One of the issues related to our agency’s activity that we often encounter is that companies give very little attention to transactional emails. As the name implies, we are referring to emails sent to the user in response to or informing about a transaction: reservation confirmation, e-commerce order generation, in-app purchase receipt, credit card expiration notification, etcetera.
According to IBM, given that we are talking about emails containing very relevant information for the user, the open rate and the click rate metrics significantly surpass those of marketing emails: the open rate is close to 45%, and the click rate around 4,8% – three times higher than the 1.6% of marketing emails.
Given the user accepts them so well, why aren’t they more popular? Why not take advantage of all their potential to increase engagement and give support to marketing?
The main reasons for this are, basically, the following:
- Their execution depends on outdated systems. Many companies developed email notification systems that have hardly been updated. These are systems that have been working autonomously and to which nobody has paid any attention.
- Difficulty in defining who is responsible for these emails. Another issue we come across in the agency is identifying those in charge of these emails: is it the IT department? Is it the SAT? CRM? It makes sense that the interest in taking advantage of this kind of email’s marketing potential is born in the Marketing department, specifically from the Email Marketing team; however, its nature is so that it also requires the involvement of the IT, e-commerce, CRM, and customer service departments.
- The difficulty of testing when we have different languages and local particularities. This is another factor that could hinder the initiative of improving the transactional emails of the company. The various situations and elements to test before a new transactional email system is implemented are many and dependant on the combination of the type of email (order confirmation, password update, service expiration, etc.), languages, currencies, and legal terms and conditions of the different markets. So, it is understandable that taking on such a project, while having to deal with other more urgent and “important” tasks, tends to be postponed “for the future.”
It makes sense that the interest in taking advantage of this kind of email’s marketing potential is born in the Marketing department, specifically from the Email Marketing team; however, its nature is so that it also requires the involvement of the IT, e-commerce, CRM, and customer service departments.
While it makes sense, given this context, that many companies continue to forego the potential of transactional emails, we really encourage making an effort since the benefits are well worth it. We have been lucky to participate in some projects of transactional email renovation of big companies and, what we have learned, is that such a project needs to be led by three separate profiles:
- A neutral Project Leader (an outsider to the company) to lead the project and bring together the different voices involved. This figure needs to have experience in Marketing Automation and CRM projects.
- A Lead Email Developer charged with the optimal coding of the templates.
- A Quality Assurance to verify the correct functioning of the emails before the final launch.
Once the project is finished, we have an up-to-date and optimized transactional email system so that any subsequent changes needed can be implemented way more easily. Our experience has shown us that the benefits reaped greatly justify the effort.
