Ecommerce isn’t all about finding and promoting an amazing product.
To stay in business, you need to make sure every sale is profitable.
To be profitable you need to squeeze the maximum revenue out of your web sessions.
60-70% bounce rate is considered ‘average’ by Shopify.
That means 60-70% of your ad traffic for which you paid is wasted.
That means higher cost of acquisition and that means less profit in your pocket.
That is what this post is all about.
It’s about investing in the channel with the highest ROI. It’s about emails.
Think about this:
To drive traffic you are spending money every day on ads.
You get sales for as long as you continue paying FB / Google and that’s fine.
You can’t scale that well without running ads so it makes absolute sense.
What doesn’t make sense is not fully utilizing the said traffic.
To maximize your sales, you need to have flows setup in an ESP like Klaviyo or Omnisend. You need to capture leads, build your list and monetize that.
Some of it is complex but a lot of it is very simple, simpler than you might think.
These flows can make money for you automatically, day after day, without a huge investment with very little effort from your part.
Email, as a channel, can contribute anywhere between 20-40% to your overall revenue.
That means a small brand with a total annual revenue of $110K made would have made $25K LESS without emails. That additional $25K might make all the difference in the world for this store owner.
With that additional 20% or so, she can stay in the business longer!
Another brand which is made $400K in December 2020 would have made $100K LESS without emails…Who would like to leave that amount of money on the table…
That being said, this is by no means a super complex post.
This isn’t about perfection.
It’s about taking some time out to set up some emails which will help you lower your cost-of acquisition and increase your customer lifetime value.
Here’s a breakdown of what you need to set up in your ESP to add an additional 15-20% revenue to your bottom-line.
I have broken this down into two steps to make it easier for you when you are setting these up 🙂
Critical Flows:
These are the 3 things that you absolutely need to set up on DAY 1.
DON’T PROCRASTINATE ON THESE!
Time Required: 2-3 Hours Max
1 – Abandoned Cart Flow:
Objective: Recover Lost Sales
- 1st Email: First Reminder
- 2nd Email: 2nd Reminder
- 3rd Email: Incentive
- 4th Email: Bigger Incentive
2 – Welcome Flow
Objective: Convert Prospects into Customers
- 1st Email: Welcome + Incentive
- 2nd Email: Engage (Provide Value – Guides, Blogs, Social Media, etc. )
- 3rd Email: Incentive (Reminder – If they didn’t buy)
- 4th Email: Build Trust (engage with reviews and other UGC)
- 5th Email: Showcase Best-Sellers
Tip: Use Klaviyo’s Flow Library to get a jumpstart. After that add any additional emails you need in the flows.
3 – Lead-gen Pop-up
Objective: Build Email List + Funnel Leads into Welcome Flow
Trigger: Exit intent + 10 sec after page load
Start small.
Ask just for their first name (optional) and email address (compulsory).
Convey the value in filling it out. What will they get?
Once you have your pop-up setup, you will actively start building a subscriber list which is a HUGE ASSET which you can then proceed and monetize through promotional campaigns.
Remember, you control the narrative in your email campaigns. A bigger list means more $$$.
There are very few restrictions with emails. That is perfect for brands in niches like CBD, Tobacco, Healthcare oftentimes have higher scrutiny when it comes to running ads on FB.
Great To Have Flows:
Once you have the core flows in place, proceed and set these up to give a boost to your revenue, retain your customers, and build credibility on your website.
Time Required: 2 Hours Max
Facebook ads can get you the first order. Emails can help in getting you the 2nd one without spending more $$$.
These flows will help you increase customer lifetime value and continue your relationship with your customers.
There are two main flows here:
Upsell Flow:
Objective: Get your 2nd order asap!
Trigger: Exit intent + 10 sec after page load
Give them an incentive immediately after their order to place another one. With the right copy, you can also position it so you aren’t giving a coupon code, just asking them one last time if they would like to add anything else to their basket.
Post-Purchase Flow:
Objective: Increase CLV+ Get Referrals + Get Reviews
Trigger: Order Fulfillment
- 1st Email: Thank you
- 2nd Email: Gift / Incentive
- 3rd Email: Showcase New Arrivals / Best Sellers
- 4th Email: Ask for Review
There are plenty of other flows that you can set up for your brand but setting just these alone puts you in a much better position.
Klaviyo costs you $0 to get started with and you have upto 250 subscribers free.
Even at 10K contacts, it costs about $175 / month.
This is not a promotion for Klaviyo, but for 20% additional revenue this might be the best investment you can make for your ecommerce brand.
Grunt it out and get the dones done! All this takes is a few hours.
Got questions?
Drop them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them 🙂
