11+ Genius Confirmation Email Examples Which Make More Sales



ecommerce



Written by Franco Varriano.

Imagine if the world of email marketing were to suddenly change overnight.

In this new world, you’d only be allowed to send one email type to your email list of customers. Which email type would you choose to send? Would it be discounts, welcome emails, or newsletters?

This email type would have to be the most effective emails you send…ever. Not only must it keep your list of customers happy, but it has to make you sales. It would be the one email type to rule them all.

The email type which fulfills this criteria is order confirmation emails.

Order or Purchase confirmation emails have some of the highest open rates in the industry. According to Conversio, the average open rate for transactional emails is less than 18%, yet order confirmation emails have an open rate of 70%!

On top of that, a report commissioned by Borrell Associates, Inc. and Merkle, stated that 64% of consumers believe that these emails are the most valuable emails in their inbox.

These two facts alone make confirmation emails a golden opportunity to market your business and make more cash.

But there’s more. As an online store, your sales happen over the internet. Because of this, it’s critical that you send updates to your customers about their orders. Otherwise you’ll have a legion of people on social media posting negative reviews of your business faster than you can say “sorry.”

So, not only are order confirmation emails a great way to keep your customers from picking up the phone to call a consumer watchdog, they’re also a great way to build trust, show off your brand, and make more money.

That’s right: your confirmation emails can also be a source of marketing and sales.

In this article, we’ll show you a collection of purchase confirmation emails examples and templates which you can use to achieve all of your email marketing goals.

What Goes Into Order Confirmation Emails

First off, let’s just define what an order confirmation emails are.

They are not emails asking new subscribers to confirm their subscription. Nor are they welcome emails which you send to new subscribers

An order confirmation email tells your customer that you’ve received their order, you’re processing it, and that their order will be with them shortly.

It’s the 21st century equivalent of receiving a receipt.

So, what exactly should go into your order confirmation email?

At a minimum, it should include the following details:

The name(s) of the products they’ve ordered.

The quantity(ies) of the products they’ve ordered.

The photo(s) of the products they’ve ordered.

The order number, reference, or ID.

A billing summary.

Payment information they’ve submitted.

The shipping address.

The shipping method.

The estimated arrival date.

Some bonus pieces of information are:

Shipping tracking info.

Contact details, in case they have any questions or problems.

You might think in this age of automation you don’t need any contact info. But even with an automated business model, you still need a human touch. You’ll be surprised by the number of people, who for instance enter the wrong shipping info, or purchased the wrong item.

You could wait for them to go on to your site, find your contact information, and have them reach out to you on their own initiative. But which is more likely?

Your customers are proactive individuals who are on top of their shopping, reach out and ask you to accommodate their request.

Or

Your customers realize three weeks later their order hasn’t arrived. They assume the fault is yours, and immediately cast blame on you, without checking if they made a mistake. They send an email accusing you of stealing their money, and a threaten to post negative reviews on social media.

The latter might be a bit of an exaggeration, but people are sensitive to being ripped off, and will react accordingly.

You can avoid this scenario easily: include clear information of your contact details in your order confirmation email. Save heartache for both yourself and your customer.

Examples That Make Money With Order Confirmation Emails

At the beginning of this post, we stated that order confirmation emails are a chance to make more sales. So how would you go about doing that?

Instead of talking about it in theory, we decided to show you real life email examples and email templates from top ecommerce brands that do just that.

Money With Referrals Through Confirmation Emails

Referrals are one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book. Word of mouth has been around since the dawn of commerce, and savvy merchants have tried to encourage referrals ever since.

You can get some of the highest conversion rates with referrals. According to Nielsen, people are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

As we mentioned before, the simplest way to get referrals is to ask for them from a qualified list of people. And who better to refer you customers than your past satisfied customers?

This is why the following brands have encouraged customers to refer their friends in an order confirmation email.

Tradesy

Tradesy incentivizes their customers to refer their friends with an offer of a free store credit. They highlight this in a large call to action beneath the dispatch update copy, at a moment when customers might potentially be considering to purchase again.

