How to write confirmation emails that convert with examples

It seems like such a simple thing. A confirmation email simply lets the recipient know that you’re acknowledging some action he or she has taken, such as buying one of your digital products or opting in to your email list.

However, confirmation emails should also convert. You want recipients to take action after they read the email. But how do you write these types of emails?

That’s what we’re going to cover today. The images, text, and call to action (CTA) you use to confirm actions with your audience can have a huge impact on your bottom line. And since you want to sell more Knowledge Commerce products, it’s essential to learn how to write confirmation emails that actually convert.

What Is a Confirmation Email?

A confirmation email is an email a business sends to confirm a specific, personalized action performed by a customer. For instance, if someone buys one of your online courses, your email marketing software might automatically generate an email to make sure the recipient made the purchase on purpose. Many confirmation emails include dry (but essential) details, such as the following:

• Name of product purchased
• Sale price
• Product delivery method
• Sale date
• Guarantees or warranties
• Refund options

However, you can spice up these emails by adding verbiage that convinces customers to convert on yet another request.

Why Should You Send Confirmation Emails?

Bottom line: most people expect confirmation emails. It’s become the norm when it comes to email marketing.

When a consumer signs up for an email list, buys a product, or otherwise provides contact information, he or she expects to hear from the brand — instantly, in most cases. After all, we’ve gotten used to immediate responses and instant gratification.

You should send confirmation emails because your audience expects them and because it provides an instant connection between the consumer and your brand. Failing to send them is not a good way to set apart your brand from everyone else. In fact, it’s one of the most important things to know when it comes to how to create an email marketing campaign.

What Are the Benefits of Sending Confirmation Emails?

Believe it or not, there are three very specific reasons to send confirmation emails, and each offers tangible advantages to help you grow your business. While sending these emails might feel like a simple, innocuous step in the brand-building process, it can have major benefits if you do it right.

1. Start a One-on-One Conversation with Your Prospects

Email is very personal. When it first debuted, most people used email to send updates to their family members, to confirm meetings with colleagues, or to otherwise replace snail mail.

Today, it’s a lot more pervasive. You likely text your friends and use chat apps with your coworkers, so you might use email almost exclusively for commercial purposes. You’re hearing from brands and helping consumers hear from your brand.

That’s a powerful connection. When you send that confirmation email — especially if you personalize it — the recipient feels a pull toward your business. It might not immediately result in a sale or permanent brand loyalty, but it’s a vital first step in that direction.

2. Touch Base With Prospects at Critical Points in the Consumer Lifecycle

The line between consumer and customer isn’t always straight. Sometimes, when you’re lucky, it looks like this:

However, it’s more likely to look like this:

What do those squiggly lines represent? The customer lifecycle. It’s totally unpredictable, but if you can connect with consumers and prospects at critical points along that trajectory, you’ll set yourself up for a sale.

Targeted touchpoints, like confirmation emails, are a vital part of a customer’s purchasing journey. The more touchpoints you can implement, the better you can understand your customer’s needs and wants. Touchpoints provide customers with a curated experience so you can seal the deal while building valuable consumer trust.    

Let’s say, for instance, that you know a customer has signed up for your email list based on a CTA you used in a Facebook Ad. That’s valuable data.

But where do you go from there? You could send a confirmation email that references the Facebook connection. Immediately, you’ve shown that you’re paying attention and that you’re concerned about each individual customer.

Or maybe a customer has just bought one of your smaller online courses, but is in a buying mood. That’s great, but only if you capitalize on it.

A confirmation email that includes a discount on a subsequent purchase might offer just the incentive to tip the consumer over the fence and convince him or her to make a second purchase.

3. Track Valuable Data

We’ll talk more about data later in this article, but let’s get this out there first: Data is incredibly important. It shapes how you run your business and how well you bond with your customer base.

If you use Kajabi’s built-in email marketing tools, you’re all set. All the data you could want is at your fingertips.

Other, third-party email providers can also provide data, but you’ll have to buy those software packages separately. And, really, the last thing any business owner needs is a complicated email marketing process.

Whatever program you use, make sure you’re set up to measure and track data, like what emails convince people to buy products the most often? This is the type of metric that will help inform the rest of your marketing strategy.

How to Write Confirmation Emails that Delight and Convert

We don’t want to leave you confused, so we’ve come up with 14 tips on how to write fantastic confirmation emails that will delight your customers while also encouraging them to convert. If you follow these steps, you’ll convince more customers to sign up for your email list, buy your products, and further invest themselves in your brand.

1. Confirm Email Signups to Maintain Your Subscriber List Integrity

Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that the size of the email list matters more than anything else. Don’t fall into this trap.

