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Cold email for ecommerce email marketing agencies.

This is the cold email plan we'd run for an ecommerce email marketing agency that serves DTC brands in one category. These agencies usually build on Klaviyo and run SMS next to email. The best signal takes five minutes to find. Add something to their cart and leave.

Part 01

Is this for you?

Part 02

Your market.

Your market is every brand in your category selling through its own online store. Store Leads lists stores by platform and category and shows which ones run Klaviyo.

Narrow it to brands big enough to feel the money. A brand running paid ads every day has the traffic to make email worth fixing. These are the signals worth looking for.

  1. 01

    Cart test

    Sign up with a test inbox and add a product to the cart and leave. No reminder within a day means sales are slipping out of their store.

  2. 02

    Welcome test

    Sign up for their list and count what arrives in the first week. One discount code and then silence means there is no welcome flow.

  3. 03

    Klaviyo installed and quiet

    Store Leads and BuiltWith show Klaviyo on their site. A brand paying for Klaviyo and sending one email a month has the tool and not the program.

  4. 04

    Heavy ad spend

    Meta Ad Library shows how many ads a brand runs. Lots of ads and weak email means they pay for each visitor and keep very few of them.

  5. 05

    No text message signup

    Look for a text message signup on the site or at checkout. A brand without one has a whole channel left to test.

Part 03

Lead list.

At smaller brands the founder decides. At bigger ones it is the head of ecommerce or the email manager.

Part 04

Lead magnet.

  1. 01

    Flow audit

    Sign up and browse and add to cart and leave. Screenshot each email and text that arrives over seven days and list the flows that are missing.

    It works because it is their customer's experience and not your opinion.

    Walk through it on a 15 minute screen share. Which flow to build first depends on their margins and how often customers reorder and the call is where the missing flows become your job.

  2. 02

    Welcome flow written

    The five emails their welcome flow should send written in their brand voice with the subject lines.

    It works because the writing is the hard part.

    Go through the emails on a call so they can check the offers and the claims. Once they're agreed the next step is someone building them into Klaviyo.

Part 05

Front end offer.

  1. 01

    Cart flow built free

    Build their abandoned cart flow inside their Klaviyo and switch it on. They approve the emails first.

    It works because Klaviyo shows the revenue each flow brings in. After a few weeks they can see exactly what one flow is worth to them.

    It starts with a 20 minute call to agree the discount rules and get access to Klaviyo. Have it live within a week of that call.

Part 06

Emails by segment.

Each segment gets its own email because a specific email gets more replies than a general one. Split each segment by sub-industry too so the examples in the email fit the reader.

Keep each email under 100 words with one reason for writing and one line of proof and one offer and one question. The proof lines are examples of the kind of result to use. Swap in real results of your own before anything goes out.

  1. 01

    No cart reminder

    Lead with the cart test and the date. Offer the free cart flow.

  2. 02

    No welcome flow

    Lead with what arrived after signup and what should have. Offer the welcome emails.

  3. 03

    Heavy advertisers

    Lead with their ad count and what happens to visitors who don't buy the first time. Offer the flow audit.

  4. 04

    Klaviyo and quiet

    Lead with the tool they already pay for and ask for a call directly.

Part 07

Follow ups.

Send two follow ups in the same thread three to five days apart.

Part 08

From reply to meeting.

Each reply should end in a booked meeting that actually happens. The lead magnet and the offer get delivered on that call and never go out as a file to read later.

The replies below cover the three ways people say yes.

  1. 01

    Lead magnet reply

    They asked for the welcome emails or the audit. The call picks what to build first.

  2. 02

    Front end offer reply

    They want the free cart flow. The call sets the discount rules and sorts out access.

  3. 03

    Direct call reply

    They said yes to a call. Tell them what they'll leave with so they show up.

How much to expect.

Results aren't guaranteed and nobody honest can promise a number before the first emails go out. A few things decide how a campaign does.

The first few weeks show how the market responds. The list and the copy and the offer get sharper from there.

Want this run for you?

We build and run this campaign for one agency per industry.

This page is a starting point and a strategy we'd happily test ourselves. Working together gives us more context on your agency. That context lets us add better strategies and build better lists and offers and automations for you.

Book a call

Thirty minutes on your market and how we'd reach it.

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