4 Ecommerce trends you need to know for 2022

Today, it’s easier than ever to shop online with just a few touches on your smartphone. Before 2020, online shopping was already on the rise. The pandemic only pushed the growth of ecommerce faster with revenue projected at $5.02 billion in 2022.

While physical stores aren’t going away, consumers want choice and conveniene. It’s important for businesses to keep up with the latest ecommerce trends because consumer behavior is constantly evolving. Product launches no longer take place solely in the physical space, the digital one is just as, if not more, important.

Let’s take a look at the top ecommerce trends you need to prepare for in 2022.

Types of ecommerce trends to watch for

• Social commerce
• Augmented Reality (AR) commerce
• Livestream shopping
• Conversational commerce

Social commerce

Social commerce is when you buy and sell products or services directly from a social media platform. With the maturing of the influencer industry, the natural next step is for platforms to help influencers and companies sell to consumers. Why make someone leave Instagram if they can just click on a product tag and purchase something in less than a minute?

Social commerce trends

According to research conducted by The Harris Poll, on behalf of Sprout Social, 73% of businesses are already participating in social commerce while 79% expect to be doing so in the next three years. If you haven’t already started selling on social media, chances are high that your competitors already are or are planning to.

For businesses that want to market to the younger generations, it’s important to know that nearly half have already purchased online. According to a recent survey, 55.5% of consumers aged 18-24 and 48.7% of consumers aged 25-34 made at least one purchase on social media in 2021. By 2025, US social commerce is estimated to be nearly a $79.6 billion industry.

What challenges does social commerce solve?

When consumers are already learning about products and brands on social media, it makes sense for them to purchase items through the platform. In the buyer journey, it’s one less click for customers to take and that’s one less chance for them to abandon the cart.

Social commerce brand example: Eagle Creek

Travel outfitters Eagle Creek utilizes Instagram Shop to offer shoppers the experience of checking out directly on Instagram. You can explore their various collections, choose product sizes and colors and ask questions directly within their shop.

How to get started in social commerce

The platforms that are currently offering social commerce are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and WeChat. Plans to add social commerce have already been announced by YouTube, TikTok and Twitter. To get started, identify where your most engaged audiences are and set up shop there.

Track your success through native platform analytics and website referral traffic. To personalize your customer interactions more, use the Sprout integrations with Facebook Shops and Shopify to tag products in posts, link to products in messages and track orders statuses. Social commerce blends well with your social customer care strategy.

Augmented reality (AR) commerce

Augmented reality (AR) in ecommerce is using 3D mapping to help customers try on products or preview experiences before making a purchase. Some examples of AR ecommerce include virtually trying on glasses frames, placing a piece of furniture in a room to see how it’ll look, and applying various makeup products to see what compliments your skin tone.

AR commerce trends

Snapchat was the first to introduce AR into social media platforms. In 2020, AR was used often because consumers weren’t able to shop as easily in stores. And in 2022, AR is projected to be used at least once a month by 101.6 million consumers.

With the development of AR technology and the trend of social shopping on the uptick, AR commerce will continue to grow. In mid-July 2021, Snap purchased Vertebrae, a company that produces 3D images of products for brands. This investment indicates the company’s interest in developing more in the AR commerce space. Other major social platforms like Facebook and Pinterest have already invested in AR technology of their own to add to the social shopping experience.

What challenges does AR commerce solve?

“Try before you buy” takes on a whole new meaning with AR commerce. AR helps brands reach customers who might be too busy to go to the nearest store or don’t have a store near them. In fact, brands don’t even need brick-and-mortar storefronts to take advantage of AR commerce.

Because customers are able to preview products and experiences without purchasing, their purchase decisions are more informed, leading to fewer returns. AR also offers consumers the ability to test on their own time, making this marketing and sales channel quite cost-effective.

AR commerce brand example: Wayfair

Within its iOS app, Wayfair has used AR to improve the customer shopping experience since 2017. Common furniture items are able to be superimposed into customers’ spaces so they actually picture how they’ll look. If you’re able to see how well a leather armchair fits into your living room, you’re more confident in your purchasing decision and less likely to return the item.

