Do you want to make your customers happy?
Sending thank-you emails is one of the simplest ways to do that. It’s a great way to show appreciation for their business and it can even increase customer loyalty.
It’s also an opportunity for you to cross-sell or upsell products, services, or content.
In this guide, you’re going to learn:
- What is a thank-you email?
- Why you should send thank-you emails
- When to send thank-you emails
- 7 tips on how to write a thank you email to customers
- 19 types of automated thank-you email examples
- How to automate sending personalized thank-you emails
- 25 inspiring thank-you email subject lines | to show appreciation to your customers
- How to use thank-you emails to cross-sell & upsell your customers
So let’s get down to business.
What is a Thank-you Email?
A Thank-you email is used by businesses to build a healthier long-term customer relationship: by showing gratitude and appreciation to them.
Expressing thanks shows people how much you care and appreciate their time and generosity.
Remarkably, thank you emails help businesses gain customer engagement which results in great brand loyalty, in a way it does humanize the relationship between your business and your clients.
Why Should You Send Thank-you Emails?
Unlike buying directly from a store, customers don’t get to have that tangible experience with your business. For that, automated thank-you emails help you provide your customers with a feeling of reassurance from the time they have clicked the order button until they receive your product.
In particular, thank you messages are an approach to start assembling a relationship online that is like the in-person connections your clients have with physical brands.
When to Send a Thank-you email?
A thank-you email is a user-action based email. It means unlike broadcast emails, your thank you notes are triggered by specific user action to make sure your emails are sent at the right time, reaching out the right person.
And by a ‘user-action’ we do not only refer to placing an order, but there are also various occasions you can trigger your automated thank-you messages to be sent on.
You can automate your thank-you emails to:
- High-value and loyal customers
- Customers on their birthday
- Event/webinar attendees
- Anyone who’s written into support
- Specific holiday thank you cards (Valentines, Christmas, new year, etc)
- Newsletter subscribers
- Job applicants and interviewees
How to apply these cases in practice? All you have to do is register for an email marketing automation software in which you can automate triggered thank-you messages based on users’ action.
Before sending thank-you emails as well as any other transactional messages, make sure to test their deliverability, spam score, and content.
For this purpose, you can use embedded solutions into a sending platform or an email testing service with a fake SMTP server.
7 Tips on How to Write a Thank-you Email to Customers
Our parents taught us how to say “Thank you” at a very early age, but a great thank-you email is not as simple as it seems. It is more than that, it is considered a customer delight.
When creating your automated thank-you email, consider the following 7 tips.
1. Say something positive in the subject line
The subject line is the first thing your customers will see when they open their inbox, so make it count! You should not just say “Thank you”. Try something a little more creative like: “Thanks for choosing us: your order has been shipped.”
A positive subject line increases your email open rate and provides a good first impression of your company.
Hence, the subject line is one way to say “Thank you” and make sure it counts!
2. Write like a human
Even though thank-you emails to customers are transactional emails and one of the purposes is to automate, you should not just write like a robot.
“Thank You for your order!” – This sounds too robotic and impersonal!
A good way would be: “Thanks so much again.” or even better if it’s possible with regards from who was responsible in fulfilling their request.
Example: This is Adam from Tesla, Thanks!
Writing like a human is important since the company is reaching out to a customer and not another business. However, it doesn’t mean that you have complete freedom in writing anything but make sure there are no silly mistakes or typos!
3. Use the correct greeting
When sending a thank-you you email to a customer, you should use the correct greetings.
A good way would be personalizing your thank-you note with recipients’ first name. Instead of saying “Thanks for ordering” you can say “Hey Kenan, thanks for ordering.”
Personalized emails are proven to increase email click rate by up to 30%.
The first sentence of your email should be short and sweet, greeting and giving recognition for the customer’s purchase or support.
4. Express gratitude and appreciation
You can express gratitude at this point by mentioning something like how they helped make an important decision easier with their feedback on what product was best suited towards them.
You can express gratitude at this point by mentioning something like how they helped make an important decision easier with their feedback on what product was best suited towards them.
Expressing gratitude to your customer shows them that you appreciate doing business with them.
Ultimately, you want to make your customers feel like they are valued and maybe even feel close to your brand. It’s like being a VIP.
