What Is a Triggered Email and How To Use It in Your Marketing Campaigns

What are triggered emails?

Triggered emails are automated emails prompted by your subscribers’ actions, their lack of activity, or certain events. These actions and events can take place at various stages of your sales funnel, such as opting in to your mailing list or browsing a certain page on a website. Using these email automation triggers, you can create an automated email or email sequence to reach out to your subscribers at the time when your communication is most likely to produce a positive effect.

Besides abandonment emails like the one sent to Julia, there are other emails that can be automated: catalog-related emails, post-purchase emails, recommendation emails, and more.

• Welcome emails
• Product catalog emails — new arrivals, back in stock, and the like
• Post-purchase messages, like upsell emails
• Recommendation emails
• Retention emails

These days, with so many email automation tools and email workflow automation solutions available, more and more businesses of all sizes use triggered emails to streamline their email marketing and improve their bottom line.

Why are triggered emails so important in business?

Below, we’ll cover the most important positive effects of implementing trigger emails into your automated email marketing strategy in more detail.

But first, a couple of figures to prove the point.

According to Validity, triggered email campaigns seem to generate revenue per email that is >10x greater than other types of emails.

Triggered emails are also among the email types with the highest open and click-through rates of 45.38% and 5.02% respectively, while the average email open rate is 39.64% and the average email click-through rate is 3.25%.

It’s no wonder marketers use different types of triggered emails so often that they only give way to promotional campaigns and newsletters. 

Increasing customer loyalty and engagement

Receiving regular and timely communications from a brand helps customers remember it as trustworthy and reliable. What’s more, triggered emails help retain at-risk buyers — those who haven’t purchased from your brand for a while and might consider parting ways with you.

This is confirmed by numbers. According to Klaviyo, cart abandonment email flows have an average open rate of up to 53.57% and click rates of up to 6.25%, which means chances are high to retain a customer with triggered emails. Same goes for browse abandonment emails, with an average open rate of 57.41% and a click rate of 5.26%. 

Triggered emails also help you keep active buyers engaged by regularly offering them products they are most likely to need based on their purchase history. According to the same report by Klaviyo, post-purchase emails have an open rate of 64.03%, which is even higher than the abandonment flows we mentioned earlier.

Saving time

Triggered emails are also huge time-savers for marketers and businesspeople. Just imagine: without them, you’d have to monitor your subscribers’ activity on all of your platforms 24/7 so as not to miss an opportunity to engage. Not a viable option, is it? 

Fortunately, email automation tools can track “trigger” actions and events automatically, so you don’t have to do that manually.  

Improving customer service

Customers expect businesses to be there for them 24/7 and provide quick responses on every stage of the customer journey. In fact, according to a HubSpot research, 82% of consumers consider “immediate” response from brands important or very important. 

They also like communication to be personalized. Trigger emails help automatically tailor email content to your customers’ profiles and preferences and offer the most relevant information based on their past communications with your brand right away

Boosting revenue

The more relevant content you offer, the higher your email open rate is, and the higher the open rate — the more conversions you may get. Reaching out to your customers at the right time increases the odds in your favor even more. 

According to the Omnisend H1 Stats report, automated emails made up 46.9% of all email sales and only 2.6% of sends. Plus the positive effect triggered emails have on customer loyalty and retention helps increase customer LTV (lifetime value). This is how triggered emails can boost your revenue.

Examples of triggered emails

There are several types of triggered emails that can appear at different stages of the customer journey. Let’s take a look at some common examples of customer journey emails and discuss them in detail. 

Welcome email

Welcome emails do more than just establish a rapport with newcomers. They also provide essential information about your business and outline the subscriber’s journey. Luckily, these emails are easily automated, so you only need to set them up once. After you learn how to send welcome emails automatically, a new (potential) customer will trigger your pre-set welcome email campaign and receive automated emails (one or a few) without your involvement in the process.

Here’s an example of an automated welcome email from Miro. Triggered by joining a team by invitation, it contains concise information about the tool and facilitates onboarding.

Abandoned cart

Cart abandonment is about leaving items in an online shopping cart but failing to proceed to checkout.

In fact, according to estimates by Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate worldwide sits at 70.19%. Because of this, businesses lose a large share of potential profit. Luckily, abandoned cart emails can help solve the issue. These automated emails, triggered by an abandoned cart, remind customers of the items they’ve left behind. Such emails can use psychological triggers such as FOMO marketing or small discount codes to encourage them to purchase. Sometimes, these emails also contain an incentive such as a discount, a gift, or a free shipping offer.  

This abandoned cart email from Red Dress is a classic example of leveraging FOMO. Starting off with a compliment and offering payment options helps make the message even more appealing, and bright design helps create the right mood.

Here’s another one of the best abandoned cart email examples. This cart abandonment email from Lensabl offers a discount as an incentive while also leveraging a sense of urgency.

Back-in-stock email

Sometimes, the consideration stage is too long, and by the time your prospect decides to buy, the product goes out of stock. Does such behavior mean such potential buyers are lost for good? Not at all: with back-in-stock emails, you still have an opportunity to re-engage your customers and persuade them to finalize the purchase.

Just like the aforementioned “abandoned cart” emails, these are remarketing emails. Remarketing campaigns are focused on promoting products to existing customers who have already expressed some interest. 

The example below is a classic back-in-stock email. It informs the subscribers who have expressed interest in a product before (viewed the product page or added the product to their cart) that the item is available again, and highlights the product’s benefits to encourage the purchase.

Customer feedback

Customer feedback is essential to understanding how well your business is doing. What’s more, it can help you glean insights about your products and the quality of your customer service, which is the first step to improving them. Sometimes, customer feedback can even inspire the creation of new products or the development of new features. And with triggered emails, you can reach out to your existing customers after the purchase to gather this feedback. Want to make them more inclined to share their thoughts with you? Offer an incentive, like a gift or a discount code.

This is exactly what Frye, a well-known shoes brand, does in its beautifully crafted feedback email. Here, the brand manages to place just the right accents, highlighting the product and the incentive and coming up with concise copy and a clear CTA.

Another common example of a customer feedback triggered email is a survey email like the one shown below. This email from COS was prompted by a customer’s visit to the brand’s online store. It features a suggestion to take a customer satisfaction survey which is the most popular way to understand the quality of customer experience.

Recommendation email

Every time people browse your website, open your emails, click on your links, or buy products from you, they give you information about their preferences. With this data, you can figure out what else you can offer so they purchase from you again. 

Imagine this. If someone browses a certain product category, clicks through product pages, but leaves without adding items to cart, they likely didn’t find what they were looking for. In this case, you can send them an automated email with recommendations showcasing popular products similar to the ones they browsed. 

Below is an example of a recommendation email from an online bookstore Powell’s. Presumably triggered by a website visit from a subscriber, it contains non-personalized book recommendations from several categories and throws in an element of mystery, hinting that the store has much more to offer. The CTA button is an invitation to explore. 

Here’s one more illustrative example. This email from OpenTable offers restaurant recommendations based on subscribers’ preferences.

Birthday email

People love feeling valued — and showing them small but timely signs of attention are a great way to remind them you really care. For businesses, this is a proven strategy to nurture relationships with their customers and increase customer loyalty. Fortunately, you don’t have to send postcards or make costly gestures to build customer loyalty, because there is a more efficient and cost-effective way: triggered emails.

Sending birthday emails is a common practice for businesses, and the process couldn’t be simpler thanks to email automation. In this example from Dutch Bros., the email is triggered by the arrival of the customer’s birthday date. Here, the brand also uses a carefully worded birthday greeting and a personalized gift coupon to get a customer to visit their place again.

End of subscription reminder

These days, people typically have more than one subscription running, and most don’t even follow their renewal dates unless they receive reminders. Some brands send these reminders each time a renewal is due, while others opt for less frequent communication, only sending reminder emails when the subscription is coming to an end. In both cases, these automated emails are an important part of a company’s customer service. This is especially true for companies offering B2B products such as SaaS solutions. In this case, forgetting to renew a subscription can result in financial losses. For B2C businesses, automated email reminders are a great way to show customers some extra care, helping them plan their budget and keep track of their subscriptions. 

The example below is a typical end-of-subscription email. Here, The Noun Project uses a concise email to inform a customer about an expiring subscription and prompts them to restart it using a simple and clear CTA.

One more common example of this type of automated emails is an end-of-trial email such as the one shown below. Companies use these emails to remind new customers that their test period is coming to an end and offer them to upgrade to a paid plan. In both cases, the trigger is an upcoming subscription expiration date. 