How to get started on AR commerce

For both Facebook and Instagram, Spark AR Studio is available for anyone to use. Both developers and creators are able to create their own effects and experiences. You can build simple face filters or more complex world filters using Spark AR, with or without code. Spark AR offers tutorials so you can learn how to add a fun filter to your face or add an object virtually into a room.

Livestream shopping

Livestream shopping is the blend of social commerce and live-streaming. Using their social capital, influencers and brands livestream to highlight products and services. During the broadcast, consumers are able to interact with each other and the brand via a chatbox and purchase the highlighted products. The experience is similar to how one would shop in a store with store associates answering your questions but now it’s from the comfort of your home.

Livestream shopping trends

Livestream ecommerce shopping is highly popular in China and is starting to take off in the US. In 2020, the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival report revealed that livestream sales were at $6 billion, twice the previous year’s event sales. Research predicts that in 2022, livestream commerce in China will reach $446 billion USD, which would be 15% of total online sales.

Challenges that livestream shopping solves

Livestream shopping is interactive in nature. When a consumer isn’t able to shop in-store or doesn’t have a shop location nearby, a livestream demonstrates the product for them. The chat component allows them to ask questions to the influencers or brands, much like how they’d do so with a store associate.

Sometimes, live-streaming can feel a little scripted. When you’re doing one that incorporates shopping, you need to interact with consumers, which leads to being a more intimate and authentic shopping experience.

Livestream shopping brand example: Dermalogica

Skincare brand Dermalogica uses Facebook Live shopping to demonstrate their products. With a themed topic of summer skin care essentials, customers asked questions about their products and their usage.

Must Have Summer Skin Care Essentials

Summer skincare essentials

Posted by Dermalogica on Friday, June 4, 2021

How to get started in livestream ecommerce

Livestream shopping is available on multiple platforms. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest all either already have or are actively testing livestream features as part of their ecommerce feature.

Other ecommerce platforms like Amazon are also getting in on the action. It should be expected that additional platforms will offer livestream shopping in the near future.

Conversational commerce

Conversational commerce is the selling of goods and services to a customer via a chat or messaging platform. Imagine having a conversation with a brand on Facebook Messenger. They answer your questions about a product and facilitate the purchasing process all without you leaving the platform. Conversational commerce is a lot more personalized and interactive on a one-on-one basis.

On top of text-based conversational commerce is the other kind: voice shopping. Having a natural conversation with your Amazon Echo or Google Home that leads to a purchase is another example of conversational commerce.

Conversational commerce trends

According to a study on live chat, 41% of consumers prefer to use live chat as a support channel and 52% are more likely to remain loyal to a company that offers it. The chat doesn’t have to have a human on the other end, either. As long as their question is answered, 40% of customers don’t care if the chat is human or bot-driven. This is a big deal since live chats do take up a considerable amount of time and investment.

Challenges that conversational commerce solves

Conversational commerce helps your brand to be “always on.” Having a personalized shopping experience for consumers builds trust and offers a more frictionless buying experience. With the help of a chatbot, you’re able to route questions to the right people and always be available for your customer.

Conversational commerce brand example: Gymshark

Athletic clothing company Gymshark uses a Messenger bot to help customers easily check on their order status, report an issue and conduct returns. Setting these common scenarios up in a bot frees up time for the support team for more detailed customer issues.

How to get started in conversational commerce

First, get your social teams on board. Conversational commerce goes with your social strategy, which means your social media managers are likely at the forefront of customer interactions. They’ve likely already built up knowledge about interactions they’ve had with customers and can easily personalize future conversations.

There are plenty of live chat services available to use on your website. If you’d like to create a customer service chatbot, use a tool like Sprout to build it within Facebook Messenger or Twitter DMs.

Conclusion

There are several ecommerce trends to keep an eye on in the coming year. New technology is being developed to ensure smoother customer journeys and a better brand experience. Social commerce, AR, livestream shopping and conversational commerce are all ecommerce trends that benefit both the customer and the company. Personalized shopping is the future. Get ahead of the curve by conducting interviews to set up your social commerce strategy.

