How To Use Email Personalization To Boost Conversions And Sales
Looking to use email personalization to boost your email conversions and sales? You’re in the right place!
Email personalization helps to create meaningful connections, drives engagement, and increases sales.
In this post, I’ll share various personalization tactics and how to use email personalization to boost conversions and sales.
Why should you use email personalization?
Latest marketing statistics show that 71% of customers want a personalized experience when shopping.
This tells you how much of your market share (and potential revenue) you’re leaving behind by not personalizing your emails.
Here are some of the most immediate benefits of using email personalization in your email marketing campaigns:
Personalization makes messaging more relevant
Personalized emails help to make sure your content is more relevant to your audience.
When you segment your audience based on demographics like age and gender, purchase history or browsing behaviour, you can easily send emails that align with their interests.
For instance, sending product recommendations based on a customer’s past purchase or browsing history increases their chances of making a purchase.
Increases open rates
It makes sense, right? If your message is more relevant, your audience is more likely to click on the email and open it.
According to an article from SalesCycle, email personalization can increase email open rates by 82%.
This makes your subject line critical to determining whether your email gets opened or ignored.
Emails with personalized subjects (for instance those that mention the recipient’s name) are generally more likely to be opened than those with generic subject lines.
The personal touch makes the email feel more like one-on-one communication than mass marketing.
Encourages engagement
Personalization does more than get your emails opened.
It also encourages the recipient to interact with your message and take necessary action.
For instance, they’re more likely to click the link to a personalized product recommendation, visit your website, share the content, or reply to your email according to your CTA.
Such engagement goes a long way in strengthening customer relationships and building brand loyalty.
Higher conversion rates
An email recipient who clicks, opens and engages with your email is most likely to convert into a buying customer.
When the email content is relevant to them, customers are most likely to make a purchase, take advantage of a tailored discount, sign up for a webinar, or download a resource.
Personalization therefore helps to increase conversion rates since the content speaks to the needs of each subscriber.
Eventually, it leads to increased revenue and produces a higher ROI compared to generic email campaigns.
In case there was any doubt, data from Blogging Wizard shows that 78% of consumers are more likely to respond favorably to personalized emails from retailers.
Improves customer experience
Most customers do business with brands that understand their preferences and needs.
When they receive personalized product recommendations, birthday discounts, or follow-up emails based on past interactions, it significantly enhances their experience with your brand.
This experience not only builds trust but also increases customer retention. Most people are likely to stay loyal to businesses that offer a personalized experience.
How to use email personalization to boost conversions and sales
Email personalization is a skill that every marketer needs to master.
When done correctly, it makes your emails feel tailored to each recipient, improving open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, sales.
Here are the 10 most effective ways you can use personalization to boost conversion and sales in your email marketing campaigns:
Personalize your subject lines
The subject line is the first impression that makes recipients decide whether or not to open your emails.
As mentioned, personalized subject lines grab attention by making the email more relevant and tailored to the recipient.
How can you personalize your subject lines?
The most obvious way is by adding the recipient’s name on it as in these examples:
“Katie, here’s a special offer just for you!”
“Christine, your exclusive 20% discount awaits”
You can also personalize by referencing their past purchases:
“Still Loving Those Sneakers? Here’s a New Collection for You”
“Your Favorite Skincare Brand Just Launched Something New!”
Start by A/B testing different subject lines with personalized elements to find what resonates best with your audience.
Personalize the email content
Personalization should go beyond the subject line.
The body of your email should also be personalized to create a relevant experience for the reader.
You can personalize the email content by addressing the recipient by name, mentioning their past interactions, and tailoring content based on their preferences.
Here’s an example of personalized email content:
“Hi James, we noticed you recently purchased some sleek running shoes. Here are some high-performance socks and accessories to complete your exercise gear.”
Do you see how the email feels more like a conversation than a generic sales pitch? The recipient has a higher chance of engaging and buying the products.
Use personalization tags
Are you wondering how to add someone’s name in your email subject line or body?
Personalization tags allow you to dynamically insert personalized content into your emails based on the recipient’s data. These tags can be used for the recipient’s names, locations, recent interactions, and more.
