Transactional email messages are those that are triggered to customers in your email list based off of an action they took. Whether it is a welcome message to someone who is new to your email list or an order confirmation to someone who just purchased from your site, it is important to make sure that this type of email is both informative and engaging. Since the customer expectation is so high, it is even more important that you get this email to them in their inbox in a timely manner.
By their very nature, transactional messages should be short, sweet and to the point. They essentially should be an instantaneous response to an action your customer has just taken. For the most part, it is usually in your best interest to deliver an email response within just a few minutes or seconds. Since your customer is actually expecting this email, you are likely to experience incredibly high open and click rates. In addition, transactional emails are a great opportunity to easily cross-market other products to your customer.
One important factor to consider when sending transactional emails is their delivery. Some messages, such as order confirmations and credit card decline notices, are vital to e-commerce and must be delivered instantly. For this very reason, it is usually recommended that you set up all transactional emails on IP addresses separate from your marketing streams. Since transactional emails are sent as one-offs instead of large batches, they tend to be under the radar of ISPs. This then results in better delivery rates, and are also not affected by the bounces and complaints that may coincide with your email marketing efforts.
Although it may require some tech resources, make sure that your transactional emails are built on a system of well-developed API calls. It is crucial that you time your emails properly according to their type. When customers will be expecting an email immediately, make sure that they are not waiting around for long. For these cases, be sure to design your email response to be as close to real time as possible.
You may also consider having a significant waiting period before an email is triggered. An abandoned cart email, for example, would be best received a couple of days to a week after the event occurred. Sending this type of email any sooner would probably not be well received by the customers in your email list since it may come off as hounding them for not purchasing.
Once you have the timing down on any of the emails you send, be sure to have creative that succinctly conveys the message you intend it to. Transactional emails serve a specific purpose that is usually built on dynamic information that is API-driven. Because of this, nearly every transactional email you send can be unique and might contain data that is different for every user. If you have content management systems designed to handle exactly this, it might be a good idea to leverage this functionality to monetize your transactional emails. Whether your business model is built around e-commerce or page views, use extra space in your transactional emails to make product recommendations or link users to other articles and/or landing pages. Since the engagement in transactional emails is so high, use this space wisely. Don’t bombard the user with too much information or ads that could distract from the email’s original intention.
In addition to having triggered single messages in response to a user’s action, consider developing a series of transactional emails. Welcome emails are a great opportunity for this. If you have a lot of content on your website or program, create an email program that slowly educates your customers. For example, you can have one email that is fired off instantly after the address is added to your email list. Perhaps 24 hours later, your system would send a second email and 24 hours after that, a third. In each of these emails, you could focus on the benefits of being in your email list or of different website features.
One last thing to consider about transactional messages is the users who may take advantage of your strategy. There are many smart customers out there who realize that they can easily get discounts or special offers through transactional emails. Since so many companies are trying to win their customers’ dollars, many will include coupons or promotions simply for signing up or leaving a product in their shopping cart. If you do choose to include a discount, make sure to properly suppress those who have received your emails before.
In the end, transactional emails are a very important means of communicating with your customers in real time. If you make sure that they contain relevant information and are delivered in a timely manner, customers will be highly responsive and you can easily rely on transactional messages to be a solid source of revenue.










