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If you run an ecommerce store, start with six email types: a welcome series, browse-abandonment reminder, abandoned-cart or abandoned-checkout recovery, post-purchase messages, win-back emails, and promotional or product-launch campaigns. The first four should usually be automated before you add more complex segmentation. Together, they cover the customer journey from subscription and product discovery through purchase, repeat buying, and planned promotions.
The right trigger, timing, audience and message matter more than simply sending more email. Below is what each campaign should do, when to send it, how to measure it and which compliance rules apply.
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What emails should an ecommerce store send?
These six campaigns combine behavior-triggered flows with planned broadcasts:
- Welcome series: starts when someone subscribes.
- Browse abandonment: follows a known visitor who viewed a product but did not add it to a cart or buy.
- Abandoned-cart recovery: follows products added to a cart without checkout.
- Abandoned-checkout recovery: follows a shopper who began checkout but did not complete payment.
- Post-purchase: supports the customer after an order.
- Win-back and promotional campaigns: re-engage inactive customers and announce planned launches, sales or seasonal events.
Automations respond to individual behavior; promotional campaigns are scheduled for a broader audience. Keeping those categories separate helps you control frequency, inventory and suppression rules.
#1 Best Overall
1. Welcome series: turn a new subscriber into a first customer
Trigger the series when a visitor submits an email form, creates an account or otherwise gives permission to receive marketing. The first message has one job: deliver whatever motivated the signup, such as a discount, guide or product resource.
What the first welcome email should contain
- Deliver the promised incentive or resource immediately.
- Explain what the store sells and who it is for.
- Set expectations for send frequency and content.
- Provide a clear path to browse or shop.
- Establish trust with transparent contact, shipping or returns information where relevant.
How to continue the series
Follow-up messages can educate the subscriber, recommend products, answer common objections or invite a first purchase. Klaviyo identifies four common welcome categories: educational content, a first-purchase discount, product recommendations and data gathering. You can combine them, but each email should have one dominant call to action. Stop the series or change its content when the subscriber purchases so a new customer does not keep receiving acquisition-focused messages.
2. Browse-abandonment email: bring interested visitors back
A browse-abandonment flow triggers when a known visitor views at least one product but leaves without adding it to a cart or making a purchase. The message should reflect what the person actually viewed, not send a generic storewide promotion.
Useful content for browse abandonment
- Show the viewed product, category or a small set of related items.
- Answer likely objections, such as sizing, compatibility, delivery, returns or materials.
- Link directly back to the product page.
- Use education or comparison help when the product requires consideration.
Keep the first reminder helpful rather than urgent. A visitor who only glanced at a product has weaker intent than someone who started checkout, so aggressive discounts can reduce margin and train shoppers to wait. Suppress the flow after a purchase or when the visitor adds the item to a cart, unless your platform intentionally hands the person to a cart-recovery sequence.
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3. Abandoned cart and abandoned checkout: recover high-intent shoppers
These are separate triggers and should be described separately in your automation logic. Cart recovery addresses products added to a cart without checkout. Checkout recovery addresses a shopper who started checkout but did not complete the order. Shopify documents them as distinct automations.
Abandoned-cart recovery
Show the items left in the cart and provide a direct return link. The first message can be a simple reminder; later messages may address shipping, returns, payment options or other friction. Do not imply that inventory is reserved unless it actually is. If a discount is appropriate, test it against a non-discount reminder so you can see whether it creates incremental orders or merely reduces revenue from people who would have purchased anyway.
Abandoned-checkout recovery
A checkout abandoner has supplied stronger buying intent, so remove obstacles rather than reintroducing the entire catalog. Link to the saved checkout, restate the selected products and clarify questions that commonly stop payment. Suppress the sequence as soon as an order is placed, and avoid sending both cart and checkout messages for the same session.
4. Post-purchase email: make the order successful and memorable
Post-purchase communication should begin with useful order-related information, then support ownership and a future purchase when timing makes sense. Shopify provides a post-purchase automation template, and Klaviyo measures post-purchase as a distinct flow category.
A practical post-purchase sequence
- Confirmation and next steps: acknowledge the order and provide delivery or account information through your transactional system.
- Preparation or setup: send care instructions, sizing advice, installation help, recipes or other guidance before the product arrives or shortly after delivery.
- Feedback request: ask for a review or private feedback after the customer has had enough time to use the item.
- Relevant cross-sell: recommend accessories or complementary products only when they genuinely fit the original purchase.
- Replenishment reminder: schedule a reminder around the product’s normal consumption period.
Separate transactional notices from promotional content where required by your jurisdiction and email provider. A useful service message can build trust even when the customer is not ready to buy again.
5. Win-back and re-engagement: recover customers who have gone quiet
Send a win-back flow after a meaningful period without a purchase or engagement. The correct delay depends on the store’s normal reorder interval: a consumable may justify a shorter window than furniture or durable equipment. Shopify defines win-back around time since the last order.
Segment before you send
- Use prior product category to make the reminder relevant.
- Separate high-value customers from occasional buyers.
- Consider last purchase date, order frequency and engagement with recent email.
- Exclude customers who have opted out, complained or recently purchased.
Test different approaches: a straightforward reminder, genuinely helpful content, a product update or an incentive. If the customer has stopped opening messages, continuing to increase frequency will not solve the underlying problem. Set a sunset rule that suppresses persistently inactive contacts so deliverability does not suffer.