Common personalization tags that people use to personalize emails include:
- {{First Name}} – Inserts the recipient’s first name
- {{Last Name}} – Inserts the recipient’s last name
- {{Company Name}} – add the company name in B2B emails
- {{Location}} – Customizes personalized emails based on geographic location
For instance, if you run a travel agency, you could send an email like:
“Hi {{First Name}}, ready for your next adventure? Based on your recent trip to {{Last Destination}}, here are some travel deals you’ll love!“
These tags ensure that each recipient gets a message that feels crafted just for them, increasing engagement and conversion rates.
Leverage customer data and behaviour
In addition to name and location, customer data and behaviour can help you send personalized emails that align with their interests and actions.
You can use data analytics to track behaviour such as:
- Browsing history
- Previous purchases
- Products added to the cart
- Pages viewed on your website
Here are some examples of behaviour-based emails:
Browsing history:
“Hey Wendy, we noticed you were checking out our latest smartphones. Still thinking about it? Here’s a special offer just for you.”
Previous purchase:
“Time for a refill, Annie? Your favourite moisturizer is likely running low. Restock now! Here’s a 10% discount for you!”
Customer behaviour can help you deliver emails that feel timely and relevant, encouraging the customer to take action.
Use audience segmentation
At any given time, your customers will be at different points in their buyer journey.
It’s therefore important to segment your email recipients based on where they are along the journey and send relevant emails.
You can create different segments of your audience such as:
- First-time customers/ new subscribers
- Returning customers
- VIP customers
- Inactive subscribers
For instance, first-time subscribers could get welcome emails, like:
“Welcome to our community, Eva! Here’s 10% off your first order.”
While inactive subscribers could get emails like:
“We miss you, Kevin! Here’s a 15% discount to bring you back.”
Segmenting your audience makes them feel special and recognized, which increases their chances of engaging and converting.
Recognize customer milestones
Celebrating special moments with your customers can add a personal touch that strengthens brand loyalty.
Send emails to join customers in celebrating special milestones like birthdays, anniversaries and graduations.
For instance:
“Happy Birthday, Jay! Enjoy 20% off your favourite items today!”
“You’ve been with us for a year, Sarah! Here’s an exclusive gift just for you.”
These emails help you create a personal connection with your customers and encourage them to shop again, thus increasing sales.
Optimize email send times
What time and days of the week do you send out your marketing emails?
Remember even the most personalized message won’t be effective if sent at the wrong time.
According to the latest email user research, emails sent between 9 am-12 noon register the highest open, click-through, and response rates.
Additionally, marketing emails sent in the middle of the week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) perform better than those sent at the start (Mondays) and during weekends.
Regardless of these statistics, the best practice is to analyze customer behaviour and track when they typically open and engage with your emails.
Optimize your send times based on user activity and local time zones to increase open and click-through rates.
Send personalized product recommendations
Customers are more likely to purchase more when you recommend products that align with their preferences and past behaviour.
For instance, a fashion model is likely to purchase more luxurious clothing from you when you recommend based on their previous purchase.
AI technology and various automation tools can help you track your customers’ purchase history so you can send highly targeted recommendations.
Customers appreciate such effort since they don’t have to browse products again to buy something. It makes them feel like you’re their shopping assistant.
And guess what? They’ll most probably buy it!
Examples of personalized product recommendations:
“Since you loved our organic shampoo, you might like these conditioners!”
“You checked out our running shoes. Here are some best-selling pairs, curated just for you.“
Use A/B tests and optimize
While these email personalization tactics work for most brands, not all may apply to your brand.
Applicability and effectiveness may differ with industry, audience, and the product or service you offer.
Consequently, it’s advisable to perform A/B tests with different strategies and identify what works best for your brand, then stick with it!
For instance, you can perform an A/B test between fully personalized and semi-personalized emails to see how they both perform.
Once you get into a rhythm, refine and optimize for maximum conversion.
Just remember that best practice should only be a starting point.
