---
title: "Email marketing examples by industry and lifecycle moment"
description: "Email marketing examples from travel, QSR, and streaming brands, showing the trigger, the sequence, and what happened next, from welcome series to win-back."
canonical_url: "https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/email-marketing-examples"
language: "en-US"
datePublished: "2026-10-28T19:45:00.000Z"
publisher: "Braze"
authors:
  - "Team Braze"
---

# Email marketing examples by industry and lifecycle moment

Email marketing examples are real campaigns that show what a brand sent, why it sent it, and what happened next, from a welcome message to a win-back offer.

This gallery organizes them by consumer industry, for teams that want to see what brands like theirs are sending, and by lifecycle moment, for teams planning a specific type of campaign. Each example covers the trigger that started it, the email itself, and the sequence of messages around it.

Every brand and figure named here comes from a published Braze customer story, and where an example shows a broad, unbranded approach, we've labeled it as illustrative.

**TL;DR**

- Email marketing examples show what a brand sent, why it sent it, and what happened next. Most fall into six types: welcome, promotional, transactional, lifecycle and triggered, newsletter and content, and re-engagement.
- Real Braze customer stories show how brands in retail, food delivery, streaming, travel, financial services, and subscription apps time their emails, from Grove Collaborative's browse abandonment email to Luxury Escapes' membership launch, which reached [142% of its signup goal in two weeks](https://www.braze.com/customers/luxury-escapes-case-study).
- Each lifecycle moment, from welcome and cart abandonment to loyalty and win-back, needs its own trigger, timing, and follow-up.
- Email does more as one step in a cross-channel sequence, with in-app, push, and SMS working from the same customer profile so messages don't overlap or contradict each other.
- The strongest examples share five traits: a trigger based on consumer behavior, one job per email, content that changes for each person, a place in a connected, cross-channel sequence, and a verifiable list of people who’ve opted in to brand messages.

## What are examples of email marketing?

Email marketing examples are real campaigns that show what a brand sent, why it sent it, and what happened next, from a welcome message to a win-back offer. Open almost any shopper's inbox, and you'll find the same six kinds of [B2C email marketing](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/b2c-email-marketing) at work:

- **Welcome emails:** Sent when someone subscribes or creates an account, to set expectations and prompt a first action.

**Example:** A new app user gets an email that explains what's coming and asks them to set their preferences.

- **Promotional:** Scheduled for a sale, launch, or event and sent to a chosen segment.**Example:** A retailer gives loyalty members early access to a seasonal sale.
- **Transactional:** Triggered by something the customer did, such as an order, booking, or password reset.**Example:** A food delivery app confirms an order with an estimated arrival time.
- **Lifecycle and triggered:** Sent in response to behavior at a specific stage, like browse abandonment, an abandoned cart, or a product running low.**Example:** A reminder goes out a few hours after a shopper leaves items in their cart.
- **Newsletter and content:** A recurring editorial send that keeps subscribers engaged between purchases.**Example:** A streaming service sends a weekly roundup of new releases matched to what each subscriber watches.
- **Re-engagement:** Aimed at customers who have gone quiet, to bring them back or confirm they still want to hear from the brand.**Example:** A travel brand writes to someone who hasn't booked in a year, suggesting destinations based on past trips.

An example is more useful than a template because the trigger and the timing are what make an email successful. A screenshot without that information teaches you very little, especially as both depend so heavily on the industry.

## Email marketing campaign examples by industry

From food orders placed in minutes to vacations planned months ahead, every consumer industry runs on its own timetable. Across the six industries below, we look at real Braze customer stories, followed by illustrative examples that show the many ways each industry can put the right email in front of customers at the right point in their journey.

### Retail and ecommerce

When a shopper looks at a product and leaves, they've told you what they're interested in. A follow-up email can put that product back in front of them, along with a few similar options, while they still remember why they clicked.

#### Grove Collaborative nudges browsers back with a 41% add-to-cart rate

[Grove Collaborative](https://www.braze.com/customers/grove-collaborative) sells sustainable home, wellness, and beauty products to households in the United States. Its browse abandonment email follows up with shoppers who looked at a product and left without buying.

