Waking up to an inbox filled with emails often results in a mass cull – the continuous clicking of the Delete button until something eventually catches your eye. After your company has invested marketing dollars into an email marketing strategy, that is certainly not ideal.

A survey by Silverpop, a marketing technology provider, reveals that only 31% of general-broadcast-emails senders receive an open-rate of 21% and higher. In contrast, 80% of marketers who send out cart-abandonment-reminder emails receive that same rate of email openings. According to Silverpop, “with online shoppers’ inboxes overflowing, it is not surprising that timely, relevant emails tied directly to consumer behaviour deliver much higher metrics than broadcast emails”.

In fact, research has also shown that while trigger-based email programs only comprise of 5% of a company’s total email volume, it generates up to 40% of the email revenue received.

Jeff Clark, manager director for Silverpop in Australia and New Zealand says: “Generic batch-and-blast emails are becoming less effective at the message level”. “Retailers that have employed recipient-driven messaging such as cart abandonment campaigns have seen excellent results – generating incremental boosts in revenue and customer loyalty with only a modest time investment.”

However, these trigger-messages must also be sent at a timely and consistent manner to garner positive results. Silverpop found that 83% of companies waited more than five hours to send a recovery email and 67% only sent one single cart recovery email. The survey also revealed that post-purchase emails, service satisfaction surveys and product review requests were popular with post-transaction customers.

“Relationships should never end after a purchase. Once a customer shows their loyalty to a brand, the brand should do everything in its power to show loyalty to its customer—whether by acknowledging recent actions or offering ‘happy birthday’ and ‘purchase anniversary’ emails,” advises Clark.