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How to Set Up a Customer Loyalty Program for Your Ecommerce Business

Marketplace sites such as Amazon or Etsy can provide a steady income stream for ecommerce entrepreneurs. However, selling on your own website has the potential to generate repeat business from loyal customers and grow your brand. 

A customer loyalty program is a great way to earn the repeat business of your customers and build relationships that can develop into brand loyalty and even referrals. Unfortunately, many ecommerce entrepreneurs consistently get it wrong when they attempt this strategy. 

There are several different types of customer loyalty initiatives and approaches to designing programs that attract the right kinds of buyers for your brand. We’ll help you navigate your options to build a lucrative loyalty program for your ecommerce business. 

What is a customer loyalty program?

A customer loyalty program is a technique that businesses use to build relationships between brands and their customers. 

A business will offer exclusive promotional offers and other perks, and in return customers become steady, long-term buyers. The goal of a customer loyalty program is to attract the right customers for your brand and create long term, profitable relationships with them. After all, 80% of a company’s profits come from just 20% of customers. 

According to recent research, top performing customer loyalty programs have the ability to boost revenue by 15-25% each year. So, creating a customer loyalty program can be a very profitable way to build relationships with customers. 

Steps for creating a customer loyalty program

Are you ready to take the next steps in creating a customer loyalty program? Here are three easy steps to get you started.

1 - Choose the right type of program

There are several types of customer loyalty programs that are suited for different audiences and industries. In order to design a successful customer loyalty program, it's important that you choose the right type of program to implement. Some of the most popular types of customer loyalty programs include:

Points programs

These popular customer loyalty programs allow customers to accrue points over time that can be redeemed for rewards or free products. Points can be accrued by making purchases, engaging with content, signing up for events, etc. 

Points programs that are based on customer referrals have even more potential, since referred customers have a higher lifetime value than others. 

Spend programs

A popular choice for reducing churn rates, this customer loyalty program gives customers credit depending on the amount of money they spend on products and services. 

For example, for every $150 they spend, they receive a $5 credit towards their next purchase. 

Tiered programs 

A form of points program, tiered customer loyalty programs allow customers to earn points with increasing tiers of rewards, depending on the points they accumulate. Gifts, free products, and exclusive access can all be part of a tiered customer loyalty program. 

Paid programs

These programs require customers to pay a monthly or annual fee to be a part of a "members only" rewards program. Once they are a member of this program they can get access to special events, services, products, deals, and other unique opportunities that other customers don’t get to take advantage of. 

The paid barrier to entry has the potential to draw customers further into your marketing funnel in addition to promoting incentivised opportunities. 

Punch programs 

A well known type of customer loyalty program, punch programs are easy to understand and make earning rewards simple for customers. A digital or physical “card” requires a certain number of “punches” (received by making a purchase) in order to earn a gift or reward. This incentivises customers to continue making purchases in order to build up punches and earn rewards. 

2 - Define the rewards and rules

Now that you’ve decided what type of customer loyalty program you are going to use, it's time to make the rules and decide what rewards you will offer to your loyal customers. You don’t want to overwhelm your customers with too many options or make the rules too complicated, or customers will lose interest. 

You can also opt to launch your customer loyalty program in bite-sized chunks that are easy to understand and progress naturally. 

At the end of the day, you want rewards that have:

• a perceived value
• rules that are easy to understand
• simple ways to redeem rewards 

Before you get started, make sure that your business is using accounting software that comes with critical features such as integrations, payments, and invoice templates. This way you can take advantage of all of your prospecting and sales opportunities to streamline your customer loyalty program. 

If you use customer relationship management software, you will also have to think about how to integrate the program into your existing classification system. 

3 - Promote your program

Once you’ve established the rules and rewards of your customer loyalty program, it's time to promote your program to get customers to sign up. 

Start with email promotions sent to your existing customers and current mailing list. Keep in mind that emails that are relevant to customer’s real life experiences with your brand are 38% more likely to be opened, so clearly explain what the email is for in the subject line.

