The Anatomy of a Great Package Tracking Email

Amid a cluttered inbox, package tracking emails reign supreme in terms of engagement. With open rates on average hovering around 70%, these sends have the potential to reach the masses—making the information beyond the “Read” button worth its weight in gold.

When done well, package tracking email communication can drive down contacts to your support channels, boost customer satisfaction, and drive influenced revenue back to your brand—all while adding to your bottom line. How can you make sure you’re optimizing this powerful communication channel? We delved into Narvar platform data to understand what’s driving key success across our client base to develop this playbook. These tips will help you take your package tracking emails from “good” to “great” with easy-to-implement changes that require a light lift for a big reward. 

A strong subject line goes a long way 

Adding personalization into your subject lines can further boost open rates. On average, we see around an 8% lift in open rates among our brands who deploy this strategy. Adding your customer’s first name is a classic approach, but adding other relevant customer-specific details like what they purchased or the shipment destination are additional ways to increase engagement.

This is also a good opportunity to express your brand’s personality. Here are a few examples that put a fun spin on otherwise cut-and-dried messaging, as seen from some brands on our platform today.

• DELIVERY ANTICIPATION: Instead of “Your package will arrive tomorrow,” try “Get excited [first name], tomorrow’s the day!”
• CARRIER DELAY:  Instead of “Your package is delayed,” try “Sorry, we’re slow!” 
• DELIVERED: Instead of “Your package has been delivered,” try “The waiting game is over!”

Surface relevant delivery information at the top

With around 80% of package tracking happening on mobile, it’s important to surface any relevant information at the top of the email. Whether that be information about the package status, a note about potential split shipments, or link through to track their package on the tracking page, it’s important to capture your customer’s attention with the details that matter. The more relevant information the customer can have, the lower the chances that they’ll reach out to your customer care team—driving down contacts and improving ROI. Win, win.

Here’s a great example from Sephora putting important links at the top of their emails.

Create a clear and bold call-to-action to “track my package” or “track your order” 

Our top-performing retailers aim to not only get as many consumers as possible to open a package tracking email, but to then click through to the more robust tracking page where a consumer can interact with marketing content, clearly view the estimated delivery date, and sign up for SMS communication. 

In order to drive that increased customer engagement, we recommend drawing as much attention as possible to the link through to your tracking page. Most commonly used is a button with a visible CTA that clearly states “Track My Package” or “Track Your Order,” eliminating any gray area. With Narvar’s self-serve email editor tool, all of this can be done on-demand and with ease. 

Need help visualizing? Here’s a brand doing this today on our platform. 

Highlight support channels directly in your package tracking emails

Great! Your consumer has opened your email, checked on the status of their delivery, but now they have a question about your product itself. Instead of having them try to locate a number to call, use this as an opportunity to highlight any relevant support channels that might answer these questions for them. Whether it be a link to a live chat, how-to guide, or product-related tutorial video, this is a great opportunity for the customer to easily engage with the product, your brand, or a low-cost support channel without having to pick up the phone.

Even simple support icons, like the ones Brooks Brothers use, are great for helping customers get the information they need.

Increase brand loyalty and customer lifetime value by adding marketing assets or product recommendations 

With such high open rates, your transactional emails are a great way to highlight product, brand, or other marketing content that can direct this high amount of traffic back to your site. Whether it be to encourage a repeat purchase or interact with editorial content, further engagement with your brand deepens brand loyalty and overall customer lifetime value.

Through Narvar’s email editor tool, you can easily add marketing assets, product recommendations, and even GIFs as an engaging way to drive traffic back to your brand!

Want to take it a step further? Update your content in these emails regularly, creating alignment to your promotional, seasonal, and overall brand content strategy.

Here’s an example of Life is Good using this strategy to drive traffic back to their site.

Package tracking emails are such an important piece of the post-purchase experience. Since your customers are already clicking on and engaging with these emails, why not let them do the hard work for you, driving incremental revenue and lifetime customers?