Over at The Email Wars, there is an interesting post about personalized links in ecommerce emails. Instead of linking to the relevant email topic, many times an ecommerce marketing email will simply send me to a homepage, or a broad category page. The Email Wars cites Piperlime (the new shoe store from Gap) as mentioning shoe sizes and then actually linking deep in the site to shoe sizes. This is almost revolutionary by some standards. And here’s another point made by The Email Wars:

But here is another thought… now they have more info on me even if I have not purchased yet. Now they have the data to target me based on sizes that would meet my needs when they have products to clear out.

Users want you to target them with useful information. And ecommerce email linking is one way to do that. Personalized links can bring your customer right to the page he or she is looking for. Generalized links often do little more than annoy the customer.

And, if you keep track, you can send even more personalized emails next time, making better product recommendations and offering deals that are more specific to the customer. Before sending off your ecommerce email, check the links. Are they general, simply dropping the customer on a homepage? The links should be deeper, going specifically to the item or subject matter discussed in the email.

Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce email, ecommerce marketing, email linking,
Piperlime, product recommendations