In today's digital age, email, and SMS marketing have become crucial tools for e-commerce brands looking to connect with their audience and drive sales. Let's dive into some key strategies and insights that can help you elevate your email and SMS marketing efforts.

1. Introduction to Email and SMS Marketing Strategies

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A common misconception in the e-commerce world is that email and SMS marketing are solely for lifecycle or retention marketing. While these channels certainly contribute to customer retention, their role in customer acquisition is often underestimated.

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Email marketing should be implemented from the very beginning of a brand's journey, even with a small customer base. At the bare minimum, it's recommended to set up a pop-up for email collection, implement basic flows, and send at least one campaign per month. This approach ensures that you're capturing potential customers from the start and building a valuable asset for your business.

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2. The Importance of Segmentation and Automation

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One of the most critical aspects of effective email and SMS marketing is proper segmentation and automation. The quality of your segments or triggers for automation is the biggest lever in determining the performance of your marketing efforts.

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Instead of relying solely on time-based segments (e.g., opened an email in the last 30 days), consider creating more nuanced segments based on engagement levels. For example, you could create a segment of users who have opened at least one email out of the last three sent, or clicked on an email in the last seven days. These tighter, more specific segments can lead to significantly higher open rates and engagement.

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In terms of automation, the quality of the intent trigger is crucial. Abandoned checkout automations typically outperform other types of flows, including welcome series, due to the high-intent signal they represent. This underscores the importance of tailoring your automations to capture and respond to specific customer behaviors and intentions.

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3. Collaboration Between Media Buyers and Email Strategists

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Breaking down silos between different marketing teams, particularly between media buyers (responsible for advertising) and email strategists, is essential for success. Two key areas for collaboration are content and audiences.

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On the content front, there should be constant communication about high-performing creative assets across channels. If a particular ad creative is performing well, it's likely that a version of it could be effective in email campaigns as well. The same goes for organic social content – successful social media campaigns can be adapted for email, and vice versa.

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When it comes to audiences, it's important to leverage integrations between different platforms to share high-intent audience segments. For example, high-intent email audiences can be shared with the advertising team for retargeting purposes, allowing brands to capitalize on engagement signals across multiple channels.

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4. Understanding the Role of Email in Customer Acquisition

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While many brands view email primarily as a retention tool, it's actually a critical component of customer acquisition. While advertising drives traffic to a website, email marketing is about collecting data from that traffic and nurturing potential customers over time. By capturing email addresses through pop-ups or other means, brands can track user behavior (product views, cart additions, abandonments) and use this data to inform both email campaigns and advertising strategies.

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In fact, a significant portion of e-commerce email strategy should focus on getting someone to make their first purchase, rather than focusing on repeat purchases. This approach positions email as a powerful tool for converting interested prospects into paying customers, often at a lower cost than continual ad retargeting.

5. Attribution and Measuring Success in Email Marketing

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Measuring the impact of email marketing can be challenging, especially when it comes to conversions that may have been influenced by both advertising and email efforts. Using UTM parameters and hidden fields in email sign-up forms to track the source of email subscribers can help. This data can then be used to analyze how much of your cold traffic from ads is converting via email over time, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of your marketing funnel.

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Attribution tools like Northbeam and Triple Whale can help brands get a more holistic view of their marketing performance across channels. However, the choice of attribution model and the metrics you prioritize should align with your overall business goals, whether that's profitable customer acquisition or breakeven growth to build your email list.

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6. Building and Owning Your Audience

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Building and owning your audience is crucial in today's digital marketing landscape. While advertising platforms can change their algorithms or increase costs, your email list remains a valuable asset that you control.

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Once a potential customer has given you their email address, it's much more cost-effective to market to them via email than to try to reach them again through advertising. This emphasizes the long-term value of investing in email marketing and building a robust, engaged subscriber base.

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Conclusion

These insights challenge some common misconceptions about email and SMS marketing in the e-commerce space. Far from being just a retention tool, these channels play a crucial role in customer acquisition, working in tandem with advertising efforts to nurture leads and drive conversions.

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Key takeaways include:

• Start building your email list from day one, even if you're a small brand.
  
  
• Focus on creating high-quality segments and automations based on specific customer behaviors and intentions.
  
  
• Foster collaboration between your email marketing and advertising teams, sharing both content ideas and audience data.
  
  
• View email as a critical part of your customer acquisition strategy, not just for retention.
  
  
• Invest in proper attribution to understand the true impact of your email marketing efforts.
  
  
• Prioritize building and owning your audience through email, as it's a valuable asset you control.
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By implementing these strategies and shifting your perspective on the role of email and SMS marketing, you can create more effective, integrated marketing campaigns that drive growth for your e-commerce brand. Remember, the key is to continually test, analyze, and refine your approach based on your specific audience and business goals.

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