Most Brands spent a majority of their marketing budget on aquiring new custromers, which is very expensive.
Therefore, they have to make the most of every new customer and one of the easiest ways to increase the lifetime value of a customer is email marketing.
Its's one of the few marketing channels that you truly own as a business owner allowing you to:
- Re-engage past customers who already trust your brand
- Promote special events like Black Friday or holiday sales
- Increase conversions using automated workflows like abandoned cart emails
- Improve ad targeting by using your email list for retargeting campaigns
Email Marketing on Shopify
Shopify is not built as an email marketing platform.
Most brands use 3rd party software.
(There are many good solutions out there: Klaviyo, HubSpot, Omnisend, Brevo, ...)
Klaviyo and Hubspot are great, but also more premium or in other words, more expensive.
One of my personal favorites to get started is Omnisend.
Their pricing is quite fair, they have a great support team, and I've also met their team personally on several Shopify events.
Overview of Email Marketing Features
Email marketing doesn't just mean "sending simple emails".
When picking a tool you may want to look out for some of the following features:
Collecting Email Addresses
This might sound obvious, but there’s more depth to it than you’d think.
For example with Omnisend, you can create simple signup forms, multi-step flows, popup forms, or even offer discounts in exchange for an email.
You can also control exactly when and where forms appear, based on the device, page, or customer behavior. (Returning customers vs. New customers)
Create an Automated Workflow
Collecting emails is just the beginning. The next important step is deciding what happens after someone subscribes.
For example, you can create a 3-email welcome sequence with conditioanl logic like this:
Email 1 delivers the promised discount,
Email 2 introduces your brand and bestsellers,
Email 3 follows up with social proof or a reminder.
With conditional logic, the flow adapts automatically:
if someone already buys, they stop receiving promos;
if they don’t open, you resend with a different subject line; if they click a product, you send related offers.
These can get become complex, so it's nice if the software you use offers a visual editor.
Abandoned Cart and Checkout features
Abandoned cart emails have a direct impact on revenue by bringing customers back to complete their purchases.
Common examples include workflows like this:
- Customer adds products to cart but doesn’t complete checkout
- After 1 hour → send reminder email with cart items
- After 11 hours → send a follow-up reminder
- After 12 more hours → send a final email with a discount (for example, 10%)
Additional SMS Features
SMS has very high open rates (often 90% or more) because people receive instant notifications on their phones.
Many store owners prefer to save SMS for special promotions to not spam their customers too much.
Wrap up
If you want to see how to setup an email marketing tool, and what some of these features look in action, check out the full video right here: