Create email marketing campaigns using Shopify Messaging

You can create, customize, and schedule email marketing campaigns using Shopify Messaging to promote sales, highlight new products, or inform customers of new stock arrivals.

Each campaign can be styled to match your store's appearance with your brand's color scheme, font, and logo. To learn more about creating and customizing email templates, refer to Managing Shopify Messaging email templates.

Considerations for creating an email marketing campaign

Review the following considerations before you create an email marketing campaign:

• Some email providers aren't compatible with Shopify, or they require you to adjust your domain settings. Learn more about setting up your email address.
• Emails are sent only in the language that you write them in and aren't automatically translated. You can create customer segments to target a specific audience of your customers based on language.
• All stores on Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans have 10,000 free emails to send at the beginning of every month. After you reach 10,000 free emails, the cost is calculated based on volume. Learn more about Shopify email pricing.
• Shopify Messaging doesn't support attaching files such as PDFs directly to emails. Instead, you can upload the PDF to your store and include a link to it in your email.

Using accessibility devices when creating a Shopify Messaging campaign

The Shopify Messaging email editor is designed to be accessible for merchants using assistive technology. The editor supports keyboard navigation and screen readers, allowing you to complete all core tasks without using a mouse.

Keyboard navigation

You can navigate through the email editor using the following keyboard controls:

• Tab: Move between interactive elements in the editor
  • Press Tab one time to edit section contents
  • Press Tab twice to access editable fields within a section
  • Press Tab multiple times to access section actions (move, duplicate, delete)
  • Press Tab again to return to the Add Section button
  • Press Tab one more time to access the section sidebar settings
• Shift + Tab: Move backwards through sections and highlight them
• Arrow keys: Move between sections
• Enter or Space: Select or activate elements
• Standard shortcuts: Use common keyboard shortcuts such as:
  • Copy: Ctrl+C (Windows) or Command+C (Mac)
  • Paste: Ctrl+V (Windows) or Command+V (Mac)
  • Undo: Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac)

Screen reader support

The editor includes distinct labeling for screen readers, making it easier to:

• Identify and navigate between different sections
• Access section settings and controls
• Add new sections to your email template
• Understand available actions for each element

Planning and organizing your campaigns

You can use the Planner view on the Shopify Messaging overview page to organize your campaigns and view recommendations for future campaigns. The Planner view includes a weekly calendar view that displays the following information for your campaigns:

• Draft campaigns: Campaigns that you've started and scheduled, but haven't sent yet.
• Scheduled campaigns: Campaigns that are scheduled to send on a specific date and time. The calendar displays the scheduled send date for these campaigns.
• Sent campaigns: Campaigns that have already been sent to your subscribers.
• Recommended campaigns: These are personalized recommendations for campaigns based on your store's activity, experience with Shopify Messaging, and seasonal events. For example, Shopify Messaging might recommend that you create a campaign for a seasonal sale, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM).

Campaigns on the calendar are organized by their scheduled send date. The calendar follows the timezone of your store's location, not your device or browser. If a campaign is in draft status and hasn't been scheduled yet, then it doesn't display on the calendar.

You can click any campaign in the Planner view to view or edit it. To create a new campaign from the Planner view, click the + icon on a calendar date, and then create your campaign.

Create and send an email marketing campaign

Depending on what kind of message you send to your customers, you can select from a variety of branded templates in Shopify Messaging. Some templates automatically include assets from your store, such as your logo, products, and colors. The default content of Shopify Messaging templates is based on email marketing best practices, and includes placeholder text, images, and links in sections that are based on information from your store.

Alternatively, you can create your own custom-coded message.

When you set up an email marketing campaign, you need to add a subject line. You can include international characters and emojis in subject lines. After you add a subject line, your campaign is saved with that name, which you can change at any time.

You can send your email marketing campaign to all of your email subscribers or to specific customer segments. For example, you could send product recommendations based on past purchases or location-specific promotions. Learn more about sending an email campaign to a specific segment of customers.

All recipient email addresses are hidden from other recipients when you send a campaign.

Steps:

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

2. Click Create campaign.

3. Do either of the following:

• To create your email marketing campaign using a template, select an email template.
• To create your own custom-coded email message select Code your own, and then enter your code.
  • Optional: If you have a file saved to your local device with the code that you want to use, then click Import. Imported files must be .html format.