Expressing gratitude and appreciation is a great way to make customers feel like they are valued and maybe even close with your brand. They’ll remember you for being so kind.
Lastly, a good customer service leads into increased sales! It’s a win/win situation.
5. Include specific details
By including the necessary details about the order or customer request, you’re giving customers a sense of your investment in the relationship.
You also make it easier for them to learn about the next step of the purchase, whether it’s from your side or theirs.
This is a great way to check-in and see if they have any questions about their order.
It’s also an opportunity for you as the owner or manager to send a business thank you note.
You can show your excitement that this customer took advantage of what was offered by mentioning other products in which he might be interested from his purchase history.
6. Say thank you again
Saying thank you again for your customers can’t do you any harm. and There are few occasions to say thank you again in an email.
You can say thank you in the:
- Order confirmation email
- Shipping update email
- Product review email
These emails are transactional, and adding a thank-you note to customers in each one doesn’t require a lot of resources.
7. Use an appropriate closing
Every email should have a closing. The best closings for thank-you emails are usually something like, “Thanks!”
Or even better is to mention the product that they bought and ask them if there’s anything else you can help with related within your business services.
Sending an appropriate closing sentence in your emails allows readers to feel comfortable about their order and buying from you.
See below how actual brands used these techniques, illustrated with 19 examples.
19 Types of Automated Thank-you Email Template Examples
Here are 19 thank-you email template examples that will inspire you with ideas for the design and copy of such emails, so how about we start!
You can also access in Automizy, editable pre-built layouts of Thank you email templates.
1. Thank you for your payment email
Imagine placing an online order and not receiving a confirmation email? Wow! What a horror story, even if you receive an email after a couple of minutes.
Confirmation emails are standard, elevate your game by thanking your customers for their payment.
Wistia did exactly the same in the following Thank you for your payment email sample:
Starting the email copy with the invoice details, followed by a thank you note and further subscription details.
2. Thank you for purchase email
Taking the time to show gratitude to your customers for making a purchase, makes the post-purchase experience unique and leaves a positive impression.
Here are some ways to make the best out of thank you for purchase emails:
- Invite them to complete a feedback survey.
- Invite them to join a giveaway or event.
- Offer them a discount for their next purchase.
- Ask for a product review if their purchase is immediately available, like something downloadable.
- Promote social sharing
3. Thank you for registering email
Another chance to connect with your clients is the point at which they register to your product or software.
Audient created this elegant Thank you email to client for registering. It has a clean design, easy to read and displays all the right info with a wide simple call-to-action button.
4. Thanking customers for their business
Personalized end of the year Thank you customer email template with pretty slick animation that Mutual Of Omaha used to show gratitude to their partners during that year, and strengthen the relationship for the next one.
5. Thank you email for ordering
Thank you for your order emails are the most used automated thank-you email. It is the email that reaches users right after they place an order.
As a very common automated email, customers expect to receive it.
Thank you letter for orders are a must-have in email marketing automated campaigns for any business.
6. Thanks for your review email
Some customers are generous with their time and would take a moment to share their feedback regarding your business.
Similarly to Google’s thanks for your review email template example, it is an opportunity to show gratitude to the customers who review you with an appreciation email.
7. Thank you email for shopping with us
Using an opportunity in a transactional email to help spread or share your gratitude with others is a good thank you email idea.
There are always great opportunities to reach out to your customers and thank them or show them gratitude as well. Online store Tradesy seems to do this well as demonstrated in the following thank you for shopping email sample.
8. Thank you for signing up email
It’s always a good idea to reinforce a subscriber’s decision to sign up for your emails.
One easy way to do that is to offer a quick overview which tells subscribers what to expect after joining your email list. Codeverser does a great job with this thank you for signing up email example.
9. Thank you for subscribing email
When you run lead generation campaigns and new contacts subscribe to your list, you want to welcome them with an intriguing thank you note for subscribing email.
A thank you email is the first friendly exchange between your business and a new subscriber. It sets the tone for future communications and encourages new members to manifest a better engagement with your upcoming emails.
The “thank you for subscribing” doggie pic is hard not to look at in the following email design from BarkPost.
Although featuring a by-the-numbers subject line (“Welcome to BarkPost”), the email copy is catchy all around.
10. Thank you for attending our event email
If your business consists of the part of holding events, this is an opportunity to reach out to your attendees and thank them for assisting the event and their support after the event.
