What is an email flow?

In short, a flow is an email to be sent out based on predetermined rules. In this article, we'll briefly explain what a flow is and how flow can help you increase sales and personalize your online store.

Brief introduction

An example of flow can be customers who sign up for newsletters or into the customer club, where they then receive an email with a welcome discount. 

Mail flow in action

Below we go through how mail flow can be used to send emails via Personalized Shopping.

Example of how to start a flow

A flow starts when a customer joins a segment, which is defined as them taking an action on your online store or hitting a date. The image below shows that a flow should start when a customer has left items in their cart:

Cancel a flow

Once a flow is started, it's important to make sure to select a criterion to cancel the flow. This is especially important for abandoned shopping carts, so you don't keep nagging a customer who has already placed an order after the first email.

Conditions

When you add a new step to a flow, one of the options is "Condition".

In the example below, we see an abandoned cart flow. The condition set up checks whether the customer has received the forgot cart email in the last 5 days. This is set up to avoid "spamming" customers with unnecessary reminders.

The condition checks if the customer is already in the flow

Waiting steps

A key feature of flow is that you can perform an action, and then wait a set amount of time for the flow to continue. This is done by first clicking on the blue plus icon.

See example of condition and waiting step below.

Flow in order management

If you choose for the flow to start when the customer places a new order, it is most natural to send an order confirmation first. You can then set up a flow that starts when the order is set to shipped, this email contains relevant information about whether the package should be sent or picked up in store / in stock. A few days later, a separate flow can send an email inviting you to review via Lipscore or Trustpilot. 

Read more about flow via order management

The sign-up popup is natural to use as a start if you want to thank a customer who signs up for newsletters with a discount code. 

Les mer om popup

Examples of flow

Abandoned cart

Abandoned cart is an email flow that automatically follows up on customers who have added items to their cart without completing their purchase. This flow automatically sends an email to customers who abandon their cart before completing their purchase. 

Read more about abandoned cart

Discount code for signed up newsletter

You can easily send out a discount code to customers who sign up for newsletters. This is done by creating a discount code in the email sent out to customers who sign up for newsletters via a pop-up.

Read more about discount code on popup

Mail flow for order management

Read more about order management flow