Next Order Coupons and Follow Up Emails

Learn how to send next order coupon emails automatically to drive repeat purchases

Retainful helps you drive repeat purchases in your store and increase the Life Time Value (LTV) of a customer. It is fully automated. Once you have configured, you can focus on other aspects of your business, while Retainful can take care of bringing back your customers for more.

What is a Next Order Coupon?

When a customer places a successful order in your store, Retainful can automatically generate a unique, single-use coupon code for their next purchase and send it to the customer. No manual actions are required.

Retainful can also automatically send follow up emails before their next purchase coupon expires.

Why Next Order Coupons are important?

Every eCommerce business spends tonnes of money on Google and Facebook Ads to acquire visitors / traffic to their store.

Let's say, you are paying $10 per click for your ads, you would have spent $100 to get 10 visitors to your store. If your conversion rate is 10% (which is the industry average), your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is $100 per customer.

  • What if the customer bought products worth $50 in his first purchase and he never returned to the store? Your loss per customer here is $50

  • What if 100 visitors clicked and only 1 customer bought? Your CAC increases to $1000. That means your loss is $950 (assuming that 1 customer spent $50)

As you can see, just aiming for a single sale / purchase per customer will bring more revenue loss to your business.

This is why a "Repeat purchase" becomes important. And a repeat purchase process does not really cost you. You have already acquired the customer. If at all, there is a cost, it will be 1/10 of your acquisition cost.

Best practices

A perfectly timed series of next order coupon emails and follow-ups can help you drive repeat purchases and increase customer loyalty, the following best practices will help you achieve just that.

Number of Emails

While no answer fits every business, our merchants see the most success when creating a series of 3 to 4 emails. This approach engages customers at crucial moments and can increase your repeat purchase rates by as much as 50%

Order of Emails

A successful and effective Next Order Coupon Workflow should consist of at least 3 emails. The recommended order of the emails can be:

Email 1: Thank them for the purchase

  • This email can be sent anytime between 10 minutes to 1 hour after the purchase.

  • Use this email to thank the customers for their purchase and tell them that you are giving a coupon code for their next purchase, as a token of appreciation and a goodwill gesture.

  • Do not use this to promote your other products.

Email 2: Remind them about the waiting coupon.

  • This email should be sent 10 to 15 days before the coupon code expire.

  • While it serves as a reminder about the waiting coupon code, make sure to inform the customers about the expiry. example: "Your coupon will expire soon. Use it as soon as possible".

  • You can include best-selling or popular products from your store.

Email 3: Urgency

  • This should be sent 3 days before the coupon expires. Highlight the urgency as the coupon is only valid for the next 3 days.

Email 4: (Optional) Remind them about the expiry date.

  • This email can be sent 1 day before the expiry of the coupon code. Example: "Only 24 hours left for the coupon to expire"

Creating a Next Order Coupon Workflow

Retainful lets you create your own Next Order Coupon workflow with the easy-to-use automation workflow editor. Also, Retainful comes with a pre-built next order coupon workflow template, it will help you to configure and set live a next order coupon workflow in a few minutes. It allows you to focus on other tasks and become more productive.

Follow the below steps to create the Next Order Coupon workflow:

  1. Login to your Retainful dashboard

  2. Go to ‘Automation’ -> Create Workflow -> Choose ‘Thank you Email with Next Order Coupon’

3. Give a ‘Name’ to your Next Order Coupon workflow and click ‘Continue’.

Now, you will be redirected to the automation workflow builder.

Trigger - You can find the ‘Trigger’ on the top of the workflow. The trigger lets you determine when a customer can enter into the workflow. By default, the trigger is set to allow anyone who makes a successful purchase at your store to enter into the workflow.

Note: To start the trigger for new customers in the workflow, you can set the rule Order Date from today's date onward. This means any orders made before today won't be included.

If you would like to set up any custom trigger rule or customer rule for the workflow, you can set it up on the right side. You learn how to configure the trigger here.

