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Best practices for writing marketing emails with Shopify Messaging

Writing effective marketing emails involves creating compelling content that engages your subscribers and drives them to visit your store. From crafting engaging subject lines and personalized email copy, to designing accessible emails with proper contrast and branding, the way that you write and present your content impacts whether customers open, read, and act on your emails.

This page covers best practices for writing Shopify Messaging marketing emails, including what content to include, how to design emails that reflect your brand, and accessibility and legal requirements.

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Email marketing campaign content best practices

Review the following tips for what to include in your email campaigns:

  • Send emails that match your brand. For example, announcements about new products or sales. If you're unsure what to send, then review emails that you're subscribed to, note what stands out, and choose what aligns with your store. For more ideas, refer to the Email Marketing section of the Shopify Blog.
  • If you haven't sent an email campaign to your subscribers before, then create a welcome email to introduce yourself and to start building a relationship with your customers. In your welcome email, you can let customers know who you are, advertise your store, feature one of your most popular products to remind customers why they already love your brand, or help them discover something new. You can also create a unique subscriber customer segment on the Customers page to email only recent subscribers.
  • The purpose of your email campaign is to get subscribers to visit your store. Include at least one link that lets subscribers click through to your store.
  • Include links to your store's social media sites. This helps customers know where they can stay in touch with your brand beyond email.

Tips for writing effective email content

Review the following tips when writing your email content:

  • Know your intended audience and tailor your language to them. For example, if you're writing for a younger audience, then adjust your tone to engage with them.
  • Include personalized text in your email body to attract more engagement and improve conversion rates. Personalization makes your emails feel more tailored to the customer.
  • Put promotional or important information in the top section of your email. On mobile, keep it within the first two scrolls so that readers view it quickly.
  • Keep emails under 200 words or about 20 lines. Long emails can be cut off by providers. For example, Gmail hides content beyond 102 KB, so only part of your message might display if it's too long.
  • Avoid using only capital letters or excessive exclamation marks, and write at an 8th grade reading level to help your emails stay accessible to a wide audience.

Using the subject line to attract the attention of your subscribers

The first thing subscribers read is your subject line and preview text, which often decides whether they open or delete your email. Consider the following best practices for subject lines and preview text:

  • Create your email first, and then add a subject line and preview text as a last step so that they match the email content.
  • Make your subject line relevant to the content and compelling enough that readers want to open your email.
  • Make sure to include preview text. Preview text is most effective when it encourages action from readers.
  • Use a preview text that's different from, but complementary to, your subject line. Both should let your readers know what the email is about. For example, use the subject line Check out our new spring gear with preview text such as Don't miss out on 10% off shorts, tanks, and more for the warm weather ahead.
  • Keep your subject line between 3 to 6 words, or under 50 characters. This ensures that readers can still read the subject line when checking emails on a mobile device.

Email marketing campaign timing and frequency

  • Email at least one time per month to keep subscribers engaged. Use a calendar to plan the types of emails or updates to send so that readers regularly get new content and are reminded to visit your store. Emailing too often can cause subscribers to lose interest.
  • Before you send an email message to your subscribers, send a test email to yourself so that you can verify that link destinations and discount details are correct.

Designing your email marketing campaigns

Consistent design builds trust and helps readers recognize your brand. Match your emails to your store by using similar colors, fonts, and logos.

A custom sender email address improves deliverability and brand recognition. Learn more about changing your sender email address.

If you add images, then they should relate to what you sell in your store. Shopify automatically pulls in product images and collection images, but you can also add images that help inform readers about the journey your store is on. For stock photography to use in your emails or for your online store, refer to Shopify's stock photo library.

However, because some email clients deactivate images in their emails, you should avoid using images to display text that's critical to your email. For example, don't advertise a sale only with an image that includes the text 50% off, because the image might be blocked by a customer's email client.

For any images you use, include alt text so your emails stay accessible. Link images to the relevant content on your store so readers can navigate there.

Email accessibility and contrast

To make sure your emails are accessible to all readers, including those with visual impairments, you must maintain proper color contrast in your email design. The unsubscribe link and other text elements should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against their background color. You can check the contrast ratio using online contrast checker tools.

If you receive a contrast warning when creating an email (such as Adjust unsubscribe link color contrast), then you can adjust the color in your template branding.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.

  2. Click Templates, and then click Manage branding.

  3. Adjust the colors until they meet the contrast requirements.

  4. Click Save.

Learn more about text accessibility.

Template branding for your email marketing campaigns

You can use template branding to customize and apply default styles to all your Shopify Messaging campaign templates. By default, template branding matches the Brand settings, and your store name from the Store contact details section of your General settings of your Shopify admin.

You can customize individual emails to differ from the template branding. For example, you might want your email branding to differ for a short-term campaign or for a holiday-themed campaign.

Make changes to your default template branding

When you edit your store's template branding, the changes apply to all email templates that you use in the future. You can customize colors, fonts, and the logo or store name in your email headers. You might want to make changes to your template branding when you want your email campaigns to differ from your online store styles (for example, for seasonal campaigns).

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.

  2. Click Templates, and then Manage branding.

  3. Customize the template. Use the template preview on the page to check how colors and fonts display.

  4. Click Save.

Including a mailing address in your marketing emails

Depending on where you're located, you might need to include a physical postal address in your promotional emails. The CAN-SPAM Act in the United States and the CASL legislation/PIPEDA in Canada are examples of these laws. The rules, regulations, and laws surrounding email marketing and spam, such as unsolicited emails sent in bulk, vary depending on your location. Make sure you're familiar with the laws in your region, state, and country before you begin an email marketing campaign.

By default, your store address is included in the footer of your emails. If you don't feel comfortable sharing your store address in your emails, then you can rent a PO box from your local post office or UPS store to use as your mailing address. To change the mailing address in your emails, go to Settings > General in your Shopify admin and enter your PO box address as your store's address.

Additional resources

To learn more about email marketing, you can find detailed information in the following articles: