Carts, win-backs, events and receipts
An email sent because of what one person just did earns far more per email than one sent on a timetable. Remind a cart fast and answer why people leave, follow up a click, look after a buyer, ask the quiet ones a plain question, run an event on reminders, and keep a receipt a receipt.
An email sent because of what someone just did arrives while they're still thinking about it. That's why it earns far more per email than one sent on a timetable.
The short version
- Emails sent on a person's action earn the most per send. In Omnisend's 2025 data they were 2% of emails sent and 30% of email revenue: $2.87 per send, against $0.18 for campaigns.
- Abandoned cart: three reminders, at 2 to 4 hours, 24 hours and about 48 hours. Show exactly what was left, answer why people leave, and keep any discount for the last one.
- A click is the warmest signal you have. Follow up the people who clicked and didn't act, rather than sending everything again to everyone.
- After the sale: thanks and what happens next, how to get the most from it, a review request, then something that goes with it.
- A receipt is only a receipt. Any suggestion is its own email.
- Win-back: ask the quiet ones a plain question, stay or leave, over at least two months. Then stop mailing anyone who still doesn't respond.
- Events run on reminders: a confirmation, a week before, a day before, 15 minutes before an online one, then the replay.
- Sequences end, and never collide: one at a time per person, and a purchase moves them on.
Why these emails win
- Klaviyo, 2026, more than 200,000 brands: sequences (Klaviyo calls them flows) were 5.3% of emails sent and about 41% of email revenue. Campaigns averaged a 1.69% click rate and a 0.16% placed-order rate; sequences 5.58% and 2.11%.
- Omnisend, 150,000 brands, 27 billion emails sent in 2025: automated emails were 2% of sends and 30% of revenue.
- Read the other way, campaigns still made 59 to 70% of email revenue in both. A business needs both: The emails a business sends.
Abandoned cart
The size of the leak. 70.22% of online carts are abandoned: Baymard's average of 50 studies, 2006 to 2025. And 42% of US shoppers have left a cart because they were just browsing. For them, the reminder itself is the job.
The order:
A small header, no menu: one way forward.
Their own action: "You left these in your basket".
The items as they were left: photo, name, options, price.
One button back to the basket, with "Your basket is saved" under it.
The answers to why people leave: delivery cost and time, returns, ways to pay.
One review.
A person to ask.
The footer.
Show exactly what they left, with a link that brings the basket back as it was. A general "come back to our shop" throws away the one thing the email knows.
Answer the reason they left. Baymard's survey of US shoppers who left during checkout (updated October 2026):
| Why they left | Share | What the email shows |
|---|---|---|
| Extra costs too high: delivery, tax, fees | 40% | The delivery cost, and any free-delivery threshold |
| Delivery too slow | 20% | When it would arrive |
| Didn't trust the site with card details | 19% | A review, secure payment, your name and address |
| The site wanted an account | 18% | "No account needed", where that's true |
| Checkout too long or complicated | 17% | A button straight back to the saved basket |
| Returns policy not good enough | 13% | The returns policy in one line |
| Couldn't see the total up front | 12% | The total, delivery included |
| Not enough ways to pay | 9% | The ways to pay |
Three reminders, each leading with something different:
| When | Leads with | Subject line | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 to 4 hours after | The basket | Still thinking about the monstera? |
| 2 | 24 hours | The main doubt answered: delivery, returns, a review | Free delivery over £40, and 30 days to return |
| 3 | About 48 hours | The basket once more, with similar items or one question ("What stopped you?"); your offer, if you make one | Your basket's still here |
Go easy on discounts. Klaviyo warns that routine cart discounts teach shoppers to leave and wait. Answer the reason first. If you offer an incentive, it comes last, and it's your own offer.
What it earns. Klaviyo, more than 110,000 customers (October 2026): cart emails averaged $6.77 of revenue per person sent one and a 6% click rate, and the top 10% reached $13.70 and 11.3%.
A purchase ends the run. Mistakes: "You forgot something!" with no item; a discount in the first email; a menu and five other offers; a reminder to someone who has since bought.
Other signals worth an email
- Back in stock: Omnisend measured a 6.46% conversion rate, the highest of the automated emails it reports.
- Browsing, and price drops: the person named the product by looking at it. Show it again, with what they need to decide.
- A click on a campaign: someone who clicked an offer and didn't act is the warmest person on the list. Two or three emails over a week, with the offer again, the main doubt answered and the deadline if there is one, do better than sending everything again to everyone.
- A reply: a person who answers is in a conversation. Answer them as a person.
After the sale
A sequence after a purchase, in order:
Thanks, and what happens next: the delivery, the first appointment.
How to get the most from what they bought.
A review request, once they've used it.
Something that goes with it.
For things that run out, a reminder timed to when they will.
The receipt
The header.
It worked: "Thanks, Sam. Your order is in."
The order number, the date, and when it arrives.
The items: photo, name, options, quantity, price.
The money: subtotal, delivery, total.
Where it's going.
One action: track the order, or manage the booking.
How to change or cancel, in your own terms, and a person to ask.
The footer: your business name and address.
The subject says what it is, with the number. "Order FF-4417 confirmed" can be found by search months later, and is never mistaken for an advert.
Keep promotion out of it. Google's sender guidelines: "Don't include promotions in sales receipt messages." Under US law (CAN-SPAM), a message that mixes the two counts as marketing if its subject line suggests an advert, or if the receipt doesn't come first. A purely transactional message is exempt from most of the law.
The suggestion is its own email: one item that goes with what they bought, timed to when they'll want it. Before dispatch for something that can share the box, after use for a refill. It's marketing, so it carries the unsubscribe and needs the same permission as any marketing email. "No thanks? Nothing to do" tells them the order stands as it is.