How to create a triggered email campaign

As you can see, triggered email campaigns are an invaluable tool to businesses of all types and sizes. But setting triggered emails on your own can feel intimidating, even if you already know how to send mass email campaigns — and especially if you don’t. Luckily, creating and launching a triggered email campaign is not that hard once you learn the ropes. So, where do you start?  

First and foremost, you need a software solution that allows for sending automated email campaigns. Depending on your business’ specifics, it can be a complex tool for CRM emails, a professional ESP service like Selzy, or some other digital marketing software with an email automation feature. 

For small to medium-sized businesses, ESPs are the preferable option. In many ESPs, however, email automation is only available on paid plans. But in Selzy, you can create and run triggered email campaigns even with a free plan, provided you meet our contact list size and the monthly emails limit requirements.   

You can personalize messages with any sort of customer data at Selzy by using Liquid templates to insert names, products, order totals, delivery dates, you name it. 

Triggered email campaigns best practices

Now that you know what triggered email campaigns are and how to set them up, it’s time to learn what you can do to improve their performance. Here are some best practices to help you get started. 

Personalize your emails

Triggered emails are already personalized by nature because they are based on the customers’ specific actions or behavior patterns. However, you can take personalization in your triggered email campaigns even further. 

The most common example is using merge tags to greet each customer by name, which is a good way to avoid your emails coming across as generic despite the laser-targeted content. By and large, extra personalization is believed to improve click-through rates. However, it might not always be worth the effort. Across dozens of emails we reviewed while choosing examples for this article, only a few contained personalized greetings. This might be an indication that triggered emails work well without going that extra mile.

Be concise

Triggered emails are meant to deliver content that’s highly relevant to the subscriber. Whether it’s an abandoned cart reminder or a birthday greeting, there is no need for your copy to be too elaborate. You don’t want to disperse your readers’ attention and distract them from your CTA. Keeping your message concise is the one way to avoid that scenario. That means steering clear of long introductions and storytelling and getting straight to the point instead. If you need inspiration for your copy, these best email marketing ideas might help.

Take a look at this email from Chatters — its copy is reduced to a couple of lines, including the header. You can use this one as a reference. But, if you’re inexperienced in writing marketing emails, check out Selzy’s definitive guide on email copywriting.

Use a clear call to action

The call to action is the main focus of all marketing emails, and it is especially important to keep it as simple as possible in triggered emails. Each marketing email has a CTA, whether it is to sell a product, to get customers to upgrade after a trial period, or to entice them to come back to your website after a break. Whatever the purpose, you need to make it crystal clear in your CTA. That’s why straightforward CTAs like “Shop now”, “Checkout now”, or “Go to my cart” typically work best for this kind of email.

Test and improve your emails

Last but not least, triggered emails can — and should — be reviewed and tested regularly. You don’t want to set up an automated campaign and then accidentally find out it’s been delivering poor results for a few months. 

To avoid this scenario, it’s essential to A/B test your triggered emails, track the metrics, and apply timely changes when needed. This simple but necessary practice will ensure you always have the best-performing version of your email, which is especially important for campaigns running on autopilot most of the time.

Wrapping up

That was all the essential information on trigger email marketing and email campaigns you need to know to get started with this type of email automation.

• Trigger emails are automated emails prompted by certain “triggers” — i.e., a subscriber’s actions or behavior patterns. You can send out separate trigger emails or put together a trigger email campaign. 
• Trigger emails are very important to businesses, providing a range of benefits such as increasing customer loyalty and retention, saving time, improving customer service, and boosting revenue. 
• There are many types of trigger emails, depending on the specific triggers and the stage of the sales funnel a customer is currently at. The most common types are welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, remarketing emails, recommendation emails, and more. 
• To create and launch a trigger email campaign, you need to use a software solution that has an email automation feature — for example, an ESP service like Selzy. 
• To increase the effectiveness of your trigger campaigns, follow trigger email best practices: be concise, use a clear CTA, personalize your emails, and always remember to test. 

We’re not hinting at anything but Selzy has a great offer — its free plan is fully functional and generous enough to cover the needs of a small business. Create an account with no credit card required so you can test the waters or start growing your sales with emails right away.