing your emails, but planning and strategizing how to send them out is equally as important. Let’s look at a few actionable ways to segment your email subscribers so you’re able to send better email marketing messages and reap the rewards.

Ways To Segment Email Subscribers 

Before we jump into the different methods of segmentation, it’s important to note that you shouldn’t attempt all of them at once. The ones you choose will depend on your business, stage, and goals.For example, if you’re just starting your e-commerce business, purchase history segmentation may not make much sense; instead, demographic segmentation may be a better option. Choose the methods that will give you the best results in the shortest time.

  1. Purchase History Email Segmentation

People can say almost anything if they think it’s what you want to hear. For example, if you send out a customer satisfaction questionnaire about a buyer’s experiences while shopping with you, they may not be as critical as they actually feel. This is often the result of the acquiescence bias: Survey respondents tend to agree with all of the questions even if they’re in doubt.In contrast, people will almost always spend money on what they truly want or need. So if they’ve purchased an item in the past, they have a clear interest and are likely to purchase something similar in the future.

In this example from ASOS, the message focuses on shoes. This was sent to my personal inbox because I regularly buy shoes and outerwear from the store. Roughly 70 percent of the messages I get from ASOS are about shoes or jackets. The remaining 30 percent are other products or sales promotions.Even though a customer may have bought just one specific brand from you in the past, that doesn’t mean they won’t buy other brands. The same goes for product categories. Don’t segment customers so they never get emails about your other products.In fashion e-commerce, send more emails relevant to their purchases and browser behavior, but always sprinkle in messages about other product categories and brands that could be of interest.If you’re using a popular e-commerce platform like Shopify or Bigcommerce, it most likely has deep integrations with most email marketing services. You can pull in past purchase data and design email sequences that feature the right products.

  2. Multiple Page Visits 

Think about how you shop for products: You may come across an item while browsing a site. It catches your attention but you’re not ready to buy it at that moment, because you want more information or you get distracted.After some time, if you’re still interested, you’ll go back to the page and check out the item a bit more. Sometimes you buy it and sometimes you don’t.This is a great opportunity for an e-commerce brand to capitalize on that interest and use email segmentation. If someone visits a page only once, they may or may not be interested. If they visit multiple times without buying, however, there’s probably interest — but there’s also something stopping them from purchasing.Trigger an email sequence to begin after someone visits the same page more than once, giving the visitor more reasons to purchase. If it’s a big-ticket item like furniture, you can use language in your emails that focus on the quality and the different ways they can enjoy it.When it’s something less expensive, you can offer a discount that’s time-sensitive or an incentive like free shipping. This type of behavioral segmentation is a powerful way to deliver the right messages to your customers.

In this example, Uniqlo offers a discount for an item the reader has shown interest in and goes a step further by recommending complementary products.Email marketing services designed for e-commerce will allow you to sync your product catalog and dynamically insert relevant products. All you need to do is set specific conditions that will make the email sequence trigger.

   3. Email Behavior

Email behavior is an often-overlooked way to understand the preferences of your customers and subscribers. As an e-commerce store, it’s common to have multiple product categories, but many of your customers will only be interested in one or two.For example, I shop at Beardbrand occasionally. They’ve expanded their catalog to include clothes, hair products, and body products. Beard oil and beard wash products interest me so I ignore almost every other email.

This doesn’t mean Beardbrand is irrelevant to me as a company. It just means the other categories aren’t meeting my needs. The company would save energy by observing my preferences and sending me more emails related to beard products. Though I’m a happy Beardbrand customer, its email marketing plan can be improved with a few strategic changes.In your email marketing service, set up tags or a scoring system that takes into consideration the kind of content people are opening and clicking on. If they mostly open content related to a single product category, add them to a specific list (or segment) that focuses on those kinds of products.Once they’ve been added to the list, reduce the number of general emails they get (but don’t stop them completely). You may have to do a bit more work maintaining separate lists, but the increased conversions will more than make up for it.

