In this blog, learn the best subject lines, creative campaign ideas, and best practices to make your 2025 April Fools’ Day emails stand out.

How to pull off April Fools’ Day email campaigns without hurting your brand

1. Well-timed

Your April Fools’ email must land in your subscribers’ inboxes early on April 1st when people are expecting jokes and surprises.

Sending it after April 1st will waste your efforts as it has already lost relevance. You also miss the first-mover advantage, as many brands have likely reached their inboxes and captured their attention.

If your audience spans different time zones, consider scheduling or using an email marketing tool to send the emails at the right time.

2. Must be brand-relevant

Your April Fools’ joke should feel like an extension of your brand. It should not be way off the line of your brand messaging, as it can come across as outrageous or off-color.

The aim of the April Fools’ email is to showcase humor, create brand engagement, and drive sales. Hence, the marketing teams must have foresight while creating the April Fools’ campaign and not compromise on the brand identity or values.

For example, if your brand carries a more professional tone throughout the year, try to integrate your products or an offer with an engaging yet subtle prank. Highlight the key offering in the subject lines so that more and more subscribers open it.  

For example, Kind played a clever prank by announcing the start of pumpkin season and later introducing their pumpkin caramel bars in an April Fools’ email. The email featured a brand-relevant yet subtle joke without being over-the-top.

While, if your brand has a playful tone, you can be more adventurous with your prank. The idea is to maintain brand consistency while still being fun.

The other example, HelloFresh, is a great display of wit. They teased subscribers with a new product that combined two fan-favorite meals—only to pull back at the last moment. While some might see it as outrageous, we see it as a clever and playful move.

3. Have a purpose

An April Fools’ email should do more than just make people laugh—it should also serve a purpose. The goal should be both, engagement and conversions. 

Make sure it has a clear call-to-action (CTA), whether to drive traffic to a landing page, promote a new product, or boost social media engagement—your prank should naturally lead to action.

For example, Reebok’s April Fools’ email had one clear purpose—to introduce subscribers to their 50% off running sale—and they made the entire email revolve around it.

Focus on making your email as unique as possible to encourage action. You can also add a gamified element to it. For example, invite subscribers to guess the prank for a discount or tease a fake product and then redirect users to a real promotion.

Soylent introduced a fake lentil-based drink in their April Fools’ email and later cleared the air around it. In the end, they redirected subscribers to their blog with a “Shop Now” CTA.

Pros and cons of using humor in an April Fools’ Day email campaign

Pros

1. Shareability

People love sharing witty and unique humor, one of the reasons why memes on social media are so popular. 

When an email includes humor, it feels less like marketing and more like something worth passing along. This organic sharing increases brand reach without extra ad spend. 

However, make sure your email’s humor aligns with your audience’s interests and justifies your brand identity so that the brand messaging remains consistent.

2. Higher engagement

People engage more with content that evokes positive emotions. It also makes your brand even more likable and memorable to them. 

April Fools’ email instantly sparks curiosity in recipients’ minds because of its witty subject line, which makes them eager to find out more about the email content.

To make your email even more engaging, you can add interactive elements such as games, quizzes, or special offers tied to the prank, encouraging people to participate. 

3. Attention-grabbing

Humor captures attention and keeps people reading. People are so used to getting promotional emails that when they get a humorous email, it simply stands out without any effort. 

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The focus should not be on disappointing them with the email content. Use this attention to boost brand awareness and drive sales with smart product recommendations.

4. Relatability

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Humor makes brands feel more human. People connect with brands that understand their daily struggles, inside jokes, or shared experiences. 

This connection makes emails feel more like conversations with a friend rather than marketing messages.

5. Improves brand trust

Humor builds positive associations, and positive associations build trust. This is because humor lowers defenses in people, making them feel more comfortable. 

April Fools Day campaign breaks the wall of formal marketing and makes the brand come across as more approachable, authentic, and likable.

Cons

1. Could be misinterpreted

Humor is subjective—what one person finds funny, another might find confusing or even offensive. 

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Take into account cultural differences and avoid using extreme or sensitive language to protect brand reputation. 

Brands can also perform A/B testing for their April Fools email before launching it in full force, especially if they are experimenting and unsure about dropping it.

2. Leading to backlash

If a joke is seen as insensitive, offensive, or poorly timed, it can trigger a negative response. Especially in today’s time, where consumers quickly share opinions online, a single misstep can damage a brand’s reputation.

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Your marketing team should monitor social media conversations around the topic you plan to feature in your April Fools email. This will help you understand the right approach to take.

3. Limited time until irrelevancy

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Humor often relies on trends, pop culture references, or current events, which means it has a short shelf life.

If your team is planning to take a witty take on real topics, make sure those topics are currently trending because no one relates to an outdated topic. They just fall flat.

4. Could distract from the overall message

The primary goal of an email campaign is to engage and drive action—humor should support this, not overshadow it. If a joke takes center stage, recipients might remember the humor but forget the actual message. 

A good balance is a must to ensure that the audience laughs but also takes the intended action. For this, make sure the CTA is clear so that the campaign achieves its purpose.

40 subject lines example for your 2025 April Fools’ campaign 

Product & Pricing Pranks:

1. Oops! We Marked Everything $0—Hurry Before It’s Fixed!
2. Breaking: We Now Accept Monopoly Money!
3. Introducing Our Edible Shoes—Tastes Like Savings!
4. Introducing Our New Invisibility Collection—See It?
5. Your Order Ships Free… If You Can Sing!
6. New! Self-Washing Clothes – Just Add Imagination
7. Your Wishlist Items Are Now Free! (Almost)
8. We’re Accepting Barter Trades—Got Any Snacks?
9. We Swapped Prices with Luxury Brands—Lucky You!
10. Oops! We Accidentally Doubled Your Loyalty Points!