Yes, a large email list serves as a valuable asset. However, quality trumps quantity every day of the week.

If you use confirmation emails to help ensure that everyone on your list actually wants to receive your emails, you’ll protect your brand and avoid wasting people’s time. Plus, you’ll have a better understanding of your actual prospect pool.

Consumers accidentally mistype their email addresses or change their minds after signing up for an email list all the time. You don’t want that mistake to remain permanent. By sending a confirmation email that allows unqualified leads to opt out, you ultimately preserve the integrity of your list and protect your email deliverability for the future.

“Using confirmation emails to ensure your subscriber wants to hear from you sends a clear message that you care about consumer rights and desires. A two-step authentication process makes this even more effective. #Kajabi” — Tweet this!

Fortunately, Kajabi makes it easy to track email signups, confirm email subscribers, and maintain the integrity of your list. Instead of using a third-party service, you can manage your email list from within the Kajabi platform and eliminate the need for multiple email marketing products.

2. Provide Clear Next Steps

Consumers get lots of emails every day. They don’t have time (or the desire) to hunt for information about the brands to which they’re subscribed.

You can improve your emails by providing clear next-step instructions. What should your subscribers do after they receive your confirmation email?

You might want them to confirm their subscription, for example, or to take advantage of a coupon code. Whatever the case, spell it out in clear language right in the email.

You can use a CTA button to make the next step clear and actionable. If you want people to take multiple next steps, a bulleted or numbered list can create the same advantages.

Whatever you do, don’t leave your prospects hanging. A confirmation email should serve a specific purpose — if not more than one. Forgetting to tell your prospects what to do will waste this valuable opportunity.

3. Help Prospects Understand the Steps Required to Meet a Goal

People love working toward a specific goal. That’s why gamification has become such a popular method of communicating and bonding with customers.

When you set a goal for your prospects and help them understand what they can do to meet it, you start building relationships. A confirmation email is a great place to kick off a fun goal for your consumers to work towards.

For instance, maybe you have a loyalty program where customers can earn points toward a discount or free gift. You could outline the different things your prospects can do to begin earning points like following you on social media, buying one of your digital products, or filling out a survey.

The goal could also be related to what you teach. For example, maybe you have certifications that you offer as people complete your online courses. After someone has signed up for your course, use the confirmation email to explain how the certifications work and what they can do next to achieve the next goal. Don’t be afraid to position yourself as an expert in your field and tell your customers how they’ll benefit from obtaining your certifications.

The idea here is to further enmesh your prospects in your company culture, so they feel in-the-know and motivated to complete the goals you’ve set for your business.

Setting a goal also ignites consumers’ competitive instincts. They want to reach that goal even though they didn’t set it for themselves. A great way to do this is to host a 2-week or 30-day challenge to complete a course with a social media component (think dedicated hashtag). You’ll create a sense of urgency and comradery as well as gather valuable user-generated content for your business.

4. Promote Your Products and Services in a Non-Salesy Way

You don't need us to remind you of this, but consumers don’t like to be sold to — it feels intrusive and pushy.

However, you want to sell your online courses, so you have to put your products in front of customers. The trick is to do it in a personalized, non-salesy way.

In your confirmation emails, come up with a clever or humorous way to introduce your products. For example, if you’re teaching a fitness course, you could send an email that says “Thanks for signing up for my newsletter. I’ll do all the heavy lifting from here…unless you want to join” and include a link to a weight-lifting course you’re teaching. Alternatively, you can simply include images with links to your product pages at the end of the email.

Avoid using language like “buy now” or “purchase this product.” You don’t want to give the impression that you’re all about the sale.

One way to soften consumers to your product pitches is to offer something of value. If your confirmation email also teaches your subscribers something, they’ll feel grateful — and be more likely to click through on your CTA. Let’s go back to the fitness course example. You might send an email that includes a “thank you” for subscribing, your five favorite ab exercises, and finally, a CTA to sign up for your complete fitness course.

5. Confirm Purchases With a Reward

Purchase confirmation emails are usually pretty dull. They’re like digital receipts — not something you really want to read.

You can spice up your purchase confirmation emails with a reward. Give your prospects a reason to open up the email and interact with your CTA.

The reward could be a free bonus, a coupon or discount code, a free month of access to your membership site, or anything else of value that you want to give away. Get creative and think about something you’d personally take advantage of if you were the customer.

Again, the idea is to encourage gratitude in your recipients. Reward them for taking the time to read your email. As a result, they might reward you with a subsequent purchase or referral—the best compliment of all.

6. Design Emails with a Mobile-First Mindset

We live in an increasingly mobile society — and no, that doesn’t mean we’re spending more time in the subway. Consumers are buying products, subscribing to email lists, and performing other functions on their mobile devices more today than ever before.

