If you’re looking to make your ad dollars go further, investing in email marketing flows should be your first priority. With email flows, you can reduce your customer acquisition costs and maximize every advertising dollar, creating a seamless customer journey that doesn’t rely solely on ad spend.

Here’s why email flows are the foundation of an efficient e-commerce funnel—and why they should be your focus before spending a single dollar on ads.

The Problem with Relying Only on Ads

When you drive traffic solely through ads, you’re paying each time to move potential customers down the funnel:

1. Initial Interaction: Let’s say 5% of customers purchase on their first interaction with your brand. That leaves 95% who didn’t buy.
2. Repeated Ad Spend: To convert this remaining 95%, you keep retargeting them, costing more with each stage—views, clicks, adds-to-cart, and so on.
3. Rising Costs: Each interaction with these customers costs money, and with the highly competitive ad landscape, these costs can quickly add up.

This approach depends entirely on the ad platform, and if your ad costs increase or your account faces restrictions, you could lose potential customers altogether.

The Efficient Approach: Using Email Flows

Now, let’s look at a more efficient strategy—combining ads with targeted email flows:

1. Initial Ad Spend: You still run ads to attract customers, leading to 5% buying on their first visit. For the remaining 95%, you capture their emails through a pop-up form on your site.
2. Building Your List: Of the remaining 95%, say 20% subscribe to your newsletter through the pop-up. This gives you ownership of their contact info, free from ad platform constraints.
3. Welcome Series Flow: A 3-part email welcome sequence introduces these subscribers to your brand, encouraging purchase over a few days. This flow converts around 10% of the new subscribers, without needing additional ad spend.
4. Abandoned Cart and Browse Abandonment Flows: For those who browsed or added items to their cart, automated reminders nudge them toward completing the purchase. This typically converts an additional 3%.
5. Advanced Retargeting Flows: For subscribers who haven’t yet converted, you can introduce targeted flows like a Founder Message (plain-text email from the brand founder), a limited-time promo, and even an AI-predicted purchase flow based on behavior patterns.

Using these flows, you maximize the impact of your ad spend, capturing conversions that might otherwise have required multiple costly ads to achieve.

How This Reduces Acquisition Costs

Each email flow offers a touchpoint without extra ad spend, reducing your need for constant retargeting. With a solid email system in place, you can:

• Lower Overall Ad Spend: Instead of repeatedly targeting users through paid ads, you’re building a long-term relationship with them via email.
• Increase Conversion Rates: Since flows guide customers through each stage of the buyer’s journey, more will convert without needing another paid interaction.
• Drive Repeat Purchases: Over time, well-timed email flows encourage loyal customers to keep coming back, increasing their lifetime value (LTV) and offsetting initial acquisition costs.

Key Email Flows to Implement

Here are essential flows to build a sustainable email funnel:

1. Welcome Series Flow: Converts new subscribers into customers with a series of emails.
2. Abandoned Cart Flow: Reminds potential buyers of what they left behind.
3. Browse Abandonment Flow: Re-engages visitors who browsed products without adding them to their cart.
4. Founder Flow: Adds a personal touch by introducing the founder and building brand connection.
5. Promo Follow-Up: Offers a special discount to hesitant customers.
6. AI-Predicted Purchase Flow: Utilizes Klaviyo’s Predictive Analytics to send targeted emails when a customer is most likely to buy.

By implementing these flows, you’re creating a system that works continuously, converting customers with minimal ad input.

Final Thoughts: Why You Need Email Flows Before Ads

Especially if you’re a mid six, seven, or eight-figure business, email flows will ensure you aren’t solely dependent on the ups and downs of ad platform algorithms. This foundation helps you lower costs, nurture leads, and ultimately boost revenue.

Setting up these flows may take time, but the results will pay dividends long-term. Email and SMS marketing reduce reliance on paid ads and create a cost-effective, sustainable way to grow your brand. If you’re ready to get serious about your email marketing strategy, our team has scaled over 100 brands with email and SMS. Book a consultation to see how we can help you maximize your ad efficiency and build a profitable customer journey.

Here’s to saving more and growing more!

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