Fake Rebrands & Hilarious Announcements:

11. Big News: We’re Rebranding as a Taco Shop!
12. We’re Now a Dating App—Swipe Right for Deals!
13. We’re Now a Pet-Only Store—Sorry Humans!
14. Our Website is Now in Morse Code!
15. Breaking: We’re Launching a Space Delivery Service!
16. Meet Our New AI CEO—Beep Boop!
17. We’re Going Paper-Only… No More Online Shopping!
18. Say Hello to Our New Self-Washing Clothes!
19. NEW FEATURE: Smell Before You Buy Online!
20. Introducing Mind-Controlled Shopping—Just Think & Buy!

Delivery & Order Shenanigans:

21. Your Order Shipped… to the Wrong Planet!
22. Good News: Your Package Arrived… 10 Years Early!
23. Exciting Update! Your Order is Now Teleported!
24. Oops! We Sent Your Order to Your Ex!
25. We’re Delivering Orders via Drones… And Unicorns!
26. Surprise! Your Next Order Comes with a Mystery Box!
27. Your Package is Here! (Just Kidding… or Not?)
28. New Rule: All Deliveries Must Include a Dance!
29. You Ordered What?! Check Your Receipt…
30. New Feature: Packages Delivered by Trained Squirrels!

Customer Perks & Loyalty Program Pranks:

31. Congrats! You’re Our First-Ever Lifetime VIP!
32. Your Loyalty Points Just Multiplied… by Infinity!
33. You Unlocked a Secret Discount! Or Did You?
34. Today Only: All Customers Get CEO Benefits!
35. FLASH REWARD: We Owe YOU Money This Time!
36. SURPRISE! We’re Gifting You a Private Shopping Spree!
37. New Loyalty Perk: We Do Your Laundry!
38. VIP Upgrade! You Now Own Part of Us!
39. NEW: A Rewards Program Where You Do Nothing!
40. APRIL FOOLS! But Hey, Here’s a Real Discount!

Best practices for running an April Fools’ Day email campaign

1. Be light-hearted

The whole point of sending out an April Fools email is to be funny and establish relatability with your subscribers. Make sure you do not miss this one obvious chance to be witty or funny but in a positive light.

2. Be transparent that it is an April Fools campaign

While pranks can be fun, misleading your audience too much can backfire. Make it clear within the email that it’s an April Fools joke to maintain trust. Subtle hints, disclaimers, or a clever reveal at the end help balance humor with transparency. 

3.  Don’t be misleading & offer real benefits

Don’t play bait-and-switch, as it can feel misleading and damage trust, especially when other brands are offering real deals and discounts. Make sure you provide some sort of benefit—it could be free shipping, a discount code, or anything that makes the day feel special and encourages a purchase.

4. Ensure your audience is segmented

Not all of your subscribers will appreciate your April Fools’ humor; hence, it is better to perform email segmentation to target only those who are actually more likely to enjoy playful content. You can also use segmented email lists to send different content for better success. 

5. Avoid controversial/sensitive content

This is non-negotiable. In every situation, avoid adding any controversial angle to your April Fools’ email. Ask your marketing team to monitor the current sentiments of people around the topic you are planning to include in your campaign and ensure you don’t cross the line. You can also A/B test your April Fools’ email to check reactions before launching it to your real subscribers.

11 best examples of April Fools’ Day emails to gain inspiration

1. Quartz
2. FlockFoods
3. Threadless
4. QuestLab
5. PizzaHut
6. KiwiCo
7. Aloha
8. Boohoo
9. Urban Decay
10. Benefit
11. Brilliant Earth

1. Quartz

Quartz April Fool’s email takes a direct dig into the famous rumors on the internet. This makes the email instantly engaging and relatable as it feels like more of an inside joke. Also, the email smoothly leads to an offer i.e., a 50% discount on membership, making it worthy for subscribers who opened the email out of curiosity.

2. Flock Foods

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This Flock Foods’ April Fool email directly promotes a specific product (XL Hattie B’s Nashville Hot). It includes a 25% discount offer, encouraging subscribers to take immediate action. This is a good strategy and brands can take inspiration from it to focus on one specific product with a discount to drive sales. 

3. Threadless

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Threadless’ April Fool’s email is witty and engaging, staying relevant to their product since they sell meme-themed apparel. The email keeps April Fool’s spirit alive by emphasizing meme images in this email. This is an interesting blend of brand themes into the April Fool’s occasion. 

4. Quest Lab

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Quest Lab’s April Fool Email adds a witty element to their service i.e., provide test reports. Their humor instantly relates to their subscribers as it matches with their brand identity and also offers discounts for encouraging action and making the email more meaningful. 

5. Pizza Hut

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Pizza Hut pranked their subscribers by faking their newly launched breads as part of their April Fool’s email. They made this email more engaging by highlighting how their bread tastes just like their bestsellers’ pizza crusts. 

This email gained a mixed reaction from their recipients, some loved their approach while some were clearly disappointed by the news being fake.

6. KiwiCo

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KiwiCo takes a straight approach to the April Fool’s Day email. They directly introduced limited-time discounts and free shipping for this particular event. They also introduce their product categories in the email body to increase conversions and offer immediate value to recipients. 

7. Aloha

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Aloha highlighted their company values with a playful nod to April Fool’s Day—staying true to their mission without any gimmicks or compromising on product quality. They also added product testimonials, the company’s pledge to charity, products, and discounts to make their message more engaging and authentic.

8. Boohoo

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This April Fool’s Day email from Boohoo, a fashion brand, highlights immediate value (60% discount), teases the readers (is it a prank?), and encourages recipients to use the discount code to find out. An absolutely engaging storytelling approach that drives subscribers to explore their products—definitely a favorite.