Wait - The ‘Wait’ block allows you to set up a time delay before the customer moves forward in the workflow.

The wait condition can be set for 10 minutes, so you can have the next order coupon email to be sent 10 minutes after a customer has made a successful purchase. (You can customize the wait condition if you want)

For example, if a customer makes a successful purchase at 10:00 AM, the customer will get the next order coupon email at 10:10 AM.

Next Order Coupon Settings

The ‘Coupon’ block is the core element of the Next Order Coupon workflow. You can click on the coupon block to find the coupon settings on the right side.

Here are the steps you need to follow to configure the next order coupon:

  1. Click on the ‘Coupon’ block

  2. Select the option the coupon type

  3. Configure the coupon: Enter the coupon value, and set up the coupon expiry (Optional: You can enter a minimum order value if you would like to set up a minimum order value required for using the coupon)

  4. Update

Now you’ve successfully configured the next order coupon block.

Email settings

As you have configured the next order coupon, it’s time to set up the next order coupon emails.

You can click on the 1st ‘Email’ block to configure the email subject line, preview texts, and email content.

Subject Line: The subject line should be interesting enough to get the customer to open the email.

Preview text: You can set up a captivating preview text to motivate the customers to open the email.

Edit Email Content

Click on the "Edit Email Contents" button to edit the contents of the email. This will bring up the visual drag and drop email editor.

If you would like to change the email template, you can click on the ‘Change template’ button on the left top and select a template of your choice.

Change the Logo: Click on the placeholder logo. On the right side of the panel, you will see the option to change the logo.

Editing the email content: Just "double-click" on any content section to edit the default text on the email. You can use the following shortcodes to personalize the email,

{{billing_address.first_name}} - The First name of the customer.

{billing_address.last_name}} - The last name of the customer.

{{customer_name}} - The full name of the customer (the first and the last name)

Configuring coupon block: You can click on the coupon block {{retainful_coupon}} to configure the coupon.

Make sure to select the ‘Use the coupon code generated by the coupon step’ in the coupon settings.

Click the "Save" button once you have added the desired content and changed the logo in the email template.

Email components in Editor

Retainful provides a few special components / blocks in the Email Editor for your Next Order Coupon emails. Here is the list of components.

Coupon Block: When the coupon block is included in the email, it will display the coupon you have configured for the block.

You can use the coupon block {{retainful_coupon}} - Unique coupon codes will be dynamically generated when the coupon block is used in your email template.

Call-to-Action Button: Retainful generates a redirect URL for each next order coupon email. When the email is sent, customers can click on the "Shop Now” button to come back to the store and make another purchase at your store.

The Call-to-Action button in the default email templates are linked to your shop using the shortcode: {{retainful_shop_url_with_coupon_code}}

This shortcode also lets the coupon code auto-applied in the checkout page, when a customer clicks on the CTA button and is redirected to the shop.

Testing Email

Once you have completed editing the email template, you can test the email.

With an email customized, return to the top of the email editor and click the ‘Send Test Email’ button to make sure all of the content displays as expected in your inbox.

Click the "Save" button once you have added the desired content and changed the logo in the email template.

Creating a series of emails in the workflow

Followed by the 1st Email block, we have the ‘Wait’ block in place to let the customer wait for 14 days before moving forward to the 2nd email block.

You can edit and customize the wait condition based on the expiry days you’ve set for the coupon.

Also, make sure to edit the 2nd email block and select the ‘Use the coupon code generated by the coupon step’ in the settings. And, you can customize the email subject line, preview texts, and email content if you want.

You ‘Save’ the email template once when you’re done with editing it.

Similarly, you can set up the 3rd wait condition based on the expiry days you’ve set for the coupon.

And, edit the 3rd email subject line, preview text, and email content. Most importantly, make sure to select the ‘Use the coupon code generated by the coupon step’ in the settings in the email template.

