Sephora's email strategy was analyzed over a 22 day period where the user signed up for their VIP program, abandoned a cart, and made a purchase. They received a variety of personalized emails including welcome emails, a birthday gift email, order confirmations, and an abandoned cart follow up. While Sephora collects good customer data and sends visually appealing emails, some improvements could be made such as implementing a double opt-in for signups, using smart sending to avoid overwhelming subscribers, and keeping a consistent sender address across emails.

1. Email Strategy
Teardown
Featuring Sephora

2. Email strategy teardown?

3. Great marketing is
successful because
it treats users as
individuals.

4. I signed up for Sephora’s VIP program.
Took a few actions.
Then I watched how the experience unfolded.

5. What I did vs. what they did
What I did
• Signed up for their VIP program
• Abandoned a cart
• Purchased after the abandoned cart
What they did
Asked for some data points about me, sent
me a birthday gift, and lots of great emails.

6. Email deep dive
Email strategy deep dive
Overview
1
2
3
Breakdown of teardown

7. Email strategy timeline

8. Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Welcome 1 Welcome 3 Newsletter
Action: Purchase
Action: Cart Abandoned
Newsletter
Order Confirm
Shipping Confirm
Newsletter Newsletter
Welcome 2 VIP Birthday
Abandon Cart
follow up
Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter
Newsletter

9. Step 1: Email deep dive

10. Hold up— how did I sign up in the first place?

11. Registration Form
While this is a good start, it should not replace a double opt-in.
Tempting as it may be, pre-checking a subscribe form is a no-no
This will make personalization and segmenting way easier!
Another good data point for targeting marketing.

12. Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Welcome 1 Welcome 3 Newsletter
Action: Purchase
Action: Cart Abandoned
Newsletter
Order Confirm
Shipping Confirm
Newsletter Newsletter
Welcome 2 VIP Birthday
Abandon Cart
follow up
Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter
Newsletter

13. Welcome email #1

14. Welcome email #1
Where does “shop now” take us?
They already have my name, why not
personalize the preheader text?
Hmm.. where’s the double opt-in?
This CTA could be more compelling
Header could be styled better to match email.

15. Welcome email #1
This benefits section is a bit much…
Wow! $1K for the highest level is a lot!!!

16. Welcome email #1
This is great, more data!
Would be a good as a separate email.
Feels like an after thought…

17. Welcome email #1
There is a lot going on in this footer.
What is kik?!
Nice, this is a smart idea.
A range of price points would be nice.

18. Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Welcome 1 Welcome 3 Newsletter
Action: Purchase
Action: Cart Abandoned
Newsletter
Order Confirm
Shipping Confirm
Newsletter Newsletter
Welcome 2 VIP Birthday
Abandon Cart
follow up
Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter
Newsletter

19. Happy Birthday
My birthday was doctored to fall within our timeline.
You can send me a card in March for my real b-day.

20. Happy Birthday
Personalization in the preheader, good job!
Cool animated GIF! (you’ll have to trust us on this one)
Loving that emoji!
Overall great length!
This header is better than the
one in the welcome email. It
feels like their shopping bags.

21. Happy Birthday
Lots of CTA’s to go to the store,
wonder if the average sale is higher in store.
2nd recap of my points!
This isn’t a real map. Why not use the data
they collected when I signed up to show
me my local store?

22. Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Welcome 1 Welcome 3 Newsletter
Action: Purchase
Action: Cart Abandoned
Newsletter
Order Confirm
Shipping Confirm
Newsletter Newsletter
Welcome 2 VIP Birthday
Abandon Cart
follow up
Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter
Newsletter

23. Abandoned Cart

24. Abandoned Cart
Don’t you mean “don’t”?
Pictures of the products is nice.
Sender address was different for this email.
This should be consistent.
Haha, this is great. A little humor here works well.
This CTA would benefit from being bigger.
Personalization could be powerful
here. Reminder of the points
would be good too.

25. Step 2: Email strategy

26. Let’s look at their 22 day email strategy
I’ll take three different actions.
• Sign up for VIP program
• Abandon a cart
• Purchase

27. Action 1
Sign up for VIP program, “Beauty Insiders”

28. Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Welcome 1 Welcome 3 Newsletter
Welcome 2 VIP Birthday

29. Action 2 & 3
Abandon a cart and purchase

30. Voilà! Samples galore!
In addition to the body
lotion I ordered, I
received 3 samples and
a birthday gift.

31. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Action: Purchase
Action: Cart Abandoned
Newsletter
Order Confirm
Shipping Confirm
Newsletter Newsletter
Abandoned Cart
follow up
Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter
Newsletter

32. Step 3: Overview

33. What they did well
Sephora is off to a great start with their emails!!!
They are collecting great data points to market better to their customers.
Visually the emails are well branded to match the look and feel of Sephora’s site
and in store experience.

34. What they can improve on
1. Setup a double opt-in
This is a best practice, and easy enough to do. While visitors do check an opt-in box when they sign up on the form, they need to confirm that the
person signing up is the the email address owner.
Without a double opt-in it could lead to spam complaints and hurt their deliverability.
2. Utilize smart sending
The day I ordered from Sephora, I received three different emails!
Using smart sending is a good way to prevent your subscribers and/or customers from receiving too many emails if you have many active flows and
campaigns.
3. Pick a sender and stick with it
I received emails from more than one sender. This is both a confusing experience for subscribers and not a best practice for good deliverability.