You may have heard about it, but what is an email transactional? We will do our best to give every answer to your questions regarded transactional email, when it’s used and how to integrate it in your automation process.

Read our post to know the best practises, examples and platform to use.

What is transactional email?

It can also be called triggered email, because it’s a special kind of message sent to users after they perform some actions on your website.

You send a transactional email to answer an action (or inaction) by your users and boost your personal relationship with them. This is a great way to build a personalized customer experience.

Transactional email vs EmailAn email (or electronic mail) is a method of exchanging communications through the internet. It is one of the most used features on the web and the number one mean... marketing

As the very definition of transactional email suggests, it is a different message then your usual email marketing campaing. Email transactional are always sent to one user at a time, triggered by a specific thing they did on your website.

On the contrary, email marketing is all about sending the same message (although personalized when possibile) to a group of users in order to get a response from them.

If email marketing is about call to actions aimed at as many users as possible, transactional emails are about responding to a single customer’s action.

When do you use it?

You can send a triggered email to users when they do something specific on your website, blog or e-commerce. It’s an often automated email sent to people who have already been on your page and performed an action.

An example of transactional email is the welcome message you send to a user when they subscribe to your newsletter. But there are many ways in which you can adopt this kind of email and elicit a high user engagement rate.

Email transactional examples

When your customer does something on your website, you can use that chance to send them a transactional email with a very specific call to action.

For instance, your user has bought something on your e-commerce store. Then, you send a personalized email to them, thanking them and giving your receipt, an order confirmation and shipment deteails.

Or maybe a user has a personal profile on your website, but they lost their password. They will click on a “Forgotten your password?” link. Then you will send them specific instructions on how to set a new password. This will allow them to go back to your page and your customer relationship will be more intimate and personal.

Actions that require email transactional

Here is the most common instances in which to use a transactional email:

• in order to welcome a new user on your platform;
• to thank them for a purchase;
• if you need to send them a receipt or shipment infos;
• when they create an account and you need them to confirm their email;
• when they want to change their password or user informations;
• to send security alerts when something unusual happens on their account;
• for legal notices.

In every one of this examples of email transactional, you can personalize the message in order to sound more friendly.

What’s so special about this emails?

Your usual email marketing messages are aimed to as many recipients as possibile. Their purpose is to engage your audience in a particular action such as buying something; subscribe to a newsletter, follow you on social media; know about a new product or service and such.

Email transactional, on the other end, are sent from a sender to a recipient in order to respond to an action they took. So it’s a very personal communication, aimed specifically to them and them only.

How a transactional email can boost your customer relationship

When a user browse your website in search for something, you can analyze their behaviour and use it to your advantage.

For example, send them specific emails about their cart they abandoned before finalizing the purchese. Suggest them a similar item to the one they already bought. Ask them for feedback after receiving the product.

This is going to make them feel valued by your brand and more likely to use your website again. A recent study revealed that including personalized product reccomendations can improve your sellings by up to 49%.

Best practises and tricks

One best practise of email transactional is making it as personal as possible. Use or customer’s name and address them directly.

Always try to improve your expert but informal tone of voice. You want to be the person they are going to reach when in need, but at the same time you are their friend.

Remember storytelling is always a compelling way to catch people’s attention: include a personal story or anecdote to make your communication funnier and more intimate.

Be enthusiastic but not overly-salesy. You don’t want to come across as obnoxious and spammy, do you?

Time is key

When sending a transactional email, you need to be as quick as possible. Remember that anxious feeling when you placed an order and you are not sure it’s already been received by the company? You don’t want your customers to feel like that.

The customer journey should be a smooth and easy process, filled with anticipation and joy about your recent action towards a company. In order to create that easy-going atmosphere, your emails should reach the user’s inbox in as little time as possible.

How can you manage your transactional email system?

Quick and personal, friendly but professional: does is sound like a lot of work to you? That’s because it is.

As many email communication strategies, email transactional are dificult to manage on your own. That’s why you’ll need an automated system to perfom the most time-consuming part of your email strategy.

Marketing automation platforms are perfect for your needs. They will send a transactional emails everytime a user performs a specific action on your site.

What are the best platforms out there?

The most famous and effective email marketing automation platforms have a good transactional emails section. Sites like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign allow you to send this kind of messages with little fuss.

Mailsenpai has a great service that includes transactional emails and is very easy to use. You will have lots of email templates to choose from, each of them customizable to your unique needs.

An autoresponder will keep track of opt-in and opt-out procedures perfomed by your users and reports and statystics will give you all the data you need to improve your strategies. The deliverability rate is high and accurate and email lists are constatly polished to boost your conversion rate.

A team of professional email marketers will be happy to help you every step of the way.

A practical example

Here is an example of email transactional you can set up on Mailsenpai or any other email marketing platform.

Let’s say your customer has ordered something from your online store. This is what they will find in their inbox when the package has been shipped:

“Hi [name of the customer],

your order from [name of the brand] is on its way! You will receive it on your doorstep in 3-5 working days.

This is your tracking number: [order’s tracking number]

While waiting for it, why don’t you look at these new items in store? [include pictures and links to related products]

Can’t wait for you to receive our package!

Thanks,

[name of the brand]”

This is a simple yet effective, personalized and friendly email transactional you can send in just a few steps.

Conclusions

Now you know a lot about email transaction and how it works. You can start implementing it in your customer relationship right now and see if it works for you.

We’re fairly sure you will benefit from sending triggered emails and boost your sales in time. Please contact us if you need something and start improving your career.