Unlock the Power of Email Marketing: A Guide to Building and Growing Your Shopify Email List with AI

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels for e-commerce businesses. 92% of adults use email, and 61% of them check it at least once per day. Plus, modern email marketing tools and AI have made it simpler than ever to create campaigns and grow subscriber lists. In this guide, we’ll explore why building an email list is essential for eCommerce, how to grow and manage a list effectively, and the tools that can help you succeed.

Why Building an Email List is Essential In ECommerce

Email marketing is vital for connecting with your customers on a personal level. Unlike social media platforms or paid advertising, your email list is entirely yours. You have complete control over the content, timing, and strategy. This makes it a low-cost yet highly effective channel to build brand loyalty and increase revenue. Some of the most impactful benefits of email marketing include:

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• High ROI: Email marketing delivers a significant return on investment (ROI). Studies show that the average ROI for email marketing campaigns is around 400%.
• Direct engagement: Email lets you reach customers directly in their inboxes without depending on algorithms.
• Driving repeat purchases: With email, you can keep customers engaged and encourage repeat business through personalized offers and content.
• Abandoned cart recovery: Email is one of the most effective ways to recover abandoned carts. You can use it to send timely reminders nudging recipients to complete their purchase.

How To Build and Grow an ECommerce Email List

Here are some standard practices for growing an email marketing list that brings value to both your audience and business:

1. Add a Sign-up Form to Your Site

The first step to growing an email list is to give people somewhere to subscribe to your messages. Naturally, the best place to gather subscribers is directly through your eCommerce site. You can start by placing signup forms in high-traffic areas such as your header, sidebar, and homepage.

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Another great way to grab users’ attention is to use pop-forms. Popups can run based on a timer or using exit intent technology that analyzes when the visitor is about to leave the site. Keep in mind that some shoppers find popups intrusive and seeing one may hurt the shopping experience. As such, it’s best to use popups in moderation, strategically timing their appearance and programming them so as not to show multiple times to the same visitor.

2. Create a Sign-up Incentive

The average email opt-in rate for eCommerce companies is under 2%. If you want to increase the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts, you need to find a way to motivate people to join your list. Many people won’t join an email list without a reason. This could be the prospect of really compelling content or a material benefit not accessible through other means. Offering some form of incentives like a discount or special offer is an effective way to grab attention and increase subscription rates.

3. Collect Emails at Checkout

The point of purchase is a great time to collect email subscribers. Shoppers who receive a prompt to join your email list while about to checkout are more likely to opt in than those just discovering and browsing your site. If your store runs on Shopify, the option to enable an email opt-in checkbox is a native part of the platform’s checkout flow.

4. Send Valuable Content and Exclusive Discounts

As your email list grows, keeping your audience engaged should be a top priority. Make your emails worth opening by sharing valuable, relevant content, such as product guides or tips that align with your customer's interests. Pair this with exclusive discounts or early access to promotions. These perks make subscribers feel valued and encourage repeat purchases. Regularly delivering content that adds value can build trust and keep your brand on top of mind.

5. Segment Your Email List for Better Results

Not all your subscribers are the same. So, your emails shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Segmenting your list allows you to improve the targeting and relevance of messages. With unique segments based on factors like purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographics, you can send content that feels personalized and relevant. For example, you can set up an automated campaign that sends special offers for a particular product category to a segment that has engaged with those products previously.

6. Test and Automate Email Marketing Campaigns

The defining characteristic of modern email marketing platforms is the ability to automate message delivery at scale. Some of the most common automated email marketing campaigns include:

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• Abandoned cart campaigns: Automated messages reminding cart abandoners to finish their order.
• Welcome series: Automated emails sent immediately or shortly after someone subscribes to your list.
• Holiday promotions: Email campaigns focusing on seasonal events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions.
• Loyal customer campaigns: Segmented campaigns sent to your best customers with special offers or highly targeted promotions.
• Inactive customer campaigns: Email messages attempting to re-engage past buyers who have not returned.

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When running these campaigns you can improve all-around performance by testing different variables such as message content, subject lines, and audience segmenting. A/B testing is a common methodology for gaining a data-backed understanding of what inputs are most effective. It is particularly effective when assessing email campaigns, as configuring and tracking the tests are usually simpler than performing the same analysis on websites.

