A Beginner’s Guide to Email Sign Up for Ecommerce

In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can use on-site Email Sign Up effectively on your ecommerce site to encourage your customers to sign up and build a strong database.

We know a thing or two when it comes to collecting sign-ups and securing visitors’ email addresses. When the average email address is worth $103 to marketers, it’s important to make sure that you’re getting full value from your new visitors.

How Email Acquisition Works

On-site email acquisition can be triggered in various ways. We believe that timing is everything when it comes to collecting emails.

By using smart and subtle overlays on key pages of your site, new visitors can be tempted to sign up. Once the visitor has entered their email address, data will be sent through to your ESP in real time.

Finally, your shopper can then be added to welcome email programmes and enjoy the delights of your emails.

How to Make Email Sign Up a Success

Most ecommerce sites have sign-ups in either the header or footer of their website, which can often go unnoticed.

By having an on-site overlay this will grab the shoppers attention and increase sign-ups.

It’s also important to ensure that shoppers won’t be interrupted when browsing, so these overlays can be set to display after a period of inactivity or according to other rules.

This will encourage consumers to go back to their journey to purchase and enter their emails.

Below is an example from Oakley.

Designs are key in email acquisition overlays. It’s important to find a good balance and not disrupt the customer journey.

A non-intrusive design ensures that these messages influence rather than interrupt the visitor.

By setting rules, you can fully customize your on-site displays. This means that you don’t have to risk asking twice for those who may not be interested or already signed up.

With display rules you can:

• Choose who to show your message to depending on the traffic source.
• Recognize returning or registered visitors.
• Choose when and how often to display the message (once per visit, week or year).

On-Site Acquisition and Incentives

Offering your shoppers discounts in exchange for their email address can boost the number of sign-ups that you will receive.

Once a shopper has been inactive for a certain period of time, by displaying an email acquisition overlay with a discount or incentive, this will encourage consumers to sign up, without being too intrusive.

However, one thing to note with incentives is time scale. It’s key to not have a promotion on for too long or your shoppers will get accustomed to this.

A time scale will add a sense of urgency and encourage shoppers to convert quicker as they won’t want to miss out.

GDPR and Email Acquisition

In a post GDPR world, many retailers may fear email acquisition, and getting consumers to sign up is trickier. However, this is should not be viewed as negative.

With SaleCycle’s Marketing Consent Management you can collect a higher quality of emails, as it helps you to sign up consumers who actually want to receive your marketing messages.

By placing SaleCycle’s code across your website, we can collect the marketing permission from your visitors as they opt-in or out anywhere on your site.

This happens in real-time, meaning that you’ll never miss an opportunity to deliver effective marketing to your opted-in visitors.