Email Customer Journey: What Is It & How To Optimize For Conversion

Nearly 4.5 billion people are having and using email globally, as calculated in 2025.
Don’t let this slide away!
Email marketing is a high-potential funnel, or absolutely effective, to reach out to customers and convert them for higher sales.
Yet, many store owners only recognize this as a sales channel. But its features are more promising, especially when you start to map out your email customer journey!
So what is it, why is it so significant, and how can you draw a perfect email marketing journey? Check below!
Overview of Email Marketing Customer Journey
The concept of email marketing customer journey is like a step-by-step path you create for your customers, using emails to guide them at every stage of their relationship with your brand.
It starts when they first learn about your business, continues as they explore and make purchases, and can go on long after if they become loyal fans.
Needless to say, it is one of the potential marketing funnel example that is particularly applicable to eCommerce, or, in this case, Shopify stores.
You’re responsible for drawing an email customer journey map. You’re the one who decides the frequency of emails sent to your customers and the message delivered. You need to take ownership of how to convert your customers through email marketing channels.
The question is, is it hard? Yes, it requires you to understand your customers' behaviors and intent to buy deeply.
But, is it unique? Not really, as you’ll face many competitors throughout the implementation. However, the email customer journey is different per brand. Hence, if you know where the hook is, you’re all set!
Let’s look at some customer journey email examples that you might have seen from other brands in your mailbox:
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Welcome Emails: A friendly introduction to your products or services.
Start your email marketing journey with a welcome new user email. Source: Touchpoint
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Abandoned Cart Emails: Gentle reminders to encourage customers to complete a purchase they left behind.
Abandoned cart emails are like reminding users to go back and take the next action. Source: Shopify
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Post-Purchase Emails: Messages to thank them, provide value, and build loyalty.
Include words of appreciation and personalized promotions in post-purchase emails to maintain relationships with customers. Source: SmartMail
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Engaging Updates: Fun or helpful content that keeps customers interested, even if it’s not about buying something.
Engaging updates emails keep the relationship between users and brands going. Source: Designmodo
Remember, the ultimate goal of this journey is to guide your customers through the map repeatedly until every action taken on your site becomes a behavior.
Key Stages of the Email Marketing Customer Journey
When mapping an email marketing customer journey, there are five key stages each customer will need to go through:
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Brand awareness
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Consideration
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Purchase
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Retention
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Advocacy
Let’s analyze what they are:
The 5 stages of an email customer journey. Source: Email On Acid
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Brand Awareness Stage
This is where customers first learn about your brand on your email customer journey map.
Your main job here is to grab their attention and make a good impression. Think of it as a friendly introduction.
If you have ever received an email titled “Welcome [username] to [brand name], " you are entering the start of the brand’s email customer journey.
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Consideration Stage
After a few emails introducing the brand, the unique selling points, and highlighting products and collections, congratulations, you have successfully raised the curiosity among customers!
Yet, they are not intended to take action. This is called the consideration stage, and it’s your time to make a heavy push, which moves into the next stage - the purchase.
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Purchase Stage
This is crunch time - the moment when a customer is ready to buy but still hesitates. So, what do you do?
Personalized promotions, limited deals, explaining why your products or services are better than others, and even comparing your brand with others are some examples.
Write your email content as tempting as possible to take that final step. You must be able to tell them that: “This is the best time to buy, and you’re the best choice available.”
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Retention Stage
Congratulations, you have made your sale!
Now the sale stage is end, let’s start the relationship.
This is when you need to turn your customers into loyal members and keep them coming back by making them happy.
Simple customer journey email examples for this stage include following up with customers, asking about their experience with the products/service, sending post-purchase promotions, sharing tips for use, and upselling other products.
Remember, it’s all about maintaining an active relationship.
Post-purchase email template includes personalized promotions, maintaining the customer's engagement. Source: On Digital Marketing
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Advocacy Stage
You’re reaching the final destination of the email marketing journey.
This is the happy ending where loyal customers turn into your biggest fans.
They start spreading the word about how awesome you are. Encourage this by sending emails that ask for reviews, testimonials, or referrals. You could even reward them with discounts or point bonuses for bringing in their friends.
Remember, the hardest thing about this journey is not about the technical setup of your email marketing and how to send them, as you can simply use tools like Klaviyo email marketing.
90% of the email marketing journey’s effectiveness will be decided by how motivational, experiential, or temptation-based your content is. That’s the hardest and decisive part!
Challenges in the Email Marketing Customer Journey
Going through the stages, although it might sound simple, we believe you are kind of imagining the challenges that could happen while mapping your email customer journey, right?
In fact, there is nothing such as 100% accurate here. Your customers’ behaviors change frequently, and it’s hard to keep up with that.
