Best Practice for International eCommerce Email Marketing























Email marketing for international ecommerce doesn’t have to be intimidating.   

Here are our team’s quick tips to better optimize your email open rates for international customers:


·         Segment your email database by language and geo-location. 
Check out with your email provider if they can identify your users IP.  Create country or regional specific segments within your database.  You can also try to clean through your data by reviewing if email id’s contain country suffixes like .mx or .fr to segment out your international users from your US clientele.

·         Schedule your send time to the local time zone.
Once you have your email database segmented optimize your send time to the local time zone of the subscriber’s location. 

·         Keep the messaging relevant to the local season. 
4th of July campaigns promoting summer offers will seem out of place to residents in the Southern hemisphere who are in the midst of their winter.  And, think about opportunities where seasonality differences can promote new campaigns.  Ex: Double down on your back to school campaigns or find a second life for your seasonal inventory by promoting to customers in opposite hemispheres.

·         Celebrate Local Holidays.
While Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and Halloween are prime holidays in the US.  Holiday names, dates and celebrations vary based on culture and country. Whether it’s Bastille Day in France or Australia Day for your guests down under.   There are opportunities for country specific and region campaigns for holidays like Dia de Los Muertes and Carnival in Latin America and the Caribbean. Tune into the local holidays and create promotions that celebrate with your audience. 

·         Localize Your Images
Be conscientious of how the images you’ve selected will be perceived in the local country.  Scantily clad stock photos will be seen as insensitive to more conservative countries.

·         Mobile First
As more and more ecommerce transactions become mobile first, make sure that your emails, landing pages and shopping cart are optimized to work across a variety of mobile devices. 

·         Be careful with local language and spelling.
Just as English in the UK, and Australia has different slang, spelling and phrases foreign languages like Spanish, Portuguese and French will also vary vastly by location.  
French in Canada v. Haiti v. France may have different spelling, sayings and catchphrases.

Want more tips and tricks for improving your international ecommerce strategy? 

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