AirBnB

Airbnb leaves a referral call-to-action in their spacious and well-designed reservation confirmation email. Note that they also include upsells for experiences that their customers may be interested in buying. We’ll talk about upsells in a bit.

Rover

Rover, a platform to connect dog owners and dog sitters, has a clear referral request in this order confirmation email. Dog owners are always on the lookout for dog sitters, and Rover knows that the best way to tap into this market is to get their customers to refer their dog-owning friends.

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club put their referral program directly under the customer’s order details, giving a clear incentive and instructions.

Cross-Selling With Order Confirmation Emails

Your buyers are your past customers. You’ve already done the hard work of building trust and demonstrating value. So why go to all that effort with someone new, when you already have the contact details of people who’ve already purchased from you in the past?

It costs six to seven times more to acquire new customers than it is to retain old ones. Additionally, repeat customers purchase 67% more than their peers.

Your order confirmation emails are a great place to take advantage of this fact and upsell or cross-sell more products. Something these brands do well:

The TrainLine

The TrainLine, a railway ticket ordering platform, cross-sells a partner’s products to their customers in this order confirmation email. Customers who buy train tickets need somewhere to stay, so are a perfect demographic to whom to sell hotels. And the TrainLine gets a healthy commission for each customer they send to booking.com. Everybody wins.

Indiegogo

Indiegogo, a crowdfunding platform, takes a different approach and cross-sells more than one campaign in their order confirmation email. They remind the reader how many campaigns they’ve supported in the past. This is a clever twist on the consistency law of influence. By reminding the reader they’ve agreed to fund Indiegogo campaigns in the past, readers are more likely to agree to fund future campaigns, in order for their actions to align with their past behavior.

Crate&Barrel

Crate&Barrel has large & clear photos of other products in their order confirmation emails which the customer may like based on recent purchases. The large, beautiful, product photos do more to drive sales than any copy they could write.

Reminding Your Customers Of Your Mission

Your order confirmation email is not just a chance for you to sell your customers more products, it’s a chance for you to sell them on your mission.

Simon Sinek’s, in his viral TED talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action, taught the world that consumers don’t purchase from brands because of how they solve a problem, but purchase from brands because of why they solve a problem.

Great brands constantly convince the market of their mission, so that it can become a cause the consumer can believe in. And your order confirmation email is a small touch point you can use to remind your customer of the reason they bought from you.

Why? Because it increases the chance they’ll buy from you in the future, and maybe become a true fan, evangelizing your brand to their entire network.

Indiegogo

Indiegogo reminds customers of their mission by opening their email with the copy, “You’re making a difference!” This reminds the customer, that it is down to them to fund innovative and passionate projects that wouldn’t receive funding elsewhere.

Everlane

Not Making Money, But Honorable Mentions

There are a variety of ways you can add value in your order confirmation emails, not just to your brand, but to your consumer. These following examples each go about making the experience of checking on your order a unique one.

Fitbit

Fitbit makes their order confirmation email a happy place for customers. The copy has charm and brings a smile to the reader. The confirmation email makes a great impression and reminds customers why they purchased from a great brand like Fitbit.

Harry’s

Not an order confirmation email per se, but Harry’s use this email, a notification of the product’s arrival, as a humorous piece of engaging copy to delight the customer. It’s not just used as a chance to educate the customer, but to also show off their brand, and remind the customer the tone of voice they fell in love when they purchased from Harry’s.

Wrap Up Confirmed

Your order confirmation emails are some of the most important emails your online store can send. It not only updates the customer and lets them know you’re a real live business who’s registered their purchase and is processing their order, it’s also a chance to market your business. These emails will get you some of the highest open rates you’ll ever get in your business – don’t waste this golden marketing opportunity.

Want more tips & tricks to supercharge your email marketing? Don’t forget to check out our Resources page to learn how merchants just like you are using email marketing to increase their revenues.

And take a look at our No-Nonsense, 6-Step Guide to eCommerce Email Marketing for guidance on how to quickly and easily set up a top notch email marketing program for your eCommerce store.



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