4. Optional: To change the selected email template, click > Change template. This action deletes all of the content that you added to the previous template.
5. In the To field, click the segment drop-down menu, and then do any of the following:
   • To send your email to all of your email subscribers, select All email subscribers.
   • To send your email only to specific customers, select the customer segment that you want to target.
   • To create a new customer segment for your email campaign, click Create segment. After you create your segment, click Save and return to Email to continue editing your email campaign.
6. Enter a subject line for the email.
7. Optional: Enter preview text to customize the text that displays after the subject in customer email inboxes. For example, More fresh finds for your summer wardrobe.
8. Make any of the following changes to the email body content:
   • To add a section, use your mouse to hover over the email content where you want the new section, and then click +.
   • To remove a section from the email content, first click it to open editing options, and then click the trash can icon to remove the section.
   • Click the section that you want to edit to review the editing options. Editing options are determined by the section type.
9. Optional: To personalize the subject line, preview text, or body text, click the Personalize icon in the appropriate section, choose the value that you want to personalize, and then enter an optional Default value to use if the customer's information is unavailable. If you don't enter a default value, then the space for personalized text is left blank. Learn more about personalizing your emails.
10. Optional: To customize the UTM tracking for your email marketing activity, take the following steps:
    • Click > Edit UTM parameters.
    • Update the UTM parameters that you want to change.
    • Click Save.
11. After you set up the campaign, send a test email, and then review and send the email.

To change your store's From email address for outgoing email messages, go to your Shopify store settings.

Send a test email

After you create an email marketing campaign, you can send a test email to preview how the email displays in your customer's inbox.

Steps:

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

2. Click the campaign that you want to send a test for.

3. Click Send test.

4. In the Email addresses section, enter up to five email addresses that you want to send the test to, one at a time.

5. Click Send.

Review and send an email

Shopify doesn't check your email content for misspelled words or other errors. After you set up an email activity, you should review your email content before you send it to your subscribers.

When you choose to send or schedule your email, a suggested future time displays with a Suggested badge beside it. The suggested time is based on Shopify's data and optimized for the best click-through rate, which can lead to a better conversion rate.

If you're sending an email to a customer segment that has 0 subscribers, and there aren't any subscribers in the segment by the time the email is scheduled to send, then the email reverts to a draft.

If there's a cost to send the emails, then an estimated cost displays for the send option that you select.

Steps:

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

2. Click the campaign that you want to review.

3. Click Review.

4. Optional: To make additional edits, click Edit email to go back to the email editor and make your changes.

5. Review the email content, click Schedule send, and then do any of the following:

   • To send at the time that Shopify Messaging suggests, select the suggested time, and then click Schedule.
   • To send the email immediately, select Now, and then click Send.
   • To schedule a different time, select Custom date and time, select a Send date and Send time, and then click Schedule.

Cancel or reschedule a send time for a scheduled email

You can cancel a scheduled email that hasn't been sent yet to stop it from sending at the chosen time. You can also reschedule it for another time.

If you need to cancel an email that you've already started sending, then refer to Cancel an email that you've started sending.

Steps:

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

2. Click the campaign that you want to change.

3. Click Edit send date.

4. You have the following choices:

   • To cancel the email from being sent at the scheduled time, click Remove send date.
   • To reschedule the email, choose a new time and date, and then click Save.

Cancel an email that you've started sending

If you've already started sending an email campaign and want to prevent any unsent emails from being sent, then you can cancel the email. For example, you might cancel an email if you identify a missing link after sending the email, or if your email has deliverability issues.

You can't cancel emails that have already been delivered to a recipient's inbox.

Steps:

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

2. Click for the campaign that you want to cancel.

3. Click Cancel delivery.

4. On the confirmation dialog, click Cancel delivery.

Personalizing your email messages

Personalizing your email messages provides a more tailored experience for your email subscribers, and can improve open rates, conversions, and engagement. When you create an email campaign, you can add personalized text to your subject line, preview line, and email body text.

If you add personalized content to a certain section of your email message, then Shopify Messaging automatically uses the relevant customer information in that section, if it exists for the customer that's receiving the email.

You can personalize the following customer values in an email:

• First name
• Last name
• Email
• City
• State/Province
• Country

You can include only 2 personalization values in your email's subject line and preview line. For example, in the subject line you can use First name and Last name, but not a third personalization value. You can have a maximum of 10 personalization values in the email body text. You can also add default information that's used when specific customer information isn't available.

Troubleshooting email marketing campaigns