The good news is that most email marketing tools offer A/B testing. For example, when setting up a campaign in MailerLite, you’ll see the option to create A/B tests:
How to use personalization with marketing automation
Email personalization and marketing automation go hand in hand in delivering highly targeted and relevant email campaigns.
Latest marketing stats show that 49% of companies use marketing automation to save time and facilitate personalized communication.
Here are some of the most effective ways to combine personalization with marketing automation to drive higher conversion.
Leverage CRM integration
One of the best ways to combine personalization with automation is to integrate your email marketing platform with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
A CRM will enable you to store valuable subscriber data such as purchase history, product preferences, and browsing history.
You can then leverage this data to create highly tailored email campaigns.
For instance, you can use customer inquiry data to send personalized and timely follow-up emails. This gives you a good chance to offer them a discount on their next purchase to encourage engagement and conversion. Just be sure to make sure you’re only sending these kinds of emails to those that have opted in to receive them!
CRM-powered email marketing personalization makes every interaction with your brand feel tailored to the customer’s specific needs.
Use analytics and customer insights to optimize timing
Whilst some tools do use AI to help optimize sending times, any decent email marketing tool will give you enough relevant metrics to show the best time to send your emails regardless.
For instance, they can track when customers typically open and click on emails, then you can adjust the email send times accordingly.
We’ll see more platforms use AI in this way, HubSpot and MailChimp are already using AI to scan through analytics for you and optimize send times accordingly.
With this integration, they’re reporting a significant increase in conversion and sales. Personally, I think regular analytics can still get the job done. This is just a time saver.
Automate segmented email campaigns
Email segmentation can benefit a lot from automation.
Segmentation involves dividing your email list into specific groups based on characteristics like demographics (age group, gender, location), behaviour, or purchase history.
Automation helps you assign your subscribers to groups automatically and sends targeted emails to every group without any manual intervention.
This ensures that each group gets timely, personalized content, with less work.
For instance, a clothing retailer can use automation to segment users into “Men’s fashion,” “Women’s fashion,” or “Kids’ apparel” based on their browsing behaviour.
Most email marketing platforms have integrated automatic segmentation to help users reach different audience segments effectively. Or you can set up your own segments. I’d always recommend going for the latter.
Personalize drip campaigns
Drip campaigns are pre-scheduled email sequences sent over a period to nurture leads. They are meant to guide customers through the buyer journey toward conversion.
Automation personalizes these campaigns dynamically based on customer behaviour, interests, and interactions.
These tools can also enrol subscribers into the right drip campaign without any manual intervention.
For example, when a customer downloads a whitepaper on ‘Beginner SEO Strategies,’ they are automatically placed into a drip campaign about ‘SEO Learning’. They then start receiving emails about SEO techniques.
Automation tools also track the recipient’s actions and send emails based on their engagement levels.
If a recipient clicks on a webinar link in an educational drip campaign, the next email could include additional resources. If they ignore the email, they may receive a reminder email instead.
Use dynamic content blocks
Finally, you can leverage dynamic content blocks to automate personalization.
Dynamic content blocks allow you to show different email content to different recipients within the same email campaign.
This is automated personalization at scale!
With automation tools, you can auto-generate personalized product recommendations based on the user’s browsing history. These tools can effectively gather real-time product data to know what the customer is searching for.
For instance, a user who browsed coffee makers but didn’t buy receives an email featuring a selection of best-selling coffee machines.
Users from different locations can also receive different promotion emails based on their geographic location. You can send the same newsletter but show different deals e.g winter clothing to subscribers in Canada and summer clothing to those in Australia.
Top 5 email personalization tools
Email personalization tools take the manual work off personalization, making it faster and more effective. As an email marketer, these tools can help you automate reach, track user behaviour, and send highly targeted marketing emails.
Here are 5 top email personalization tools you can leverage in your marketing.
Smartlead
Smartlead is an AI-powered automation tool that’s best for sending personalized cold emails.
It uses AI-driven personalization to tailor subject lines, email content, and follow-ups based on customer behaviour.
It allows businesses to send hyper-personalized emails to prospects at scale. This tool can also send automated follow-ups based on recipient behaviour.