Companies should also utilize social media to promote their rewards program. Focus on platforms where your target audience spend most of their time or where you get the most engagement so you can spread the word to those that are likely to be interested in signing up for your program. 

Don’t forget to use your website to promote your rewards program as well. You have the full attention of consumers that visit your page, so take advantage of that to offer them incentives to join your customer loyalty program. 

You can use chatbots on your website, design a dedicated landing page to get people to sign up, and include a pop up sign up form after they spend a certain amount of time on your site. 

Loyalty Program Examples

Check out this email example from Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, they’re promoting their rewards program to their existing customers. And in the email, they are clearly defining the benefits of the rewards program.

Sephora is another example of a great loyalty program. They have a tiered program incentivizing customers to spend more. The more you spend with Sephora, the better the program benefits get.

Common customer loyalty program pitfalls

Avoid making these mistakes when implementing a customer loyalty program:

• Only targeting high spenders. Instead, identify the customers that are the most vulnerable to competition and focus your efforts on targeting them with loyalty promotions. 

• Not keeping track of metrics. It’s crucial to track loyalty measurements such as churn, response, retention, and lifetime value in order to accurately gauge how your loyalty program is performing. 

• Not listening to your customers. When your customers tell you something they like or dislike about your brand or your program, listen to them. 

For example, you may be trying to be modern by accepting PayPal, cryptocurrencies, or other alternative payment methods. But 71% of customers report preferring to pay using a credit or debit card, so make sure you use a payment gateway that can accept credit and debit with a smooth, secure interface. 

Start your loyalty program today

Creating a customer loyalty program is a great way to build lasting customer relationships and increase profits simultaneously. 

In order to design a successful customer loyalty program, it’s important that companies choose the right type of loyalty program with easy to understand rules and attract the right customers. 

Remember, it’s not all about the money. Keep an eye on crucial metrics to understand the full impact of your customer loyalty program, and focus on providing incentives that your customers will love.

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Why Meta’s $315M acquisition of Giphy is set to get BLOCKED

Meta, the corporate conqueror formerly known as Facebook, looks set to lose a chunk of its gargantuan empire. According to the Financial Times, the UK’s competition regulator is expected to reverse the company’s acquisition of Giphy. The move, which would be the first time that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has reversed a big tech deal, could set a precedent for future action. The CMA’s investigation Facebook agreed to buy Giphy for $315 million in May 2020. Announcing the deal in a blogpost, Vishal Shah, then-Facebook VP of Product, said the GIF-hosting platform would join the Instagram team: Giphy…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Giphy

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80% of consumers agree brand awareness makes them more likely to buy on social

Several years of research has gone into optimizing the ecommerce checkout process. Every facet of the customer experience has been peeled back, tested and tested again, resulting in an abundance of data marketers can use to optimize for conversions.

Social commerce, on the other hand, is the next frontier.

The latest evolution in online shopping comes with new limitations and opportunities. What worked on your ecommerce site may not make an impact in a crowded newsfeed. As consumers continue to embrace this distinctive checkout experience, understanding their motivations will be crucial to building a lucrative strategy.

We surveyed 1,000 US consumers to better understand what’s driving perceptions and behaviors around social commerce (i.e., did TikTok really make me buy it?)

According to our data, 65% of participants have already made purchases directly through social media. US retail social commerce sales are projected to exceed $56 billion by 2023, marking an opportunity businesses can’t afford to miss out on. This report unpacks what brands can learn from these early adopters and how they can become even more competitive in this uncharted market.

Brand awareness is the key to unlocking more purchases on social

People are spending more time on social media and consequently, they’re spending more time shopping. Seventy-one percent of consumers found themselves using social media more in the last year than ever before and 34% say they’re using it to learn about products, services and brands.

When you’re scrolling through a sea of content from friends, family and creators, posts that make you want to stop and shop are likely coming from brands you’re already familiar with. Social is one (crucial) lever in an integrated marketing strategy, so consumers may also learn about your brand in another channel and decide to turn to social for some quick product research.

 

Building buzz around your brand does more than just boost your reputation. Our survey found that 80% of consumers say that brand familiarity (i.e., knowledge of the brand) makes them more likely to buy on social. On top of that, our data shows a positive correlation between time spent on social media and the likelihood of purchase based on familiarity with a brand.

