Idea Guide
Email Personalization
Meanwhile, discover strategies to boost conversion rates, transaction size, and customer engagement in our Idea Guide.
Getting your customers to convert on your store is one thing. Getting them there to start shopping is a totally different ball game – one you can accelerate with strategic emails and customization. LimeSpot supports email personalization on two levels.
The first is by inserting LimeSpot recommendation boxes on any type of email, including transactional emails. The second is by leveraging LimeSpot audience segments to send tailored emails to different sections of your customer base, based on their browsing, buying behavior, and / or their referral source / UTM.
Learn about the ways to personalize your email strategy and drive sales with LimeSpot.
A clothing store could promote a new collection drop with recommendations based on their customers’ browsing / buying behavior. A customer that has commonly bought colorful and printed items will see different recommendations than a customer who has largely stuck to basic black and white.
Include 1:1 recommendations in customer promotional emails based on their past browsing behavior and / or purchase history.
When you’re sending out promotional emails, such as for a sale or new collection release, serve up a more tailored experience by including recommendations tailored to that customer’s buying habits or previous purchases. It’s as simple as adding LimeSpot recommendation boxes and letting our AI do the work. You can also control the layout and styling of your LimeSpot recommendation boxes from mobile to desktop to ensure an optimal viewing experience.
Go to the Personalized Emails section of LimeSpot and set up your recommendation boxes. Then simply copy and paste the code into your email client. We recommend using the ‘New Arrivals’ box if you’re promoting new arrivals. Need an extra hand? Check out this help article to learn how to get started.
You can insert different styles of LimeSpot recommendation boxes according to your email layout. Want to showcase a gallery of items? Choose the grid layout. Or make recommendations more subtle by adding in a simple row to the bottom of whatever you’re promoting.
A pet store could segment their customers based on who shops for what pets. When they announce a store-wide sale via email, customers who prefer birds versus dogs based on their browsing and buying behavior will see different featured images and products.
The store could take things a step further by offering their most loyal customers for either collection a special coupon code on their purchase.
Segment your customers by their browsing and buying behavior to serve up tailored email content, call-to-action, or promotion offerings.
LimeSpot lets you do more than include custom recommendations in your emails – you can actually segment your customers based on their on-site behavior / history, and send each segment different email content, customizing any HTML element including images, CTAs, and text. The possibilities for segmentation are limitless. For example, you could create a segment of customers that have bought repeatedly from a specific collection and send them a note when new items have dropped in that collection, while other customers will see a different message on the same email. Or you could send separate emails for low, medium, and high-value customers based on the frequency of their purchases and offer customers with a higher lifetime value different types of exclusive discounts or early access to new drops
Create segments of your choice in LimeSpot (e.g. Lifetime value: low, medium and high value customers). Use Image or HTML Personalization to determine what you want to customize per audience segment. Then, copy and paste LimeSpot's HTML widget to the section of the email you want to personalize. The emails will be automatically updated to be personalized based on each customer’s segment.
You can further enhance your email segments by adding in 1:1 personalized recommendations from LimeSpot.
When a customer signs up for an out-of-stock notification for a long-sleeved dress shirt, they could be sent a confirmation email from the clothing store, with a personalized recommendation box that automatically prioritizes products from the same ‘Wear to Work’ collection the customer was browsing.
Keep your customer journey from grinding to a halt when a customer signs up for an out-of-stock notification by providing them tailored recommendations via email.
Getting your customers to sign up for restock notifications is a great way to capture emails without much friction. However, don’t just bank on that restock notification to actually get them to convert; by the time an item is back in stock they may have moved onto a new shopping crush. When a customer signs up to be notified on a restock, auto-trigger an email that confirms you’ll keep them in the loop, and while you’re at it, include LimeSpot recommendations in your email to see if something else inspires them to keep shopping. You can auto-curate recommendations on a 1:1 basis based on the customer’s browsing behavior, or include recommendations based on the collection the customer was browsing.
Use LimeSpot Personalized Emails to insert product recommendations into your out-of-stock emails, using the parameters of your choice.
To be really successful with this tactic, ideally your products should be part of accurate collections (even hidden collections). That way even if a customer can’t find the exact item they want, they should see other items from your store that are similar to help entice them back.
A health and beauty store could highlight other products from the same brand or with the same benefits as what a customer has added to their cart, but not yet checked out with.
Encourage customers to come back and add even more to their cart by adding in tailored 1:1 recommendations to their abandoned cart emails.
Abandoned cart emails can be an extremely powerful marketing tool to drive purchase conversions. Up to 45% of abandoned cart emails are opened, while 21% are clicked on. One way to get even more action on your emails? Highlight things the customer may have missed with 1:1 personalized recommendations based on what the customer left in their cart, or their browsing behavior before they left your store.
Create a recommendations box based on what’s in your customer’s cart as either a Frequently Bought Together or Cross-sell and add it to your auto-generated abandoned cart emails using the ESP of your choice. The recommendations will automatically update based on what is present in the customer’s cart.
