While technology helps e-commerce businesses grow in multiple ways, email automation tools and platforms are one of the key aspects that offer diverse benefits. Whether it's generating leads, boosting sales, or increasing awareness, email automation is the perfect solution.
Several businesses in the e-commerce space have evolved successfully by applying these techniques to their well-crafted strategies. Read on to delve into some of the best email automation platforms with their essential features and benefits. In addition, the case studies examples of some e-commerce businesses that used email automation to grow are also covered.
Let’s get started.
Best email automation software for your e-commerce business
Sender
Sender is an email automation tool used by more than 180,000 businesses globally and offers several useful features at affordable pricing.
It comes in a convenient and user-friendly drag-and-drop design with pop-ups, custom emails, forms, and reusable in-built templates.
Benefits/Features
- Automates email and SMS marketing
- Free library of customizable templates and drag-and-drop email builder
- Allows features for email segmentation and personalization to target better
- Extremely high conversions with exceptional pop-ups and sign-up forms
- Excellent email deliverability
Pricing
It offers a Free Forever Plan of up to 15,000 emails and 2,500 subscribers per month with the most premium features. The Paid plan starts at $8 per month.
Hubspot
With over 48,000 small-sized businesses using it, Hubspot offers excellent features that enable effective email automation.
Benefits/Features
- All-in-one CRM
- Landing page builder interface
- Email marketing automation
- Customizes user experience based on user behavior
- Exceptional user interface
Pricing
While it might be costlier for startups, the pricing costs $50/month for the Hubspot Marketing Hub.
Emailsmart.io
Emailsmart is a highly useful email automation tool that offers features for GDPR and compliance with security and privacy. Based in London, it provides services worldwide at affordable rates.
Benefits/Features
- Unlimited contact size and bills only total emails sent
- Offers GDPR compliance for EU users
- Excellent customer support team
- Affordable prices
Constant Contact
As a highly resourceful email marketing solution, Constant Contact lets you craft and send exquisite, powerful emails with excellent emails. With convenient usage, it provides options for Facebook promotions, coupons, and deals to make your email marketing deliver the best outcomes.
Benefits/Features
- Offers clear information on the recipients’ demographics
- Exceptional customer support
- Affordable pricing
- Simple and easy-to-use UI
Pricing
The pricing depends on the number of contacts and starts at $20/month
Active Campaign
Catering to the email marketing automation needs of over 60,000 organizations across the globe, Active Campaign lets you craft drip emails that increase subscriber interactions and offer information on their demographics, history, and such.
Benefits/features
- Offers CRM and marketing automation software
- Excellent customer support
- High email deliverability
- Advanced features
Pricing
The cost of the minimum price plan is $9/month with an annual payment for 500 contacts. At $229/month, the Enterprise plan is the highest-priced.
Case Studies of E-commerce Businesses
Infoshare Academy - Used list-building as a lead magnet to attract customers
Infoshare Academy is a company that provides training and programming courses to students who wish to build a career in IT.
Problem Statement: The main challenge facing the company was to attract Facebook users who wanted to create a career in IT. The objective was to invite them and let them sign up for a dedicated list where they can learn programming through an email marketing series.
Solution: To solve this problem, the marketing team at Infoshare prepares a Facebook ads campaign using “The 125 Coding terms for beginners” as a lead magnet that would offer useful information to the customers and garner their attention.
These email marketing campaigns resulted in 1200 new contacts in a month and 1.31 PLN acquisition costs per contact.
Lesson Learned/Takeaway - Use lead magnets to increase your subscribers in your email list faster.
Landscape. pl case study - email series aimed at increasing education with a 54% sales rate
Landcafe. pl is a highly exquisite online store offering information and education on artisanal coffee beans.
Problem Statement: The store faced common e-commerce challenges like increasing brand awareness among the newsletter audience, boosting sales, and expediting purchase decisions.
Solution: They embraced the welcome email series with the principle of Learn- Like- Trust- Buy. They used these email sequences to create interest and educate their customers on coffee beans. The first mail started as an introduction with highlights on the core ideas of coffee beans.
The next email sequence focused on explaining the product and its benefits. The last email aimed at turning the leads into customers by offering discount coupons to drive more online sales.
These email sequences resulted in a sales rate of 41.3% during the welcome series and 13.3% during discount sales, adding up to the total 54% sales rate.
Lesson learned/Takeaway: Understand what your audience is interested in and impart this knowledge as a part of welcome series email sequences. Use the techniques of email automation tools to bring this together and assign tags to customer behaviors.
TechSoup Polska email marketing - 1200% increase in orders in email marketing over a year
TechSoup Polska Foundation is a community-oriented initiative that helps organizations by enabling them to use various hardware, software, and other technologies to carry out their functions.
Problem Statement: Enabling organizations by allowing them to access various platforms, tools, and technologies, educating them, and establishing professional relationships between partners and associated organizations.
Solution: TechSoup Polska conceptualized and implemented the strategy of sharing newsletters to provide the necessary information to their target audience. They used the newsletters to make information available to their customers on various aspects like - new offers, training invites, and ways to select the perfect tools for remote work.
These email newsletters resulted in a 1200% increase in order value over a year and were sent across to 8666 organizations, with 3 trainings conducted and 20 recommended tools for remote work.
Lessons learned/Takeaway - Newsletters could be a great way to generate revenue. With email lists segmented properly, the right content would be sent to the right audience and allow the open rate of newsletters to increase. In addition, newsletters with similar structures may also help subscribers sail through the content on your website and increase click-through rates, driving more traffic.
Wrapping up
Email marketing automation tools contribute significantly to nurturing your customers or converting your leads. Some of the best email automation tools with their benefits and pricing are outlined in the article.
The ideas and strategies adopted by various e-commerce businesses to boost their sales or drive conversions through email marketing are presented as case study excerpts. Draw inspiration from these companies and unleash the potential of email automation to grow your business.