Guides · Online stores
Post-Purchase Email Flow: The Six Emails to Send After Every Order
By Josh Croom · October 27, 2026 · 10 min read
A post-purchase email flow is a short set of emails that your store sends on its own after each order, timed to when the box arrives. You build it once and give each email one job, so a buyer you already paid to find hears from you again before they search for the next thing.
The kettle that sold someone else's filters
Thursday, 4:15 PM. A buyer finds your store through a Shopping ad and orders a pour-over coffee kettle. It lands on her porch on a Thursday afternoon, and she uses it every morning for a month.
Then she runs out of filters. She can't remember your store's name, so she searches for filters on her phone, taps the first ad she sees and buys from a store that isn't yours. Another store got her second order, even though you paid for the click that found her. Nothing from you reached her between the day the box arrived and the day she ran out.
Why the second order matters
A first order costs ad money, because you paid for the click that found the buyer. A second order that starts from an email needs no ad click at all, so you don't pay for that sale twice.
- 25% to 95%more profit from keeping 5% more of your customersBain & Company research
- More than 2xwhat repeat buyers at online clothing stores spent two years incompared with their first six months
- $31in ad spend for each purchasethree store accounts we run, April to September 2026
What a post-purchase email flow is
A flow is a set of emails that your email tool sends by itself when a buyer does something, like placing an order or leaving a cart. Most store email tools call them flows or automations. You write each email once and set when it sends, and then it runs for every order that comes after.
A newsletter goes to your whole list on the same day, whether or not anyone just bought something. A flow goes to one buyer at the moment that fits their order, so the arrival email lands when the box does and the refill reminder lands before they run out. Each one is about something the buyer just did, which gives them a reason to open it.
Most emails in a good flow help the buyer instead of selling to them. A thank-you, a tip and a review ask don't push anything, and they give the buyer a reason to keep opening your emails. When a later email suggests a next order, it reads like a store the buyer knows instead of an ad from a stranger.
The six emails, in order
These six cover the path from a full cart to a second order. Build them in this order, starting with the cart reminder and the arrival email, because they're the simplest to write.
A few hours after a cart is left
The cart reminder
Someone added items to a cart and left without checking out. This email shows the items with a photo and one link back to the same cart, so they can finish in two taps instead of starting over. Baymard Institute averaged 50 studies and found that shoppers leave about 70% of online carts before checkout.
The day the order arrives
The arrival email
Say thanks and give one tip that helps the buyer get more out of what they bought. Count from the delivery date, not the order date, because a tip about a kettle that hasn't shown up yet reads like a form letter.
A few days after it arrives
The review ask
Ask one question and give one link. The buyer has used the product for a few days and can tell you how it works in their kitchen or their garage. A short ask is easier to answer than a long survey.
About two weeks later
The goes-with email
Show the one item that fits what they bought, like filters for the kettle or a case for the phone. Skip the page of best sellers, because a buyer reads that as one more ad.
Shortly before it runs out
The refill or replace reminder
Send this for anything that runs out or wears out. Find how many days most buyers wait before they reorder, and send the reminder a few days sooner. Its link should put the same item back in the cart.
When a buyer goes quiet
The come-back email
When someone hasn't ordered in a while, show them what's new since their last order. Base the wait on your own reorder gap, since a store that sells coffee and a store that sells boots will have very different ones.
What the arrival email says
Fill in the parts in parentheses, and keep the reply line, because a buyer who gets an answer from a person at your store has a reason to remember its name.
Hi (first name), your (product) should be with you by now. Here's one tip to get the most out of it: (tip). If you have a question, just reply to this email, and a real person will answer.
Got it today, thanks! Does it work on a gas stove too?
It does. I'll send you our two-minute how-to video tonight.
A blast to everyone, or a flow for each buyer
If your store already sends email, check whether each email fits the person who gets it.
One blast to everyone
- The same email goes to every buyer on the same day.
- Every email carries a discount, so buyers learn to wait for the next one.
- Each email pushes three products and two buttons.
- Links carry no tags, so the sales show up under the wrong source.
A flow timed to each order
- Each email sends when that buyer's order reaches a step.
- Most emails help, and only a few of them sell.
- Each email has one job and one button.
- Every link is tagged, so Google Analytics can count what email sold.