9. Urban Decay

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Urban Decay introduced a faux product in their April Fool’s Day email only to lead recipients to their actual product. A risky move, if you ask me, but definitely a clever one. They also well- position their actual product by highlighting its benefits and complementary products. 

10. Benefit

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Benefit encourages sales with this April Fool’s Day email. The brand offers purchasers three surprise gifts on orders over $30. What makes this offer irresistible is the element of mystery and the fact that its value is mentioned ($16). 

To increase the likelihood of purchase, they also highlight being the number one brand for eyebrows and introduce some of their products.

11. Brilliant Earth

This Brilliant Earth email definitely brought smiles and cheers to people’s lives. It is one of the most engaging April Fool’s Day emails, smartly promoting their products. This jewelry brand gamified its approach by encouraging women to participate, choose their favorite rings, and share the results.

Our top favorites

Flock Foods for being direct, offering discounts, and clean email layout

Boohoo for the storytelling and the huge discount

Brilliant Earth for adding the gamified element that encourages participation and increases brand awareness

How to get started with SmartrMail?

You can create and send your April Fool’s Day email campaigns automatically with SmartrMail.

SmartrMail is an easy-to-use email marketing tool that any e-commerce merchant and e-commerce marketer, regardless of their technical skill level, can use. Here is how to implement April Fool’s Day email campaigns with Smartmail:

Step 1: Install SmartrMail on your Store (Shopify, BigCommerce, Neto, WooCommerce). Once installed, SmartrMail automatically imports your store’s data, including your store name, design, customers, order history, and products.

Step 2: Create and import your email lists easily. Once your list is created, you’ll be able to enter subscribers manually, or import subscribers from a CSV file.

Step 3: Set up email popups to increase subscriber lists. You can easily create and design pop-ups with SmartrMail by navigating to its tab.

Step 4: Design your emails with brand-aligned themes with Brand kits on SmartrMail. 

With Brand Kit, marketers can edit and add themes, interactive elements, colors, designs, texts, backgrounds, images, etc from a single place.

Step 5: Send your emails automatically. Navigate to the automation tab and create a New Automated Flow for your April Fool’s Day email.

You can easily customize the workflow with the drag-and-drop editor.

Looking for an easy-to-use, advanced email marketing tool for your brand? Book a demo with SmartrMail to see if it fits your needs.

Summing it up

The key to a successful April Fool’s Day email campaign is to be fun, unique, and brand value-aligned. Avoid being too political, controversial, or insensitive. 

Use an email marketing tool to implement every event campaign all around the year. It will not only allow you to automate the emails but also help you A/B test campaigns, segment your subscribers, and access detailed analytics for optimization. 

You can book a demo with SmartMail today to take your email marketing to the next level. 

The post 11 Successful April Fools’ Day Email Examples to Learn From in 2025 appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

All that effort you put into composing the email, writing an attention-grabbing subject line, only for it to go unseen in people’s junk folders. 

As you’re reading this article, chances are you can relate to this experience. 

You’re not alone either. Emails going to spam can be a major headache for many merchants, especially those using mass-market email tools such as Mailchimp. 

And as you probably know all too well, it’s not just the frustration, but the lost sales that getting caught by spam filters cause that makes this a serious problem for merchants. 

So let’s take a look at the reasons behind emails going to spam and why it can be a particular problem with Mailchimp. 

What triggers emails to be marked as spam

There’s no one reason why emails go to spam folders. And to add to the challenge, when email providers such as Gmail and Outlook mark emails as spam, they don’t usually tell you why. 

But knowing the reasons why emails get flagged as spam will help you diagnose the source of the problem. These reasons include:

Your sender reputation

Email providers keep track of how people engage with the emails campaigns you send. 

This includes how many people open your emails, click on links, and perhaps most importantly, mark your emails as spam. 

The more often people mark your emails as spam, the more of a hit your sender reputation will take. 

The obvious solution to this is to only send emails to opted-in subscribers and make sure you’re building a healthy and engaged email list. However, Mailchimp’s use of shared sending domains complicates this. 

Shared sending domains

It’s not just how your subscribers interact with your email campaigns that influences your sender reputation. 

If your email campaigns are being sent from a shared sending domain, then your sender reputation will also be influenced by other email marketers using the same domain. 

That’s why to avoid spam filters, it’s best practice to send from your own custom, dedicated sending domain. 

How can you tell if you’re sending from a shared domain? 

You can find out easily in Gmail. Just open an email and look at the domain next to your sender’s name, like in the example below.

If you see a fairly generic looking domain, chances are you’re using a shared domain. The example above, gmail.mcsv.net, is a common Mailchimp shared domain. 

If you see a more custom domain, such as in the example below, then chances are you’re using a dedicated sending domain. 

The problem is that Mailchimp, along with other mass-market email tools, automatically adds new users to shared domains to save costs. 

This means that your sender reputation will be influenced by all the other users also using the same shared domain. 

If you’re a paid SmartrMail user, you can request your own dedicated sending domain and we’ll handle the full set up process for you. 

This is one of the easiest and quickest ways to improve your sender reputation if your emails are going to customers’ spam folders. 

Spam trigger words

There are certain words and phrases that are common to spam emails. Such as ‘urgent,’ ‘limited time offer’ and ‘free.’

Using too many of these trigger words in your subject lines and email content can increase the chances of your email being marked as spam. Just take a look at all these trigger words in the spam folder below.

Using too many images

One way spammers try to get around trigger words is by avoiding using words altogether. 

Instead, they add their text to images and then use these images to build their emails. The idea being that this prevents email providers from identifying the suspect content. 