Click ‘Save’ when you’re done editing the email template.

Here is how the Workflow would look like now:

Going Live

If you are ready to set live the Next Order Coupon Workflow, you can click on the ‘Start Workflow’ button on the right top to set live the workflow.

That’s it. You’ve successfully set live your Next Order Coupon Workflow in Retainful.

How to Test Your Next Order Coupon Workflow

This article will let you know how you can test the Next Order Coupon Workflow in your store

Requirements

Make sure you have set live the Next Order Coupon Workflow at your Retainful dashboard -> Automation (The status of the workflow should be ‘Live’)

Testing Steps

The recommended way to test your next order coupon workflow is by placing a successful order in your store. You can consider choosing a low-value product in your store for placing this order

  1. Open your storefront (your online store front) in a Private / Incognito window (so that you can test like a customer)

  2. Place a successful order

You should receive the first Next Order Coupon email based on the interval you’ve set.

Example

  • By default, a customer will enter into the next order coupon workflow as soon as he/she placed a successful order

  • If you've set the 'Wait' condition as 10 minutes before sending the first email, then you should receive the first next order coupon email 10 minutes after placing the order

FAQs

1. Can I include the referral link in the next order coupon emails ?

Yes, you can. You need to add this shortcode {{referral_link}} in the email template.

NOTE: Make sure you have enabled the referral program in your Retainful dashboard.

2. Is it possible to send the next order coupon emails only if certain products are purchased ?

Yes, it’s possible to send the next order coupon emails only if certain products are purchased.

You can use the ‘Product Name’ or ‘Product ID’ trigger rule and add the products for which the next order coupon workflow will trigger.

3. How can I check the performance of the next order coupon workflow ?

Go to your Retainful dashboard -> Automations -> Find the Next Order Coupon Workflow and click on the Analytics icon next to the Edit Flow button to view the performance of the workflow.

4. Where can I check the next order coupon conversions ?

Please go to your Retainful dashboard -> Metrics -> Conversions and select ‘Post Purchase’ on the right side filter to find the conversions made by the next order coupon (post purchase) workflow.

5. Can I use the next order coupon emails to upsell/cross-sell products ?

Yes, it’s possible to upsell/cross-sell products using the next order coupon emails.

You just need to add the static product blocks manually inside the next order coupon email templates.

6. How to restrict customers from entering the next order coupon workflow more than once ?

Edit your next order coupon workflow, click on the “Trigger” block and click on ‘Customer Rules’ on the right-hand side. Now, select ‘Number of re-entry per customer’ from the dropdown to set up the re-entry rule.

7. When a customer will exit from the next order coupon workflow ?

By default, customers will exit from the next order coupon workflow, if they match any of the following criteria,

  • Unsubscribed from receiving emails [or]

  • Completed their paths in the workflow [or]

Also, if you had set up a custom ‘Exit Rule’ for the workflow, customers will exit when they match the exit rule.

8. How to make the customers exit from the workflow as soon as they used the next order coupon ?

In the next order coupon workflow editor, click on the ‘+’ located between the 2nd wait block and 2nd email block and add the ‘Conditional Split Rules’.

Now, click on the split rule to find the split rule settings on the right side… Click on “Add Rules” and select ‘Flow behavior’... set ‘Coupon -> not used’... Add and Save rule.

Now, the customers will receive 2nd email only if they have not used the next order coupon. If a customer has used the next order coupon after receiving the first email, he/she will be diverted to the ‘No’ path and you can let them exit the workflow in no path.

9. Where can I find the sent next order coupon emails ?

Go to your Retainful dashboard -> Metrics -> Outbox and select the next order coupon workflow name from the dropdown to find sent emails.

10. Can I restrict customers to use the next order coupon on specific products ?

Currently, it’s not possible to set up product-based usage restrictions for the next order coupons at the moment.

11. Can I generate the next order coupons based on the previous order value ?

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to generate the next order coupons based on the previous order value at the moment.

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