For a service, a short note from the person who's coming does the receipt's job: "Dan will be with you Tuesday between 8 and 10 am to look at the leak over the kitchen."
Mistakes: a sale banner on the receipt; "Thank you for your order" as the whole subject; a total that leaves out delivery; a no-reply address; a suggestion that has nothing to do with the order.
Birthdays and other dates
- Omnisend, 2025: birthday emails produced orders worth more than four times the average order. A few high-price shops probably pull the figure up, so trust the direction, not the number.
- Experian is widely quoted for birthday emails having 481% higher transaction rates than promotional email. The study is old, and can only be found second-hand.
- Other dates that work: the anniversary of the first purchase or of joining, a renewal date, a service that's due.
Win-back
Ask a plain question. What you noticed, in one line, signed by a person. No guilt, no "we're heartbroken", no fake "Re:".
Two choices, each one click: stay, or leave. Make leaving as easy as staying. Someone who leaves here wasn't going to buy; someone who reports the email as spam instead harms delivery for the whole list.
Remind them what staying gets them: one item, the most useful thing they missed or the best thing coming. Not a list of everything.
Say what happens if they do nothing, then do it. "If we don't hear from you, we'll stop emailing in May", and then stop. Google tells senders of bulk mail to "periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed", and to "consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages".
| When | Leads with | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | After 90 to 180 quiet days | The question, and the two choices |
| 2 | A few weeks later | The best of what they missed; your offer, if you make one |
| 3 | At least two months after the first | "This is the last email unless you click", and the date it stops |
Give it at least two months. Return Path studied win-backs at 33 retailers, 300 million messages, 2013 to 2014:
- Win-backs reached the inbox 92% of the time, and 12% were read, close to the 14% for those retailers' email overall.
- 45% of the people who got one read a later email, on average 57 days later.
- "Miss you" in the subject line was read by 13%, "come back" by 12.7%.
- Asking people to confirm they still want the emails was read by only 1.8%. Use that for an old list, not as the normal win-back.
The data comes from before Apple's privacy changes altered what an open means. When to stop mailing the quiet ones: Get into the inbox.
Mistakes: a hidden unsubscribe; "We miss you!" with nothing else; a threatening tone; saying "last email" and then sending more.
Events
The invitation answers what, when, where, who for and how much in the first screen.
The header.
A photo of the place or the people.
What it is, as the headline.
When, where, who it's for and the price, in one block.
One button, with the places left when that's true.
What they'll leave with, in three lines.
The host: a photo and one line.
The footer.
Dates carry the weekday; times carry the zone. "Sat 13 March, 10 am (UK time)". The weekday catches mistakes, and the zone matters to anyone joining online or travelling.
The confirmation says "You're booked", then gives the details as one block. After them: the calendar link, how to get there or join, what to bring, and how to change or cancel, in your own terms.
Each reminder carries the one thing needed next:
| When | Leads with | |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmation | At once | "You're booked", the details, the calendar link |
| A week before | 7 days | What to plan: travel, what to bring |
| A day before | 1 day | Where and when, with directions |
| 15 minutes before, online | 15 minutes | The join link, at the top |
| After | The same or the next day | The recording or photos to everyone who booked; the next step to those who came |
ON24, the webinar company, reports that about two thirds of sign-ups arrive in the last week, and about half of viewers watch the recording rather than live. Its figures could only be found second-hand.
Mistakes: a date with no weekday; a time with no zone; the join link buried; no way to cancel, so a place someone else wanted stays empty; "8 places left" when there are 40.
Every subscriber has a next step
Ryan Deiss maps a whole email programme as five kinds of sequence (Invisible Selling Machine, 2015):
Indoctrination: welcome them, and introduce the business.
Engagement: turn a subscriber into a first-time buyer, starting from a click that shows interest.
Ascension: after a purchase, offer the next, bigger thing.
Segmentation: regular emails whose clicks show what each person cares about.
Re-engagement: win back the quiet ones.
The test for any programme: for every group of subscribers, what is the next email meant to make them do?
Sequences end, and never collide. A sequence is a set number of emails with an end, and afterwards the person goes on getting your regular campaigns. Two at once means double the email and mixed messages, so one person is in one sequence at a time, and a stronger action, a purchase or a booking, moves them on.
Doing it here
- A sequence starts from one person's own action: a click in a campaign you name, its landing page form or a reply, or the form on one of your landing pages. So the follow-up to the people who clicked an offer is a sequence on that campaign: What starts a sequence.
- A person is in one sequence per campaign at a time, and a stronger action moves them on: a form beats a click, and a reply beats a form: Sequences, one person at a time.
- Sequences here start from your campaigns and pages, never from a basket or a date, so cart, back-in-stock and birthday emails aren't sent from here. A shop system that sends them can run alongside.
- Bookings on your website email each customer a confirmation at once, again if it's confirmed, moved or cancelled, and a reminder before it: How your bookings work.
- Your website's shop emails the buyer when you mark their order sent, with tracking if you add it: How you get paid.
- To find the quiet ones, save the people who didn't open a campaign that's gone out as a segment, and send them your win-back.
- A win-back here offers two choices, stay or leave: there's no "fewer emails" setting to promise. The footer's unsubscribe link takes effect once the person confirms it, and the mail app's own Unsubscribe button takes them off at once: Unsubscribes, honoured everywhere.
- Every reply to a campaign lands in one inbox, so "Questions? Just reply" reaches a person: One inbox for every reply.
Every one of these emails, drawn on a phone screen with its words and timing, is in the free guide Everything you need to know about email marketing.