Using birthday emails in e-commerce to boost customer loyalty and increase traffic

Basic information about birthday emails

As the name suggests, a birthday email is sent regularly on a customer's birthday as a measure to promote customer loyalty and as a sales promotion tool. It is intended to attract attention and stand out from other emails by creating positive expectations. If the expectation is met, e.g., by the gift included in the email, usually a voucher or discount code, the customer is not far from visiting the online shop. However, the work is not done yet. If the customer does not immediately have a specific product in mind for which they want to redeem the voucher or discount code, they will probably put it aside and keep it until they think of something or need something. In this case, the voucher or discount code may be completely forgotten or only found again when it has already expired. This is a shame, because it means potential is being wasted.

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What content should a birthday trigger email contain?

To ensure that the customer is immediately willing to visit the online shop and redeem their voucher or discount code there, it is important to show them relevant content in the trigger email, such as products that pique their interest. To achieve this, the click and purchase behavior of the respective customer in the online shop can be used to generate relevant product recommendations in the birthday email. All you need to do is:

• A tracking code is required in the online shop, which creates a customer history and a
• Placeholder in the email for positioning relevant content.

The key feature here is that the birthday email is generated in real time, i.e., when the customer opens their birthday email, a query is sent to the online store in milliseconds. In this way, both historical data and current interests are taken into account when displaying the email content. The "one-to-all content" sent to a large number of recipients is contrasted with individualized content in emails. All for the purpose of customer loyalty and increasing traffic. Since this is an automatic process, even visits to the online shop shortly before the email is opened are taken into account. To ensure that the product is available in the shop, the query is also compared with the product catalog. This makes the customer happy because they can redeem their voucher immediately. This promotes customer loyalty and traffic to an online shop, which ultimately leads to the desired conversion. It's actually quite simple.

Example of a personalized birthday email

The following example shows the content of a personalized birthday email:

Example of a birthday email with personalized content

The introduction to the personalized birthday email is:

• the cover image (there are email delivery systems that offer image personalization, so that, for example, the recipient's name is automatically included). The next section contains
• the text, which is entered into the email dispatch system as usual, ideally with a personal greeting: "Hello Stephan." This text teases the voucher, which can be redeemed at
• personalized content and encourages shopping. This is because shopping recommendations for the voucher are displayed here, products that were previously clicked on in the online shop and have been incorporated into the customer history. In addition, the items
• priced to match the voucher.

In short, the birthday email and the promised coupon or discount code encourage the customer to open the email, and the personalized content directs them to the online store. What you need: an email marketing platform and email personalization.

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The positive effect of a birthday email

A study by inxmail found that birthday emails achieve significantly higher open and click-through rates than standard emails. The open and click-through rates of 150 companies were compared for this study. The improvement in open rates was 55% and in click-through rates 80%. Birthday emails therefore lead to a higher ROI.¹

Average open/click rate: Birthday email vs. standard email (Source: inxmail)

You can find out how to optimize your open rate through specific measures in the blog article Improving your newsletter open rate through subject line testing and send time optimization.

Conclusion: Don't let the advantages of a birthday email slip away

Birthday emails strengthen customer loyalty while also driving more traffic, which has a positive impact on conversion rates. Birthday emails can be created as usual using your existing email marketing platform and customized withpersonalized content. This encourages customers to open the email and visit the online store, ultimately leading to the desired conversion.

Sources: ¹ inxmail