    4. Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment is a serious problem in e-commerce; though the statistics vary depending on the source, it’s always above 50 percent. In fact, a study by Barilliance pegged the average cart abandonment rate at 78 percent.Almost 80 percent of customers are leaving after initiating the checkout process. One of the major reasons for this is higher than expected shipping costs, which doesn’t happen in traditional retail — when was the last time you spent thirty minutes filling up your cart only to leave it abandoned in the aisle?You can win back people who abandoned their cart by segmenting them into different groups and sending follow up emails. For example, you can communicate with a returning customer differently than you would a new customer. Or, if the cart value is above a certain threshold, you can offer free shipping or a discount on the order. In every case, however, it’s important to address the common objections you know your customers have.

This example from Jack Wills follows many best design practices for cart abandonment emails: It has a catchy subject line, shows the items that were left behind, gives an incentive, and has a clear CTA.Don’t stop with a single cart abandonment email. Every niche is different, but as a general rule, start with a cart abandonment sequence that has at least two emails. Test the messaging, the time intervals between messages, and even experiment with including social proof — such as reviews, star ratings, and testimonials. These can push up the appeal of your productsWhen you’re happy with the performance of your email sequence, add a few more messages. Observe whether you're able to improve your ROI. If people complain or it doesn’t create much additional revenue, go back to the initial two-part sequence then try again with a different angle.

     5. Interactive Quizzes and Opt-In Surveys 

When people think of interactive quizzes, they tend to focus on the personality quizzes Buzzfeed made popular. In reality, though, quizzes are much more versatile.Use quizzes to recommend products based on your customer’s preferences and segment them into the proper lists or tags. You can also use simple opt-in surveys to find out this information.The key with quizzes and opt-in surveys is choosing the right topic and asking relevant questions. There’s a natural tendency to ask tons of questions that will only benefit you. People will answer every question but they also want to enjoy the process. If they feel the questions aren’t relevant, they’ll abandon the quiz, which means you won’t have the information you want and they won’t get a personalized product recommendation.Choose a topic that will have wide appeal for your audience. For example, if you’re selling bikes, you can create a quiz that helps customers find the right bike for them. If you’re selling clothes, you can make a relevant quiz for each category. Aim for around seven questions and use a mix of text and image answers.

The outcomes are where the magic happens. Incorporate a portion of each person’s answers into the outcomes so it feels like the recommendation is just for them.Even if someone doesn’t buy based on the product recommendation, you now have several deep insights about their preferences. Use that knowledge to continue sending personalized messages over time.

    6. Demographic Email Segmentation 

The final e-commerce email segmentation method is based on the demographics of your audience. Not all demographic information is important for every type of e-commerce brand.For example, if you’re selling toothpaste or other essentials, you may not need to know the gender of your subscribers. If you’re selling shirts, however, gender is very important because men and women don’t typically buy the same shirts.That’s why the first step is understanding what demographic information matters to you. Do you need your customer’s age, income, gender, or education level? At first, focus on the single most important factor and segment people based on that. When you get more comfortable, you can layer on other demographic factors.Once you know what criteria you want to use to segment your customers, find the touchpoints you can use to collect that information. You might choose to make your ask when they’re signing up for your mailing list, when they’re about to check out, or even during your welcome sequence.When you get the information you need, add each customer to the relevant lists in your email marketing software. Then initiate an email sequence that shares your most popular products and content based on their demographic segment.For example, if you’ve segmented subscribers based on gender, send popular content and products that appeal to their specific gender. That means you’ll send popular products for men to one group and popular products for women to another group.They’ll interact with the content or buy the products they have the most interest in. Layer purchase or email behavior on top of demographic data and create even more targeted e-commerce email marketing campaigns.Demographic segmentation is powerful, but often, it’s too general. Think of it as a necessary intermediate step that helps you get a deeper understanding of your audience’s preferences.