It’s the classic cat-and-mouse game and email providers have well and truly caught on to this tactic. As a result, emails built mostly or entirely with images are also likely to be marked as spam, especially if the images don’t have accompanying alt-text. 

So be sure to always include a mix of images and text and add alt-text to images you include.

Lack of authentication

Email authentication is the process of essentially proving that the emails you send are coming from a legitimate source. Not as part of a phishing attempt or something else nefarious. 

If your emails are not properly authenticated, they are more likely to be marked as spam. 

This is why making sure you’re using authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is vital to avoid the spam folder. 

If that all sounds far too techy, don’t worry – SmartrMail takes care of all of this for you as part of our ongoing efforts to maximize your deliverability. 

Why emails going to spam is a particular problem for Mailchimp

Apart from what we’ve already talked about regarding Mailchimp placing new users on shared sending domains, there’s another key reason why Mailchimp emails often go to spam. 

When a Mailchimp user reaches out for support with their email deliverability, they often don’t receive the support they need. 

The support, especially users on lower tiers receive, often doesn’t dive into the source of why a user’s emails are going to spam. They don’t take the time to find out if the problem is email content, poor list hygiene, or an issue with authentication. 

At SmartrMail, we pride ourselves on going the extra mile to diagnosing deliverability issues. 

In practice, that means our team of email marketing experts will take the time to trial multiple strategies to improve deliverability, including list cleaning, A/B testing of email content and setting up dedicated sending domains. 

Improving your deliverability is in your hands

If you’re a Mailchimp user fed up with your email going to spam, there are options available. 

We offer free migration and onboarding support to all new customers coming across from Mailchimp. This includes taking a proper look at your email deliverability. We’ll also throw in a generous offer to sweeten the deal.

To see how we can help, jump on a call with us here.

The post The Reasons Why Your Mailchimp Email Goes to Spam  appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

The first question many people have when they first notice this badge is: what does Mailchimp mean by ‘cleaned’?

And it’s not just these ‘cleaned’ badges that can raise questions and create confusion. 

Mailchimp also contains many other badges beyond the standard ‘subscribed’ (the one you want to see) including ‘unsubscribed,’ ‘non-subscribed’ and ‘pending.’

So, let’s take a look at exactly what cleaned contacts mean in Mailchimp and how Mailchimp manages your email lists. 

What is a cleaned contact in Mailchimp?

Basically, a cleaned contact in Mailchimp is an email address that can no longer receive emails. 

This happens because previous attempts to send an email to the address failed, resulting in what’s known as an ‘email bounce.’ There are two types of email bounces: soft and hard. 

Soft bounces

Soft bounces are when there’s a temporary issue preventing emails from being delivered. This can include the recipient’s inbox being full, the recipient’s email server being down, or the email being too large to be delivered.

Because soft bounces are due to a temporary issue, Mailchimp doesn’t ‘clean’ the contact straight away if they occur. Instead, Mailchimp will still attempt to send future email campaigns to the address.

If soft bounces keep occurring after multiple attempts to send email campaigns, then Mailchimp considers this a ‘hard bounce.’ 

Hard bounces

Hard bounces occur when there’s a permanent issue preventing an address from receiving emails. 

This can happen due to reasons such as an invalid or non-existent email address, a blocked email address, or a domain that does not exist. Multiple soft bounces is also considered a hard bounce. 

Learn more about hard bounces and how you can avoid them in our guide here.

What happens to cleaned contacts?

When a hard bounce occurs, the email contact is automatically marked as cleaned by Mailchimp. 

This means you can no longer send email marketing campaigns to the contact. You also cannot send them postcards, transactional emails, or target paid ads to them. 

While you can still view the contacts and export them, you cannot edit them. 

What about unsubscribed, non-subscribed and pending contacts?

In addition to cleaned contacts, Mailchimp also has a few other labels for email contacts that are not subscribed to your email marketing. Including:

Unsubscribed 

These are email contacts that were previously subscribed to your email marketing but have since unsubscribed. You can still send them postcards, transactional emails and target paid ads to them, but you cannot send them marketing emails. 

Non-subscribed 

Together with ‘unsubscribed,’ this label creates confusion for many people as the difference between the two labels isn’t immediately clear. 

The difference with unsubscribed contacts is that non-subscribed contacts were never subscribed to your email marketing. 

Like with unsubscribed contacts, you can send them postcards, transactional emails and target paid ads to them, but you cannot send them marketing emails. 

Confusingly, when you look at your audience dashboard, these contacts do not have a badge next to them informing you they’re non-subscribed. You can only tell they’re non-subscribed from the absence of any other badge indicating they’re a different type of contact. 

Pending

The final type of email contact you may find in your audiences is ‘pending.’ 

Pending contacts occur when someone has filled out a signup form but didn’t complete the second step of your double opt-in. 

Mailchimp treats these contacts in the same manner as cleaned contacts – you cannot send them anything including transactional emails.

Impact on the amount Mailchimp charges you

Now that you have an idea of what all the different types of contacts in Mailchimp mean, let’s take a look at how they can impact your account’s monthly billing. 

Mailchimp pricing is based on how many contacts you have. However, being first and foremost an email marketing platform, you might think that if you cannot send a contact a marketing email, they will not count towards your monthly billing. 

While that’s the case with many other email marketing platforms (including SmartrMail), it’s not necessarily the case with Mailchimp. 

For example, you cannot send marketing emails to either unsubscribed or non-subscribed email contacts. However, both still count toward your monthly plan limit. 

This means you’re paying for contacts who cannot receive your latest newsletter or email campaign. 

You might be thinking this isn’t a big deal: you’ll just not add any contacts who haven’t subscribed to your email list in Mailchimp so you only pay for the ones you can send marketing emails to. 

