Transactional emails are part of the fundamental email marketing process, however, many tend to neglect them and use them in the most basic form.
Did you know, that having good transaction emails can help improve customer satisfaction while giving you long-term marketing benefits? In fact, you can even use a transactional email to further increase CLV without any extra effort.
Today you will learn about 10 transactional email examples that we recommend you actively use to run a smooth business. And we will give you actionable ideas on how to leverage them for marketing benefits and overall business growth.
So let’s begin.
What Is A Transactional Email In General?
A transactional email is an automated email sent based on specific actions such as purchases, account creations, password resets, etc., and is usually used to provide additional details, instructions, and updates.
Unlike a promotional email, a transactional email aims to provide necessary information rather than directly promoting products or services.
Such emails act as crucial touchpoints in the customer journey, helping to improve customer satisfaction and maintain trust.
Benefits of Using Effective Transactional Emails
Having transactional emails in place can be quite beneficial in the long run, even if you have not applied any marketing touch to them.
Following are some of the key benefits of having transactional emails:
- Strengthens Brand Loyalty
Transactional emails that are timely, helpful, and branded reinforce positive perceptions of your company and strengthen customer loyalty over time.
- Drives Conversions and Revenue
Well-timed and relevant transactional emails can encourage customers to return to your site and complete purchases, driving more conversions and revenue.
- Enhances Customer Experience
Personalized, effective transactional emails enhance the post-purchase experience by keeping customers informed and providing assistance as needed, improving customer satisfaction.
These are benefits that can lead to building long-term relationships with customers.
10 Transactional Email Examples With Marketing Optimization Tips For Business Growth
Transactional emails, when crafted thoughtfully, hold immense potential to boost business growth.
Let’s explore some of the important types and their significance. Plus, let’s learn how you can optimize it for better output.
1. Double Opt-in Email
Double opt-in emails are a great way to build high-quality email lists with clear consent.
When a person opts in via a lead capture form, you can trigger a double opt-in email. On the email, you may get consent from the person that he is permitting you to send future emails.
This helps to ensure most of your leads will be responsive when you send emails.
In most cases, email marketing tools come with this feature by default where a confirmation link is provided for the subscriber to click and confirm subscription.
However, the default emails are just a basic “Click on the link below to consent that you permit ABC Inc. to send emails to you in the future: ” followed by the confirmation link and some links for privacy policy and terms of use.
You can make it even better by improving the copy with additional details on what type of emails to expect. For example, if it’s a blog subscription, you may list down the criteria of the types of emails you will send and what knowledge he will gain from your blogs. This will set clear expectations while also exciting the prospect due to the value you promised.
Now, sure, you may avoid using double opt-in emails. But it will simply mean you may have low-quality leads on the list. We recommend using it. This may show a lower number of leads at the end of the lead generation campaign, but these leads will deliver higher results.
2. Welcome Email Upon Account Creation Or Subscription
A welcome email is triggered when someone creates a new account on your site. It’s a vital first impression that you can leverage to make the customer more excited about your brand.
Normally, you can simply send a basic welcome email with information about the account and share links to various policies.
However, you can make a welcome email more meaningful. You rather make the email about adding more value such as sharing the company story, highlighting customer success stories, or sharing real-life use cases of your products or services.
You may also consider adding some of your best products as suggestions, links to immediately interesting topics or products to look at right now and offer a coupon to trigger a purchase.
If this is a welcome email after a paid subscription, you can provide additional resources to be able to start using the product and services, while highlighting key use cases to help the customer get onboard quickly.
Overall, a welcome email can be used for introduction, promotion, and retention, all in one single transactional email.
Here’s a simple welcome email from Slack:
3. Abandoned Cart Emails
Abandoned cart is a major concern for any online business.
A person just added a product to the cart, and went to the checkout – it’s a nearly finalized purchase. But for some reason, he left without completing the purchase.
This is frustrating but it happens quite often. But, there is a way to win back some of these customers. The solution is to run abandoned cart email campaigns.
It’s basically an email sent to the abandoned customers reminding them of what they left off.
Most people who abandon carts actually leave due to getting busy or getting distracted from moving to some other activity. So, reaching out to them with a reminder often encourages them to come back and complete the purchase.
However, you can take an additional step of making this into a strategic series.
You may use the following series:
- Send a gentle reminder email by directly showcasing cart emails, 1 hour after cart abandonment.
- 24 hours later, send another email this time focusing on the benefits the customer will get using the product.
- 3 days later, send an email offering a small coupon discount to complete the purchase before stock runs out. However, add additional product suggestions below the main CTA and state that he could purchase something else with the coupon as well.
- 7 days later, give a final 24-hour notice about the “coupon about to expire” and the cart will no longer be held.
This is just 1 example of using abandoned cart email campaigns creatively to trigger conversion. You may find more suitable ways to achieve this by testing different campaigns with your customers.
Overall, abandoned cart email campaigns hold great potential to help you increase conversions and boost revenue.