Segment Your Emails and See A Higher ROI 

E-commerce email segmentation is no longer optional. The largest retailers in the world have been using it for years, and your customers have come to expect it.Pick one or two of these six methods of e-commerce segmentation and focus on them until they’ve yielded a positive ROI. Once you’re happy with those results, move on to the next strategy. Over time, you’ll come to realize that no other channel can compete with the return you get from email marketing.

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Email is king when it comes to talking directly to your customers. Sure, we might send texts or share voice notes, but we all still check our emails. It’s how we keep in touch with work and the businesses we connect with. 

As an email marketer, this puts you in prime position to get your business’s brand right into the hands of your customers. The problem, however, is that you must first get past the metaphorical guard dog known as the secure email gateway (SEG). 

SEGs use sophisticated methods to identify and block spam and phishing emails from ever entering a person’s inbox. While your email newsletters should go through, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will. That’s why businesses need to know what a secure email gateway is and how it works. Know this key info, and you’ll be able to improve the chances of your emails reaching their destination. 

What are email security gateways? 

Protecting yourself from cyber threats is the basis of all cybersecurity risk assessment services. One of the biggest gaps in any security armor is phishing emails. If they get through and someone clicks a link they shouldn’t have, it’s almost impossible to stop the damage. 

The victim could be anyone. The link could lead to a ransomware virus that holds your data captive or be the start of a data breach. It could even lead to a traditional scam that has you input your credit card details so a thief can steal them. 

For all these reasons and more, email providers consistently invest in security features to help protect their customers. One such feature is an email security gateway. 

A secure email gateway uses AI and machine learning to screen incoming emails, identify spam, and stop it from entering. If there’s any doubt, the system quarantines the email in your spam box for review. 

Why are secure email gateways important?

While we are getting better at filtering out spam emails, an estimated 45.6% of emails sent in 2023 were still spam. This poses a massive security risk for consumers, businesses, and governments alike. 

According to IBM, businesses are hit the hardest, with the global average cost of each successful phishing attack increasing to $4.88M USD. The attacks don’t just hit businesses, either, with attacks targeting individuals and even charities.

Just as phishing and spam emails have become more sophisticated, so have the tools designed to protect against them. All providers, including big names like Gmail, use SEGs to secure communications and other features, such as Gmail’s unsubscribe feature

What do SEGs flag as spam? 

SEGs continually update their parameters. This means that what they check for is constantly in flux. What SEGs look for today, for example, could include: 

  • Strange or suspicious subject lines
  • Highly urgent capitalization or excessive exclamation points
  • Strange URLs
  • Poor grammar and/or spelling
  • Generic greetings that don’t address the recipient 
  • Suspicious email addresses
  • The volume of emails sent at once
  • Attachment types 
  • Image-heavy content 

SEGs are far more advanced than just ticking boxes, but that doesn’t mean your emails can’t get blocked or sent to spam. After all, you might put together a great email campaign, but if your email is too image-heavy, it might get quarantined or sent to spam. 

The good news is that once you know what the SEGs look for, you can work to design better emails. Beefree can help you get started, with a range of templates for responsive email designs.

How to create newsletters with secure email gateways in mind 

The good news is that you can implement and send out most, if not all, of your newsletter ideas without issue. So long as the emails are well-made and are sent at a reasonable frequency, you’ll be golden. 

Start by first improving your security methods

In general, you should always look at ramping up the security measures in your business. You can use one of the top types of risk assessment matrix to understand your business's threats and how to resolve them. Then, since you already have that information, you can use it to create better newsletters and emails. 

Make sure the personalization feature works

One of the biggest red flags for an SEG is a generic greeting. Adding Dear Sir/Madam at the start isn’t going to fly in today’s world. Even if your email gets through, it’s unlikely the recipient will open it. 

