50 Examples of Triggered Emails for Ecommerce Businesses

Triggered emails (or ‘automated emails’) are an immensely effective way of communicating with customers at exactly the right time, without requiring you to remember to do so & manually send the email each time. Some ecommerce businesses make use of these prolifically; some make use of them sparingly; some simply do it by accident because their ecommerce platform sends a few by default.

“Order confirmation” is the most common of all of these, and those who have thought about it usually take the leap to sending “abandoned basket” emails, but… there are many, many other options.

Here are 50 examples to illustrate some possibilities for your business. The list contains a mixture of examples, and contains both main trigger categories (“on customer activity”, and “on business activity”). In most cases, these could either be single emails or could be an email series (for example, when a customer buys for the first time, you could send a single email, or a program of 5 emails explaining your brand, your products, your customers, your service, and a special offer).

If you are serious about this, we’d suggest going through the following list, picking those that are appropriate for your company, mapping them out on top of the emails you already send, and putting a simple test process in place to begin triggering them & measuring their impact.

50 Example Triggered Emails

1. On email signup (non-customer). A single email, or ‘welcome’ program to help toward buying.
2. On email signup (new customer). A single email, or ‘nursery’ program to build the relationship.
3. On unsubscribe. (‘Dear X, this is to confirm that… very sadly… this will be the last email we will send you. We’re sorry to see you go, and hope you’ll remain a customer’ etc)
4. Abandoned basket. (some send a single email, some send a series)
5. On user’s birthday. (Happy Birthday, soandso. On the off-chance nobody was thoughtful enough to buy you the ultimate gift you really wanted, here’s a very small treat of X% off your next purchase with us)
6. Anniversary of first purchase. (eg. perhaps it was a gift, and the same person’s birthday is coming up again)
7. After X days/weeks/months of inactivity.
8. After a ‘notify me when in stock’ product comes in.
9. When a product they purchased comes in in a new colour/model.
10. When a new range drops from a brand they have purchased.
11. When a new brand comes into stock similar to one they’ve purchased.
12. When a product begins to trend in a category they regularly buy.
13. On order confirmation.
14. On shipping confirmation.
15. Pre-notification of exact delivery time.
16. Notification of failed delivery attempt.
17. Delivery confirmation.
18. Return received confirmation.
19. Refund processed confirmation.
20. When a customer service ticket is created.
21. When a customer service ticket is updated.
22. When a customer service ticket is resolved.
23. Prompt to review.
24. On leaving a review. (different email for positive vs negative. Perhaps from a named customer service rep if negative)
25. After add to wishlist.
26. When a wishlisted product drops in price by > a certain amount. (need to be careful about this if you regularly drop & increase prices soon after, as the user may receive the email after price has gone back up).
27. When new reviews are added to a product on their wishlist. (limit this to avoid bombarding)
28. When a new model is released for a product on their wishlist.
29. When a brand on their wishlist launches a new range.
30. Product lifecyle emails. (eg. a printer cartridge replacement email 3 months after buying a printer)
31. Cross-sell emails after next pay-day. (eg. a camera batteries email at the beginning of the month after buying a camera)
32. When the user signs up for your referral program.
33. When someone the user referred signs up.
34. When someone the user referred makes their first purchase.
35. When the user has not opened a specific previous triggered email after a certain amount of time.
36. When the user has opened a specific previous triggered email but not clicked through.
37. When the user clicked through from a specific previous triggered email, but did not purchase.
38. When the user gave a particular answer to a survey question.
39. On password change.
40. On account detail update.
41. When the user reaches a particular number of purchases, or lifetime spend value.
42. When the user qualifies for your VIP program.
43. When the user qualifies for a new coupon/voucher.
44. When the user hasn’t redeemed a coupon, and it’s close to expiry.
45. When the user redeems a coupon, or hits a particular discount threshold. (Dear X, this is to confirm you have saved an enormous £xx)
46. When a new blog post is added in a category for which they’ve shown affinity.
47. If you have account managers: with details of the account manager on sign-up.
48. When the account manager changes.
49. If there are changes to their terms and conditions.
50. When a product they bought is recalled.

There we have it – a list of 50. Do add a comment listing other possibilities, and do share this post with others if you think it may be useful.