In an increasingly crowded social media landscape, there are myriad ways to get in front of your target audience. But what type of social content actually captures consumers’ interest when they’re inclined to buy?

When it comes to getting noticed, audiences are highly receptive to paid media. Consumers ranked in-feed ads as the most common method of finding new products to purchase, followed by discovery pages and story ads.

The takeaway: To get more ROI on social, you need to get noticed. A hybrid paid and organic social strategy can increase brand discoverability by getting your most popular content in front of relevant prospects right when they’re ready to buy.

Consumers use social commerce to treat themselves

Between a global pandemic, social justice movements and several environmental disasters, many of us are looking for some much needed stress relief. Social commerce seems to be inspiring people to indulge in retail therapy, as 71% of consumers are most likely to shop for themselves when buying directly from social.

Consumers shopping for personal enjoyment makes sense considering the targeted nature of paid social and algorithm-driven discovery pages. After all, the products they’re likely seeing are tailored to their own interests.

After more than a year’s worth of disruptions to their daily routines, consumers are envisioning what their lives might look like on the other side—and they’re shopping to suit these lifestyle changes, as well.

This might explain why apparel tops the list of most popular product categories to shop for when buying on social media, followed by media (i.e., movies, songs, etc.) and app subscriptions. When analyzing the data by gender, we found that women are also more likely to shop for arts and crafts, cosmetics, and jewelry. Men, on the other hand, show a more significant interest in app subscriptions and electronics.

Understanding the needs and wants of your target audience is more important than ever, thanks to demographic driven differences in social commerce habits. If marketers want to make in-platform sales, they’ll have to dig into audience data to find out what people are looking for and why.

The takeaway: If your audience is shopping for themselves, you need to know what compels them to hit “buy now.” Use a social media management tool to track how your audience varies by platform. From there, you can plan your product listings and promotion strategy based on consumer interest.

Brands need to rethink product listings to catch consumer attention

Social commerce user experiences are not one in the same. As networks continue to release transactional features that are unique to their own standards of engagement, marketers will need to rethink what an effective product listing looks like.

In this new world, the importance of compelling visual content cannot be understated. Consumers expect detailed product listings that make the most of a network’s capabilities by showcasing user-generated content, reviews, live video and more. The more detailed the listing, the more people are able to imagine the value your product can add to their day-to-day lives.

Consumers state that they are most likely to make purchases on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube—all three of which support media-rich listings. Both Facebook and Youtube have introduced shoppable live video to help brands bring the televised home shopping experience into the new decade. Instagram product listings allow brands to include tagged posts from real customers, giving users a more authentic look at why people love a product.

As social commerce features push the envelope on creative advertising, producing and collecting high quality video and photo content will only become more important.

The takeaway: Content-rich product listings are a deal-maker when it comes to social commerce. Luckily, you should be able to repurpose your existing social content to spruce up your shoppable posts. If you find that you’re light on visual content, assess your future social media strategy to see where there’s room to create more resources that can complement commerce initiatives down the line.

Ready, set, sell

Consumers turn to social media to make connections, but they stay to get inspired by content from influencers, creators and brands. With social commerce, they now have the power to act on that inspiration with little to no friction.

As buying on social becomes faster and easier than ever, brands will have to work to unravel what’s driving purchase decisions on individual platforms. Using this data as groundwork to inform your own tests and strategies will help get you closer to your end goal—driving more sales.

If you want to set yourself up for even more success, check out our additional data on the common issues that prevent people from making purchases on social. Just a few tweaks can take your social commerce experience to the next level.

About the Data

The consumer survey was conducted by Lucid between October 20-22, 2021 among 1,037 US adults ages 18-75. Selected participants were those who use at least one social media platform. Information collected includes gender, age, household income, self-reported minutes per day spent on social media, and social purchasing behaviors. Sprout recognizes gender beyond the binary, although some responses have been omitted due to sample size. Relationships between variables collected were analyzed using parametric statistics for statistical significance. Direct purchases through social media were defined as “purchases that were completed on a social platform, or purchases completed on a brand’s website after clicking a post from a social platform”.

