Subscription Requirements

Setting up a purchase follow-up email is one of the most effective things you can do for your business. The post-purchase period is a crucial point in your customer's journey, and a purchase follow-up email provides you the opportunity to build brand loyalty and create repeat customers. To send a fully realized purchase follow-up email:

You need to be integrated with Shopify, Shopify Plus, or BigCommerce so that your customers' order information is available in your Privy content.
Please disable any follow-up emails already in use by your e-commerce platform or other email service providers so that your customers aren’t emailed twice.

Example use-cases

Creating loyal customers might not provide the same rush that closing a new deal does, but it's arguably more important to your business' long-term success. Each increase in customer retention has an outsized impact on your profits compared to simply generating news business. With this in mind, here are a few emails you can use to turn more of your orders into loyal repeat customers:

The Order Confirmation - This email includes the order summary content block and its immediate relevance to the recipient encourages high levels of engagement. Learn how to make these as effective as possible in this Privy blog post.

The Thank You - An engaging thank-you message can help you stand out and establish a lasting connection with your customer. This email is also a good time to surprise and delight your customers with a special offer (e.g., unique coupon code).

The Survey - It's no secret that customers like to be heard and, if you're not, you should probably be listening. A common approach for collecting this feedback is called Net Promoter Score (NPS). It's a single-question survey that asks customers to rank how likely they are to recommend your product on a scale of 1 to 10. Allowing your customers to access this type of survey after spending some time with your product helps to establish and maintain a dialog between you and them.

The Helping Hand - There will always be customers who need or want a little extra help to make the most of your product. Consider following up with a how-to guide or some insider tips and tricks. This information is best sent a few days or weeks after the initial purchase and is an excellent opportunity to leverage your other existing content (e.g., blog posts and videos). If you are a Shopify user, the "Order Delivered" action in the email's settings is perfect for this situation.

Create and send your emails

Purchase follow-up emails can be sent to any mailable contact who has completed a purchase through your checkout flow. You are also able to insert an order summary content block, which is unique to follow-up emails and allows recipients to see the contents of their purchase as an itemized list. To create and send a purchase follow-up email:

Navigate to Emails + Texts > Purchase Follow-Up.
Click the New email button.
On the subsequent screen, update the email's default name with the Edit() button.

Customize the email

At the top, select the Design card to edit your email's content using the drag and drop email editor. A basic example is provided automatically; however, this starting point can be changed by selecting Templates > Choose a Template from the editor’s toolbar. Once a template is selected, click the Choose selected button to have it applied to the email.

Note: The “Keep Shopping” button included in some templates defaults to the URL provided in the Business Information section of your Business Settings, but its value can be changed to another location (e.g., A customer’s cart) by clicking on it and updating the setting in the sidebar.

Configure the email sender info

Next, click into the sender info section at the top of the email editor and configure the options.

Confirm or select a reply-to address. Any replies to the email will go to this address.
Edit the subject line. Keep it interesting, on-brand, and concise. A subject line no longer than 7 words or around 40 characters is recommended.
Provide preview text. The text appears after your subject line when viewing the email in the inbox and allows the addition of compelling copy that helps boost open rates and engagement. The text should be 35 to 55 characters and does support Merge Tags.

Note: The default From Name and Address can be updated in the Sender Options section of your account settings. Additionally, you should update your sending domain to be your domain if you have not yet done so.

Click the Done button once the options are configured and then select the Save button at the top-right to exit the email editor.

Configure the trigger settings

After making edits to the trigger settings, please select the section’s Save button.

Set the timing of the email. Choose the length of time since someone's order was placed or delivered (Shopify Only) before the follow-up email is sent. The default is 4 hours, but you can extend this up to 90 days.
Set the minimum order value. Enter the minimum order value that a shopper must have to receive a follow-up email. The default is $0, which means anyone who has made a purchase should receive the email.
Set maximum order value. Use the optional maximum order value if you plan on making tiered offers to customers with different order values. For example, you could offer no discount to shoppers that completed a purchase at $49 or less but offer a 10% discount to shoppers who purchased $50 or more.
Segment by order count. Configure the email so that it only sends if the customer has placed a certain number of orders. With order count segmentation, you can create a different set of emails after customers reach certain purchase thresholds.
Segment by product. If the account is integrated with a Shopify or Shopify Plus store, the email can be configured so that it only sends if the customer's order contained specific items. Learn more about product IDs and product segmentation here.

Configure the coupon settings

After editing the coupon settings, please select the section’s Save button.

Add a discount. Select the optional coupon drop-down menu to offer an incentive to your customers that will encourage them to complete their purchase.
Add a merge tag. If a coupon is selected, ensure the email contains a Coupon Code merge tag. This tag will populate with the coupon code when the email is sent to customers.

Test the email

Within a customized email, return to the top of the email editor and click the Send Test Email button to ensure all of the content displays as expected in your inbox.

Activate the email

To activate an email once its design, content, and settings are customer-ready:

Click the Save button in the email builder if you haven't already.
Scroll to the top of the email settings page and click the Activate button.

Note: Only orders completed after the activation will trigger the email. Once triggered, the email is scheduled to send X hours/days from the selected trigger. The tool will not work retroactively.

Create a series

Repeat these steps to create additional emails for a follow-up series. Review the Example use-cases section of this article for a refresher on what these emails might focus on, and be sure to leave enough time between the emails so that customers feel engaged but not inundated.

Note: If the email is part of a series, please make sure there’s enough time to create, edit, and enable the other emails without issue. You can always return to the emails and activate them when all elements of the series are ready for customers.

Review performance

Now that your follow-up emails are sending to customers:

Learn how to evaluate their success via reporting in this guide.
Discover which customers will ultimately receive your emails and why in this guide.