If you don’t have it in place, then start using it now as it is one of the most successful transactional email automation strategies out there.
4. Order Confirmation Email
An order confirmation email is as simple as it sounds. It’s an email immediately sent after an order is placed with a summary of what was bought, quantities, pricing breakdowns, confirmed payment method/status, shipping address, and delivery timelines.
While this creates transparency on what was ordered and when to expect the delivery, you may make it more optimized.
Following are a few tips to make an order confirmation email more optimized:
- Suggest related products below the order summary area.
- Add a link to upgrade (if it’s a subscription).
- Offer a coupon on the next purchase.
The idea is to try and trigger more sales from the same customer after their initial order.
So, you can now use an order confirmation email for more than just a simple transactional email, and trigger additional sales or actions from the customers.
5. Password Reset Email
A common mistake most businesses make is they do not optimize the password reset emails.
While this is a straightforward ordeal, you can steal and leverage it to get additional brand value.
Normally, a password reset email is a simple email that includes a link to click to get the option to set a new password. The approach is used to maintain security rather that allowing a direct change of password on the website.
However, instead of sending a plain email, you may use an intuitive design that reflects your brand such as adding a log, using brand colors, adding company details in the footer, etc.
You may also include important links such as links to troubleshooting resource pages, product pages, or useful resource pages to let people explore more content.
The core focus will be the password reset link, but you can get some additional brand value.
Overall, it’s a transactional email that conveys security while allowing some brand benefit.
Here’s an example of a simple password reset email with brand optimization.
6. Feedback Request Email
Once you have delivered a product, it is important to get feedback from your customers to understand their satisfaction with your business.
The only logical thing to do here is to set up a transactional email series right after an order is considered complete, to request feedback.
In this series, the 1st email would be to receive feedback on your delivery and shopping experience. And then there should be a 2nd email 1 week after delivery to get reviews on the products you sold.
However, don’t just send a basic “Give us feedback on your experience…” Try to add more specific questions such as “Was the packaging well-handled” or “What do you think was complicated while paying for your products?”
In case of the product review request, you may include a survey form to ask questions related to the product in detail (mostly applicable when you are selling less product variations or when you are selling your own products).
Or, you could keep the 2nd email about just getting the review (or rating), and then add a 3rd email to the series where you can add this survey form to ask questions about the product. In this case, you may offer some sort of incentive to take the survey.
These added questions can make them feel valued since you cared enough to ask for their feedback.
In short, you may proactively ask for reviews or suggestions from the customers to make them feel valued while getting notes on areas to improve on.
7. Trial or Subscription Expiration Email
Expiration emails or renewal emails are essential to make customers take action while they still realize the value of your product.
For example, let’s say you offered a 15-day trial on your course membership site. 24 hours before the trial ends, send a reminder that the trial is about to end and the customer should subscribe if they want to continue using it without any interruptions.
The same can be done when a customer’s subscription is about to expire, with a slight change. In this case, you may use 2 emails – one to be sent 1 week prior to expiry, and another 24 hours before expiry.
For the trial expiry reminder email, you may also include a coupon for a small discount to trigger a subscription.
These reminder emails are very useful because people often tend to forget when their trial or subscription will expire. If the customer is satisfied with your product or service, he/she will end up taking action.
8. Order Cancellation Email
Sometimes, customers may cancel an order they placed earlier, leading to a refund.
In this case, you may trigger an email to share your sadness about the situation and apologize for any inconvenience. Plus, you may try ask for honest answers from the customer as to why the order was cancelled.
At the same time, you should promise better quality with your service moving forward and make a few alternate suggestions that the customer may choose to purchase instead.
You may even offer a small coupon to insist the customer place another order from your website.
The main goal of the order cancellation email is to inform the customer that the cancellation was initiated and show that you care about the customer.
And then you may try the additional tactics to make sure the customer is not entirely lost.
9. Payment Failure Notification
This email is pretty straightforward. A customer tried to pay for an order online but the payment failed. Hence you may trigger an email to try and assist him/her to successfully make the payment.
When it comes to this email, you know your customer is ready to pay. Hence, it’s best not to create any distractions with additional marketing tactics. Rather try to provide guides to complete the purchase in the right way.
You may offer links to step-by-step guides that show how to make the payment properly for each payment method. Offer suggestions such as trying to reload and input the checkout fields again, trying to use a different payment method or cart, clearing browser cache, etc.
Make this email entirely focused on assisting the customer to complete the purchase.
10. Shipping and Delivery Confirmation Email
Once the order is placed, you may send out a couple of emails to give shipment tracking updates and the final delivery notice. This will create assurance among customers keeping them excited about the product until delivery.
Though there is less scope of marketing in these emails, you can still include complementary or relevant product suggestions in the email to try and get customers place more orders.