The top 0.5% of data was winsorized to limit the impact of extreme outliers.

For questions about the data, please contact pr@sproutsocial.com.

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Marketing Week 2021: Get Expert Sales & Marketing Tips at This December Event

We’re excited to announce that, in December we’ll be running a week-long free marketing series for business owners, side hustlers, and entrepreneurs.

This event is for anyone looking to improve their social media skills, get better email deliverability, create engaging videos, set up Facebook Lead ads and retargeting, and make more sales.

Marketing Week encompasses 5 days of webinars and other resources to help you build out a marketing plan for your products or services.

We don’t believe that “if you build it, they will come.” Marketing is important for every business — so we're offering the advice you need, free and easy to access.

Why should you sign up for Marketing Week?

Have you ever thought about selling something new, created it, set up a sales page, and published it — and then waited, but you didn’t sell anything? Unfortunately, the old adage “if you build it, they will come” is simply not true.

Marketing is how you get your products seen. But you don’t have to spend millions on a superbowl advertisement to get awareness for your product. There are many easy and affordable (even free) marketing tactics.

What you do need is some advice!

That’s why we created Marketing Week: To help you start selling and growing your income. From starting an email list all the way through retargeting current customers — you’ll get the tips and tools you need to make your first of many sales.

Get started with the basics

Let's face it: Most of us didn't learn anything about marketing in school (we were too busy learning chemistry we'd never use).

Whether you're a creator, a consultant, or you sell products / services, you're likely an expert in your own field — but not necessarily selling your craft.

Good news! The presentations and other resources offered during Marketing Week don't assume you know anything already. Simply come with an open mind and get some easy and actionable tips for making more sales.

Set yourself apart from the competition

No matter what you're selling, you must convince your customers to spend their money with you instead of someone else.

Get the information you need to show off your business, and capture the competitive edge.

Grow your business in 2022

December is a crazy good time for sales. But it's also a time when you need to start planning for the next year. Get the resources you need to sell more, starting at the beginning of next year.

Learn easy and affordable marketing from experts

Through live webinars, pre-recorded videos, and blog posts, we’ll be covering Marketing 101 for business owners. You don’t need any experience!

If you do know some marketing, you're welcome to come learn something new, too.

Beginner marketing:

☐ Social media: How to do social media marketing that doesn’t consume all your time.

☐ Facebook Lead Ads: Steps to set up your first advertisement on Facebook. ☐ Videos: Creating a beautiful and interesting onboarding video to include in customer emails. ☐ Free tools: 30 of our favorite free marketing tools in 30 minutes (don’t worry, we’ll record the session for later viewing). ☐ Lead conversion: How to capture every lead from your marketing funnel to make the most sales from the time and money you spend on marketing. ☐ Customer feedback: Learn the best way to do effective marketing — by literally asking your customers what they want to hear. ☐ Remarketing: Getting your current customers to buy again and spend more.

You know AWeber would never put on an event without some email marketing tips and tricks. We’ve got advice for anyone who wants to write emails that result in a bigger audience and, ultimately, more sales.

Email marketing for all levels:

☐ Improve open rates: There’s no quick trick. But we’ll cover ways to make sure your open rates are high and your audience loves your content. ☐ Copywriting: It’s all about knowing your audience. Learn how to write emails and sign-up forms that resonate with your audience. ☐ Abandoned cart emails: We’re sure you get those emails saying “We noticed you left something in your cart…” Want to start sending them? Learn how in this session. ☐ AMP for Email: Want to learn about the new wave of interactive email marketing? Our in-house experts will break it down in a way you can understand.

Meet the presenters

These experts in their industries are excited to teach you what they know and get you started on your marketing journey!

