How To Use Transactional Emails For Marketing: 5 Ways That Work

This article was last updated on September 1, 2020

Transactional emails are not usually a part of a marketing team’s arsenal. Emails sent as part of a user’s registration process or order confirmation are viewed as legal compliance and not really seen as a platform to market your business. Yet, there is a lot of merit in using transactional emails for marketing.

Consider this – the average open rate of transactional emails is around 70%. In comparison, regular marketing mailers see an open rate of just over 15%. The click-through rates are higher too – 17% of users click on transactional emails compared to just 3% on marketing emails. The marketing potential of transactional emails is too good to miss. A look at transactional emails sent by some of the most popular eCommerce and media portals would give you an idea of how to use transactional emails for marketing purposes.

1. Up-selling Products

An average customer on Amazon receives four transactional emails each time they make a purchase. The first email is sent soon after a transaction is complete. This is followed by emails to confirm product dispatch, to alert the user when the product is out for delivery and finally to confirm delivery. Amazon uses these notification mailers to up-sell other products that this customer might be interested in.

2. Engaging Users

The success of a site like BuzzFeed relies on its ability to engage and entertain its readers. The average visitor views nearly 45 pages of content each month. At the same time, the long-term sustainability of a platform like BuzzFeed depends on its ability to generate a mailing list. How do you get users to sign up without breaking their content consumption? BuzzFeed does this by continuing to feed its users with highly engaging content from within their transactional emails. Here is what a typical welcome email from BuzzFeed looks like.

The objective of an email as this is to get the user to click on a link and get back on their site to consume more content.

3. Promo Giveaways

Glassdoor is a nifty tool for job seekers to get a fair idea of what their peers are earning. But this tool will only be useful for as long as users continue to share their income details with the site. Glassdoor routinely organizes promos to nudge more users into sharing their latest pay details. Such giveaways are also promoted on the service’s transactional emails that are sent to both new and existing users.

4. Transaction Follow up

In all the instances above, the transaction email has merely been tweaked to include marketing elements within the message. But some businesses make use of the channel to send a completely marketing-oriented message. The subscription box company Birchbox is a good example of this. The company sends a follow-up email to users who have added products to their cart but fail to checkout. While there is nothing ‘transactional’ about this email, the message is funneled through the transactional mail pipeline.

Levi’s goes a step further and offers a unique discount to customers who have abandoned their cart. Here, in the screenshot below, you can see a time-bound discount offer sent to a customer who did not complete their purchase.

5. Referral Marketing

Uber is a great example of a company that has grown primarily through referrals. The company offers attractive discounts to users who refer other commuters to the app-based cab hailing service. Users who hail a ride on Uber are sent invoices at the end of their trip, and these notifications come with a call-to-action to refer other customers to the ride-hailing app.

All said and done, it is important to not overdo your marketing within a transactional message. The core objective of a transaction notification is to provide users with details regarding their sign up or order. Marketing messages within a transactional email must not impede this dissemination of information.

Want to get inspired by 25+ Beautifully Designed Transactional Emails?

About the author:

Anand Srinivasan is the founder of Hubbion, a project management app that has been listed among the top 20 in its category by Capterra. He is a marketing consultant by profession.