Dollar for dollar, email continues to be one of the most cost-effective digital marketing tactics. While most people are familiar with traditional email marketing, many Shopify stores are finding success by using transactional emails as a marketing channel.
The order confirmation email from your Shopify store may seem like an insignificant piece of the buyer customer journey, but it's actually the first step of your customer's post-purchase experience. Don't discount it.
What is an Order Confirmation Email?
When a customer purchases from your website, Shopify makes it easy to send out an automated order email notification.
The information in the email body should:
- give your customer a confirmation that the Shopify order was received
- include details of the items in the order and cost as a type of receipt
- set their expectations for next steps like when to expect a shipping confirmation email
But those are just the basics. A savvy store owner will also customize a Shopify email to go beyond these transactional functions because the checkout process is only the beginning of a journey to cultivate customer loyalty. The goal is to make each point of communication count.
Best practices for Shopify order confirmation emails
Order confirmation emails can be a great way to engage with customers. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when creating order confirmation emails for your Shopify store:
Keep brand voice consistent
Remember, content is king. The first edits to make to your order confirmation email should be the copy. Make sure to include all of the pertinent information listed above, but keep the style and tone in line with the copy on your website, your social media presence, SMS notifications, and all other customer communications.
If your Shopify store uses quippy and playful language, don't leave your order confirmation email with the default copy. Ensure your customer experience offers the same tone throughout all of our Shopify email notifications.
Customize the visual style
Like keeping your brand voice consistent, match your brand visual style across all of your emails to your Shopify store's same style.
While it's possible to find developers to create custom HTML email templates, Shopify email templates provide a solid design base with which to start.
A Shopify admin can easily make edits to existing templates to update the header, footer, modify CSS for custom colors, and add a custom logo.
Remember to test
Before sending your emails out into the world, always conduct testing. Even if the email preview looks flawless, different email clients uniquely display emails. Do your best to view test emails on the top clients like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail. Also, remember to view the emails both on your desktop and on a mobile device.
It's best practice to make plain text emails available just in case.
Communicate proactively
Beyond the order confirmation email and the shipment tracking email, it's essential to communicate proactively to your customers when delays or exceptions occur. These notification emails help manage customer expectations when the inevitable snafu occurs.
Identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities
The order confirmation email, shipment confirmation email, and other post-purchase emails are great times to offer customers valuable content, so they stay engaged with your brand between purchases.
Because post-purchase transactional emails enjoy significantly higher open rates and click-through rates, they can be an effective marketing channel for cross-selling and upselling other products to your customer base.
Overcome cart abandonment
Another critical type of Shopify email combats cart abandonment. Cart abandonment is when shoppers add items to their online shopping cart and then leave the online store before purchasing those items.
Sending reminder emails to shoppers when they have left items in their cart has been shown to significantly reduce the number of abandoned carts.
Shopify order confirmation FAQs
Here are some other frequently asked questions related to Shopify order confirmation emails.
Does Shopify send confirmation emails?
Yes, Shopify sends basic purchase confirmation emails to customers. Even so, many vendors prefer to send all of their emails through a third-party integration.
Can you send emails from Shopify?
No, Shopify is not an email software. Most Shopify store owners choose to integrate with a third-party email application. The most popular is Klaviyo. Klaviyo also allows you to track your emails' engagement rates, so you can see if your email lists are engaging with your content. Apps like Klaviyo are better suited to running email marketing campaigns.
How do I message customers on Shopify?
To message customers, either through live chat or SMS, Shopify integrates with other third-party applications.
Does Shopify send the tracking number to the customer?
Yes, Shopify offers the basic functionality of sending the package tracking number to the customer. Shopify will send the tracking number when it notifies the customer when the package is shipped. However, if you would like to provide customers with more sophisticated shipment tracking that shows when the box is out for delivery, failed attempts, exceptions, etc., you will need to use a third-party integration.
All of these third-party integrations are available on the Shopify app store.
Elevate post-purchase experiences with Malomo
On average, buyers check tracking emails 4.6 times for each purchase. Applications like Malomo lets you take advantage of these high engagement rates by enriching ecommerce post-purchase emails with engaging content.
Branded tracking pages
Malomo creates sleek, custom-branded shipment tracking pages that fit your brand's aesthetic— all without coding.
Shipping updates
Malomo makes proactive communication with your customers, as discussed above, a breeze by offering shipping updates to notify your customers when delays or exceptions occur.
Integrations with leading platforms
Malomo integrates with Shopify and other third-party applications like Klaviyo so that you can customize your shipment tracking emails directly within the Klaviyo platform.