That’s why you need personalization. Linking your email marketing tools to your customer relationship management system means you can offer easy personalization, like addressing your customers by name, or even offering personalized recommendations based on their order history. 

Avoid image-only emails 

Image-only emails are tempting for an email marketer. They’re striking, they look good, and you can fine-tune what they look like in Photoshop or another image editor. 

They can also be a red flag for SEGs.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: enrich your emails. The best part about this approach is that it also improves the accessibility. Improving email accessibility will help ensure that all your customers can engage with your emails on their terms. Those emails will also load faster, look great on all devices, and be more engaging. 

Align your emails with the landing pages 

SEGs look out for suspicious links. A link might be suspicious if there’s a misspelling or if the link doesn’t sound like the content in the email. So, how do you ensure that SEGs don’t see any of your links as suspicious? 

You make them predictable. 

An easy way to do this is to create a landing page from an email. On top of aligning the landing page with the content of the newsletter, you’ll want to: 

  • Make a custom URL for every link that matches the content of the page 
  • Ensure there’s no misspelling
  • Don’t use urgent language around your link

Use 2FA to boost security

Do you need 2FA to get past SEGs? No, but it’s a great way to help protect you and your customers. 

You can protect sensitive data by adding user identity verification. For example, a customer may get an order confirmation email but wants to cancel or change the delivery details. Including a two-factor authentication step ensures only the customer can request changes. 

Building in extra security features puts your customers at ease. It also protects your endpoints and, in turn, your business. So, no, you don’t need 2FA to get past SEGs, but it’s worth looking into for you and your customers’ protection. 

Avoid urgency 

Urgency can be a flag for SEGs. So: 

  • DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS
  • Minimize the use of exclamation points

Think of the copy in your newsletter as a chance to win over your audience, not scare them into clicking the link. Doing this will improve your relationship with your customers since they’ve come to you on their terms. It’s also essential to get emails past the SEG.

Key takeaways 

Secure email gateways are a primary defense against spam and phishing attacks, but they can pose a problem for email marketers. By working to understand the security risks associated with email scams, you can then understand what your email needs to make it into inboxes. 

From there, you’ll want to make your emails more personable, accessible, and secure. Once you’ve found that sweet spot, your newsletters will be more likely to get past the secure email gateway and into your audience’s inboxes. 

Getting Started with Beefree: A Guide to Streamlined Email and Landing Page Creation

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Creating professional emails and landing pages can be challenging for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're designing a newsletter, promoting an event, or driving a marketing campaign, ensuring that your emails and landing pages are visually appealing, engaging, and efficient to produce is no small task. That’s where Beefree comes in.

Beefree is a robust tool for designing emails and landing pages with ease, offering templates, automation features, and seamless integrations. Regardless of your industry or goal, Beefree empowers you to craft high-quality communication and marketing materials quickly and effectively. By providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience, it helps businesses transform their creative ideas into polished campaigns without requiring extensive technical expertise.

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Why use Beefree for professional email campaigns?

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of using Beefree, let's quickly go over why this tool is worth your time. There are a lot of email marketing tools out there, but Beefree stands out from the crowd for a reason. Let’s break down the unique benefits that make it an invaluable asset for anyone serious about email marketing:

Design made easy:

According to HubSpot, well-designed emails can drive open rates as high as 30%. Maybe you’re following up with leads from a recent webinar or you want to reach potential clients after a product launch. But you're finding yourself stuck because crafting professional emails and landing pages that capture attention is no easy feat.

With Beefree’s intuitive design tools and a library of over 1,700 templates tailored for various industries and purposes, you can achieve professional results without the guesswork. The wide variety of pre-designed options ensures that you can find a solution that aligns perfectly consistent with your brand.

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Time-saving features:

Speed is key, especially if you’re running time-sensitive campaigns. Beefree simplifies the design process with reusable content blocks, real-time collaboration tools, and the ability to transform emails into landing pages with a single click. These features enable you to produce high-quality materials in less time, allowing you to focus on strategy and content rather than struggling with technicalities.

