Why Most Designer Brands Are Leaving Money on the Table with Email Marketing

Let's be honest—if you're reading this, you're probably already sending emails. You've got your welcome series, you're segmenting and you know your way around automation triggers. But that’s just the beginning of an email marketing strategy that is, quite honestly, probably leaving money on the table. 

The fact is, designer brands should be generating 25-35% of their ecommerce revenue from email marketing alone. But even the brands we work with that are effectively doing this don’t realize the holes in their email marketing strategy. 

After building strategies for hundreds of email programs, we’ve developed a system that helps designer brands increase their revenue from email marketing (without annoying customers). And no, it isn’t just about how big your list is. 

In this post, we’ll break down proven tactics to increase email revenue without overwhelming your audience — including segmentation, automation, cadence, and deliverability best practices.

5 Ways to Drive More Revenue With Email Marketing

To maximize your ecommerce email strategy, focus on these five areas:

1. Send the Right Content

What is the right content? It’s something your customers want to engage with. If you aren’t sure what that means to your audience – find out! Experiment with different types of content (and look at the metrics) or poll your audience. You need to learn what your customers want to see from you. 

The right content mix is likely going to be a mix of three content types:

• Content forward campaigns: build trust with your audience

  • ✔️ Keep customers in the loop

    ✔️ Educate them about products

    ✔️ Solve their problems

    ✔️ Make them feel like a part of your brand

  Product recommendations: bring the product directly to the customer — make it easy for them to know what to buy.

  • ✔️ Personalized 

    ✔️ Relevant

    ✔️ Stunning product images

    ✔️ Details + selling points

    ✔️ Don’t talk about too many things

  Promotional campaigns: Drive big sales by creating urgency and exclusivity. 

  • ✔️ Build up hype with teasers

    ✔️ Make offers look EXCLUSIVE

    ✔️ ALWAYS segment your customers

    ✔️ Test, test, test

    ✔️ Make it easy for them to click

2. Target the Right Segments

The most effective emails are personalized to what the customer needs at any given time. 42% of consumers feel that personalization is somewhat or very important. And 67% have used personal recommendations when shopping for products.

Segmentation and personalization can easily become overwhelming – there are thousands of ways to group and personalize your messages. But don’t complicate it – focus on these 3 types of subscribers:

• New subscribers: Focus on brand education and best sellers

• One-time buyers: Nurture toward their second purchase

• VIPs: Reward loyal customers with exclusives, early access, and special perks

3. Increase Campaign Cadence

Increasing your cadence is the simplest way to increase revenue from email marketing. Too many brands we speak to are still treating their email list like a Mailchimp newsletter – sending campaigns once or twice a month – when the reality is that they should be sending emails three to four times per week. Yes, that may sound like a lot, but staying top of mind (and at the top of the inbox) is the game you have to win if you want to drive more revenue. 

How do you know when it’s time to send more email? Here are 5 signs:

• Your list is growing

• Your product line is diversifying

• You’re meeting benchmarks

• You have multiple audiences you want to talk to

• You’re in a promotional period. 

 Easy tactics to increase campaign sends include:

• Resend top performing campaigns with new subject lines or to new audiences

• Resend campaigns to non-openers

• Send plain-text emails for a personal feel

• Retarget engaged audiences with an SMS

• Repurpose your flow content into campaigns

4. Use Email Automation to Reach Customers at the Right Time

Automations consistently outperform one-off sends because they meet customers where they are. You can also set them up once and continue earning revenue over time. (Just don’t forget to continually optimize them)!

While there are a number of automations you can be sending - these are the ones that you shouldn’t be without. 

• Welcome series: Greet new subscribers with a clear incentive. 𝟕𝟒% of subscribers expect a welcome email immediately in their inbox – so it’s critical that you have this flow up and running. 

• Abandoned cart emails: Send within 30 minutes to recover lost sales. Cart abandonment emails have an average 39% open rate and a 23% click-through rate – making them crucial in recovering those people who visit your site without placing an order. 

• Post-purchase emails: How you handle that post-purchase moment will define whether your brand becomes a trusted go-to or just another one-hit wonder. Educate, answer questions, and suggest next purchases to build loyalty.

5. Improve Email Deliverability

Most clients’ eyes glaze over when we talk about email deliverability, but it can have a huge impact on customer retention and revenue. Depending on your customer acquisition costs, you spend a lot of money getting new subscribers on your list. If you have a poor deliverability rate - you’re essentially throwing those subscribers out with the trash… because they will never see your content. 

At the most basic level good deliverability is based on having engaged subscribers and sending them content they want to see – a lot of the tactics we’ve already covered. But there is a very technical side to deliverability too… and that’s where things get tricky. 

Track key email deliverability metrics:

• Bounce rate under 0.1%

• Unsubscribe rate under 0.3%

• Spam complaints under 0.01%

Regular list cleaning, sunset flows, and compliance with sender laws ensure your emails reach engaged subscribers.

Why Email Marketing Matters for Ecommerce Growth

80% of businesses consider email their most important tool for customer retention. And when optimized correctly, email marketing doesn’t just drive sales — it builds stronger customer relationships.

If your brand’s email revenue is stagnant, it’s not because email “doesn’t work.” It’s because your strategy needs a refresh. By leveraging segmentation, automation, and deliverability best practices, you can unlock higher revenue without annoying your customers.

Ready to see how much more your email program could be generating?Book a free strategy session with 624 Agency and start optimizing your email marketing strategy today.