Key Email Marketing Metrics to Track

Proper attention to data through analytics and other insights can help with running campaigns and growing a healthy email list. Important KPIs to measure for successful email marketing are:

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• Email open rates: The percentage of recipients who open your email messages.
• Click-through rates: How many people click the links in your emails
• Conversions: The amount of sales orders from customers who landed on your site after clicking through an email.
• Email list growth: The rate of growth for your list over time.
• Campaign ROI: The direct return on investment for every dollar spent collecting emails and running campaigns.

Integrating Email Marketing Solutions With Your ECommerce Ecosystem

A strong integration between your eCommerce platform and email marketing service can reduce much of the complexity associated with growing your subscriber base. Signup forms should directly sync with your email provider. This ensures new subscribers are automatically added to your lists and audiences. An integrated system also gives your email marketing solution access to customer profiles. With this information, you can quickly set up targeted campaigns that include relevant details such as products individuals have previously interacted with.

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In addition to eCommerce platform integration, it’s beneficial to have your email marketing service integrate with other parts of your technology stack. This can help increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, integrating your email solution with a reviews platform can allow you to easily showcase social proof in email messages.

How AI Improves Email List Building Efficiency

Today’s online sellers are not limited to static forms and potentially annoying popups for capturing email subscribers. Conversational AI can provide a more intuitive way to get shoppers onto your list. These subscribers are often more engaged, having joined the list following direct interaction with the brand.

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Rep AI and its shopping concierge can interact with visitors in a way that feels human and friendly to create an authentic conversation. It can then use its behavioral algorithms to find an opportune time to ask for an email subscription. The platform seamlessly integrates with Shopify and leading email marketing services like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and Omnisend, making it easy to offer discount codes and other incentives to encourage email signups.

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Upon configuring an integration with your preferred email solution, you’ll have the option to enable the Subscribe & get a Discount power-up. With the powerup, you can specify the details to collect from customers and which specific marketing list to add them to.

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Top Email Marketing Platforms for Ecommerce

Making the most out of your email list requires the technology best suited to your business’s needs. Here is a quick overview of some of the top email marketing platforms for eCommerce businesses:

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a well-established email marketing service with particular strengths for eCommerce businesses. It offers a strong native integration with Shopify, enabling seamless data syncing between the two platforms. This allows you to set up targeted and personalized campaigns quickly. Mailchimp supports a variety of options for adding signup forms to your site. These include embeds, landing page forms, and hosted forms that Mailchimp hosts on its servers.

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Another strength is Mailchimp’s ability to connect with your wider technical ecosystem. The platform offers over 300 integrations. Integrating Mailchimp in your Rep AI dashboard empowers your AI concierge to automatically gather list subscribers during conversations.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform with robust email marketing capabilities. The platform allows you to define high-converting marketing segments that excel in cross-channel campaigns. Using your existing customer data, you can dynamically add product recommendations and targeted promotions to emails based on browsing history and past purchases.

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You can further leverage Klaviyo’s exceptional use of customer data by connecting the platform with Rep AI. To configure the integration, you simply need to add your Klaviyo API key within the Rep AI dashboard. Once enabled, you can then use the AI conversations to collect subscribers and add them to specific audience segments in Klaviyo. 

Omnisend

Omnisend is a marketing platform that combines email and SMS marketing for effective cross-channel strategies. It is great for creating visually appealing emails, quickly and efficiently using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder. The platform also offers a powerful form builder, enabling you to create pop-ups, landing pages, and even multi-step forms.

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The integration with Rep AI enhances Omnisend’s capabilities by using conversational AI to proactively engage visitors. This integration helps capture more emails through personalized interactions, offering incentives like discount codes to encourage sign-ups. Together, Omnisend and Rep AI make building and managing your email marketing list a seamless experience.

Yotpo

Yotpo is a retention marketing platform that boasts strong features for gathering reviews and engaging your audience via email and SMS. With the email marketing service, you can automate workflows and define unique segments for your subscribers. Built natively for Shopify, the platform seamlessly integrates with your eCommerce store to simplify the process of adding email sign-up forms, pop-ups, and footer widgets to your site.

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Integrating Yotpo with Rep AI allows you to leverage the platform’s reviews and email marketing features to maximum effect. In addition to using Rep’s AI agent to ask for email subscriptions, you can also give shoppers the ability to get details about product ratings directly in the chat. Plus, you can bolster your review capture strategy by having your AI ask returning customers to leave a review of their past purchases.

Wrapping Up

An email list can be one of your most powerful marketing assets. It becomes a valuable tool when you focus on delivering personalized offers and engaging experiences that keep your audience connected to your brand. 

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Ready to take your email marketing to the next level? Integrate Rep AI with your preferred email marketing platform today and see how effortless list-building and customer engagement can be.

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