Ways to generate revenue
There are two primary mechanisms for generating revenue from visitors identified by HerbMail:
- Immediate engagement via a welcome/abandonment email sequence, encouraging and incentivizing visitors who may be on the fence to follow through
- Ongoing nurturing to move prospects deeper into your funnel and seasonal promotions to your ever expanding email list
Ensure your domain has strong deliverability
Before configuring a welcome email sequence to all HerbMail-identified visitors, ensure that your email domain is warmed up and that you are following deliverability best practices. If the daily volume of HerbMail-identified visitors is high relative to the average daily email volume from your domain (i.e. >10%), you should slowly increase the volume of visitors receiving the welcome flow (i.e. start by sending the welcome flow to a subset of HerbMail-identified visitors - in the meantime, you can engage all identified visitors who trigger abandonment flows.
Effective email engagement
Now that the identities are flowing from HerbMail, the first thing to do is to set up welcome email sequences within your CRM/ESP to convert those emails into $$$! If you're using one of our built-in integrations with a cookie-sync (Klaviyo for now, others to follow), this is the email that visitors will get if they don't trigger an abandonment flow first. If you're integrating with your email platform via one of the other methods, this is the email that all HerbMail-identified visitors will receive.
- Here's a great guide on what a good welcome email sequence looks like. The guide is from Klaviyo, but you don't need to be a Klaviyo customer to use it. Here are additional examples, similar to those used by other HerbMail customers.
- Use language like "Welcome to the [Brand Name]", so that the visitor is welcomed and not misled into an action they have not taken.
- DO NOT use language like "Thank you for subscribing" or "Thank you for registering", since visitors identified by HerbMail did not take that action.
- Offer an incentive, and consider making that incentive more significant for these anonymous visitors because they are not expecting it. For example, if you offer 10% to everyone, offer 15/20% or more to the visitors identified by HerbMail because they are not expecting it. "Free plus shipping" offers can also work well for applicable brands.
- Make sure your welcome email sequence is set to trigger for visitors identified by HerbMail.
- In most cases, sending the first welcome email 30 minutes after a customer's visit to your site is about right. But this can vary by business! Think about what will make most sense for your business - for example, if you're selling a commodity and most visitors have a high intent to purchase now, consider sending the welcome email right away to encourage a purchase and keep them from moving on to a competitor.
- Add filters to your welcome flow so users aren't getting multiple emails in rapid succession (i.e. if you have an event-based abandonment flow for Started Checkout, filter out visitors who have started a checkout before receiving the first welcome email)
How many emails should be in my welcome email sequence?
Beyond the initial welcome email, consider creating a sequence of 1-2 additional emails. After the initial welcome email (on day 1), you can schedule the follow-ups for days 3 and 5, or days 4 and 7 - feel free to experiment and see what works best for you. An activation sequence with progressive or varying discounts can work well.
How should I engage with visitors once the welcome sequence is complete?
You can achieve substantial additional revenues, in many cases the bulk of your additional revenues, by engaging with HerbMail-identified visitors on an ongoing basis, for example through nurturing and seasonal promotions. Until these visitors have subscribed, you don't want to overdo it - but the occasional seasonal promotion is generally well received.
Depending on the email frequency for your general email list you may want to add HerbMail-identified visitors to that or, if those emails are quite frequent (more than 1-2/month) consider creating a separate list for ongoing engagement of HerbMail-identified visitors.
How are my flows doing?
Visitors likely won't convert on the initial welcome email, and that’s OK. Capturing their email and entering the welcome flow simply “activates them” in your CRM/ESP and makes them come back to the website, either via the welcome flow or via ongoing campaigns. When they come back to the website they visit product pages, add products to their cart or take other actions that activate existing engagement flows in your CRM/ESP, such as product abandonment, cart abandonment etc. Capturing their email address is the first critical step towards the final conversion!
The metrics that we and your CRM/ESP provide help you keep track of just how well you're doing, and can give you the insights you need to experiment with and optimize your visitor engagement. Keep an eye on how many emails HerbMail is capturing for you, as well as your open and conversation rates.
- Check out the HerbMail Dashboard.
- If you use Klaviyo, we recommend building these reports to track revenue and engagement from Herbmail identified emails.
- Remember - only a portion of conversions will happen directly from the welcome flow - be sure to look at purchases across all HerbMail-enabled campaigns (welcome, abandonment, campaigns, non email-retargeting, etc.) for a complete picture of ROI.