Email Marketing
The One Channel
You Actually Own
Every other channel charges you again every time you want to reach the same person. Email does not. Once somebody is on the list, the cost of speaking to them again is close to nothing, which is why it is usually the cheapest revenue in an ecommerce business and usually the most neglected.
The Difference
Owned, Rented
and the Gap Between
Paid media is rented attention. The rent goes up, the rules change, and the moment you stop paying it stops arriving.
An email list is the only audience in the business that does not belong to a platform. Meta can change what it shows and to whom, Google can change what a click costs, and neither decision is yours. A list you have built is yours until the people on it leave, and reaching them again costs the price of sending rather than the price of winning an auction.
That is the argument for email, and it is also the argument for doing it properly rather than sending a discount to everybody every Thursday. A list is an asset that can be spent. Sending badly spends it faster than sending nothing at all.
The Flows
What Gets Built
Once and Keeps Earning
Flows are the automated sequences that run on a trigger rather than on a schedule. They are built once and then run without further work, which is what separates them from campaigns.
Welcome
Fires when somebody joins the list. It is the only moment you are guaranteed their attention, because they just chose to hear from you. Most stores waste it on a single discount code and never explain what the brand is for.
Browse abandonment
Fires when somebody looks at a product and leaves without adding it. Weaker intent than a cart, so it needs a lighter touch, and it is the flow most often skipped because it feels intrusive. Set up carefully it rarely is.
Cart and checkout abandonment
The highest-intent moment in the whole store. Somebody wanted the thing enough to start buying it and then stopped. Worth knowing why before assuming the answer is a discount, because a discount trains people to abandon.
Post-purchase
The cheapest customer you will ever get is the one who already bought. This flow decides whether the first order becomes a second one, and on most stores it is either missing or is a shipping notification with nothing after it.
Winback
Fires when somebody who used to buy has stopped. What counts as stopped depends entirely on your repurchase cycle, which is why a borrowed template is usually wrong: ninety days means something different for coffee than for furniture.
Back in stock and price drop
Triggered by your catalogue rather than by behaviour. They need the product feed and the inventory data to be connected properly, which is the part that usually breaks, and they are close to free revenue when they work.
Campaigns
And the Sending
You Do on Purpose
Flows run themselves. Campaigns are the deliberate sends, and they are where lists usually get damaged.
Segmentation is most of the job
Sending everything to everybody is what causes unsubscribes, spam complaints and the slow decline in deliverability that follows. Someone who bought last week and someone who has not opened an email in a year should not receive the same message.
Deliverability is earned and then spent
Inbox providers judge you on how people react. Sending to a list that does not engage teaches them to filter you, and the damage shows up later as campaigns that quietly stop arriving rather than as an error message.
Discounting has a cost you do not see
A discount in every send trains a list to wait for the next one, and the revenue looks fine while the margin does not. Whether that trade is worth making is a question about your gross margin, not about email.
Measurement
Why Email Revenue
Is Usually Overstated
This is the part worth reading before you judge the channel on a dashboard.
Email platforms attribute a sale to email when the customer opened or clicked within an attribution window, which is often several days. Meta and Google do the same thing for their own clicks. A customer who sees an ad, searches for the brand, and then clicks an email they already had can appear in all three reports at once, and the three numbers together will exceed the revenue the business actually banked.
This is not the platforms lying. Each one is answering the question it was asked, using the data it can see. It becomes a problem when the answers are added together, and it is why reporting here works from what the store recorded rather than from what each channel claims for itself. Email usually still looks good on that basis. It just looks less miraculous.
Fit
Who This Is
And Is Not For
Hire someone else if
- You have no list yet and no traffic to build one from, in which case acquisition comes first
- You want daily sends and volume rather than a channel that lasts
- You are looking for someone to write every campaign for you, which is a copywriter
- Your product is bought once and never again, with nothing else to sell them
This works if
- You have a list you are not using properly, which is most stores
- People buy from you more than once, or could
- You are already spending on ads and want that traffic to be worth more
- You would rather own an audience than rent one indefinitely
Platforms
Which Tool
Should You Send From?
The platform matters less than whether the flows exist, but it is the first question people ask, so here is the honest version.
Klaviyo
The usual recommendation for a store on Shopify, because the catalogue, orders and browsing behaviour connect natively rather than through middleware. Priced on list size rather than sends, which makes list hygiene a cost decision as well as a deliverability one.