You can also send such thank-you emails as a part of a webinar email campaign. It is a great way to show appreciation for those who engaged with your content.
11. Thank you for feedback email
Customer opinion about the experience they have with your brand is useful data that you can use to optimize your business to meet customer demands more accurately.
As customer feedback is important for your business evolution, this can be an occasion to send thank you emails to those who share their feedback with you.
12. Thank you notes for customers for booking, flying, choosing us
Thank you email to customers are also used by most businesses around the world. And particularly air companies dig it.
- Thank you for choosing us
- Thank you for flying with us
- Thanks for onboarding with us
- Thank you for booking, etc.
If you booked a flight even once in your life you probably received a similar thank your email for a booking.
SquareSpace also sent a thank you customer emails to their users and in this email, they showed appreciation toward their customers and at the same time invited them to fill in a quick survey to measure customer satisfaction.
13. Milestone thank you email
Whether this is your company’s anniversary, customer anniversary or any other holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving!) show some gratitude to your network.
Keep in mind you are sending a thank you email to appreciate your community, not to sell anything.
FitBit email reflects appreciation and gratitude only, there is no call to action button in the email.
This is another great example of a wonderful milestone thank you email, with extremely simple large CTA to drive traffic.
Trello used this subject line: We think you’re 1 in 10 million. Here’s some free Trello Gold. ?
14. Thank you for booking:
An example of great Thank you for booking email example sent from The Aviary restaurant to confirm a customer booking.
The email copy starts with a large Thank you title, including booking details, invoice and the location of their restaurant.
15. Referral thank you email:
DropBox’s thank you for referral email shows gratitude for their users who referred a friend awarding them with 500 MB bonus space.
Satisfied users did their part and invited their friends to your product/service, it is your part then to thank them for the referral and show gratitude.
16. Thank-you personalized message with video
Video content is an engaging way to engage with your audience. And the statistics prove it!
Here are some surprising statistics from Webdew on how videos in emails perform:
- 41% of the subscriber engagement can be improved by incorporating video thumbnails in emails.
- The open rate of emails is increased by 6% by adding video words in the email subject line.
- The Click-through rate can be improved by 300% just by incorporating video content in emails.
- Adding videos on the landing page can increase conversions by 80%.
I mean the numbers are pretty convincing for you to include a video in your next thank-you email to customers.
Here is an example of a personalized thank-you email that includes a video.
Videos in emails add a personal element to your customer appreciation email.
Not to mention that videos can be repurposed for other channels, such as YouTube and social sharing sites.
Sign up Automizy, where you can embed a video from your Youtube channel.
17. Giveaway thank-you email
Providing a giveaway in your thank-you email is another great way to provide value that your contacts might appreciate.
When sending a giveaway to contacts, make sure it matches with their interests.
If you are a clothing store, offer them the chance to win an outfit of their choice.
Alternatively, if they have already subscribed for your newsletter and ordered a product before, then provide something like gift cards or coupons codes that can be redeemed in-store.
If you’re sending B2B emails, a giveaway can be an e-book or a subscription to your service, for example.
Giveaways are another way of providing value while giving customers what satisfies their needs.
Similarly to this example, including a giveaway in your thank-you emails demonstrates how much you appreciate and value your contacts.
18. Offer discounts in your subscription thank-you email
Offering discounts to newsletter subscribers is a great way for you and your clients.
First, it helps with the initial revenue of each new subscriber because they will most likely buy more during their first visit based on how much discount was offered in the “thank-you for subscribing” email.
You can also include multiple CTAs for subscribers who are not ready yet to make a purchase, but they’re ready to consume more of your content.
19. Thank customers who visit your store
If you want to improve your conversions, then the best thing is sending a thank-you email as soon after they’ve visited.
This method works good for small businesses who collect customers’ email addresses.
For example, you can ask your first-time customers to fill a form that includes their email address.
This can be done by adding them in some kind of remarketing list and sending emails on days that are most appropriate for their interests like Friday evening.
A discount for their next visit might motivate them to come back and buy more.
The first action of the customer journey is to visit your store and you want them coming back again for that second time, right?
A Thank-you email to your store visitors increases returning customers. Here is an example to learn from.
