Recent reports show that transactional emails have an average CTR of 4.8%. This is almost twice the CTR of average emails, for which the average CTR is around 2.5%. Furthermore, research shows that around 17.75% of clicked-through emails of this type result in an immediate purchase.
More on transactional emails below: what they are, how they work, and how you can use them to improve your email marketing campaigns!
WHAT ARE TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS?
Transactional emails usually describe emails that are automatically sent after a customer has triggered an event or interaction, like an email that updates the recipient of Shipping History or an email with the confirmation details of an order.
Note, transactional emails can also describe emails that are triggered by the lack of action, like in the case of emails that remind customers of abandoned carts.
In general, transactional emails have a higher CTR because recipients expect to receive them. To that end, despite being automatically triggered, these emails are often personalized with information that the recipient needs to know.
Often, these transactional emails are facilitated by email marketing tools or platforms. Amongst which is a marketing automation platform called Maropost, which is a cross-channel engagement tool capable of incredibly dynamic email personalization and more.
HOW ARE TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS USED?
Alright, now that we’ve cleared the must-know information, let’s dive in a little deeper, this time, by breaking down all of the most common reasons transactional emails are used:
- RECEIPTS & CONFIRMATIONS EMAILS: These are the most common types of transactional emails and are the perfect example of emails that recipients would go as far as to ‘refresh’ their inbox to wait for. They are, as the name implies, digital ‘payment confirmations’ or ‘receipts’ of a purchase. Although, some brands use these types of transactional emails to alert their users of successful sign-ups or account registration confirmation.
- URGENT REQUEST EMAILS: This type of transactional email describes any email triggered by a request that was made by the recipient of the email themselves. The most popular being ‘forgotten password requests’ that trigger ‘password reset’ emails.
- ACCOUNT EMAILS: These types of emails are similar to the previous type; except they are not specifically ‘requested’ by the recipient. Examples of this include emails that notify users of a service that there have been changes made in their account or emails that inform customers that they have outstanding payments that they need to pay.
- EVENT EMAILS: A type of transactional email that is meant to notify a customer when there are special events set during a certain day. Like the arrival of a shipment, the date of a sale, and so on and so forth.
- READER’S DIGEST EMAILS: For businesses who want to practice more selectivity when it comes to notifying their readers of important events, a summary or digest email is often used and sent out en masse, to inform their subscribers of all of the relevant dates and timeframes that they need to know that month or, even, that week.
- BEHAVIORAL EMAILS: An advanced form of transactional-email that is triggered by the past behavior of the recipient. They’re marketing-focused, but they’re only sent when the recipient meets certain conditions. Abandoned-cart notifications will fall into this category, and so do subscription reactivation emails.
- SUPPORT EMAILS: These are the opposite of the aforementioned ‘urgent’ requests emails mentioned previously. They are emails where the company makes requests from its audience in an effort to improve its current customer support process.
These are just some of the emails that encapsulate the ‘Transactional Email’ category. However, it should give you an idea of what to expect, and how necessary it is that you set up a tool or a platform like Maropost to take care of it for you.
FINAL THOUGHTS: ARE TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS NECESSARY?
The simple answer is… transactional emails should be a part of the marketing processes of all businesses in 2020.
This is true whether you’re running an e-commerce store that requires the need for hundreds, if not thousands, of transactional emails to be sent out every day, or a smaller subscription-based service that needs to stay connected with their audience through relevant and/or personalized transactional notifications that can improve their users’ overall customer journey.
