What is Email Automation & Why You Should Use It in Your Campaigns

Any business or brand owner knows the importance of a strong marketing strategy. A crucial part of any successful marketing campaign is staying in touch with your customers – and one of the best ways to achieve this is through email.

Email automation is a process of creating personalized emails for your target audience that send automatically when certain conditions are met. By utilizing email automation, you can efficiently keep in contact with your customers without having to create a custom email every time.  

In this article, we will discuss the ins and outs of email automation, including when to use it, which tools to use, and how to apply it in your campaigns. Keep reading to learn all about the importance of email automation in 2022!

What is Email Automation?

Email automation is a strategy within email marketing campaigns that uses website and customer analytics to send the most effective messages to customers at the right times.

While there is some upfront work involved in setting up email automation, it ultimately helps you to save hours of time and effort by sending emails automatically when specific conditions are met. This can include messages such as reminding customers about abandoned carts or offering special deals for select customer groups.

The Importance of Email Automation in 2022

Email automation is an incredibly important strategy to look into in 2022, not just for the potential time saving but also for the benefit of reaching your ideal customers.

Automated emails – also referred to as “triggered emails” – have helped many companies boost their email open rates. For example, the management consulting services company Epsilon reported that sending roughly 340 million triggered emails over a 2-month period resulted in 76.7 percent higher open rates compared to business as usual (BAU) messages.

Marketing automation as a whole has seen tremendous growth over the last few years. According to Demand Spring’s 2021 Marketing Automation Platform Insights, 96 percent of surveyed marketers have implemented a marketing automation platform. A further 79 percent of these respondents listed email marketing as their most commonly used feature on their automated marketing platform. 

When to Use Automated Email Marketing

For automated email marketing to be effective, you need the ability to connect your email automation system to your website analytics. By doing so, you can send personalized emails to customers and web visitors based on their specific preferences and behaviors.

The best uses for automated email marketing include:

• Welcome messages to new customers and subscribers
• Confirmation messages (verifying transactions, confirming registrations, etc.)
• Reminder messages (abandoned carts, expiring deals, etc.)
• Special offers (rewards for loyal customers, customer birthdays, etc.)

When Not to Use Automate Email Marketing

While automated email marketing can be used for initial support and outreach, customer support is generally considered the main occasion on which you should steer away from automation.

We will discuss the use of automated emails for customer support further in this article. However, it is important to note that automated emails can be used for initial customer support, such as sending a confirmation of their support request and letting them know when they will hear from someone.

Additionally, automated emails can sometimes be detrimental when you are first establishing your customer segments.

Customer segmentation is a strategy for dividing customers up into more specific and niche groups according to their shared characteristics, demographics, and behaviors. When figuring out your own customer segments, you may need to take some time creating emails manually to determine what email subject lines, body texts, links, and more your segments respond best to.

Tools to Use for Email Automation in 2022

There are many, many tools available on the web for email automation – but which are the best?

When it comes to choosing a tool for email automation, there are three key factors to consider: pricing, features, and ease of use.

Here are some of our favorite picks for email automation tools in 2022:

• ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign is an excellent tool for email automation, especially if you are new to the marketing strategy. This tool offers hundreds of pre-built automated emails that make it easy to start your first automated campaign.
• Klaviyo: Klaviyo is a powerful marketing platform that helps eCommerce store owners deliver a more personalized experience for their customers. Results speak for themselves – Klaviyo has helped brands across the world make more than $3.7 billion in revenue in the last year alone. It has never been easier to create deeper, higher-value customer relationships, which is why an average of 67 brands move to Klaviyo every day.
• Mailchimp: Mailchimp is email marketing software with a wide range of features for businesses that are easy to use and offer in-depth analytics. With Mailchimp, you can build and customize your campaigns according to your needs – however, this platform can become fairly pricey for campaigns with large email contact lists.

How to Use Email Automation in Your Campaigns

Below, we have detailed some of the best ways to use email automation in your campaigns:

Abandoned Cart Emails

With the average abandoned cart rate sitting just under 70 percent, finding ways to bring customers back to their existing shopping carts is essential.

Abandoned cart emails use your website’s analytics and data to track customers who have placed items in their cart but have not completed a purchase. Once these customers are identified, an automated email is sent to remind them of the items they selected and encourage them to complete their purchase.

Send Welcome Emails

Welcome emails not only initiate contact with a customer once an email address is provided, but they are also an excellent opportunity to utilize automation.

When it comes to customers who are most likely to engage with your email content, those who have just signed up for an email subscription sit at the top of the list. As such, sending either a singular welcome email or a welcome email series automatically ensures you make the necessary contact with this customer, helping them to feel valued and appreciated.

Additionally, confirmation emails should also be automated in this way – such as transaction verifications, event registrations, etc. By doing so, you build more trust and credibility with customers through instant confirmations of actions.

Promotional Emails & Freebies

Many businesses and brands will offer exclusive deals and freebies to the customers subscribed to their email list. Not only is this a way to inspire brand loyalty, but it also gives your customers the chance to try out your products or services before making a full purchase.

While you will need to create these promotions and freebies, you can plan them out way ahead of time and input them into your automated email system. Then, you can set these emails to be sent under certain conditions – for example, if a repeat customer has not made a purchase in a while, your automation system can detect this and send them a promotion to encourage their return.

Automated Replies & Customer Support

Customer support and replies can be a little tricky when it comes to email automation, as many customers would prefer to speak to a human being when they are having problems.

However, when you run a business or brand, you may not always be able to get back to your customers right away. Using automated emails, you can create various customer support replies that let your customers know their message has been received and that you will be in contact shortly.

Automated Newsletters to Subscribers

Automated and recurring newsletters are regarded as one of the best ways to use email automation within a marketing campaign.

In 2020, the Content Marketing Institute released its B2B Content Marketing report for benchmarks, budgets, and trends in North America. As part of this report, more than 600 B2B marketing professionals were surveyed, with key findings including:

• 87 percent listed email as part of their top 3 free content distribution channels
• 31 percent stated that email newsletters are the best way to nurture leads
• 89 percent listed email newsletters in their top 3 types of marketing content

Final Thoughts: Things to Keep in Mind Before Setting Up Email Automation in Your Campaigns in 2022

Now that we have covered the benefits, uses, and tools for email automation, it’s time for you to begin setting up your automated campaigns.

Before you begin, it is essential to:

• Integrate Web Analytics: Your website analytics help immensely with determining who to send automated emails to and when to send them. As you set up your automated email campaign, make sure you select a tool that allows for such integrations.
• Set Clear & Achievable Goals: Anytime you begin a new campaign, it is crucial to set clear and achievable goals. This can include the total number of sales, click-through rates, and customer engagement.
• Build Your Subscriber List: What’s an email campaign without email subscribers? While setting up an initial automated welcome sequence is advised, you should aim to build your subscriber list before creating an extensive automated email campaign.

We hope this article has proven useful to you and wish you the best of luck with your first automated email campaign! Check out 15 Digital Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses and How to Increase Your Brand Awareness in 2022 for more digital marketing strategies.