Written by Merche Martínez
Índice
After talking about advertising e-mail and newsletters, we close the trilogy on e-mail marketing by talking about transactional e-mail, also known as service e-mail.
What is a transactional e-mail?
A transactional e-mail is one that is sent as a result of the user’s interaction in 
a website. Some actions that generate this type of e-mails:
- Registration
- Order confirmation
- Invoice confirmation
- Reset password
This type of e-mail marketing is usually very well received, with an open rate of over 90% because they respond to an action initiated by the user.
Characteristics of transactional e-mail
One of the main characteristics of a transactional e-mail is the speed of delivery. As I mentioned before, it is an e-mail that is sent as a consequence of an action performed by the user. If the e-mail is sent to the user to register and this e-mail takes several minutes, it is very likely that the user loses interest and does not continue browsing that Web.
Another feature is security: it is essential to have the guarantee that once an order has been placed, the user will receive a confirmation e-mail. This fact improves customer satisfaction and offers guarantees in the service of an online store.
Transactional e-mail applied to e-commerce
Transactional e-mail in e-commerce is a channel to talk in real time with the customer. It is possible and highly recommended to use the content of these e-mails to include valuable information for the client, in this way a satisfactory relationship can be established with the hope that it will last over time.
There are several sales strategies that use transactional e-mail.
- To remind customers of products they have purchased that may be of interest to them again. For example, when you shop online, the supermarket offers you the products you usually buy every two weeks.
- To remind the customer of the order that was not finalized. Some e-retailers remind their customers of their unfinished shopping cart in case they are still interested in the products.
- Take advantage of an order confirmation to offer a promotion for a complementary product that matches the buyer’s profile.
- Provide offers at the right time.
The ultimate goal is to drive the target to the desired call-to-action and for this it is important that the information is personalized and the customer feels attracted by the service/product that is being offered.
Results of sending transactional e-mails
In the stores developed by Human Level, this type of e-mail is used and experience tells us that it is a very important part of the purchasing process.
Comparing the opening results between the different types of e-mail marketing, we can affirm that transactional e-mails have a higher opening rate than the rest and multiply the click-through rate with respect to the other types of e-mails.
Most importantly, transactional e-mails achieve more sales than those achieved by traditional campaigns or mass mailings.
Comparison of service providers
Finally, here is a comparison made by socialcompare.com of the main providers Mailjet, SendGrid, Mailgun, SocketLabs and Elastic Email. I invite you to take a look at it if you are interested in using or improving your transactional e-mail strategy.