Consequently, your confirmation emails need to be mobile friendly.

You don’t want to go too heavy on the images, for example, because your emails will load too slowly for mobile. Additionally, make sure you use an email template that’s compatible with mobile devices. Customers are much less likely to read an email that doesn’t load on their mobile device. When in doubt, send yourself a test email beforehand to verify everything loads correctly.

7. Invite Subscribers to Participate in a Referral Program

Confirmation emails are a great way to help subscribers and customers feel closer to your brand. Consider inviting everyone to join your referral program.

For instance, maybe you’ll offer a $20 discount on one future purchase for every referral a customer makes. You could also offer the same discount for the person the customer refers — a win-win for everyone.

Just make sure you have a system in place to handle referrals. For instance, you don’t want to give a discount until a purchase actually takes place. It’s also essential to guard against lost records.

8. Optimize Your Subject Lines for Open Rates

The subject line is arguably the most important part of your confirmation emails, at least when it comes to getting people to interact with your message. If the recipient never opens the email, nothing else matters.

An attractive subject line invites curiosity, evokes tension, or inspires joy — or all three. It should convey, in as few words as possible, the contents of the email.

You could start with a couple words that simply let the recipient know why you’re reaching out. For instance, the first two words could be “Purchase Confirmation” or “Subscriber Confirmation,” followed by a colon (:).

From there, you can get a bit more creative.

For example, if you’re sending out a coupon in the purchase confirmation email, let your recipients know. The entire subject line might read something like this: Purchase Confirmation: Fantastic Coupon Inside.”

Feel free to be as witty, funny, or serious as you want, but your subject line must reflect the email’s contents. Otherwise, recipients will feel duped.

9. Make Unsubscribe Options Obvious

People don’t like to receive unwanted emails. You can relate to that sentiment, right? You likely get annoyed when you see excess emails in your inbox.

To avoid irritating people who might one day become customers, provide unsubscribe options in your confirmation emails. Make them as obvious as possible. In other words, don’t hide them in a pale color or small font.

Sure, you hate to see people go, but you have to protect your brand. Consumers appreciate when businesses give them the option to opt out of emails. Think of something funny or creative for your unsubscribe page. It’s your last chance to wow your customer (or at the very least make them crack a smile). Who knows? You might just save the relationship and change their mind about breaking up.

10. Use Brand-Specific Messaging

Email is oversaturated. That’s a given. However, you can stand out from the overcrowded marketplace by sending consistent, brand-specific messages. This includes your confirmation emails.

Read over the other emails you’ve sent over the last six months or so. What tone of voice do you use? Are there specific words and phrases you use over and over again? Do you have a brand-specific hashtag?

Keep all of these factors congruent in your confirmation emails. This lets recipients know they can count on you to maintain your brand and provide them with what they expect. If your email tone or language comes across as unfamiliar, your brand will take a hit.

11. Tease an Upcoming Email

There’s one great way to make sure people continue to open your emails. Let them know what’s coming.

It’s kind of like the teaser for next week’s episode of your favorite television show. The network wants you to tune in, so they give you a taste of what the characters will face in the next installment.

You can do the same by using a confirmation email to get recipients excited about what they’ll receive from you next. Will it be a free resource related to your Knowledge Commerce business? A coupon? A discount code? Something else of value?

Play it up to generate excitement and exclusivity to reduce the chances of your subscribers simply deleting your upcoming emails.

12. Go Light on the Images

Consumers and entrepreneurs alike are easily distracted by pretty, shiny things. Don’t fall victim to this trap.

Yes, the judicious use of images and graphics in your confirmation emails can make them more engaging. However, if you use too many graphics (or images that are too “heavy”), you’ll slow down loading times and distract your audience.

You want people to focus on the words inside the email. If all anyone sees are the pretty pictures, they won’t come away with anything of value.

13. A/B Test Emails and Landing Pages

Even your confirmation emails should include strong CTAs. Maybe someone has just bought one of your online courses. That’s great! But you want them to buy other courses, too, right?

The CTA should lead to a specific landing page. It might be the sales page for one of your most popular digital products, for example. Whatever the case, A/B test different landing pages to discover which one performs best.

Only change one variable in each A/B test. For instance, you might change the subject line, primary image, or CTA button. Run tests on every single element until you uncover the perfect combination.

14. Write Like a Human

We saved the most important tip for last. Why? Because we want you to remember it.

Communicating digitally can seem too easy, too impersonal. It’s easy to start writing like a robot even though your emails are destined for actual human beings.

Resist that urge. Write your emails as though you were speaking the words to your customer in person or over the phone. You’d want to come across as friendly, approachable, and authoritative, right?

