Best E-Mail Marketing Tools for Shopware

Surely you've heard that email marketing can boost success of your online store significantly. Learn how exactly that works & which tools are helpful in this article. 

So, have you ever heard the words "trigger" or "automation" in relation to email marketing? What does these mean? Which tools are most suitable to your Shopware online store? Which scenarios are best for email automation? We'll clarify all that below. 

However, before we start with tools and automation, let's clarify what email marketing is. Email marketing can help a lot to build loyalty and improve sales in general. By personalizing it, you can reach your customers directly at their needs. To do this, you can put different customer groups into different lists. In each case, you can send the appropriate newsletter. 

This possibility isn't offered by any other marketing channel. You can't address your customer directly by name, neither in the social media area or with any ads. But in this case, because the email lands directly at your customer, this is possible. This way, the person to whom the email is sent is the only one who gets to see it. Besides a personal greeting and matching content, you can also personalize and automate the sending. There' s only one other marketing option that gives you that, too: Regular post. Yet, the success can' t be calculated here. With email marketing, you have the benefit of being able to see the opening rate. When and how often was your newsletter opened? Did they click on the link in your newsletter? With e-mail marketing, all of this can be known. Besides that, automation is incredibly easy with the right tool.

But why using automation in email marketing at all? - We'll clarify that in the next section.

But why does automation make sense in email marketing?

We already explained in our article "Automation in e-commerce" that automating processes in general is useful and can save you a lot of work. Yet automation is also an important point, especially in email marketing. This can relieve the marketing team and sometimes even create more than the team could have managed without automation. On specific events, automatic newsletters can be sent out. At the same time, your marketing team can relax and enjoy a cup of coffee together. ☕️ But, of course, it is necessary to use this time to brainstorm for new marketing campaigns. 😉

In email marketing automation, a distinction is made between newsletter campaigns and autoresponders. 

Autoresponders: Automated e-mail sent, triggered by an action of the recipient. (Trigger). For the example, a reminder that something is in the bag after the recipient has left the online store without completing shopping. 

Newsletter campaign: There' s an overriding goal behind newsletter campaigns. An example is a campaign in your online store. By sending this makes sure that you are not forgotten. You can combine several autoresponders to one newsletter campaign.

You' ve understood the basics behind email marketing automation. But what's the best way to schedule your newsletters? Let's clarify that now.

Shopware newsletter or plugins?

A point which has always been important in email marketing: spam filter. Web, iCloud, GMX, etc. add many factors to the rating of the email. Do you use the Shopware Newsletter Manager, it' s probable that your email will end in the spam folder, because of its IP address. Also, your email may not get through at all. You' re probably wondering why this is happening. 

Reason is this: If you use the Shopware Newsletter Manager, you are using their server as well. Like a lot of other Shopware users. If a server sends a LOT of emails. Most email providers will reject the mail after a few hundred to a thousand emails. It lands in the spam folder. Or does not arrive at all. After 24h mails are accepted again. If the limit is reached, they end up in spam or not even get through. If you only have a small mailing list of about 100 people, this won't be a problem. But as soon as you grow (and you surely want to), it becomes more and more problematic. So it would be good to choose the right system from the beginning.

Yet you can also counter this. There' s an association called Sender Alliance. Members of this alliance accept e-mails in larger quantities. The well-known providers Mailchimp, Klick-Tipp and Cleverreach are members of the Sender Alliance. 

You' re surely aware of the following situation: You ordered something from an online store and get either an order confirmation hours later or no one at all. This may be caused a mail server that sends too many e-mails. From a customer perspective, this isn't satisfying at all. 

Let's get into the real topic now, OK? What are your options for email marketing? 

Shopware Newsletter Manager

Shopware Newsletter Manager is directly included in Shopware. This offers a few options, at least, but far from everything that is possible today. For this, the plugins from the Shopware Store are helpful. 

You find the Newsletter Manager under Marketing > Newsletter. The overview here contains a lot of useful information. It also makes it easier for you to filter the newsletters. In the tab Settings > Newsletter you decide which lists of customers should receive the newsletter as well as when it should be sent. If you have multiple stores in Shopware, you can also decide which store the newsletter applies to. In the "Administration" tab, for example, you can decide which sender your customers should see and remove or add recipient lists.

Newsletter Plugins

Newsletter plugins allow you to create professional looking newsletters. Automated systems can also be integrated directly into Shopware through plugins. Here are a few practical plugins for Shopware.

1. Resend order confirmation mail from Shop Studio
2. Back in stock notification from Shop Studio
3. Newsletter2Go: Newsletter & Email Marketing Integration from Sendinblue (no longer under development)
4. Rapidmail is very easy to use. But it's only available in German. The huge advantage for our German readers: Rapidmail is DSGVO compliant.
5. CleverReach 
6. Mailchimp as Plugin is real classic
7. Klaviyo is classic too. It isn't that cheap, but it's worth it!

In the Shopware store you can discover more useful plugins by searching for "Newsletter". In the plugin templates you already have two plugins that are programmed for special events. But there are other events, which can be automated too. Below we present you a few situations. 

An example for the Newsletter plugins

Examples of targeted email marketing automation

Before giving you a few suggestions, we want to mention that newsletters are a great way to learn about your customers' interests. Put links in your newsletters again and again. Next, you can analyze which links get clicked most often. Based on this information, you can identify interests and optimize your marketing. 

Let's move on to the events that are easy to automate:

1. Shopping cart canceled

We already mentioned it as an example above. The customer has put something into his shopping cart in your store and simply left the store later. Remind him of his full shopping cart by sending him a personal email! He should finish the process to shop. In addition, it' s possible to offer cart abandoners a small discount or a gift to attract them to complete their purchase. 

You can automate this perfectly! Just set the trigger, in other words, the abandoned shopping cart. Ideally, you should also set a time period. During this period, the purchase wasn't completed. In fact, an email only five minutes after the cancellation can act rather as a deterrent. It' s better to let pass some days. According to your settings, the relevant mail will be sent to your customers with the items that are in the shopping cart.

2. Welcome email

Classic. In fact, nearly every email marketing software offers this automation. This email is purely for customer loyalty. Greet your new contact personally, tell them what they can expect from you.

3. Reactivation email to inactive customers

Your clients haven't been active for a while? Don't let them forget your store! Activate automation for your customers, if they were not active for a certain time, e.g. 6 months, they will get a mail. 

4. automate own processes

Also, you can automate your own processes. So, decide for yourself which events should trigger a mail to a recipient. You can also create many mailings. Based on the "newsletter campaign strategy" it's possible to plan at which time the mailings should be sent. However, this is another topic in itself. 

5. Birthday greetings with discount

During registration, ask for the date of birth. Then, you can send a birthday greeting to the respective customer via automation on that day. Give the customer a little gift like a discount or an additional gift when placing an order. Make sure you allow the discount code to be valid for a whole week. Only a few people spend their birthday sitting in front of the computer and ordering something. 

Success through email marketing automation

At least, the topic of email marketing automation can seem complex at times. But it's worth it! So automation can save you time. At the end of the day, you can use newsletters to analyze user behavior. This way, you can scale your store's sales in the long run.