But some subscribers naturally unsubscribe over time and Mailchimp keeps these contacts active in your lists, just with an unsubscribed label attached. Meaning you’re automatically still charged for them. 

Unlike Mailchimp, we believe this is wrong. 

This is why SmartrMail only charges you for your total number of opted-in subscribers. Once a subscriber unsubscribes they’re immediately and automatically no longer counted toward your billing. 

Mailchimp also charges multiple times for duplicate contacts

Your Mailchimp account is made up of different audiences. More commonly known as email lists. 

While some Mailchimp accounts only contain a single audience, if you have multiple audiences you need to be careful not to be charged multiple times for the same contact. 

This is because if the same email address appears in multiple audiences, Mailchimp considers them different contacts for billing purposes. 

So if you have jane.doe@example.com in three different audiences, Mailchimp will charge you three times for that one customer. 

Again, we believe this is wrong. With SmartrMail you’re only ever charged once for a unique email address, no matter how many lists it appears in. 

The choice is yours

Mailchimp has had a notoriously rocky relationship with its customers over pricing. 

From major price hikes and complicated list management to abruptly suspending integrations with major platforms like Shopify, there are plenty of reasons merchants look for better solutions than Mailchimp. 

If you’re looking for a Mailchimp alternative with simpler list management, which doesn’t charge you for contacts you cannot send your newsletter to or charge you multiple times for the same customer, reach out to us. 

We offer free migration and onboarding support to all new customers coming across from Mailchimp. We’ll also throw in a generous offer to sweeten the deal.

To see how we can help, jump on a call with us here.

The post What Does Cleaned Mean in Mailchimp? Cleaned Contacts Explained appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

This is quite easy to verify by conducting a detailed analysis of competitors via an ecommerce scraper.

Some of these differences are significant, but others just require a shift in thinking. It’s these small changes in thinking that can yield massive results for your business. 

One key difference in thinking is that the most profitable ecom brands recognize just how valuable repeat customers are. 

Acquiring customers is one thing. But generating additional purchases from them is quite literally where the money’s at. It’s actually 6 times more profitable than trying to acquire another new customer.

So it’s not surprising that a small 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by a staggering 95%. 

That’s what post-purchase email flows do.

Wait… what is a post-purchase email flow?

Quite simply: a post-purchase email flow is a series of emails that you send to customers after they convert. 

You might think of email as a marketing channel to convert people into customers (which it’s definitely great at doing) but the top ecom brands know it’s even more powerful when engaging with existing customers. 

This is what post-purchase emails are for: driving more sales from your existing customers (aka your most profitable people). 

An example of a typical post-purchase email

And it’s not just first-time customers that are worth targeting. Every time a customer makes a new purchase it’s well worth following up with a post-purchase flow.

What kind of emails go into a post-purchase flow?

The optimal post-purchase flow consists of emails relevant to your store and customers. 

That said, there are certain types of post-purchase emails that are common across ecom. These include: 

• Order confirmation emails – you might think of these as a purely transactional type of email, but they’re a powerful marketing opportunity
• Customer review request emails where you ask for feedback 
• Cross-sell emails that recommend similar or complementary products to the one your customer just purchased 
• Follow us on socials email where you invite customers to follow your brand on social media
• Product education emails that provide tips on how your customer can use the product they just purchased 
• Win-back emails that re-engage customers who have gone cold

However it’s simply not enough to know about these different types of emails. What will make or break your post-purchase email campaign is how you structure it. 

Beyond depending on what type of products you sell, your optimal flow will also depend on whether it’s your customer’s first, second, third, or even 10th purchase.

So let’s take a look at how top ecom brands approach their post-purchase campaign depending on where their customers are at. 

First-time customers 

So you’ve just acquired a new customer – congratulations! But now’s not the time to rest or take your foot off the marketing pedal. 

While acquiring customers is an important step, your focus should now be on converting them into loyal (and more importantly) profitable repeat customers.

The first email that’ll help achieve this is the order confirmation. 

Thank you for your purchase email

Whether you double this up as your order confirmation email or send it on its own, your goal here is simple: thank your new customer for their purchase. 

For such a small gesture, simply saying thank you goes a long way to increasing customer satisfaction and fostering loyalty. 

It’s also an opportunity to introduce your new customers to your brand and story. 

For example, you could share your founder’s story of how the brand got started and the inspiration behind it. Or you could share your brand’s ethos such as its commitment to quality and customer service. 

The example below from Huckerry is pretty text heavy (certainly don’t feel like you have to match its length) but does this well. 

You’ll also want to include a call-to-action (CTA) in this email (as you should in pretty much every email you send). 

Depending on your brand and how hard you go after sales, this could be a CTA directing people to make their all-important second purchase. Otherwise, if you don’t think being this aggressive would work with your audience, you could simply invite them to check out your latest products.  

Follow us on social media email

First-time customers make for great social followers. Getting them to follow your social accounts also increases the chances they’ll become repeat-customers. 

And you can invite them to follow your brand with a post-purchase email. Fruit of the Loom does this well. 

You don’t have to tie this email to the product they purchased, but sending this as part of your post-purchase campaign is the perfect time as your new customers are still engaged with your brand. 

Check out our guide here on social media follow email tips to master this email.

Product education emails

Educating people on how to use your product is a great idea. After all, if they’re not using it properly, they’re not getting the full benefit making it less likely they’ll become repeat customers. 

So if you have a product that requires some setting up, then sending this kind of email just before your customer’s shipment is due to arrive is a great way to show your appreciation and boost customer engagement.

 The email below from Allergy Buyers Club is a great example of this in action.

Customer loyalty program email 

Customer loyalty programs are a great way to generate repeat purchases and naturally help convert one-time customers into repeat customers. That’s if they know about your program.

