Email Marketing Conversion Rate Optimization for 2026 [+ Examples and Best Practices]

Email marketing is an evergreen eCommerce strategy.

A system that keeps your potential as well as existing customers engaged with your brand. When done right, it can contribute a major portion of your revenue. However, to make the most out of your email marketing campaigns, you must optimize them for conversions.

So, in this blog post, we’ll help you with solid strategies for email marketing conversion rate optimization. Plus, we’ll share some real-life examples and actionable best practices to increase your email conversion rate.

Let’s start with some basics first!

What Is Email Marketing Conversion Rate?

The email marketing conversion rate is the percentage of email subscribers who complete a certain action as intended in the email marketing campaign.

For example, let’s assume you’re running an email marketing campaign to promote your newly launched product, and you’ve sent an email to 1000 subscribers for the same. If 25 subscribers purchase the promoted product through the emailed link, the email conversion rate would be 2.5%.

Now, there’s one more metric that’s quite important to increase the email marketing conversion rate, i.e., email subject line conversion rate.

What’s the email subject line conversion rate?

The email subject line conversion rate is basically the “email open rate”. In simple terms, it’s the percentage of email subscribers who open your email based on the subject line.

For example, if you’ve sent an email to 1000 subscribers with the same subject line, and it’s opened by 400 subscribers, your email open rate (subject line conversion rate) is 40%.

What is the abandoned cart email conversion rate?

Most brands have an automated abandoned cart recovery email flow set up in their email marketing tool. So, the “abandoned cart email conversion rate” is the percentage of successful cart recovery (conversions) from the total emails sent to subscribers who abandoned their carts.

For example, if 5 customers complete a purchase from a total of 100 emails sent for abandoned cart recovery, the abandoned cart email conversion rate would be 5%.

Email Campaign Conversion Benchmarks

What’s a Good Email Marketing Conversion Rate?

What’s considered a “good email conversion rate” may depend on multiple factors, such as industry, type of goal (purchase, membership subscription, visiting a landing page, etc.), and the types of products you’re selling.

For example, if you’re selling high-ticket items (e.g., electronics), you can’t expect emails to convert at the same rate as someone selling relatively low-cost items (e.g., food & beverages).

So, to answer this question, let’s review the industry-wise statistics:

What’s an average email marketing conversion rate?

Here are some interesting statistics from a Klaviyo report to give you an overview of the overall eCommerce email conversion rate:

As you can see, the average email conversion rate in eCommerce ranges between 0.04% (Electronics) to 0.17% (Food & Beverage) across industries. 

So, you need to map your email conversion rate with your industry average conversion rate to see if you’re doing well or if it needs to be improved.

If you’re selling electronics, 0.05% is a good conversion rate as it’s higher than the industry average. But if you’re selling food and beverages, 0.05% is NOT a good conversion rate —  and you should be aiming to achieve a higher conversion rate than the industry average, i.e., 0.17%.

Now, you may ask — what’s a good email open rate?

Again, it depends on multiple factors, but in general, the email open rate ranges from 35 to 40%. According to Klaviyo’s email marketing benchmarks report, when considering all types of eCommerce brands, the overall open rate is 37.93%.

So, if your email open rate is ranging from 38% to 40%+, it can be considered a good email open rate. 

Also, as you can see, the average click rate for all eCommerce brands is 1.29%. Click rate is a metric that calculates the percentage of email subscribers who clicked on the link given in your email from the total email recipients.

So, in general, the email click rate ranging from 1.30% to 2% can be considered a good email click rate.

10+ Email Marketing Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

Now, let’s go through a detailed guide on how to increase your email conversion rate. This guide covers robust strategies as well as best practices to help you optimize your email marketing campaigns.

1. Create a personalized email experience with segmentation.

If you’re in eCommerce, personalization has to be implemented everywhere. 

Now, you may be wondering — How do I optimize personalization in my emails?