Tag every link, so you can see what email sold
Google Analytics sorts each visit into a channel by its source and medium. Its Email channel takes visits whose source or medium says "email", and a link only carries that word when someone tags it. Google's own example tags a newsletter link with a source, a medium of email and a campaign name. Without tags, those visits don't match the Email rule, so Google Analytics puts them in another channel and the sale looks like it came from somewhere else.
Google Analytics filed 0% of 78,378 website visits under email on four of our store accounts in the 28 days to October 11, 2026. Either no email went out, or its links carried no tags and Google Analytics counted the visits somewhere else. Either way, nobody at those stores could see what their email had earned.
Most email tools can add these tags to every link for you. Turn that on, send yourself a test email and click a link, then check over the next day that the visit shows up under Email in Google Analytics. Our PPC audit checklist covers the same kind of tracking checks on the ads side.
Check one number each month
Once a month, put sales from email next to sales from ads in Google Analytics. If email sales sit close to zero, check the tags before you blame the emails, since a missing tag looks just like an email that sold nothing.
Then look at the clicks on each email in the flow and fix the one with the fewest clicks first. Change one thing at a time, like the subject line or the button, so you can tell which change made the difference.
The ads on three store accounts we run spent $31 for each purchase from April through September 2026. A second order that starts from an email link needs no ad click at all.
Is your flow running?
Answer five quick questions. Your answers stay on your screen.
Do your buyers get an email on the day their order arrives?
Does a cart reminder go out within a few hours of a left cart?
Does each email have one job and one button?
Do your email links carry tags, so Google Analytics shows an Email channel?
Do you send sales emails only to buyers who said yes?
Your flow is in good shape. Check email sales against ad sales once a month, and fix the weakest email first.
You're partway there. Fix the first question you answered No, starting with tags, because untagged links hide what your email sold.
Start with the cart reminder and the arrival email this week. They're the simplest to write, and each one reaches a buyer while the order is still on their mind.
Build the flow this week
Tick each one as you build it. Your ticks stay on this device.
0 of 8 done
The mistakes that cost the most
Fix any of these three before you build the next email, because each one can lose you the buyers the rest of the flow brings back.
- A discount in every email teaches buyers to wait for the next one, and you end up giving away money on orders that would have come anyway.
- One email to everyone on the same day ignores what each person bought. The kettle buyer gets the boot sale, and after a few of those she stops opening your emails at all.
- A bought email list is full of people who never said yes, and Google's rules for sending to Gmail say not to buy email addresses at all. Google also says that when people often mark your emails as spam, your future emails are more likely to land in spam, even the ones going to buyers who did say yes.
Where ads fit
Your ads find new buyers, and this flow brings them back for a second order. When we run a store's Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, we set up tracking, so you can see which orders came from your ads and what the ads spent on each one. Open Spots Store is $997 every 4 weeks, plus a $1,997 build paid once, or $0 on the 13-cycle plan. You'll find every fee we charge on our pricing page.
If you'd like a second set of eyes on your store's ads and tracking, book a call with Miguel. He'll ask how orders reach you today and talk through what's worth fixing first.
Questions people ask
What is a post-purchase email flow?
It's a set of emails your email tool sends on its own after each order, like an arrival email, a review ask and a refill reminder. Each one is timed to that buyer's order, not to a calendar.
How many emails should a post-purchase flow have?
Six cover the path from a full cart to a second order: a cart reminder, an arrival email, a review ask, a goes-with email, a refill or replace reminder and a come-back email. Start with the first two, since they're the simplest to write.
When should I send the first post-purchase email?
Send it on the day the order arrives, then the review ask a few days later and the goes-with email about two weeks after that. Count from delivery, not from the order date.
Should every post-purchase email have a discount?
No. A discount in every email teaches buyers to wait for the next one. Most emails in the flow should help, with a tip, a question or one matched item.
Why doesn't Google Analytics show sales from my emails?
Check the links in your emails first. Google Analytics files a visit under Email only when its source or medium says email, so a link with no tags lands in another channel. Turn on link tagging in your email tool and test one link.
See how we run ads for online stores
Read next
- AI for Contractors: Get the Quotes and Texts Off Your Kitchen TableHow a trade business can use AI for quotes, texts and job notes while keeping every price its own.
- AI for Ecommerce: What an Online Store Should Hand Off FirstWhere AI saves an online store real hours, what stays with a person, and Google's rule for AI titles.
- AI for Small Business: Give It the Busywork, Keep the PeopleHand AI the follow-ups, quotes and call notes that fill your week, and keep a person on every final send.