Roxana Motoc
Head of Marketing at SocialBee
Get More Social Media Results With Less Effort

Eric Melchor
Partnership Ambassador for Bonjoro
5 Tips to get More Customers with an Onboarding Video

Steffney Loganbill
Partner Development Manager at Ruby
Investing in marketing but not seeing returns? Let’s talk calls

Brian Minick
COO at ZeroBounce
8 Tips To Land Your Emails In The Inbox

Dave Stys
Product Manager at AWeber
How to Make an Interactive Email with AMP

Jeni McGuigan
Email Designer at AWeber
How to Make an Interactive Email with AMP

Alycia McFarlin
Senior UX Designer at AWeber
How to Write Email Copy That Resonates with Your Customers

Zac Gery
Product Manager at AWeber
30 Free Marketing Tools in 30 Minutes

Andrew Prawl
Product Manager at AWeber and Creator of The Busy Traveler
How to Set Up Your First Facebook Lead Ads

Sign up for Marketing Week today

Want to sign up for Marketing Week? There's no cost and no commitment. We'll simply invite you to all the presentations and let you know when the videos and blog posts are released. Note: You'll also be signed up for The AWeber Newsletter, sent weekly with marketing tips and resources.

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Email Marketing Best Practices for 2022 The Drive Results

Sending emails can feel intimidating at first. It may even cause some “email anxiety” (yeah that’s a thing). But sending emails doesn’t have to be complicated or scary if you follow some basic email marketing best practices.

As you go through this list of best practices for email marketing, you won’t see guidelines about how many emails you should send, or how long your email needs to be, or the optimal length of a subject line. 

The truth is, that while these are all great and important questions, the answer to these questions is different for every company. You can only answer these with email testing (which by the way IS a best practice).

No matter what your business is or what industry you’re in, some tried-and-true best email marketing best practices can only help guide you to success. 

Email Marketing Best Practices

1. Create automated email campaigns
2. Segment your email list
3. Personalize your emails
4. Create engaging email content
5. Have call to action
6. Use confirmed opt-in
7. Do not purchase an email list
8. Clean your email list
9. Do not use a no-reply email address
10. Test emails before sending
11. Analyze your email marketing stats
12. A/B split test your email campaigns

1 - Create automated email campaigns

Email automation allows you to send the right message to the right people at the right time without having to set up and send one-off emails every time.

A perfect example of an automated email marketing campaign is your welcome email. Studies have shown a welcome email can generate 320% more revenue per email, 4 times higher open rates than other emails, and 5 times higher click-through rates than promotional emails. 

In addition to the welcome series, you can set up email automation campaigns for:

• Cart abandonments
• Thank you for your purchase or download or sign up
• Confirmation of an opt-in
• An event based trigger like an anniversary or birthday
• If a customer hasn’t opened an email in several months, you can trigger a “We miss you” message

While automated email campaigns can save you time and lead to higher results, it’s important not to set it and forget it. You should still monitor the performance of your automated email series and find ways to test so you can improve your email performance.

2 - Segment your email list

Email segmentation is a way to break up your list into smaller, more targeted groups, based on a specific set of criteria. 

When you segment, you can send more personalized and relevant content or offers to customers based on similar interests, geographic location, purchase history, and so much more.

Plus, it leads to a higher open rate, click rate, and conversation rate. And more importantly, higher revenue. Some marketers reported as much as 760% increase in revenue.

RELATED: Ways Email Segmentation Can Boost Subscriber Engagement

3 - Personalize your emails

Which of the two following examples do you think would trigger more foot traffic?

In this example, if I know Diane’s location preference is in Springfield and she’s previously purchased Martha Stewart products and LEGO’s, then this personalized email will resonate much more than the more generic example.

Email personalization allows you to create more targeted emails that stand out in the inbox. You should be personalizing everything in your emails from the subject line to the actual email content to the offer itself.

4 - Create engaging email content

The purpose of your emails is to get people to read them so they can take the desired action. So obviously you want to create an email that is compelling and engaging. For some people that’s easier said than done. If you’re like me, then writing doesn’t come naturally, but don’t worry. AWeber has resources to help you write amazing emails.

5 - Have a call to action

Most emails need to have a call to action. Think of the result or action you want your subscriber to achieve, now call it out. Sure you will occasionally send an email that doesn’t require a call to action (or CTA), like a thank you email, and that’s fine.

