Email automation has shown time and again just how simple sending the right email at the right time to the right person can be. However, to get this process started on the right foot, you need to have the right trigger in place to get the ball rolling.
Triggered emails come in a wide variety of forms, so finding something that works with each of your automated campaigns isn’t nearly as difficult as you may think.
Now, before we dive into several different triggered email examples, let’s talk about what a triggered email is and how exactly it works with email automation.
What is a triggered email?
As an email marketer, you already know there are various types of emails worth sending. While many emails are one-off messages, including newsletters, others come in the form of series. These series are often sent automatically after a consumer or subscriber completes a specific action. That action is known as the “trigger” and that email that’s sent is defined as the triggered email.
How do triggered emails and email automation work together?
Triggered email marketing and automated email marketing often go hand in hand. Why? Because, to truly automate a campaign, something must get the ball rolling.
You can schedule posts to go out at certain times, but that doesn’t mean you’re sending the most relevant content to your audience members.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Those who send automated emails are 133% more likely to be sending content that’s highly targeted to their subscriber’s interest and their current place in the customer journey. And, of those sending automated or triggered emails, conversion rates of approximately 50% are reported.
7 triggered email examples that can be easily added into your automated campaigns
Since triggered emails and automated email campaigns work best together, you’ll want to take a few minutes to comb through a few triggered email examples.
1. Welcome emails
Not only do automated email campaigns net nearly 70% higher open rates than the typical email, when that email is an automated welcome message to new subscribers, your open rates only continue to grow. Welcome emails are opened up 10 times more often than most other emails, so, if you aren’t taking the time to welcome your new email subscribers properly, then you’re missing out on some significant engagement opportunities.
Welcome emails are triggered emails that are sent automatically after a new subscriber has finished the opt-in process. These messages typically make the reader feel welcome, while also giving them the next steps, such as:
- An introduction to the brand/head of the company
- What they can expect from the brand
- CTAs that lead them to other various content worth exploring
Now, the idea isn’t to overwhelm your new subscribers, so welcome campaigns are often split up into short series that break down into different pieces. These series are further automated based on different factors, including set time intervals and subscriber behaviors.
Source: Really Good Emails
2. Onboarding emails
While welcome emails and onboarding emails often get clumped together in an automated welcome series, they’re two very different emails. What makes an onboarding email different from a welcome email is that these emails are intended to get your new subscribers started in the purchase process.
For example, as a part of the HelloFresh welcome series, new subscribers are not only welcomed to the brand, but they later receive emails that encourage them to give their food services a try. In the example below, the onboarding email may have been triggered after the subscriber reviewed a few menu options that are available to members. So now the brand wants to show the subscriber just how simple getting started can be.
Source: Campaign Monitor
In many cases, these onboarding emails include some sort of incentive to get subscribers to act. In this particular example, the incentive is the unique $20 off each of your first three deliveries. This is an excellent way to encourage your new subscribers to jump on it.
3. Transactional emails
Transactional emails come in a variety of different forms. However, the most common transactional email is one that’s triggered by a purchase. Once someone makes a purchase from your ecommerce store, a digital receipt is sent to their email address on file or one that they provided at checkout.
Source: Really Good Emails
Again, while a purchase triggers the most common transactional email, these emails can be triggered for several different reasons.
A transactional email, by definition, is one that’s sent out to confirm that a transaction took place. This can be a purchase or any of the following:
- Registration confirmation
- Password reset notification
- Feedback request
- Cart abandonment email
- Even confirmation email and more
Once any of these transactions have been completed, an automated email acknowledging the event should be sent out to the consumer to verify what took place and when. Even better, those who include automated transactional emails into their marketing strategy see 8 times as many opens and clicks as any other type of email while also generating 6 times more revenue.
While the example above is of a traditional post-purchase transactional email, this example by the brand Waking Up is a transactional confirmation email.
Source: Really Good Emails
This type of transactional email could be triggered in several ways. Say, for example, someone is new to the Waking Up brand and just set up their user profile. This email may have been automatically triggered as a part of the initial setup process to ensure that the customer who’s setting up the app is who they say they are. Another reason could be that the user forgot their app login password. Once they’ve clicked the “forgot password” option, then they could’ve triggered this email to verify that they are who they are, so that they can move forward with the reset process.
4. Re-engagement emails
Re-engagement emails are automated emails that should be sent out to anyone who falls under your brand’s unique definition of “inactive.” Some subscribers just become inactive; however, before you write them off as a lost cause, you should be trying to re-engage them and encourage them to return.
This can be done by setting up a re-engagement campaign with a start trigger that’s set off once someone has stopped engaging with your email content after a predetermined amount of time. For example, if you’ve defined an inactive subscriber as someone who hasn’t interacted with your brand in 6 months, then a re-engagement email should be automatically sent out to check in on them once they’ve reached that 6-month time trigger.
Source: Really Good Emails
5. Product inventory updates
For those with an ecommerce store, product inventory updates are an excellent automated campaign that can be sent out to customers. If you’ve been carefully tracking user behavior through the use of website cookies or email pixel tracking, then you can be sending out automated messages that are triggered by certain customer behaviors.
In this example, from the beauty brand Sephora, they were likely tracking their customer’s behavior and noticed that they were paying particular attention to this sold-out product. That said, once the product’s available again, an automated trigger email was sent out to those who were paying particular attention to this one product. Those who showed no interest or never visited this product’s page wouldn’t receive this product update because their user data wasn’t on file.
Source: Milled
6. Event announcements
Event announcements are another excellent opportunity for sending automated campaigns. While many marketing teams will choose to automatically send these messages out to everyone on their email list, some brands give users a preference center. This preference center allows subscribers to pick which segmented lists they want to be a part of. If they choose to receive notifications about upcoming events, then that sets a trigger for later. Once an event announcement becomes available, it’s sent to those on the list automatically.
Source: Milled
7. Survey/feedback emails
Finally, one last triggered campaign worth adding to your automated email campaigns is the customer feedback/survey email. These emails are great because they can be triggered by virtually any type of event, including:
- Purchase
- Following an event
- After attending a webinar
- After downloading free content and more
Not only do these emails allow you to gather valuable feedback from your customers, but they also allow your customers’ voices to be heard—something they crave with any brand.
Source: Really Good Emails
Wrap up
Triggered email examples are quite literally everywhere you look. In fact, it’s safe to say that most emails that land in your inbox are not only automated, but triggered in some way or another based on information from your preference center or based on behavioral tracking.
Not quite sure which triggered email examples you should start adding to your automated email campaigns? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Event announcements
- Inventory updates
- Milestone email/birthday emails
- Onboarding emails
- Re-engagement emails
- Survey/feedback emails
- Transactional emails
- Welcome emails and more
Curious how automated workflows can help get your subscribers engaged? Then make sure you check out these three automated workflow ideas that do just that!