Best Practices For Crafting High-Performing Transactional Emails
Crafting transactional emails that captivate customers requires thoughtful design tailored to the use case. While each message serves a unique purpose, there are certain best practices that you may apply to increase the effectiveness of a transactional email. Here are a few best practices you may follow.
i. Personalization Techniques
Personalization makes transactional emails feel more meaningful and tailored. By including customer names, order details, user preferences, or past interactions in email content or subject lines, you can better contextualize your message to each recipient’s unique relationship with your brand. Personalized subject lines also boost open rates by catching attention and conveying relevance. Some examples of easy personalization include:
- Insert first name or company name in greetings
- Display most recently purchased items
- Reference knowledge of past purchases or activity
- Segment users by product usage or tier to tailor content
Small personalization cues make subscribers feel recognized as valued individuals rather than faceless recipients.
ii. Optimization for Mobile Responsiveness
Most people online test to check emails over mobile phones. Hence mobile responsiveness is crucial.
Try to prepare emails that are easily readable and have no formatting or design issues on mobile devices. Short paragraphs, large fonts like Arial, and appropriately sized tap targets enhance previews and full email reading on phones and tablets.
Always manually test responsiveness across devices and operating systems. Check padding, widths, and alignment to allow comfortable reading without tightly packed or truncated tap targets, retaining clarity and preventing delivery issues.
iii. A/B Testing and Iteration for Improvement
Continuously A/B testing transactional email templates enables further engagement optimization over time. Send slight subject lines or content variations to small batches, compare open/click/bounce rates, and unsubscribe across variants to deduce what resonates best with your customers.
You may test emotional cues, length, and urgency in subjects, try different CTA placements and designs in the email, use multiple template variations, etc. Based on the A/B Testing data, you can then refine page layouts, tone, imagery, and calls-to-action accordingly.
This should be a continuous process for any automated email marketing aspects such as transactional emails.
How To Set Up Transaction Email Automation In WordPress
To automate transactional emails in WordPress, utilizing email marketing tools like Mail Mint streamlines the process. Mail Mint offers comprehensive automation workflows tailored for WordPress and WooCommerce, ensuring efficient and effective email delivery.
To be able to automate transactional email campaigns in WordPress, you need to use an email marketing plugin that comes with features such as trigger-based email marketing automation, email customization, and dynamic personalization within emails.
A great tool to handle this is Mail Mint.
Mail Mint For Transactional Email Marketing
Mail Mint is an easy but powerful email marketing automation tool built specifically for WordPress and WooCommerce stores. The plugin makes email marketing effortless along with some core features for email automation that are perfect for creating and sending automated transactional emails.
Here are some key features that make Mail Mint ideal for transactional email workflows:
- Visual Email Automation Workflows.
- Triggers for various customer actions & order statuses in WooCommerce.
- Abandoned cart recovery campaigns.
- Automation triggers for WordPress.
- Customer contact management and easy sync with WooCommerce.
- Easy email campaign & sequence builder.
- Drag and drop email builder with full customization control.
- Personalization with dynamic customer data.
- AI integration to generate good subject lines and email copies.
- Tons of pre-built email templates and automation recipes.
The plugin is well-known for its ease of use and has one of the best UIs for automation workflows which is easily comparable to some of the best SaaS tools out there.
Plus, one of its upcoming features is to allow customizing all default emails sent by WooCommerce, which will make it the best solution for transactional emails.
So if you are using a WordPress site or have a WooCommerce store, then we recommend you give Mail Mint a try.
Conclusion
These are 10 transactional email ideas that you should implement for your online business no matter what industry you are part of. In fact, even if you do not follow the additional marketing tips we provided, you should at least have all of these email automation set up to build up a loyal and satisfied customer base.
However, for maximum ROI, it’s only logical to leverage every opportunity possible to increase conversions (as long as it doesn’t get annoying to the customer). So we highly recommend you at least test out some of these strategies. You won’t be disappointed.
And, if you are part of WordPress, then do give Mail Mint a try. It’s one of a kind when it comes to ease of use and will help you with so much more for email marketing than just transactional emails.
Go ahead and boost your overall ROI using effective transactional emails. Let automation handle the hard work while you focus on other areas of your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why are transactional emails important for businesses?
Transactional emails provide vital information, creating engagement, and nurturing customer relationships, leading to improved retention and revenue. And on the process, if you use some marketing strategies, you may even drive conversions.
2. How can I optimize abandoned cart emails for better results?
Optimize abandoned cart emails by offering incentives, creating urgency, simplifying the checkout process, and employing compelling subject lines.
3. What distinguishes transactional emails from promotional emails?
Transactional emails are triggered by specific user actions (like purchases, account creations, or password resets), providing necessary information or updates, whereas promotional emails focus on marketing products or services.
4. What metrics should businesses track to measure the success of transactional emails?
Key metrics for evaluating transactional email performance include open rates, click-through rates (CTRs), conversion rates, delivery rates, and customer engagement (e.g., responses, and feedback). Tracking these metrics will help you refine strategies for improved results.
5. Can transactional emails be used for marketing purposes?
While the primary purpose of transactional emails is to deliver relevant information, you can include subtle marketing elements like product recommendations or related offerings without compromising their primary informative nature.