According to a Beefree report, 82% of users report faster email creation. The ability to save and sync reusable content blocks means you can replicate what’s working without reinventing the wheel each time. Once you find a winning format, you can use it again and again with minor tweaks to fit the audience or campaign.

Maybe you’re following up with leads from a recent webinar or you want to reach potential clients after a product launch. With Beefree’s templates, you can get those messages out quickly and make sure your brand stays top-of-mind for your audience.
Using email cadence software like QuickMail ensures that outreach campaigns maintain a structured and effective flow, preventing overwhelming inboxes while keeping engagement high.

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Increased engagement:

A significant 64% of Beefree users report an 11% or more increase in click-through rates after using the platform. By enhancing the visual appeal and personalization of your emails, Beefree helps you achieve better engagement with your audience. The ability to test and iterate your designs ensures continuous improvement in performance.

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Getting started with Beefree templates

Alright, now that you know why Beefree is so powerful, let’s talk about how you can get started with their massive library of templates. This section will walk you through choosing and customizing a template that works for you.

1. Choose your template

The first thing you want to do is pick a template. Beefree’s catalog has templates for just about every sector—whether you're in retail, healthcare, SaaS, you name it. With a variety of options, you can find something that suits your goals perfectly, whether for a simple newsletter or detailed marketing report templates. Say you're promoting a webinar—just pick a template that’s built to highlight your CTAs, and you're off to the races.

The best part? You’re not starting from scratch. You save hours by picking a pre-designed template, and then it’s just a matter of customizing it to fit your brand. Beefree's templates are super flexible—add or remove elements, change colors, switch up the fonts, rearrange layouts—make each email uniquely yours without the hassle. This flexibility is especially beneficial for maintaining a low code architecture in website design.

2. Personalize

Consistency is key to building trust, and when your emails have a cohesive look, it helps recipients recognize your brand. It is also important to follow a brand style guide for your email campaigns so that the audiences can associate elements like your logo, colors, and fonts easily with your brand.

When using a template, customization is key to making your emails and landing pages feel unique and relevant. With Beefree’s drag-and-drop editor, you can easily tweak templates to align with your branding. Adjust colors, fonts, and layouts, or add personalized content such as recipient names and company details. The flexibility ensures that your final output is as distinctive as your brand’s voice.

Plus, with so many people opening emails or landing pages on mobile devices, Beefree’s mobile design builder guarantees that they look great no matter what device they’re on. When your emails look good, people trust your brand more, and that makes them more likely to click through and take action.

Personalization isn’t just a nice touch; it’s essential for engagement. According to Campaign Monitor, personalized subject lines can increase open rates by 26%. By tailoring your designs to speak directly to your audience, you can create a more impactful experience. Furthermore, the platform’s collaborative features allow team members to provide input and make edits in real-time, enhancing efficiency and creativity.

1. Export

So, you’ve picked and customized your template—now it’s time to send those emails.

One of the coolest things about Beefree is that it plays nice with just about every major email platform out there—Mailchimp, HubSpot, Outlook, Quickmail—you name it. This means you can create a killer email in Beefree, connect it to your favorite email platform, and schedule it all from one place. For more advanced needs, many businesses choose a CRM with email integration, to seamlessly combine customer management and automated outreach.

Start designing for free

Beefree simplifies the process of creating visually appealing, professional emails and landing pages, saving you time and boosting engagement. Whether you’re looking to streamline your workflow or enhance your marketing efforts, Beefree offers the tools and flexibility to meet your needs.

The best part? You’ll save time and see increased engagement, connecting with your audience in a meaningful way. In a world where everyone’s fighting for inbox space, Beefree helps you stay ahead of the game by simplifying the process while delivering professional results. So, why wait? Dive into Beefree today and see how it can transform your email campaigns.

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