What is Email Marketing and How to Use It in Your Online Store?

What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending commercial, informational or loyalty messages directly to the email inboxes of your customers or potential customers. It is one of the channels with the highest return on investment (ROI) in digital marketing: for every dollar invested, an average return of $36 USD is estimated.

Unlike social media, where reach depends on algorithms, email gives you direct access to your audience without any intermediaries.

Advantages of Email Marketing for Your Online Store

• Affordable cost: compared to paid advertising, email marketing has a very low cost per contact.
• Precise segmentation: you can send different messages based on each user's behavior, location or purchase history.
• Automation: set up emails once and they send themselves at the right moment (welcome, cart abandonment, birthdays).
• Real-time measurement: you know exactly who opened your email, what links they clicked and what converted.
• Channel ownership: your email list belongs to you, unlike followers on social media.

How to Build Your Subscriber List

A quality list is the foundation of any successful email marketing strategy. Never buy lists — contacts must be people who chose to receive your emails. Strategies to grow organically:

• Subscription form on your site: placed in strategic locations like the header, footer or within blog articles.
• Lead magnets: offer something of value in exchange for an email: a discount, ebook, free guide or access to exclusive content.
• Exit-intent pop-ups: triggered when the user is about to leave your site, offering an incentive to subscribe.
• Social media campaigns: drive traffic from Instagram or Facebook to a capture landing page.

Types of Email Campaigns

• Newsletter: periodic send with news, articles or brand updates.
• Welcome email: the first email a new subscriber receives. Has the highest open rates of all email types.
• Cart abandonment email: automatic reminder for users who added products to their cart but didn't complete the purchase. Recovers between 5% and 15% of lost sales.
• Promotional email: offers, discounts and product launches.
• Post-purchase email: order confirmation, review request or complementary product suggestions.
• Re-engagement email: for inactive contacts who haven't interacted in a while.

Best Practices for Effective Emails

• Irresistible subject line: the subject is the first thing the user sees. Use between 30 and 50 characters, personalize with their name and generate curiosity or urgency.
• Responsive design: over 50% of emails are opened on mobile. Make sure it looks great on small screens.
• One clear CTA: every email should have one main action you want the user to take.
• Strategic timing: Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9am and 11am tend to have the best open rates, though this varies by audience.
• Segment your list: don't send the same email to everyone. A customer who bought 2 days ago needs a different message than one who hasn't purchased in 6 months.

Recommended Tools

• Mailchimp: great for getting started, free plan up to 500 contacts.
• Klaviyo: very powerful for e-commerce, with native integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce.
• ActiveCampaign: excellent for complex automations and integrated CRM.
• Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): a good, affordable option with robust features.

Key Metrics to Measure Success

• Open rate: percentage of recipients who opened the email. Healthy average: 20-25%.
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): percentage who clicked a link. Average: 2-5%.
• Conversion rate: percentage who completed the desired action (purchase, registration, etc.).
• Bounce rate: emails that didn't reach their destination. A high rate signals problems with your list quality.
• Unsubscribe rate: percentage that unsubscribed. Keeping it below 0.5% is the goal.