For those other emails you need to have some form of a call to action. This could be a CTA button or hyperlink which directs subscribers to your website to read a blog, sign up for an event, or make a purchase. Other types of call to actions could have the results of driving traffic into a physical location.

Plus, you can get creative with your CTAs. Don’t feel like you can only use “click here,” “read more,” or “shop now.” Check out how shoe store DSW phrased its call to action in an email promoting a “buy one get one” offer:

6 - Use confirmed opt-in

Setting up a signup form on your landing page or Facebook page is a great way to grow your email list. But once they sign up, send an email to confirm their email address. 

Getting a subscriber to verify again that they want to receive your email is a great way to improve your delivery rate. And since they confirmed their email address, you know they really wanted to sign up. This should make them more responsive and lead to higher email engagement.

7 - Do not purchase an email list

If we had a megaphone for this point, we would use it.  Never purchase an email list. Sending emails which people didn’t provide their permission for is considered spam — not to mention illegal.

When you use a purchased email list, you’re setting yourself up for disaster. Since these people didn’t opt-in to hear from you, they begin to mark your messages as spam. This will lead to lower delivery rates and your emails will start to go straight to spam folders where they will never get seen or open.

AWeber, among other reputable email marketing service companies, will not allow you to import a purchased list. 

8 - Clean your email list

Cleaning your email list should be viewed as addition by subtraction. By removing contacts from your list who have not opened your email over a specific period of time, you will receive better open rates. How? Because you’re only sending to those subscribers who are really interested in your product or service.

You also reduce the risk that an inactive subscriber will mark your email as spam, which could negatively impact your delivery rate.

It is recommended that your email list should be cleaned at least once every six months. 

9 - Do not use a no-reply email address

Have you ever received an email from a noreply email address? It looks something like this - noreply@domain.com.

You should never be sending an email with a noreply address. And the reasons are obvious:

• A noreply email address decreases deliverability
• It increases your chances of being labeled as spam
• By not allowing your customers to reply to your email you are creating a poor customer experience

Instead of having a reply email address as noreply@domain.com, have it come from an actual person or customerservice@domain.com. Either way, to ensure your customers questions are answered in a timely manner, make sure you have someone actively managing this email address.

10 - Test emails before sending

Proof-reading your email is a critical step before pressing “send.”

Part of this process should be sending yourself a test email before scheduling your email. I recommend setting up a pre-flight checklist, where you can check all elements of your email to make sure it’s in good shape to send.

Send yourself a test email and check for these important email marketing elements:

• Email is rendering properly
• Images are loading
• You have alt text for your images (for images that don’t render this will tell the reader what the image is about)
• There are no spelling mistakes
• Your hyperlinks and call to action buttons take you to a live page
• It looks good on both  laptop and mobile

11 - Analyze your email marketing stats

But how do you know your emails are working? By looking at the data. One of the most important email marketing campaign best practices is to understand how your emails are performing. 

The most important email marketing performance data you should look at are:

Open Rate

Click Rate

Delivery Rate

Opt Out Rate

12 - A/B split test your email campaigns

Anyone can create a marketing email that gets opened and clicked. But if you want to create a truly remarkable email experience for your customers, you need to split test.

I hear all too often, what should I test? Well, with an email service provider like AWeber, you can and should test everything. 

Here are a few email test ideas to get those creative juices flowing:

• Different subject line messages
• Image vs no image in the email
• Different color call to action button
• Time of day
• Short subject line vs long subject line
• Short email message vs long email message
• Who the email is from - a person’s name, customer service, the name of your company

Testing will ultimately help you understand your customer better, which will lead to a better experience.

Remember, once your test is done, analyze your stats. 

Email marketing is not rocket science. And once you start following these email marketing best practices, I’m sure you’ll see even more success growing your business — and have some fun in the process as well. 

Take Your Email Skills to the Next Level

Now that you know the most important email marketing best practices it's time to get all the tools and resources you need to become an email marketing pro in no time.

I get it, running a business is like working two full-time jobs. Sometimes it may be a challenge to dedicate the time and energy into marketing your business. We’ve made it a little easier for you with this guide: “How to grow your business with email marketing”.  

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