Do can do this with an email like what Romper sent their customers below.

The good this about this particular email is that it doesn’t lead with ‘join our loyalty program,’ instead it leads with the benefits and value of being a member. This then leads naturally into the CTA to sign up to become a member.

So if you have a program set up, you’ll definitely want to invite people to join it as part of your post-purchase campaign if they haven’t joined already. 

Cross-sell email

Cross-selling is the process of offering a customer additional products that complement what they have bought.

For example, recommending leather shoe cleaner to someone who’s just purchased a brand new pair of leather shoes. 

This is cross-selling and it’s key to generating repeat purchases by making customers aware of other great products you sell.

Example of a cross-sell email

The great thing about this post-purchase email is that it works pretty much regardless of what you sell. As long as you sell more than one product, chances are you’ll be able to set up some cross-sells. 

Check out our guide on cross-selling with email marketing to dive into this area. 

Replenishment email

This one’s very much dependent on what kind of products you sell. It’s also one of the surest ways to generate repeat purchases. 

It’s all about following up customers who’ve purchased a product that’ll need to be refilled, replaced or reordered. Typical examples include pet food, shampoo, coffee, etc. 

But it doesn’t have to be strictly perishable items that people buy at regular intervals. Kitchen utensils, auto parts, shoes, etc. all wear down over time and will need to be replaced.

The trick is to time this email to when your customers are looking to reorder and then provide a clear CTA to purchase the product again. 

You don’t want to clutter your email with too much. Just compare the two examples below.

Which email do you think works better? Which one makes it easy to reorder? Definitely the one on the right with its clear CTA.

Second-time customers 

If you’ve put together your initial post-purchase flow for first-time customers well, you’ll quickly find they transition into repeat purchasers fairly seamlessly. 

That’s great! You’re now generating additional sales and profit much more easily than consistently trying to acquire new customers. 

But the goal is to transform them into long-term loyal customers. 

Customers who have purchased twice are much more likely to reach this goal than first-time customers, but you don’t want to take your foot off the pedal. 

Instead, targeting second-time customers with another post-purchase flow tailored to them will help seal the deal. 

Thank you for your purchase email

Just like with their first purchase, you’ll want to follow up the second purchase with another thank you email. But you don’t want it to be a carbon copy of the first. 

This time it can be less about introducing people to your brand and more about securing their engagement for the long term. 

If you have a subscription service or program, this is a great opportunity to showcase it. One way to do this is by highlighting the savings of being a subscriber versus manually purchasing over and over. 

Subscriptions are also fantastic at generating reliable, repeat purchases. So if you don’t have one already set up, it’s something to consider. 

If you’re looking for inspiration, Dollar Shave Club does subscriptions extremely well. 

An example of a subscription email from Dollar Shave Club

Another idea for this second thank you email is to include a simple offer as a way of showing gratitude for them becoming a loyal customer and, of course, to incentivize another repeat purchase. 

Review request email

This is the first big deviation from your first post-purchase email flow – the review request email. 

If a customer has purchased from your store a second time, it’s a pretty safe bet they’re satisfied with your products and the customer experience. So why not make the most of that fact and ask them for a review? 

We’ve already written a detailed guide on generating customer reviews, but in short, you need positive reviews to act as social proof to increase your overall conversion rates and boost sales. 

True, may not directly help with converting second-time purchasers into long-term loyal customers, but you could potentially add a coupon as an incentive to leave a review like in the example below.

Because you’re essentially offering your customer the coupon in exchange for them doing something for you (leaving the review), it won’t come across as overly salesy. But importantly it’ll still incentivize another repeat purchase. 

Replenishment email

If your products lend themselves to being part of a replenishment campaign, this is a type of email you should be including in all your post-purchase email flows. 

Sale/offer email

If the emails above in your second post-purchase flow don’t do the trick and the customer isn’t making another purchase, it’s time to pull out the big guns. 

At this point, your customer is essentially in limbo in a ‘no man’s land’. If you leave it too long, chances are they’ll simply drop off and disappear. 

So now’s the time to be direct with a sale or offer email. 

How you construct this email will depend on your store, what products you sell and what kind of offers you usually provide. It could be a simple flat percentage off discount, free shipping, or something more creative like buy one get one free. 

Whatever offer you go with, make sure it’s enticing. 

Third-time customers 

Gotten your customer to make a second repeat purchase? Congratulations! They’re now what you can reasonably call a long-term loyal customer. 

Your goal here is to keep them engaged with regular email marketing and newsletters. This also means sending them what has now become their default post-purchase email flow. 

No more follow us on social media or review request emails.  

From now on, your post-purchase campaigns should consist of simply an order confirmation email and product-specific emails. 

In other words, if they purchased a new laptop, it’s still definitely worthwhile sending them a cross-sell email with cases and other laptop accessories. Product education content is still great to include depending on the product and if it’s perishable, replenishment emails are still great at generating sales and keeping customers active.

Unfortunately, even with the best post-purchase follow-ups and regular email marketing, some customers will still go cold over time. That’s why we have winback emails.

Winback email

Winback emails do what it says on the box – win back customers who have gone cold and stop purchasing from your store. 

When done well, they target customers just as they lose interest in your store and entice them to come back and make another purchase. 

An example of a typical winback email

Having a winback email automated for your customers will go a long way to keeping customers engaged and generating repeat purchases.

Time to start generating sales with post-purchase emails

That’s it! You now know how the top ecom brands generate millions in profit through repeat purchases instead of just focusing on acquiring new customers all the time. 

The only thing left is to start setting these post-purchase email flows up for your store. 

Looking for some help? While we’ve made it easy to set up these automations with SmartrMail, we also realize how busy running an ecom store is. 

