Why e-mail is a must for any eCommerce brand

No more fighting with social media algorithms, no more devastating Google updates. It’s time for you to take back ownership of your company’s growth by taking back control of the entire customer experience a.k.a owned marketing. Email is owned marketing at its best, and in this blog, we’ll dive into the advantages of email marketing.

Let’s start with some eye-opening stats, which back up what I’m about to tell you:

• There are 3.9 billion daily email users—and this number is expected to hit 4.3 billion by 2023.

• Shoppers spend 138 percent more when marketed to through email compared to those who don’t receive email offers.

• Four percent of email marketing traffic will make a purchase compared to two percent of search engine traffic and less than one percent of social media traffic.

• Email marketing has an average return on investment (ROI) of 122 percent, which is significantly higher than other marketing channels.

I hope these stats got you interested in learning more about email marketing. Let’s dive in.

1 - Email is a low-cost marketing channel.

Email is a low-cost marketing channel—especially when compared with social media advertising and paid search. Brands are estimated to spend close to $95 billion on Facebook and Instagram advertising by 2021—a rise of 22.5 percent just this year. 

Alternatively, you can set up email marketing for free with some providers and for a comparatively low cost once you’ve started to grow your email list. 

Email also usually offers a better ROI—as much as 122 percent on average—which is significantly higher than other marketing channels.

2 - Drive more sales with highly targeted marketing messages.

Why are targeted messages so powerful? They often lead to better customer engagement, more conversions, and a better subscriber experience overall.

Highly segmented emails—in particular—have the power to drive three times more revenue per recipient (RPR) than unsegmented emails.

There are lots of ways you can segment your email list to send more targeted messages, such as by:

• Subscriber demographic (age, gender, location, etc)

• Product interest

• Email type and frequency

• Signup method

• Email engagement (opens, clicks, etc)

• Purchase frequency and amount of money spent

• Website interaction

Segmenting your audience is also a great way to show your subscribers that you’ve personalized your emails—beyond just using their names in email subject lines and body copy. Your subscribers (and their crowded inboxes) will thank you for it!

You can even go as far as recommending specific groups of products based on a customer’s order history to drive even more sales and traffic to your website.

3 | Message the right people at the right time

Once you’re sending targeted emails to a segmented customer base, you’ll also be doing something else that’s highly valuable for your business—you’ll be messaging the right people at the right time. Email allows you to control when your customers see your message, something that is not possible on social media platforms.

This improves your email deliverability while driving more conversions, sales, and brand awareness. Average email open rates are around 20 to 30 percent—with some brands experiencing even higher numbers than that—while in contrast, organic Facebook posts are said to only reach around two percent of your fans.

This means your message—the right message—is over ten times more likely to be seen by your customers via email than via your Facebook page.

4 | Improve brand awareness by sharing more content

Email also gives you the space to share more content with your customers, helping to improve awareness of your brand and products.

Through email, you’ll be able to convey specific brand messages—whether they’re about your product’s benefits, enticing discounts and offers, your brand’s stance on certain environmental or economic issues, and whatever else you can think of that resonates with your ideal customer.

5 | Build lasting customer relationships and improve CLV (customer lifetime value)

Your email subscribers have given you a coveted place within their inboxes. They’ve said they want to hear more from you, so you’ve now got the perfect opportunity to build lasting relationships with them, ultimately improving your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV).

All good relationships start with a strong first impression, and with email, this often comes from your automated welcome series. Take the opportunity to say hello, introduce your brand and products to new subscribers, and welcome back existing customers—just like if they’d walked into a brick-and-mortar store.

Email also helps you to improve brand recognition as you’re consistently popping up in your subscribers’ inboxes—and possibly also when they’re already in the frame of mind to buy, such as in the run-up to the holidays or another special occasion.

6 | Get more customer reviews

Email can also help you to collect immediate customer feedback and survey responses, which you can then display on your website, in emails, and across your marketing channels as trust signals—or social proof—to drive even more sales. Don’t forget to also use this feedback to improve customer experiences where necessary.

7 | Save time with automated emails and focus on long-term marketing strategies

Automated emails have the power to outperform campaign emails across the board—with 1,558 percent higher conversion rates and 1,361 percent higher RPR on average—and you can automate almost any marketing process.

Want to introduce your brand and bestsellers to new subscribers? Set up a welcome series. Want to avoid lost sales? Automate your abandoned cart and browse abandonment emails. Want to drive more sales? Automate your upsell campaigns by recommending specific sets of products to subscribers after they’ve clicked certain links in your emails.

By allowing intelligent automation to power your emails, you’ll free up time to focus more on long-term marketing strategies and business goals—rather than only finding the time to work on manual tasks.

8 | Easily analyze and optimize your marketing efforts

When it comes to email marketing, there are various key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to focus on, such as: 

• Email deliverability

• Open rates and click-throughs

• Email conversions

• Revenue per recipient

• Revenue from email

• Customer Lifetime Value

As mentioned before, A/B testing helps you to see what’s working and what can be improved. You can then use these insights alongside your metrics to improve your strategy across all your marketing channels.  Let your email subscribers, a.k.a your most engaged customers and followers, lead the way in telling you what your customers want to see more of.

9 | Boost your sales and revenue

Segmented campaigns, A/B testing, and collecting more customer reviews all have one thing in common—they help to boost sales and revenue. Especially during flash sales and other exciting promotional events like Black Friday, emails can also help you to generate instant sales from subscribers who are ready to buy.

You can also feel this instant impact on a global scale thanks to smart email marketing systems that can send emails at different times based on subscriber location and timezone.

From having more control over your marketing and building lasting customer relationships to driving more conversions and uncovering additional sales opportunities, there are a lot of email marketing benefits for you to reap the rewards from.


Story of AMS is currently looking for someone to work their magic on our own email marketing. Is that you? Check out our career page for more info!