However, it is still worth trying and overcoming the challenges. Let’s check them out!
Challenge 1 - Getting and Keeping Subscribers
Your purpose in having an email customer journey isn’t just to get people to join your list; it’s to make them want to stay and nurture the relationship.
Think about it: in a world where everyone’s inbox is overflowing, why would someone choose to add your emails to the mix? A plain old sign-up form on your website isn’t going to cut it. You need to give people a reason to hit that “Subscribe” button.
If your emails aren’t interesting or useful, people will either ignore them or unsubscribe. It’s all about keeping their attention and proving that your emails are worth their time.
To overcome this, reflect on the content. Your messages can’t hit hard if you do not know what their expectations to your products. Therefore, you’ll need to:
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Know your audience inside and out—what do they care about? What problems are they trying to solve?
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Send them content they’ll love, like helpful tips, how-to guides, exclusive deals, or updates they actually want to read.
Craft useful email marketing content such as how-to tips or deals customized to your products for better engagement. Source: TDInsights
Challenge 2 - Email Personalization
Personalized emails feel like they’re written just for you, and they can really boost engagement. But getting them right isn’t easy.
Why is it?
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Data collection can be tricky: To personalize emails, you need details about your subscribers' likes, shopping habits, and maybe even where they live. Gathering and organizing all this data can be challenging.
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Balancing privacy: When personalizing emails, you must also respect people’s privacy and follow data protection rules.
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Going beyond the basics: Personalization isn’t just about popping someone’s name into an email. It’s about making the whole email feel relevant and tailored to their interests.
The result? If you miss the mark, your emails can feel generic or, worse, intrusive and fail to connect with your audience.
Here’s how you can make your emails feel truly personal:
Beginning with collecting the right data for that specific stage. Although yes, every customer data is valuable, but you want to start simply:
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Gather info like what products people have browsed, bought, or shown interest in.
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Look at demographic details (e.g., age, location) and behavioral data (e.g., how often they visit your site).
Continue these steps until you collect all the data needed for the email customer journey.
Next, personalize your message.
This requires you to manually follow up with each individual customer's behavior: where they are at, what actions they have taken on your website, etc. Then, personalize your message to the specific stage they are at.
It can start by inserting details like the recipient’s name, city, or even product recommendations directly into the email, such as: “Hi [Name], we think you’ll love these [category] products!”
Or, personalized promotions such as " Have you made your purchase yet, [Name]? Take your exclusive promotion and make a purchase now!”
Address recipients by name and write in a conversational tone. This simple step can make your email feel more personal and engaging.
Personalize your email content to hit the right message to the right people. Source: Omnisend
Remember the data you’ve collected? Don’t let that go to waste!
Use that to personalize your suggested items or content based on what they’ve interacted with before. For instance, if they bought a yoga mat, recommend workout tutorials or fitness gear.
Challenge 3 - Email Deliverability Issues
You’ve spent time crafting the perfect email, but what if it never even reaches your audience? That’s what email deliverability issues in the email customer journey are all about.
These problems determine whether your email lands in the recipient’s inbox, gets flagged as spam, or doesn’t get delivered at all.
Why does this happen?
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Sender reputation: If your email domain has a history of sending spammy or irrelevant emails, email providers might not trust you.
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Authentication problems: Without proper authentication (such as SPF and DKIM), email providers cannot verify that your emails are legitimate.
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Content issues: Emails with spammy words, excessive capital letters, or misleading subject lines can trigger spam filters.
If your emails don’t make it to the inbox, even the best message won’t help your campaign succeed.
Here are some ways to ensure your emails get to where they’re supposed to:
First, authenticate your emails.
A simple solution is to set up SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) records. These records are like digital “proof of identity” for your emails, showing email providers that your messages are legitimate and not forged.
When sending emails, especially if you use an email automation tool to reach a large number of customers, it’s important to monitor the reputation of the sender.
Think of your sender's reputation as your email trust score. A high score means email providers are more likely to deliver your messages to the inbox.
You need to frequently monitor their behavior and actions after they receive your email to detect errors and avoid practices that harm your reputation, such as sending emails to invalid addresses or spamming people with irrelevant content.
Although this is quite obvious, if you want a professional look of brand image, always send emails from an address linked to your domain (e.g., yourname@yourbusiness.com). Free addresses (like Gmail or Yahoo) can raise red flags with email providers and hurt your deliverability.
Use a professional business email account to send your email. Source: Google Workspace
Conclusion
In short, the email customer journey is all about guiding your customers through stages that turn them into loyal members, using email marketing as the main funnel.
Don’t exaggerate the process. It always starts with an in-depth understanding of your customers’ behaviors so that you will know what messages will resonate with them.
To save effort, use an email automation tool. Thank us later, good luck!