Whether you’re a brand new business or someone who has been around for years, investing time and effort into building an email marketing list will always pay off.

In fact, building an engaged email list may be the most important thing you can do in your early days as a business. It helps you build strong connections with subscribers and customers through welcome emails and newsletters. It dramatically expands the pool of people eligible to receive your abandoned cart and win-back emails. And it gives you the opportunity to stay top of mind when you launch new products and exclusive offers (like the example below from Leesa).

But how do you put this into terms of value? What is the actual dollar amount value of each email address you capture?

What is the value of an email address?

For Privy customers, there are three key stats that stand out when it comes to finding out the value of an email address:

1. $33 is the average amount of sales Privy customers get from each email address captured.
2. Shopify merchants using Privy generated an average of $581.72 in sales per email sent.
3. Privy customers with an abandoned cart email earn an average of 2.6x more revenue than merchants without abandoned cart emails.

Capturing email addresses through Privy campaigns such as welcome offers, cart savers, spin to wins, and other display options – and then sending automated emails to those contacts can be a key driver for growing your online revenue. And if you’re a larger business with more website traffic, the benefits can add up quickly.

As good as these numbers are, they are actually underselling the potential value of an email address. Because as repeat purchases from these same customers and prospects continue over time, your ROI per email address continues to grow.

Key takeaway: Now is the time to start building your email list

If you’re not actively trying to grow your email list, you’re simply leaving revenue on the table. It’s not enough to just have a contact page or an embedded form in the footer of your website. You need to create targeted onsite displays based on shopper behavior. 

These proactively convert unknown visitors into subscribers you can sell to.  

That’s why capturing email addresses can mean the difference between growing your ecommerce brand to unimaginable levels versus staying stuck in a plateau. A well-nurtured email list empowers your brand to:

Consistently engage with your top email contacts

Email campaigns allow you to engage with and market your products to your core audience and loyal tribe of interested buyers.

There’s almost no limit to the types of emails you can send customers. 

Besides your content marketing, you can give subscribers early access sneak peeks to build up excitement and interest. You can offer them exclusive discount codes to drive home more sales. And you can reward subscribers for their loyalty by encouraging them to enroll in your rewards program.

Keeping your best customers in the know like this makes sales and conversions so much easier. But you need an email list full of subscribers who want to hear from you first.

Automate your email marketing

Having an email list also means you can put priority messages on autopilot. These emails are automatically generated and delivered when a customer performs a specific action. And they’re some of the best high-converting emails you can send without lifting a finger.

For example, cart saver emails are automatically triggered when someone abandons their cart before completing the purchase. So later, they’ll receive an email with a link to their saved cart to finish the checkout process.

This type of high-converting email gives your brand another chance to convince on-the-fence buyers to follow through with the purchase (and many do).

Win-back emails also help your band lure customers back in when they may have planned to jump ship. Sending a friendly “We Miss You!” nudge can be exactly what someone needs to reorder from your brand again.

Segment your email audiences for personalization

Having an email list means you can organize or segment your list based on your customers’ similar buying habits, demographics, interests, and more.

So rather than sending everyone the same generic message, your customers only receive the messages that matter most to them. You can then hand-tailor emails you know each segment will love.

For example, you can segment customers who buy your shampoo every month and email them personalized content relating to shampoo (like if you’re launching a new fragrance).

Breaking down your entire email list into smaller segments means the right messages will always get to the right people, which increases your open and click-through rates (as well as your conversion rates).

Struggling with high bounce rates or low open rates? Maybe you’ve been unknowingly bombarding customers with messages that don’t pertain to them.

If you don’t fix this issue, your subscribers will either start to delete your messages without even reading them or bounce from your list entirely.

Your email list is the gift that keeps on giving

Email marketing still reigns supreme for ecommerce brands, and the stats we shared today prove it. So that makes the value of an email address pretty priceless.

Building and growing an engaged email list is one of the best things you can do for your brand. It’ll help you form meaningful connections with customers, drive sales, and provide actionable data you can leverage for greatness. We can’t think of anything better.

Not actively collecting emails yet? Start a free 15 day trial of Privy Growth today.