What is a bounce back email?
Simply put, the term bounce back email refers to an email that is automatically sent to the customer after they make a purchase. Its main goal is to encourage the customer to make a follow-up purchase either on the same day or later on.
If you wish to gain a deeper understanding of the concept, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What is the difference between a bounce back email and a bounced email?
The main difference between a bounce-back email and a bounced email is their purpose. A bounce back email is, as we have seen earlier, automatically sent to a customer following a purchase to encourage a follow-up purchase. A bounced email, on the other hand, is an email that gets returned to the sender to let them know that the recipient was unable to receive it for reasons such as:
- Incorrect recipient address
- Non-existent recipient address
- The attachment size limit on the recipient inbox
- No-reply setting on recipient inbox
While the two may sound very similar, they serve a very different purposes.
Question #2: What does a bounce back email contain?
A bounce back email typically contains anything that may encourage a customer that just made a purchase to make a follow up purchase right then and there or at a later date. Examples would be:
- Related products
- Discount coupons
- Timed deals
This is exactly what brick-and-mortar stores used to do back in the day to get more revenue out of each paying customer. The only difference is that while they used physical coupons back then, bounce back emails are fully digital and automated—which brings us to our next point:
Question #3: Can I automate my bounce back emails?
Absolutely! You can configure any email marketing software integrated with some form of customer customer relationship management (CRM) tool to automatically send out bounce back emails whenever a customer buys something from your online store.
These tools also allow you to automatically customise each email, adding the recipient’s actual name and then choosing the right deals and related products to feature with zero intervention from you.
This means that no matter how big your business gets, you will not have to worry about your workload getting any bigger. These tools are designed to work the same way whether they are sending bounce back emails to 10 or 10 million people.
But what if you are just starting out and have no access to a professional email marketing or CRM tool? Well, you can use a free automation tool like Zapier instead. Simply create an automated flow (a.k.a integration) that looks something like the following:
You receive a proof-of-payment email from a customer
- Extract name and email address of the customer from the proof-of-payment email
- Input them into a pre-written email template with an invitation to an exclusive deals web page
- Send customised template to customer
Question #4: What is the difference between a bounce back email and an autoresponder?
A bounce back email is just one of the many types of emails that you can configure an autoresponder to send out. As the name suggests, an autoresponder automatically responds to specific triggers, such as:
- A purchase being made
- An inquiry being sent in
- A support ticket being created
- An email coming in
In the case of bounce back emails, the trigger is, as we have seen earlier, a purchase being made.
Question #5: Why are bounce back emails important?
Bounce back emails are important because they allow you to sell directly to someone who has just purchased something from you (i.e., an existing customer) instead of trying to win over someone who is either unfamiliar with your brand or is familiar with it but have yet to make a single purchase (i.e., a prospect). It is so much easier to sell to someone who has already demonstrated a strong interest in your products or services (buy actually buying something) than someone who is still on the fence.