Omnisend
Also built for ecommerce, usually cheaper at the same list size, and shallower on segmentation. A reasonable answer when budget is the binding constraint and the segmenting you need is simple.
Mailchimp
A general mailing tool that added ecommerce features later. Fine for a business that sends a newsletter and little else, and noticeably weaker on the flows that depend on knowing what somebody looked at and whether it is still in stock.
Constant Contact
Common in businesses that started with email before they started selling online. Workable where it is already in place and rarely the choice anyone would make starting from scratch on an ecommerce store.
Shopify Email
Inexpensive, already installed, and fine for occasional campaigns. Not built for the flow logic that does the earning, so it tends to be where stores start rather than where they stay.
Whichever you already have
Worth saying plainly: if the flows are not built, changing platform will not fix that, and a migration is an expensive way to find out. Build the flows where you are, then move if the tool is genuinely the limit.
Questions
Questions About
Email Marketing
If yours is not here, ask it on the call.
Which email platform do you work in?
All of the common ones. Klaviyo is the default recommendation for an ecommerce store on Shopify because the catalogue and order data connect without middleware, and it has a page of its own on this site. Omnisend, Mailchimp, Constant Contact and Shopify Email are all workable where one is already in place.
Should we switch platforms?
Usually not first. If the flows are not built, changing tool will not build them, and a migration is an expensive way to discover that. Build what is missing where you are, and move only if the platform is genuinely the limit. The two things that need planning in any move are sending reputation, which does not transfer, and historical order data, which is what makes segmentation useful immediately.
What does email marketing cost?
It sits inside the retainer rather than being sold separately. Channel Management, starting at $1,500 a month, covers one channel, which can be email. Growth Partner, starting at $4,000, includes every channel priced as one. Fractional CMO, starting at $7,000, covers email alongside SEO and site direction. Full detail is in the pricing section on this page.
Which flows should be built first?
Welcome, then cart abandonment, then post-purchase. Welcome because it is the one moment you have somebody’s attention by their own choice, cart because it is the highest intent in the store, and post-purchase because the second order is the cheapest one you will ever get.
How often should we send campaigns?
Less often than most advice suggests, and to fewer people each time. Frequency is not the variable that matters most; whether the message suits the segment receiving it is. A list sent to carelessly stops arriving in inboxes at all, and that damage is slow to undo.
Is email revenue real?
Partly. Email platforms attribute a sale when somebody opened or clicked inside an attribution window, and so do the ad platforms, so the same order can appear in several reports. Reporting here works from what the store recorded rather than from what each channel claims, which usually still shows email doing well and stops the totals exceeding actual revenue.
Can you fix deliverability that is already damaged?
Sometimes, and it is slower than people expect. It normally means sending to a much smaller engaged segment for a period and letting the reputation recover, which feels like doing less. There is no setting that reverses it.
Pricing
What Does It Cost
to Work Together?
Published, so you can rule me in or out without booking a call.
Channel Management
Starting at $1,500 /month
You own the plan. I run the channels.
- Campaign build and management
- Conversion tracking and reporting
- Monthly performance call
- SEO is not included at this tier
- Additional channels +$500 each
- Minimum ad spend $5,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Most Popular
Growth Partner
Starting at $4,000 /month
I own paid strategy end to end.
- Everything in Channel Management
- Every channel included, priced as one
- SEO included: technical, on-page and content
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative direction and briefs
- Quarterly CRO roadmap
- 25 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $10,000/month
- 3 months, then month to month
Fractional CMO
Starting at $7,000 /month
I own the whole marketing function.
- Everything in Growth Partner
- Email, SEO and site direction
- Contractor sourcing and management
- Quarterly planning with you
- 40 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $20,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Let’s Talk
Book a free 30 minute call. I will tell you what I would do with your accounts, whether or not you hire me.
Book a Discovery Call
30-minute strategy session
Prefer to Reach Out Directly?
Happy to talk it through over email or a quick call. I usually reply within a few hours on weekdays.
- greg@digitalkarbon.com
- Massachusetts • Nationwide
Who You Talk To
Me, Every Time
What to Expect
- 30 minutes with me, not a salesperson
- What I would change in your account first
- No pitch deck, no obligation