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6. Promotional and product-launch campaigns: coordinate planned moments
Promotional and launch emails cover sales, seasonal events, new products and other calendar-driven moments. Unlike the flows above, they are one-time campaigns sent to a selected audience rather than behavior-triggered automations.
Rank #4
Plan the campaign around the business
- Confirm inventory and fulfillment capacity before announcing a high-demand item.
- Define the audience, including who should be excluded because of a recent purchase or active recovery flow.
- Set a frequency cap so a subscriber does not receive every campaign plus every automation in the same week.
- Use a clear end date or explain availability honestly; never manufacture scarcity.
- Coordinate launch, reminder and final-day messages with customer support and onsite merchandising.
Suppress customers who have already purchased the promoted item when a follow-up message would be irrelevant. A launch campaign can also be segmented by waitlist status, prior category interest or geography, provided your consent and data practices support that use.
Which ecommerce email flows should you set up first?
Implement the flows in an order that captures the strongest intent while you build reliable customer data. Shopify’s guide quotes Jacob Sappington, director of email strategy at a digital growth agency, recommending a welcome series, browse abandonment, abandoned checkout and a post-purchase sequence as the starting set.
- Welcome series: it captures every new subscriber and establishes expectations.
- Browse abandonment: it gives interested visitors a relevant path back to a product.
- Cart and checkout recovery: build distinct triggers and prevent overlap.
- Post-purchase: reduce support needs and improve the ownership experience.
- Win-back: add it after enough purchase history exists to set a sensible inactivity window.
- Promotional calendar: layer launches and seasonal campaigns around the automated flows.
Before activating a flow, test its event trigger, product data, links, suppression conditions, mobile rendering and unsubscribe behavior. Place a real test order when possible and verify that the purchase event stops acquisition or recovery messages.
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How to compare performance across the six campaigns
Do not judge every flow by the same number. A browse-abandonment email reaches a smaller, lower-intent audience than a promotional send, while a post-purchase email may create value through fewer support contacts or future orders rather than an immediate click.
| Comparison axis | What to examine |
|---|---|
| Trigger quality | Whether the event identifies genuine intent and excludes customers who already converted. |
| Time to send | Delay from the qualifying event to the first message and subsequent reminders. |
| Audience size | Eligible recipients after consent, suppression and frequency rules. |
| Conversion | Placed-order or purchase rate attributed under your chosen window. |
| Revenue per recipient | Revenue divided by delivered recipients, with refunds and discounts handled consistently. |
| Unsubscribe and complaint rate | Signals that content, frequency or expectations are misaligned. |
| Incremental lift | Difference between recipients and a comparable holdout group when your volume supports a test. |
Platform benchmarks are directional, not guarantees. Klaviyo’s 2026 benchmark page reports these average click rates:
| Flow | Average click rate | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome series | 6.5% | Klaviyo, 2026 |
| Abandoned-cart flow | 6.0% | Klaviyo, 2026 |
| Browse-abandonment flow | 5.6% | Klaviyo, 2026 |
| Post-purchase flow | 5.1% | Klaviyo, 2026 |
| Top 10% of welcome-series brands | 13.3% | Klaviyo, 2026 |
Klaviyo’s 2025 benchmark PDF reports the following revenue per recipient figures:
| Flow | Revenue per recipient | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Abandoned-cart flow | $3.07 | Klaviyo, 2025 |
| Welcome flow | $2.35 | Klaviyo, 2025 |
| Browse abandonment | $0.954 | Klaviyo, 2025 |
| Post-purchase | $0.38 | Klaviyo, 2025 |
Those figures describe the populations and methods used by the cited benchmark reports. Your catalog, traffic source, prices, consent rate, attribution window and seasonality can produce very different results. A holdout test is more informative than taking a platform average as a target.
U.S. compliance essentials for commercial email
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission says the CAN-SPAM Act covers commercial messages, not only bulk mail. The FTC requires businesses to avoid false or misleading header information, use a non-deceptive subject line, clearly identify advertising, include a valid physical postal address and provide a clear opt-out method. Opt-out requests must be honored within 10 business days. A business remains responsible when another company sends email on its behalf.
Apply those requirements to automated flows and one-time campaigns alike. Keep consent and suppression records, make the unsubscribe link easy to find, and ensure the sender identity matches the business customers recognize. CAN-SPAM is U.S. guidance; review the rules that apply to recipients in other jurisdictions before sending internationally.
Quick Recap
Common implementation mistakes and fixes
- Overlapping flows: use event-based exits so a purchase removes a person from welcome, browse and recovery sequences.
- One message for every intent level: keep browse reminders educational, while checkout recovery focuses on completing payment.
- Discounting too early: test reminders and objection handling before offering a margin-reducing incentive.
- Ignoring product timing: schedule replenishment and win-back messages around actual usage and reorder behavior.
- Sending to inactive contacts indefinitely: create sunset or suppression rules after sustained inactivity.
- Measuring only opens: prioritize delivered revenue, placed orders, complaints and incremental lift; privacy changes make open rates an incomplete signal.
- Failing to test data: confirm product names, prices, images, links, currency and inventory in every dynamic block before activation.
A simple operating checklist
- Map each trigger to one owner and one primary goal.
- Define entry, exit, suppression and frequency rules.
- Write the first message for the reader’s current intent, not for a generic subscriber.
- Check rendering and links on mobile and desktop.
- Run test events for signup, product view, cart, checkout, purchase and inactivity.
- Review performance by segment, device, acquisition source and product category.
- Refresh content when products, policies, inventory or delivery promises change.
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