One of the best ways to optimize personalization (not just in your emails but overall marketing) is to create a quiz that asks questions about customers’ preferences.

Take a look at some of these questions covered in Encircled’s “Style Quiz” — and imagine the level of personalization the brand could implement in its email marketing based on the answers to these questions:

Depending on the type of your business or product you’re selling, even simple questions can help you gain great insights about your audience. For example, you can include questions like:

• What’s your favorite color? (Clothing brand)

• What’s your skin type? (Skin care brand)

• What’s your hair type? (Beauty or health care brand)

• What’s your favorite dish? (Food brand)

Based on the response to such questions, you can personalize the type of product promoted to specific segments of email subscribers.

Learn more: Shopify Quiz Funnel — Guide, Examples, and Apps

2. Nail the subject line first.

Your email subscribers are going to convert only if they open your emails. 

For that, you must write a compelling subject line that would entice them to click on your email. Here’s an example of how Huel experiments with different subject lines for its promotional campaign:

Pro Tip: Avoid cheap clickbait tactics — it’s not worth it. Many email marketers try to grab subscribers’ attention by using “clickbaity” subject lines, and it may indeed explode the email open rate. But is it worth it if it’s going to annoy your email subscribers to the extent that they’ll close the email immediately? Or even worse, they might unsubscribe from your emails.

3. Design your email with conversion-focused elements.

When working on any eCommerce campaign, you must leverage conversion-focused elements — whether it’s your webpage, landing page, or the email itself.

Here are some of the key elements that focus on conversion: 

• Countdown timer

• Image with a link to the offer

• Coupon code section

• Social proof (customer reviews or testimonials)

For example, when launching an email marketing campaign with an early-bird sales promotion, you can place a countdown timer for 48 hours. It creates a sense of FOMO, and customers are encouraged to purchase within the timeline.

4. Make the CTA stand apart to increase the conversion rate.

CTA is the most crucial element in your email, especially when running promotional email campaigns. It’s the key element that impacts your promotional email conversion rate. 

Here’s an example email from Pipedrive — a B2B SaaS brand — where the brand ensures that its primary CTA button for free trial stands apart from other buttons given for the resource links:

As you can see, the color scheme for the CTA button is more vibrant (than the other buttons) and has higher contrast to make it pop up nicely.

Pro Tip: It’s highly recommended that you use only one CTA throughout the email. Too many CTAs can distract the focus of your email subscribers, and you may end up getting very few clicks or conversions. If the length of your email is much longer, you can place the CTA 2-3 times in a way that goes well with the content.

5. Optimize your email design and content for mobile.

Mobile optimization is one of the key factors in eCommerce.

Most users access emails through their smartphones these days. Thus, if your email design and content don’t fit well in the mobile screen, it might lose effectiveness even if you’ve written high-quality copy or content.

Develop a mobile-first approach in your email design strategy. Here’s a great example of Ruggable’s email with a design optimized for mobile.

Preview the mobile version before publishing your email marketing campaign.

6. Write compelling copy and value-based content.

Your email strategy mainly consists of two types of writing work:  

1. Copywriting: Written for the sole purpose of selling something. This is primarily required when you’re running a promotional email marketing campaign. So, you need to ensure your copy is persuasive to convert your subscribers. 

2. Content writing: Written to educate and entertain the email subscribers. This is basically the content you write in your newsletter to deliver value to your audience — and may not necessarily be focused on selling something.

Whether you’re writing copy for promotional emails or valuable content, you must optimize it based on your target audience. So, basically, it’s about addressing their specific requirements and pain points.

7. Run A/B tests to optimize your email marketing strategy.

You’re using conversion-focused elements with great copy/content — but things aren’t working out as expected? A/B testing can be your savior.

A/B testing is such a great technique in eCommerce that everything it touches turns into gold. From landing pages to emails, A/B testing can help optimize your conversion rate.