Promotional offers are another popular tactic to get people to click and convert. Consider adding in a limited-time discount like free shipping to make those purchases happen.
A jewelry store could highlight new arrivals that match the persona of the jewelry piece the customer has just bought and invite the customer to join their loyalty program to earn 10% off their next order.
Give customers a reason to come back again by adding in recommendations for their next order on all transactional post-purchase emails
You can add LimeSpot recommendations boxes to any transactional email, including order confirmations, shipping notifications, and review requests. And given transactional emails have open rates as high as 80-85% (compared to 20-25% for marketing emails), adding recommendations in is a total no-brainer. These boxes will automatically generate personalized recommendations based on exact items a customer has already bought, providing them hyper relevant and targeted ideas for their next purchase. You can also create different variations of your email for both mobile and desktop consumption.
Create a recommendations box based on Frequently Bought Together or Cross-Sells and include it in your post-purchase transactional emails using the ESP of your choice. The recommendations will automatically update on a 1:1 level based on the products purchased.
Consider adding in a promotional offer to surprise and delight customers who are used to only being treated like VIPs on their first order. You can even use LimeSpot’s Segmented Experiences to only send a discount offer to customers that have hit a certain spending threshold with their first purchase.
A supplements store could send customers that haven’t shopped with them in the past six months a special offer to save 10% on their next order, highlighting products from the last brand they purchased from.
Reach out to lapsed customers with highly personalized emails and recommendations based on their past purchasing behavior.
You can use Segmented Experiences to identify customers that haven’t shopped or browsed on your site within a set period of time. Then, use our Image Personalization and 1:1 product recommendations together to serve up new arrivals based on the customer’s previous purchases combined with a personalized promotion offering or discount.
Create a segment in LimeSpot based on your customer browsing and / or buying history. Then, use this information to create segmented emails and offer customers different content based on the last time they were on your site. Include LimeSpot Cross-Sell or Upsell recommendation boxes to provide tailored recommendations for that customer.
Keep in mind different shopping frequencies exist for different types of companies. A multi-brand store with new drops every week might expect way higher return visits / purchases than a single brand that releases one or two products a year. Get to know your return customer rate and set your re-engagement email strategy accordingly.
A beauty store could send customers a monthly email on the first of the month highlighting their top sellers from the previous month.
Give customers the inside scoop based on what items are trending or selling fast, on autopilot.
You can create recommendation boxes based on ‘Trending Items’ or ‘Most Popular’ in LimeSpot. Embed these into an email you send out ad hoc, or create a regularly scheduled email that goes out monthly or more frequently, highlighting the bestsellers from that time period.
Use LimeSpot’s Trending Items or Most Popular recommendation boxes and embed them into an email using the ESP of your choice. Recommendations will auto-generate on a 1:1 basis in real time.
Think about frequency when sending this type of email out, both in terms of what’s an appropriate interval for a customer to visit your store, and how often a customer wants to hear from you. Your most frequent shoppers might want to hear about new drops every week, while occasional buyers may unsubscribe if receiving emails on the same interval. Think about bestseller emails as a way to inspire FOMO (fear of missing out) and discovery for your customers.
A clothing store could include two sets of boxes on their customer account center pages. First, they could include Recent Views Products to show the customer what they’ve been browsing in their current or recent sessions.
Secondly, they could highlight ‘Recommended for Jane’, with boxes that serve up products related to Jane’s recent purchases. If Jane has an account but hasn’t yet made a purchase, the boxes could default to whatever Jane has browsed on the site during her most recent session.
Tailor recommendations for your customers when they re-open an email you’ve sent.
LimeSpot recommendation boxes can update in real-time via email, just as they do on your website. Our standard cache for recommendation boxes is 30 days, meaning that every time a customer opens your email within 30 days of you sending it, they will see the same recommended items, enabling them to easily get back to an item they were interested in. However, you can actually adjust the cache to be as short as you like. If a customer visits your site and exhibits different behavior, when they go to open that same email, they may see entirely different recommendations, ensuring you’re always showing the most relevant products.
Contact LimeSpot if you’d like to adjust the refresh period of your email recommendation boxes.
Choosing a ‘live’ or static email are two specific marketing strategies. Note that with live emails, or emails with shorter caches, a customer might end up getting frustrated if they can’t find the product they originally saw in your email.
With so many possibilities, we get it can be hard to figure out where to start. That’s why we’ve created this handy idea guide, to give you plenty of inspiration for all the ways you can use LimeSpot and level up your personalized shopping experience.
Boost your store’s average order values by 10% easily. Set up one-click upsell funnels and post-purchase offers to easily add more items to your shoppers’ carts.
Remove friction from the buyer journey by tailoring your site to each customer's goals.
Segment your customers by their browsing or buying behavior and create a tailored experience throughout their entire buyer journey.
Capture cost-conscious customers more effectively by personalizing your promotional strategy.
Help your emails stand out with 1:1 personalized recommendations or segmented content and images.
Convert more customers and drive more clicks by offering a personalized product recommendation in your SMS outreach.
