EMAIL MARKETINGFOR E-COMMERCE

A little over 4 years ago, the email marketing agency MAILODY (back then still a sole proprietorship) was founded. From the very beginning, we decided against the classic agency model and focused on our core competency: email, email, email. As a pure email marketing agency, we get to support some of the most exciting e-commerce projects in the DACH region and power them with a dedicated email marketing strategy. Building our clients' own email list is the core focus of our work as an email marketing agency.

Even though email marketing has been declared dead more than once, it's more relevant than ever. While years ago campaigns were simply blasted to the whole email list, today there are countless ways to personalize the channel and get the most out of targeted email marketing.

First profit comes before revenue with a good email marketing service. While performance or influencer marketing primarily focuses on new customer acquisition, pure email marketing sits a few funnel steps further back in the customer journey. The big advantage, though: you don't need any additional ad budget. So not only revenue but especially profit can rise dramatically, and costs don't scale linearly with the size of the shop.

Second increasing CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) and retention rate (reorder rate) matters. While as an email marketing agency we can optimize metrics before the first purchase via, say, welcome flows or abandoned cart flows, here the focus is on converting first-time buyers into repeat customers.

Third building audience ownership is essential. While on Facebook & Google we only rent the audience in exchange for ad budget, as an email marketing agency we build real audience ownership with an email list. In the worst case, the email list can simply be migrated from one email tool to another.

In short, email marketing — especially with the right email marketing agency — is a supporting revenue channel that doesn't supply the shop with new customers but drives the reorder rate. Working with an email marketing agency means gaining a bit more independence from external platforms like Facebook, Google & co.

Let's start with the positives of an email marketing agency: an email marketing agency is always up to date and in close contact with email tools like Klaviyo. Account managers at an email marketing agency typically spend 40 hours a week focused on one topic, making them true experts in one area, while in-house teams — especially in startups — often juggle multiple areas at once. Email marketing in particular requires combining many disciplines (strategy, technical implementation, graphic design, copywriting). As an email marketing agency, we can bundle these strengths and make them available even to smaller accounts.

What an email marketing agency can't quite match at first glance: in-house teams spend 40 hours a week on their own shop and their own products, often in direct contact with the founder team. Employees get much closer to product developments and support product launches end-to-end. No email marketing agency can build such deep audience understanding. Internally, flexibility is significantly higher, and changes and new ideas can be implemented faster on the fly.

Who doesn't know it? The planned product launch won't happen the way you thought, and on Friday at 3 pm weeks of planning are thrown out the window. Then the call to the agency — no cheerful faces. Even the most flexible email marketing agency needs a planning horizon.

Different tools can be used to send email campaigns and flows. As an email marketing agency, we'll share here which one makes the most sense to pursue your email marketing strategy optimally.

Alongside email campaigns, you should also consider and evaluate other CRM channels for your online shop: