Email Case Study: WooCommerce Order Confirmation Email

In our first email case study of the year, we take a look at one of the transactional emails present in all eCommerce platforms. This is the WooCommerce order confirmation email from the WooCommerce store that outlines a purchase and provides details about the billing information.

We break down the email into what works, what can be improved, and what grabbed our attention to click.

1. Conversational tone

One of the first things that stands out in the email is the conversational tone and personalized content. The image at the top highlights this tone and has the customer name included to show the extra effort put into creating the template.

Each section heading continues the conversation making the email easy to read and skim. This not only helps customers absorb the information more easily, but makes your brand stand out from all the standard transactional email templates.

2. Clear next steps

When customers receive the order confirmation email, it typically is the last stage of their purchase before they receive their products. However, you can continue the interaction by adding a next steps section in the email.

In this example, the next step section clearly outlines what customers can do to make their purchase and product experience smoother. You can add a call to action as well that links customers to helpful articles, use cases, product manuals, or anything else that can help them get the best out of their purchases.

3. Links to resources

From the download links, to main call to action, to billing documents, and social media, this email contains plenty of links to useful resources so that customers don’t have to look for these separately. This email acts as a dashboard where customers can get to most of the resources related to the brand and their purchase.

This creates a better customer experience as you reduce the effort customers have to put in to get what they need.

1. Product descriptions

The product description in this email can be improved, especially if customers purchase a number of products at the same time. This is a balance between adding enough information about customers’ purchase and keeping the layout clean.

You can add short single-sentence descriptions or images next to the products so that they are clearly differentiated in the email.

2. Recommendations

Order confirmation emails are an opportunity to highlight some recommended or complementary products in your store. This email is an additional customer touchpoint, and can be used to market your products even further. This is similar to the “People also viewed” section on Amazon.

This can not only increase a customer’s lifetime value, but also provide customers with a glance at products they may have missed.

The next steps section guides customers where to go once they’ve completed their purchase. The section in this email prompts customers to install an additional plugin to manage their products.

Even if you don’t have digital products, you can add next steps like reading an article about how best to use the products, how other customers are using products, etc. This engages customers, keeps the interaction going beyond the purchase, and provides them clear directions on where to go next so that they’re not spending energy later when they receive their shipment.

The order confirmation is a transactional email that has a standard template for most eCommerce platforms. You can improve this experience by adding a conversational tone, clear next steps, and links to additional resources in this email. This provides customers with all the information they need related to their purchase.

You can add some recommended products to this email to show customers what other products people typically purchase, and to showcase complementary products that improve the customers experience.

Take a look at another order confirmation email case study to see other examples of how brands use these emails.

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