Conversion Rate Optimization Glossary

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Confirmation Email

A confirmation email is a transactional email sent to customers after completing a particular action or process. Such actions or processes can include placing an order, subscribing to a newsletter, purchasing a product, etc.

The purpose of a confirmation email is to assure customers that the action they have taken has been acknowledged. A confirmation email can also include a summary of the recently completed action by the customer.

Confirmation emails verify that actions taken by a customer were successful; without confirmation emails, customers can be confused about the status of their payments, orders, and subscriptions, which can be pretty frustrating.

Importance of Confirmation Email

Businesses can leverage confirmation emails to onboard customers into a new product or service formally. You can use it to inform customers of the next steps you want them to take.

If you send a confirmation email after a purchase, it presents an opportunity to cross-sell similar products or services to the customers. This is a prevalent practice with top e-commerce brands.

Assuring customers that your business can be trusted is essential. Confirmation emails help you build trust in your customers if there’s always an acknowledgment of every transaction that occurs.

Confirmation emails are also great for building customer relationships for future engagements. Sending that first email and making the most of it will likely leave a good impression of your brand.

Types of Confirmation Emails

These are emails you send to customers to confirm their bookings for an event or program. It usually contains a summary of the event and payment details.

After registering to use a product or service on your website, you send these emails to your customers. Registration emails are also sent to new users upon signing up.

Subscription emails are sent to customers after successfully subscribing to a service or newsletter. Subscription emails come in two forms; a single opt-in email and a double opt-in email.

The former is sent to confirm the subscription’s success, while the latter is sent to ask users to verify their subscriptions.

Online stores mostly use order confirmation emails, which are sent to customers after an order has been placed on the merchant’s website. This email summarizes their order, expected delivery date, etc.

Best Practices for Confirmation Email

To make the most of confirmation emails, here are some important tips;

Keep your confirmation email simple, interesting, and straight to the point. The important things should be addressed first. Details like delivery dates and return policies are important for order confirmation emails.

A clear call to action button or link can prompt your customers to take the next step in their journey. However, if you do not require further action from customers, links to your social media accounts can be used as CTA instead.

Not all users will interact with your website on their desktops. In fact, a higher percentage will be opening these emails on their mobile devices. Therefore ensure that they are optimized for mobile view.

Thank your customers for purchasing your product, signing up for your newsletter, or for whatever action they have taken that required you to send a confirmation email. Acknowledging their time and efforts can go a long way in building customer loyalty.

This can be a very good thing, especially for order confirmations. You can include the image of the product that the customer purchased. This gives them a visual representation of what to expect upon delivery.

Your subject line should indicate the purpose of your email. When customers receive emails, they usually scan the subject line to determine whether or not they want to open it. A clear subject line will also increase the chances of customers opening the email.