That’s exactly how to write confirmation emails.

Ask someone to read over your drafts before you finalize them. Actual people can provide valuable feedback about your tone, language choices, and other decisions.

Confirmation Email Examples

We’ve given you lots of tips to help you design your own confirmation emails, but nothing is more instructive than real-life examples. Let’s take a look at a few amazing examples that result in more conversions and help keep customers brand-loyal.

Rover

First, we have Rover, a company that helps match dog sitters with dog owners who don’t want to leave their pooches in an impersonal facility. When you find a dog sitter on the site, you get a confirmation email that beautifully reflects the brand:

You’ll notice that there are a couple CTAs at the end to help consumers find other useful resources. Plus, the confirmation offers dry details in a fun-loving and creative way.

We also like the reassurance you see under the option to confirm or deny the request. Rover lets consumers know they’re protected with insurance, emergency support, and a guarantee. Now talk about putting a pet owner’s mind at ease.

Amazon

Let’s take a look at another example, which might be more familiar to you. It’s from Amazon. You get the usual confirmation details, including a photograph of the product, the purchase price, and the delivery method:

At the bottom, though, Amazon offers suggestions based on what you bought. These CTAs lead directly to the sales pages for the given products.

REI

We can also learn from outdoor apparel retail giant REI. The company’s confirmation emails are pretty succinct and to the point, but they use images beautifully and have powerful CTAs:

The “Members Get More” section is particularly impressive. It’s a great way to convince prospects to join REI’s membership program, and the text appeals directly to the company’s target audience.

GoDaddy

Finally, check out this email confirmation from GoDaddy. The company sells web hosting, domains, and other related products and services:

There’s a pretty large image at the top, which can hurt loading times, but the rest of the email is spot on. It’s rather long, which gives GoDaddy the space necessary to provide multiple calls to action. The “Recommended for You” section makes the email feel personal even though it’s auto-generated.

That’s a great way to keep customers coming back for more products and services.

Use Kajabi to Turn Your Knowledge and Content Into Products You Can Sell

Running your own business is hard work. We never tell Knowledge Commerce professionals that it’s a cinch.

However, we firmly believe that our customers experience success faster and in greater quantities thanks to the support and tools we provide. We even offer a 14-day free trial so entrepreneurs can test-drive our platform and make sure it meets their needs.

When it comes to confirmation emails (and email marketing in general), we’re particularly proud of our platform. It boasts some of the most advanced tools on the market, and you don’t have to invest in third-party software to get your email marketing program up and running.

If you’ve been thinking about selling your knowledge online, give Kajabi a shot. You might be surprised by the ease with which you can get your business off the ground and start selling your Knowledge Commerce products.

‍

Still researching Kajabi?

Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook resources.

Attend free Kajabi webinars Monday - Friday to answer your questions about Kajabi's capabilities.

Tune in to the Kajabi podcast, Kajabi Edge to hear interviews with Kajabi Heroes.

‍

How to Write Confirmation Emails

Confirmation emails don’t sound that important. In fact, many entrepreneurs create them only as an afterthought — if at all.

Believe us, you don’t want to be that entrepreneur. At Kajabi, we provide plenty of resources to help you become the most successful you can be at your business, so don’t forget to take advantage of our built-in email tools, which include autoresponders.

Confirmation emails are just one type of email you should send when a consumer interacts with your business. It tells that customer you value their business and appreciate their interest in your company.

For one thing, each email feels like a one-on-one conversation between you and the recipient. It’s like you’re poking out from behind the computer to say, “Hi there! Thanks for [whatever action the consumer took]!”

You also get a chance to touch base with prospects at as many critical points in the sales funnel as possible. You’re building trust and loyalty with those consumers as they ponder their options and decide what to buy.

And finally, you can track the data you collect from these emails to improve future correspondence with consumers. Without data, you’re marketing your business based on guesswork. That doesn’t help anyone.

So how do you write a great confirmation email that also converts? Here are the top takeaways:

• Start by confirming email signups with subscribers. Let people know what you want their next steps to be, then help them understand what they need to do to meet specific goals.
• Promote your products and services but do so gently. Avoid the hard-sales routine.
• If possible, include a reward with purchase confirmations. You want those people to buy other products from you, right?
• Maintain a mobile-friendly mindset, which includes going easy on the images.
• Engage recipients with a referral program that can help grow your email list even further.
• Optimize those subject lines and keep your brand messaging consistent.
• Tease an upcoming email or incentive for your recipients to look forward to. It will encourage them to open future messages.
• Make sure you’re regularly A/B testing confirmation emails and landing pages.
• And finally, don’t forget to write like a human. Your emails will have better conversion rates as a result.