That’s why our Customer Success Team is available to guide you through the setup process and answer any questions you have. We also offer assisted migrations to help you move across with zero hassle. 

The post How Fast-Growing Ecom Brands Make Millions in Profit with Post-Purchase Emails appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it. With the right customer retention strategy, you’ll win back a good portion of these lapsed customers, transforming them once again into loyal customers. 

And one of the best customer retention strategies is an SMS winback campaign. 

Just like your winback email series, an SMS winback campaign is an incredibly powerful way to reactivate and reengage with customers who have gone cold. 

That’s when your campaign is planned and executed well, though. 

So let’s take a look at what makes a successful winback SMS campaign and why it’s one of the most important SMS automations you can set up for your store.

The importance of customer retention 

While you might think winning back your inactive customers is next to impossible, consider this: It’s 6 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.

Remember, every inactive customer was once an engaged, active customer. You’ve already won them over once. The hard work has already been done. 

Unlike people who have never purchased from you before, these customers know what to expect from your store. They know what your customer service is like. 

Because it’s so much easier (and more cost-effective) to make an additional sale to a past customer than convert a brand new customer, even a modest 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by up to 95%.

This is why no business should neglect customer retention.

The importance of SMS marketing

So now that you have an understanding of why winning back customers should be a vital part of your marketing strategy you might be wondering: why SMS?

Unlike other marketing channels, SMS has a unique ability to cut through the noise and ensure your customers receive your message. 

SMS enjoys an astronomical open rate of 98% (compared to roughly 20% for email marketing) and more than 60% of customers will read your SMS message within 5 minutes of receiving it.

This is largely because SMS is a much more personal channel. That means the flip side of these impressive statistics is that SMS marketing requires a light touch. 

If you spam your customer base with too many text messages, you’ll just annoy them. 

That’s why you’ll want to be strategic with your SMS winback campaign to unlock its full potential without falling into any of the all-too-common pitfalls. 

So let’s take a look at how to set up an SMS winback campaign.

How to structure your SMS winback campaign

Create a subscriber list of lapsed customers 

It might sound obvious, but when it comes to setting up your winback campaign, the first thing is to identify your lapsed customers. 

What qualifies a customer a lapsed will vary from business to business.

If you sell pet supplies and customers typically buys pet food every month, if someone goes 2 or 3 months without making a purchase then it could be fair to say they’ve gone cold. 

If you sell jewelry or apparel, then you’ll likely want to give customers more time before considering them having gone cold. 

Whatever the appropriate timeframe is for your business, you’ll want to create a segment of lapsed customers that you can target with your winback campaign. 

Remember to only add customers to this segment who have given their consent to receive SMS marketing campaigns.

Create your SMS messages

Your segment of lapsed isn’t going to achieve much if you don’t have some SMS messages to send them. 

Creating SMS winback messages is also the point that makes or breaks many campaigns. So here’s how you’ll want to go about it. 

First, it’s a good idea to send a typical-looking SMS promotional message. Your customers don’t need to know they’re only receiving it because you’re trying to win them back just yet. 

The key purpose of this message should be to get them to come back with an enticing offer. The winback SMS example below from Jangaroo does this well. 

What this message does is provides the customer with a limited-time discount code framed in a way that makes it seem unique and exclusive. This is achieved with copy such as “loyal customers” and the inclusion of a unique-looking discount code (it doesn’t have to be actually unique). 

The message also follows SMS best practices such as identifying themselves and including a way to opt out. 

By sending something similar to this, you’ll make your customer feel valued and hopefully remind them of why they converted into a paying customer in the first place. 

Automate a follow-up message

While your first message will win back some customers, the reality is that it won’t work for everyone. 

After all, it almost certainly took a lot more than just sending a single text message to get the customer to make their first purchase. The fact that some customers will be won back with just a single winback SMS demonstrates just how effective a customer retention strategy is. 

So for the lapsed customers who weren’t won back with your first winback message, you’ll want to automate a text follow-up a couple of weeks later. (Remember you don’t want to send too many SMS messages). 

In this message, you can be more upfront about it being a winback message. Such as in the follow-up winback example from Jangaroo below. 

One last attempt

Obviously not everyone is going to convert from these two text messages. 

Even after receiving the second message, there’ll be plenty of people who won’t end up coming back to make a purchase. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to. Perhaps they just don’t have the money at the time, they might be taking an extended holiday, anything is possible. 

While there’ll be some cold customers you simply won’t be able to win back, for these customers where it’s just not the right time for whatever reason, it’s worth one last attempt. 

This doesn’t mean sending another promotion coupon in a few weeks. A few months to half a year is a more realistic timeframe so they have a better chance of converting. 

During this time, you’ll also want to be still sending them email campaigns as a more cost-effective way to keep your brand in mind. 

Conclusion

A winback SMS campaign is a simple and effective way to deal with one of the realities of doing business: customers going cold. 

While you won’t end up winning back every customer, the return on investment of winning back a portion of these lapsed customers compared to focusing exclusively on generating new customers is something you cannot ignore.  

With SmartrMail, it’s also incredibly easy to automate a winback SMS campaign and combine it with your email marketing strategy. 

If you’re already a SmartrMail user, you can learn how to do this right here. Otherwise, you can install SmartrMail for free right here.

The post How to Bring Back Customers with a Winback SMS Series appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

As opposed to delivery timeframes, cutoff dates provide customers with a greater degree of certainty that their purchases will arrive in time for whatever holiday they’re shopping for. Whether that’s Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Lunar New Year. 

They also help your store by letting customers know exactly what date they need to order by and reduces the number of customers upset that their purchase wasn’t delivered in time. 

