# Ecommerce Email Marketing Basics

> Ecommerce email falls into two distinct categories: transactional email that supports a requested purchase or service event, and marketing email that promotes future buying. A message's content and purpose matter more than its label, sending promotional content inside a transactional wrapper does not make it transactional for consent or compliance purposes.

- Type: Merchant guide
- Level: Intermediate
- Reading time: About 6 minutes
- Audience: Written for store owners, builders, and designers refining high-performance ecommerce stores.
- Last updated: 2026-11-04
- Canonical page: https://academy.getzenbasket.com/merchant-questions/ecommerce-email-marketing-basics/
- Part of: [Merchant Questions](https://academy.getzenbasket.com/merchant-questions/) on ZenBasket Academy

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## What you need to know

### What ecommerce emails should merchants send?

Send necessary order and service messages plus a limited set of permitted marketing emails tied to real customer needs, such as welcome, cart recovery, product education, replenishment and win-back.

### Transactional vs marketing email: what's the difference?

Transactional email supports a requested purchase or service event; marketing email promotes future buying. A message's content and purpose matter more than its label.

### How often should ecommerce marketing emails be sent?

There is no universal sending frequency. Start with the customer's permission and expected value, set a cross-campaign cap, and reduce frequency when engagement or complaints worsen.

### Why are customers unsubscribing from emails?

Customers unsubscribe because messages are too frequent, irrelevant, repetitive, unexpected, or difficult to control. Compare unsubscribe rate by signup source, campaign and frequency.

### Why aren't customers opening my emails?

Low opens can reflect poor sender reputation, weak recognition, irrelevant subjects, timing or privacy-limited measurement. Check delivery and complaints before treating opens as the only truth.

### Why aren't email recipients clicking?

Recipients may open but not click when the offer, content, design or call to action does not match the subject or their needs. Compare click behavior by device and segment.

### Why are ecommerce emails going to spam?

Spam placement can come from failed authentication, poor list quality, complaints, sudden volume, misleading content or weak sender reputation. Verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and stop mailing invalid or unconsented addresses.

### What email metrics should ecommerce stores track?

Track delivery, bounce, click, conversion, unsubscribe and complaint rates, plus revenue or contribution per recipient. Treat open rate cautiously because privacy features can distort it.

### A quick store check

Review one month of email by purpose, consent, frequency, engagement and delivery outcome. Check authentication and suppression lists.

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## Frequently asked questions

### Can marketing email be sent from the same address as order email?

It can, but purpose, permission, authentication and reputation should be managed carefully, so promotions do not harm critical service delivery.

### Should purchased email lists be used?

Avoid them. They usually lack a trustworthy relationship and permission context and can damage deliverability and trust.

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## Related learning path

- **RFM Segmentation for Ecommerce**
- **Ecommerce Marketing Automation Basics**
- [ZenBasket Build Guide](https://help.getzenbasket.com/zenbasket-builder/)