Additionally, Smartlead offers detailed analytics on email performance, response rates, and deliverability.
If you want to send hyper-personalized cold emails to prospects at scale, this is the best tool to use. I love that it can even send automated follow-ups based on recipient behaviour.
Saleshandy
Saleshandy is another cold email outreach and automation tool that helps businesses send personalized emails at scale.
It allows you to send email sequences with placeholders like {{First Name}}, {{Company Name}} for personalization.
With this tool, you can automate follow-ups and track engagement metrics without a hassle. It helps you track email opens, clicks, and replies in real-time.
Saleshandy has a test feature to conduct A/B tests for subject lines and email content to help you optimize campaigns.
It’s among the most preferred email campaign tools among sales professionals, recruiters, and marketing agencies
Instantly
Instantly is a personalized email marketing and lead generation platform that helps businesses send highly personalized emails.
Like other personalization tools, it uses AI-powered personalization to tailor emails based on recipient behaviour. One unique feature of Instantly is that it automates email warm-up to improve inbox placement and avoid spam filters.
Since it supports unlimited email-sending accounts, it allows for high-volume campaigns.
Instantly also provides advanced analytics on open rates, bounce rates, and engagement to help you optimize your email campaigns.
It’s another efficient alternative for businesses that want to scale their personalized email campaigns while maintaining high deliverability.
Quickmail
Quickmail is another effective cold email automation tool designed for teams that need a flexible and personalized outreach solution.
This tool enables deep personalization using merge tags like the recipient’s name, company, and job title. It also automates follow-ups based on recipient interactions (opens, clicks, and responses).
Quickmail supports multi-channel outreach, allowing users to automate emails and make LinkedIn follow-ups. This is especially good for B2B marketing.
Its smart scheduling feature also ensures emails are sent at optimal times based on recipient behaviour.
An advantage of Quickmail is that it can integrate with Google Sheets and other CRMs, making it easy to pull contact data for seamless personalization.
Woodpecker
Finally, we have this powerful email tool called Woodpecker.
Woodpecker is a cold email outreach tool with AI-powered personalization and CRM integration.
It also features multi-step sequences, which allow you to automate personalized follow-ups depending on whether a recipient has opened an email, clicked a link or responded.
One of my favourite features of Quickmail is reply detection, which automatically stops follow-ups once a recipient responds. This feature helps users avoid unnecessary emails.
Additionally, Woodpecker integrates seamlessly with popular CRM platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zapier. If you lead a marketing team that wants to integrate email outreach with the sales pipeline for higher conversion, this is the best tool for you.
How to use email personalization to boost conversions and sales: FAQs
What is personalization in email?
Email personalization involves tailoring emails to appeal to individual recipients based on their names, demographics (e.g. age and gender), behaviour and past interactions with your brand. This ensures each customer receives emails that are timely and relevant to them, increasing their chances of conversion.
How does email personalization increase sales?
Personalization creates a deeper connection with the customer and encourages them to engage with your emails. This leads to higher open rates, click-through rates, response, and conversion rates. Personalized emails like cart abandonment reminders encourage purchases and increase sales and revenue for your business.
How do I personalize my emails?
You can personalize your emails by using personalization tags to add the recipient’s name in the subject line, greetings, and email content. You can also send targeted emails based on the customer’s browsing history, previous purchases, abandoned carts, or pages viewed on your website.
What’s the best tool for email personalization?
The best tools for email personalization depend on your needs and specific marketing goals. Some of the best personalization tools you can find on the internet include Smartlead, Saleshandy, Instantly, Quickmail, and Woodpecker.
Final thoughts
Email personalization is the current marketing strategy driving higher engagement, building stronger customer relationships, and boosting conversions and sales.
By tailoring emails based on customer demographics, behaviour, preferences, and past interactions, you create relevant and personalized experiences that encourage customers to take action.
With a personalized email service provider that offers the right personalization tools, you can automate personalization and take guesswork off the equation.
Consequently, your email marketing campaigns yield higher conversion rates and attract more sales.