AI & Automation
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, I was working on a complete website revamp for a Shopify e-commerce client when something unexpected happened. What started as a simple rebranding exercise turned into a revelation about email marketing that completely changed how I approach newsletters for online stores.
While updating their abandoned cart emails to match new brand guidelines, I found myself staring at the same templated, corporate-sounding email that every other ecommerce store was sending. Product grids, discount codes, "COMPLETE YOUR ORDER NOW" buttons - the works. It looked professional, sure, but it felt like digital spam.
Here's what I discovered: the most effective newsletter strategy for ecommerce isn't about following best practices - it's about being human when everyone else sounds like a robot.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why conventional newsletter templates are killing your engagement
The counterintuitive approach that doubled our reply rates
How to turn transactional emails into conversation starters
The psychology behind personal vs corporate communication
Specific tactics that work across different ecommerce niches
This isn't another guide about subject line optimization or A/B testing send times. This is about fundamentally rethinking how you communicate with your customers through email.
Industry Wisdom
What every ecommerce guru preaches
Walk into any ecommerce marketing conference or read any "ultimate guide" to email marketing, and you'll hear the same advice repeated like gospel:
"Professional templates are everything." Use clean layouts with product grids, clear CTAs, and branded headers. Make it look like it came from a Fortune 500 company.
"Automation is king." Set up complex drip sequences with behavioral triggers. Send the right message at the right time based on user actions.
"Design for mobile first." Use responsive templates that look perfect on every device. Test across email clients obsessively.
"Segment everything." Create detailed customer personas and send hyper-targeted content based on purchase history, demographics, and browsing behavior.
"Measure and optimize." Track open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates. Split test every element until you find the "perfect" combination.
This conventional wisdom exists because it works - sort of. These strategies can incrementally improve your metrics compared to sending nothing at all. But here's the problem: when everyone follows the same playbook, your emails become indistinguishable from the dozens of other promotional emails flooding your customers' inboxes.
The result? Email fatigue, declining engagement, and customers who tune out your messages entirely. You're optimizing for metrics that don't actually drive long-term customer relationships.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My client was a Shopify store selling handmade products - the kind of business where personal connection should be everything. But their email strategy was anything but personal. They had the full arsenal: welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups, monthly newsletters. All professionally designed, perfectly branded, and completely forgettable.
The data told the story: decent open rates (around 20%), terrible reply rates (essentially zero), and customers who engaged once then disappeared. Their emails were performing "fine" according to industry benchmarks, but they weren't building the kind of relationships that turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers.
When we started the website redesign, I also took a look at their email templates to match the new branding. That's when I noticed something: their abandoned cart email looked identical to every other ecommerce store I'd worked with. Same structure, same urgency tactics, same corporate tone.
But here's what really bothered me - this was a business built on craftsmanship and personal stories, yet their emails read like they were generated by an algorithm. The disconnect was jarring.
I had a hypothesis: What if we treated emails like personal notes instead of marketing campaigns? What if we prioritized conversation over conversion?
The client was skeptical. "Won't that look unprofessional?" they asked. "What about our brand consistency?" Fair questions, but I convinced them to try something different for their abandoned cart email - the perfect testing ground since it was already underperforming.
Instead of the typical promotional template, we created something that looked and felt like a personal note from the business owner. No product grids, no corporate headers, just a simple message addressing the real reason people abandon their carts.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly what we implemented, step by step:
Step 1: Ditched the Template Mentality
First, we completely abandoned the traditional ecommerce email template. No more product grids, discount codes prominently displayed, or "COMPLETE YOUR ORDER NOW" buttons. Instead, we designed the email to look like a personal newsletter - the kind you'd get from a friend sharing an update.
Step 2: Wrote in First Person
The email came directly from the business owner, using "I" instead of "we" or the company name. This wasn't a corporate communication - it was a personal note from one person to another.
Step 3: Changed the Subject Line Strategy
Instead of "You forgot something!" or "Complete your order," we used: "You had started your order..." Notice the subtle difference? It acknowledges what happened without being pushy or presumptuous.
Step 4: Addressed Real Problems
Through conversations with the client, we discovered that many customers struggled with payment validation, especially double authentication requirements. Rather than ignoring this friction, we addressed it head-on in the email with a helpful troubleshooting section.
Step 5: Added a 3-Point Help List
We included practical solutions:
Payment authentication timing out? Try again with your bank app already open
Card declined? Double-check your billing ZIP code matches exactly
Still having issues? Just reply to this email - I'll help you personally
Step 6: Made it Reply-Friendly
The key insight: we transformed the abandoned cart email from a sales tool into a customer service touchpoint. Instead of just trying to recover the sale, we invited conversation.
Step 7: Extended the Approach to All Emails
After seeing the success of this approach, we applied the same principles to their entire email strategy:
Welcome emails became personal introductions
Product announcements read like sharing exciting news with friends
Monthly newsletters focused on behind-the-scenes stories
The Psychology Behind It
This approach works because it taps into fundamental human psychology. People crave authentic connection, especially in an increasingly automated world. When your email feels personal and helpful rather than promotional and pushy, it breaks through the noise.
We weren't just selling products - we were building relationships. And relationships drive long-term value in ways that promotional emails never can.
Personal Touch
Writing emails that feel like they come from a real person rather than a marketing department
Real Problems
Addressing actual customer pain points instead of just pushing for a sale
Conversation Starter
Making emails reply-friendly and treating responses as opportunities to build relationships
Behind the Scenes
Sharing the story and process behind your products rather than just featuring them
The results spoke for themselves. Within the first month of implementing this approach:
Customers started replying to emails. What used to be a one-way communication channel became a two-way conversation. People asked questions, shared feedback, and even just said thank you.
Some completed purchases after getting personalized help. The troubleshooting section in the abandoned cart email actually worked - customers would reply with specific issues, get personal assistance, and complete their orders.
Others shared problems we could fix site-wide. These conversations revealed friction points in the checkout process that we hadn't identified through analytics alone.
Brand loyalty increased measurably. Customers who engaged through email became repeat buyers at a much higher rate than those who only interacted through the website.
But the most significant result wasn't a metric - it was the transformation of their email marketing from a necessary evil into a genuine customer relationship tool. The client went from dreading email campaigns to looking forward to the conversations they would generate.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from this experiment:
1. Authenticity beats optimization. Sometimes the most powerful strategy is simply being human when everyone else is trying to be perfect.
2. Problems are opportunities. Instead of hiding friction points, addressing them openly builds trust and provides value.
3. Conversation trumps conversion. When you focus on building relationships instead of just driving sales, the sales often follow naturally.
4. Context matters more than content. The same message can feel completely different depending on how and when it's delivered.
5. Personal scales differently than professional. While you can't personally respond to thousands of emails, you can make thousands of emails feel personal.
6. Templates are crutches. They make email creation easier but often at the expense of effectiveness.
7. Industry best practices are often industry standard practices. Following what everyone else does ensures you'll get average results.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, apply this approach by:
Writing feature announcements like personal updates
Addressing common user questions in onboarding emails
Making trial expiration emails helpful rather than pushy
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, implement this by:
Sharing the story behind your products in newsletters
Addressing shipping and return concerns proactively
Making every email feel like a note from the business owner