How to Automate Sending Personalized Thank-you Emails
You can easily set up your personalized thank-you emails in Automizy and trigger different thank-you messages to specific targeted contacts, based on their actions on your website.
Here is a list of triggers you can set up for your thank-you emails:
You can set up a basic thank-you autoresponder email to your customers, that consists of a one single thank-you message triggered on customer’s order.
It looks like the following example:
You can also make your thank-you autoresponder as a drip email campaign to greet and welcome your new blog subscribers.
Whenever a new subscriber opt-in for your blog newsletter a thank-you email is sent immediately to introduce your business and say “thank you for subscribing”.
Followed by a 1 day wait period, subscribers receive their first nurture email, and right after a couple more days, another automated email is sent.
With similar automated email sequences, you make sure that subscribers stay close to you, starting from the moment they have subscribed and most interested in what you have to offer.
Send birthday thank-you emails to your customers
Trigger an email to be sent on a specific milestone, special holidays or contact birthday to spice a little bit the relationship with your prospects and customers.
Based on that trigger, send an email and show appreciation to your customers on their birthdays. It’s important to offer a small gift within the email, something like a discount, coupon, gift card, etc.
After the birthday email, insert a waiting period of 2 days to check if your customer clicked on the gift link and claimed it. If someone claimed the gift, you could send a follow-up email.
For those who did not click the gift link on the birthday email, you can offer them a second chance to claim it.
We’re done with the example of thank-you emails and how to send them, let’s have a look at some of the best performing appreciation email subject lines.
25 Inspiring Thank-you Email Subject Lines | To Show Appreciation to Your customers
The emails you send might not be read, but if your subject line is intriguing enough, people will want to open it and take a look at what may have sparked their interest.
Here are some of the best thank-you email subject lines that you can copy.
- Thank You!
- Thank you for signing up- you haven’t started {shopping} yet
- You picked us. Cool
- Thank you for choosing us
- Thanks for attending the {…}
- Thank you for applying to join {…}
- We totally appreciate you as a customer 💖
- Thanks- here’s an offer for you
- Thank you for your business {…}
- Thanks for subscribing to {…}
- Thanks Again!
- A message to {Name}
- Aww, thanks!
- Thanks so much for your order
- Nice. Glad to have you as a customer
- So glad to have a customer like you
- Thank you for traveling with us ✈️
- It makes us happy that you chose us
- Thanks for being part of our community
- This could be the start of something awesome
- Did your purchase live up to your expectations?
- Thanks! So glad you found us
- Thank you from the bottom of our hearts ❤️
- {Name}, thanks!
- Awesome. Glad you found something you like!
Probably you noticed some of the thank-you email subject lines include emoji symbols.
As indicated by a report by Experian, 56% of brands utilizing emoji in their email subject lines had a higher email open rates.
You can insert emoji symbols to your email subject lines with Automizy and experience the thrust yourself.
You can use the subject lines above for inspiration.
Or you can copy the body of your email into the Automizy’s free email subject line generator.
It writes you subject lines based on the content of your email.
- Step 1: Copy & paste your email content.
- Step 2: Let Mizy read and analyze it.
- Step 3: Copy, like and use the subject lines you prefer.
That’s it, 3 easy steps.
Bonus Tip: Use Thank-you Emails to Cross-sell & Upsell Your Customers
Your thank-you emails are also a great place to promote purchase-related products for your contacts as uncovering a new scope to increase your average order value and the number of repeat purchase.
Cross-sell & Upsell tips:
- Recommend uniquely products that are related/similar to the placed order, three is the optimal number of products to recommend.
- Promote products that are in the same price range of the purchased one.
- Keep in mind you are recommending not advertising in your thank-you emails, make it seem natural.
An upsell example comes from Walmart, which they included as a sidebar in a thank-you email sent to a customer right after placing an order.
Cross-selling a student chair with arms to a customer who ordered a student desk. It is highly-personalized, that what makes it look organic and natural.
Conclusion
Saying “thank you” may appear to be a basic thing, yet it is important to your customers’ experience. It indicates that they’re something other than just another regular buyer.
A tiny act of appreciation can elevate the whole customer experience and by the end contributes to your:
- Average order value
- Revenue
- Customer lifetime
Are you sending any thank-you emails to your subscribers? If you’re doing so send us your emails and we’ll add it to our collection and help inspire.