Major newsletter update | Ecom email deliverability fixes

Hello to our 8000+ fearless Sellify Success Club Members!

In today’s email you’ll notice we’re switching up our content in response to feedback we’ve received from our members. 

Each week the Sellify newsletter will cover: 

• One industry update as it affects your store’s traffic/conversion rate optimization efforts

• Rate my store/landing page/email/etc. A 1-minute mini teardown of other people’s stores

• Other sellers doing it right: A mini-case study showing other seller’s results

• 60-minute challenge: 1 thing you can do this week to improve your results by 1%

• What’s trending in ecommerce: Trending products you can consider

From next week, you’ll receive this newsletter every Monday. We hope you’ll get some great insights out of today’s newsletter!

- Mike & the Sellify Team

Ecom email deliverability fixes

Imagine spending a fortune on optimizing your store - catchy design, superfast speed, and even a conversion rate worthy of Amazon’s jealousy…..but emails never reach your customers. 

No order confirmation emails, shipping tracking emails, feedback emails, abandoned cart emails… nothing. It’ll only be a matter of time until your sales decline as customers get increasingly left in the lurch, with no reliable means of communication. 

In 2024, it’s almost a cardinal sin to have problems with email delivery.  And email delivery problems aren’t that rare especially since the large email providers tightened their sending requirements earlier this year. According to their new rules, to avoid being relegated to the Junk Folder, you will need to do some technical tinkering with your DMARC, SPF and DKIM records. 

Source: EmailToolTester 2024

Fast fix: If you’ve noticed a significant drop in your email rates since February, check these records.

And email delivery issues are only half the battle. Once you’ve crossed the technical hurdles, you need to be a little more intentional than enabling the default Shopify email flows. 

👎 Still getting poor ROI on emails? Try these next:

• Segment your email list (by demographics, purchase history, or engagement level) and send personalized messages to each segment

• Write emails your customers actually want to hear about

• Create automated email workflows for welcome sequences, abandoned cart, order confirmation, and post-purchase follow-ups to streamline communication and drive sales.

• Time your emails for maximum engagement

• Add ‘visual candy’ like GIFs, videos, and interactive components to enhance user experience. 

• Keep your emails mobile-friendly to accommodate the growing number of users accessing emails on smartphones and tablets.

• Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA by making sure you get consent for email communication. Also provide clear opt-out options.

• Experiment with different subject lines, content formats, and calls to action to identify the messaging styles that resonate best with your audience.

🛒 Closer look: Abandoned cart emails

So let’s drill down into every store owner’s favorite email - the abandoned cart email. This camping gear brand has a really simple, but powerful e-mail. Here it is:

Rating: 7/10

How to improve on Luna’s abandoned cart email:

• Offer incentives or practical solutions

• Test scarcity, limited time offers, product recommendations, urgency

• Offer customer support

🤹 Other seller’s results

This simple email added an extra $6,000 to Kerrit’s bottomline in one month, according to this case study. What’s interesting about this is that instead of offering results or social proof, Kerrit simply re-iterates the great features about its tights that would-be customers may have missed. 

Perhaps, this approach comes from Kerrit’s intimate knowledge of its target customers. If they abandon their cart to check for the features of competing products, it makes sense to try luring them back with a feature-first e-mail. 

⏰ 60-minute challenge time

What one thing can you do in 60-minutes or less to improve your sales by 1%?

Why not test out a new subject line for your abandoned cart email this week? If you’re still relying on the generic “Forgot something?” email, try sprucing up your subject line with a more targeted subject line like:

• "Don't Miss Out! Get Your Adventure Essentials Today"

• "Your Camping Gear Awaits! Grab It Before It's Gone"

• "Last Chance to Gear Up for Your Next Outdoor Adventure!"

• "Ready for the Outdoors? Your Cart is Waiting"

•  "Still Thinking About Going Camping? Gear Up and Turn Up Ready"

📈 What’s trending?

Image credit: GoogleTrends

Soundproof Strips

Soundproof strips are typically used to reduce noise transmission between rooms or spaces. While their effectiveness is limited to an extent (maximum noise reduction of up to 4dB) a lot of users still find them useful for keeping the noise out. 

More importantly, what’s driving this trend and why is it predicted to rise? One explanation is that people are investing in more ways to make the home environment a calmer environment - and this includes those working from home.

As a store owner, you can jump on this trend by:

• Testing similar products that promote a calmer home environment

• Exploring the calming-version of your existing inventory. For example, if you sell jewelry, could you consider anxiety-focused jewelry?

• Test other types of sound-proofing products. For example, soundproof doors, soundproof home renovation products options etc

• Just test soundproof strips :-)