There are various ways you can implement A/B testing in email marketing:

• A/B testing an email subject line

• A/B testing email copy

• A/B testing images in email content

• A/B testing CTA button

Pro Tip: Remember the golden rule of A/B testing — make sure to test only one variable at a time. If you change multiple variables (e.g., subject line + CTA button), you won’t be able to identify which change impacted the result of your email A/B testing conversion rate.

8. Monitor key email marketing metrics regularly and identify patterns.

Just like any other marketing strategy, your email marketing strategy must be backed by real data and insights. To develop this approach, you must monitor the key metrics at regular intervals.

Here are the key email marketing metrics to measure:

• Email open rate

• Email click rate

• Email bounce rate

• Email conversion rate

• ROI for email marketing

9. Collect and analyze feedback from your email subscribers.

Send a questionnaire to your email subscribers asking for their feedback. 

Keep it as short as possible to collect feedback from as many subscribers as possible. Encourage subscribers to share their feedback, as it’ll help enhance their experience.

Pro Tip: Apart from collecting feedback through a questionnaire or form, you can make it even more personalized and conversational. Just ask direct questions to your subscribers and request them to reply to your email. This will also help enhance the subscriber engagement.

10. Leverage AI and automation — but mindfully.

AI can help you with hyper-personalization in your email marketing campaigns.

You can leverage AI to segment your audience and personalize email subject lines. Automated email workflows keep generating revenue when implemented carefully.

Pro Tip: While AI is a powerful weapon, it’s like a double-edged sword. It can help your brand automate and speed up many tasks. However, if it’s not used mindfully, it can also damage the reputation of your brand. Make sure you don’t compromise the quality of your email marketing campaigns in the process of automation.

11. Keep a tab on the quality of your email subscribers.

A high number of email subscribers would be of no point if you’re putting effort into an audience that’s not going to convert. You must maintain your subscribers with proper “email list hygiene”.

In simple terms, you need to make sure that your email subscribers are ‘actually’ your target audience AND they’re engaging with your emails to certain extent. Ensure that your email list is monitored and cleaned from time to time. 

Audit your email subscribers list and remove inactive subscribers so that they don’t impact your open rate. Now, it’s your call to define the time duration to consider removing the subscriber for inactive status. Generally speaking, you may consider subscribers who haven’t opened your email in the last 6-12 months.

12. Leverage the relevant email trends whenever you can.

In the marketing world, you need to keep creating a buzz.

Or else, you might end up boring your audience. You don’t want to be a forgettable brand, right? So, keep an eye on what’s trending in the market and leverage the trends to engage and entertain your audience.

That said, be mindful of how and what trends you’re following. Based on your target audience, focus on the relevant trends only. It’s not necessary to jump on the bandwagon every time you see a new trend.

13. DON’T overwhelm your email subscribers with email blasts.

This is one of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing.

Your subscribers need a break from your emails. Don’t force them to unsubscribe from your email by sending five emails a day. Also, keep the right balance of promotional emails and valuable content emails.

The frequency and type of emails mainly depend on your business type.

• D2C or B2C audience: For this audience, you may keep the frequency a bit on the higher side, ideally, 5-6 emails per week. Here, you can also keep the ratio of promotional emails on the higher side.

• B2B audience: For this audience, 2-3 emails per week should be okay. More importantly, you may need to ensure that your emails are not just about promotions but contain value for the subscribers.

For example, Canva — a graphic design software — mainly focuses on a B2B audience. So, here’s an example of how Canva helps its audience with educational content:

Final Thoughts on Email Conversion Optimization

Email marketing is a key factor in growing your eCommerce brand.

Make sure to constantly monitor your subscribers’ behavior and feedback so that you can keep optimizing your strategy. Develop a data-driven approach by measuring the key metrics and experimenting with A/B testing.

To learn more about other eCommerce marketing strategies, tools, and best practices — check out more resources on the GemPages Blog. Also, join the GemPages Facebook community to network and learn from like-minded entrepreneurs and experts.

FAQs About Email Marketing Conversion Rate Optimization