From online stores like Amazon to delivery partners like Fedex or USPS, everybody sends shipping deadline emails and notifications from time to time, especially more around the holiday season.

In addition to displaying these delivery deadlines prominently on your homepage, product pages, and during the checkout process, the best way to inform customers of them is with an email campaign. 

And to help you with creating your own email, we’ve put together this collection of 8 campaigns from some of the top brands to inspire and inform your own. 

Shipping deadline email examples to take inspiration from

There is no standard deadline email template that works all the time. Depending on the industry, the customer segment, and several other variables, the email template has to be created from scratch.

However, it is not a difficult task. Here are some examples you can take inspiration from.

1) Ben Sherman

Ben Sherman’s campaign is your typical example of a shipping deadline email. Which goes to show just how easy it is to create and send this type of email. 

All you essentially need are two elements: the cutoff date and time (in this case midnight on Monday, December 17th) and a call-to-action directing your customers to shop now. 

Most of the following examples are ‘final chance’, ‘last day to get your purchases in time’ style campaigns. And while these are effective emails to send, it’s also often worth sending a less anxiety-provoking email a week in advance like this one.  

2) Vans

Subject line: Final Day for Overnight Shipping!

This email from Vans isn’t strictly a delivery deadline reminder but rather a reminder that it’s the last chance for overnight shipping with free shipping on orders above $65. 

While overnight shipping implies next-day delivery, this isn’t clear. 

It also isn’t clear exactly what happens the day afterward. Whether customers will still be able to get their purchases in time for the holiday (just not overnight) or even whether overnight shipping will still be available, just not free for orders over $65. 

While the campaign does a great job of creating a sense of urgency and funnels people straight to their online store with the single call-to-action, ideally you want your shipping deadline emails to provide all the information customers are looking for. 

3) Hickory Farms

Subject line: FINAL HOURS: Savings on gifts and save $10 on Next Day Shipping!

Hickory Farms’ campaign is a typical example of a shipping deadline reminder with all the relevant elements present: a clear cutoff with timezone (3 pm EST), a call-to-action in the header (“Get Gifts in Time for Christmas”), and a clear call-to-action button. 

The element few other shipping deadline campaigns include but is definitely worth considering for your own email is the countdown timer at the top. 

This is a simple HTML countdown timer that displays how many hours, minutes, and seconds are left until 3 pm EST. Not only does this reinforce the cutoff time but it also creates a sense of urgency as customers see the seconds tick down. 

4) Function of Beauty

Subject line: Say goodbye to isn’t she (bubb)ly 

This email differs significantly from the others in this list in two ways. Firstly, it wasn’t sent during the holiday season, and secondly, it’s not about guaranteeing delivery by a certain date. 

Instead, this is an example of an email informing customers that they only have one day left to order the product by itself. After which the product will only be available for purchase as part of a subscription. 

This is a good example of how not all deadline reminders and emails need to be for a particular holiday. 

5) Alo Yoga

Subject line: Free 2-Day Shipping Ends Tonight, Get Your Gifts In Time

Alo Yoga’s campaign demonstrates that you don’t have to dedicate an entire email to inform people about your upcoming delivery date cutoff. 

Instead, you can simply combine the reminder with something else your customers will be interested in. Which in this case is a last-minute gift guide. 

Last-minute holiday gift guides are the most logical addition to your shipping deadline email as they’re designed to help customers choose a gift to purchase before the cutoff. However, there are plenty of other things you can mention in your email as well such as your gift wrapping option or directing people to your customer service in case they have any questions. 

A similar idea for after your shipping deadline has passed is to send a final email for the holiday period where you spruik your gift cards that people can download and send as a digital gift. 

6) Asos

Subject line: It’s not too late

The busiest time of the year in terms of sales for most merchants are the months of November and December. 

While sales typically peak on the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend, sales remain elevated for the following couple of weeks as people do their Christmas shopping. However, there’s a tendency for online sales to start to drop around mid-December as people fear their purchases won’t arrive in time.  

That’s what makes this email from Asos interesting.

Instead of just letting people know of their cutoff dates like most standard shipping deadline emails, this campaign reminds people there’s still time to do their holiday shopping online. 

Framing your campaign this way might get a few customers who had just assumed it was too late to convert. 

7) Clarks

Unlike most shipping reminder emails, this campaign from Clark’s Shoes provides different cutoff dates for the various different shipping options they offer. 

From the email, you can tell there’s only one day left for ground delivery but about a week remaining for 2-day and overnight delivery. 

By providing their customers with this information, Clark’s Shoes is letting them make their own decision which gives them a sense of control that ‘last chance’ style campaigns don’t. 

8) Little Passports

Subject line: It’s Not Too Late! Shipping Deadline Extended + 20% Off

Typically shipping deadlines are things that can’t be easily extended. 

Regardless of whether Little Passports was able to miraculously extend their deadline or whether it was all a marketing ploy (more likely), it makes for an effective email campaign. 

It gives customers who thought they missed out on the opportunity just a day earlier a second chance to get their holiday shopping done in time. 

There’ll also likely be customers who open this email who didn’t see the earlier one, increasing the total number of customers who open and read at least one ‘last chance’ campaign. 

The essential takeaways

Shipping deadline emails are simple yet effective campaigns to send during the holiday shopping season. 

Not only do they generate additional purchases from last-minute shoppers but they also provide your customers with valuable information and spare them the disappointment of their holiday shopping not arriving on time. 

However you decide to design your campaign, ensure you have the key elements present: a clear cut-off date and time and a call-to-action to funnel shoppers through to your store. 

For additional inspiration for your subject line, check out our list of free shipping subject lines that you can easily adapt for your campaign.

Frequently Asked Questions

The post 8 Shipping Deadline Emails & Strategy Tips to Inspire Your Own appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.