What Is Transactional Email, And Why Do You Need It?

Transactional emails are in many ways, the hidden engine of business growth. They’re not flashy marketing emails, designed to sell a product. Instead, they’re giving your current and prospective customers what they want or need, when they want or need it. They are great for building a relationship with your users, and can be a great way of cementing your brand’s personality and tone of voice.

In this overview, we’ll introduce the nature and importance of transactional emails. That includes a basic definition and examples, along with in-depth benefits and examples of service providers. Let’s dive in.

What’s A Transactional Email, Anyway?

In short, a transactional email is the type of email that a business sends to a customer or subscriber, as a result of some type of trigger. What differentiates this type of email from a marketing message, is that you’re not openly trying to sell your brand or product. Instead, you’re fulfilling an explicit or implicit promise you’ve made to your audience.

You need them for the important touch points that your audience expects or requires. That, in turn, means deliverability and trackability are of major importance.

6 Types Of Transactional Email

The above, of course, is still relatively theoretical. For more practical examples, consider these 6 types of transactional messages:

1. Purchase confirmations – which are especially common for eCommerce businesses. They typically outline what the customer purchased, how much it cost, and the expected shipping/arrival time.
2. Contact form submission responders – which are confirmations of receipt, which provide information on expected followup, and also with any information that you promised in return for your audience’s information.
3. Account creation emails – which confirm that someone has created an account on your website. They include the user’s username and provide an opportunity to start building that relationship.
4. Password reset messages – which help users who forgot their password get a new, temporary one, or simply go to the site where they can create a new one.
5. Account-related alerts, like the payment reminders, or renewal emails. 
6. Event-based alerts, like shipping notifications, appointment reminders, products being back in stock, or reminders for ticket purchases.

Those are not the only types of messages, of course. You might also find digest newsletters and requests for feedback on a recent purchase in this group. Though there are subtle marketing opportunities within each of these messages, the core purpose should be that transactional or behavioural trigger to provide core information to your audience.

The Benefits (And Necessity) Of Transactional Email

It’s really quite simple: if your audience interacts with you online, you’ll probably need transactional emails. Imagine selling a product without emailing the receipt. The benefits, then, are more closely related to making sure your transactional emails are built right.

Paying special attention to your transactional emails, and making sure they’re done the right way, can lead to a few crucial advantages:

• Good transactional emails build credibility – your customers will feel like you’re being open and honest with them, and giving them what they expect, when they expect it. A well designed and structured email providing relevant information in an accessible way, can go a long way in demonstrating credibility, professionalism and value.
• Good transactional emails tend to increase brand recognition and perception – they have open rates that are eight times higher than promotional messages. When written and designed the right way, your audience will pay attention to them, and paired with a quality service, can help to create a lasting positive brand perception. This in turn can lead to that thing we all would like, brand loyalty.
• Good transactional emails can lead to future revenue – particularly when taking Amazon’s approach of customers also bought… recommendations in purchase receipts. But depending on your customer demographics, you may find that some will bookmark a transactional email as a way to revisit your site for further purchases.

So yes, you need them. But if you take the time to build great transactional emails, your returns will be even more significant. 

How To Maximise Deliverability In Your Transactional Email

Understanding the importance of this type of message, of course, is only the beginning. In this section, we’ll dig a little deeper into the how of great transactional emails.

It begins and ends with deliverability. Put simply, your customers expect these types of emails, and you put effort in to creating them. You have to make sure they end up in their inbox, not in the spam folder.

If your customers aren’t receiving important transactional emails from you, and you’re not receiving important email notifications from your site to notify you of orders or issues, because they’re all hitting the spam folder, then you are going to lose out on business.

Don’t rely on your website, form plugin, or hosting provider to ensure those emails will reach the inbox, as they might not flag as a trusted sender. However, you can avoid this problem, by using a API based deliverability solution provider. We’ll talk about some of these providers in a while.

Some other standard ways to improve deliverability chances start with the subject line. It should be both descriptive and straightforward, getting across exactly what your audience expects. A password reset email may be as simple as “reset your password”.

That straightforward nature carries forward into your message body as well. Every email you send under this umbrella has one specific purpose. Make sure that purpose is straightforward and clear from the beginning, at first glance. 

Making sure your emails are responsive, so that they display well on a variety of devices and screen sizes is another important component. Click-through rates in responsive emails rise by 30% because of how many users view them on their mobile. If these emails do not display well on a mobile phone inbox, then you are creating a poor experience from an interaction with your brand.

Finally, make sure you always follow anti-spam laws in the country you operate. That might be GDPR in Europe, CAN-SPAM in the US, and others elsewhere. Check out this comprehensive guide on anti-spam regulations and how to follow them.

Some Real World Examples Of Transactional Emails Done Right

Nothing demonstrates a concept better than actual real world examples, so below are some transactional emails that do their job well.

The double opt in email is a staple in the post GDPR world. This one from Coinbase is simple and clear, with the only addition being the app download links to increase app downloads.

This order confirmation from Boden is brilliant. Eye-catching, simple but includes all the important details, lets the recipient know what to expect next, and is very in keeping with the brand.

This address change email from SEMrush is another good example. It’s providing the recipient with important information, how to act upon that information if they need to, a clear deadline, and carries through their branding nicely.

3 Transactional Email Service Providers to Consider

As mentioned before, these are important emails, so if they’re ending up in spam folders, then you have a real problem on your hands. Thankfully, there are providers offering API based solutions to ensure the deliverability of your important transactional emails. Here are 3 of the most used:

1. Mailgun, oriented more towards simple setups but coming with limitations in advanced settings. 
2. SendGrid, known for extensive analytics and high delivery rates.
3. Postmark, also known for high-quality analytics along with strong, 24/7 service.

The dedicated nature of these services, focusing exclusively on transactional emails, make them good partners for us as we help businesses implement the practice into their communications strategy.

Integrating Transactional Email Into Your Website

If you’re paying attention, you’ll have noticed that much of what makes transactional emails great is that they tie directly into activity on your website. If you get them right, they should be an automated process, that once set up require little management time, land in the inbox without issue, and can deliver great success.

These types of email are often so overlooked and become an afterthought. Why not consider this crucial part of your customer communication from the moment you begin to build your website? That’s the approach we take. We want your website to be focused not just on exposure, but customer conversions and loyalty. So our website builds always include the consideration of transactional emails.

Even better, if you have a WordPress Support & Maintenance plan with Impact, you can implement a transactional email strategy as part of your plan with us. We can guide you on what emails you need to send, and how you can ensure they land in the inboxes intended. All you need to do is ask. Give us a call or send us a message to start the conversation.