- **Trigger:** A "browse abandoned" custom event, set up through Grove's Shopify integration, fires when a session ends without a purchase.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Still thinking about [product name]?"
- **The email:** Personalized with the customer's name and the last item they viewed, plus similar products picked by Constructor.io's recommendations, and a prompt to finish the purchase or keep browsing.
- **The sequence:** One triggered email, sent only to customers who opted in to marketing emails and hadn't had one from Grove in the previous 24 hours. Branching logic tests different send timeframes to see whether timing changes conversion.
- **The results:** A 10% checkout rate, a 41% add-to-cart rate, and a 3% click-through rate.

**Best for:** eCommerce brands with large catalogs and real-time behavioral triggers.

#### Illustrative example: Replenishment reminder

Shampoo, dog food, and vitamins run out on a fairly predictable schedule, so a reminder can be timed to arrive around when the last order is running low.

- **Trigger:** A set amount of time passes after an order, based on how long the product usually lasts.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Running low on [product name]? Reorder in one tap"
- **The email:** A dynamic product block shows the exact item the customer bought last time, with a one-click reorder button.
- **The sequence:** If the customer doesn't act within seven days, a follow-up goes out.

**Best for:** eCommerce brands selling consumables with a natural reorder cycle, such as beauty, household, pet, or supplements.

#### Illustrative example: Price-drop alert

When a saved item gets cheaper, the customer who saved it is the most obvious person to alert.

- **Trigger:** A customer browses or saves a product without buying, and its price then falls.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Good news: [product name] just dropped to $[price]"
- **The email:** The new price next to the product, with a low-stock message when inventory is limited.
- **The sequence:** Sent once, as soon as the price changes.

**Best for:** retailers with fluctuating prices or limited inventory, where purchase intent is already established.

### Food delivery and quick service restaurants (QSR)

Most food orders start in an app, which is where a QSR brand learns what each customer orders and which offers they've saved. When the app is closed, email can pick up those signals, usually with a reminder or offer tied to something the customer already chose.

#### KFC Ecuador cashes in forgotten coupons for a 15% revenue lift

[KFC Ecuador](https://www.braze.com/customers/kfc-ecuador-case-study) runs 148 restaurants across the country. Many of its customers downloaded coupons in the KFC app and never used them, leaving revenue sitting unclaimed.

- **Trigger:** A customer downloads a mobile coupon in the app but doesn't redeem it.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your coupon's still waiting, and delivery's on us"
- **The email:** A value-added offer, with variants testing free delivery against a free menu item.
- **The sequence:** Email and push notifications ran as variants within the same [Braze Canvas](https://www.braze.com/product/journey-orchestration), to see which channel worked better for different customer segments. Intelligent Timing sent each message during that customer's own high-engagement window.
- **The results:** A 15% increase in revenue across the whole campaign.

**Best for:** QSR brands with app-based loyalty and coupon programs, where unused offers signal an opportunity to re-engage.

#### Illustrative example: Post-order win-back

How long counts as "lapsed" depends on how often a customer usually orders, so the window for this email is set to match patterns.

- **Trigger:** A customer places an order and then goes quiet for a set window, such as 30 days, adjusted to the brand's typical reorder cadence.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your usual, with a little something on us"
- **The email:** A personalized offer based on what they ordered last time.
- **The sequence:** If there's no response within seven days, a second email follows with a bigger incentive.

**Best for:** food delivery platforms and QSR brands with loyalty programs, where lapsing follows a predictable pattern.

#### Illustrative example: Loyalty tier upgrade

Reaching a new tier is something the customer earned, and an email can recognize it with a reward.

- **Trigger:** A customer crosses a spend threshold or completes a set number of orders.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Welcome to Gold: here's what you've unlocked"
- **The email:** Confirmation of the new tier, the reward that comes with it, and a look at what the next tier offers.
- **The sequence:** Sent once, as soon as the threshold is reached.

**Best for:** QSR and food delivery brands with a tiered loyalty program, where recognition encourages repeat orders.

### Media, streaming, and gaming

What a streaming subscriber cares about changes from week to week, with new seasons, live events, and favorite shows coming to an end. Email in this space is built around viewing history, so what someone watches decides what they hear about, and anyone already in the app can be left alone.

#### Kayo Sports lets AI call the shots for a 105% rise in cross-sells

[Kayo Sports](https://www.braze.com/customers/kayo-sports-case-study) is Australia's largest sports streaming service, with more than 50 sports live and on demand. Every day, AI decides how and when each subscriber hears from the brand.

- **Trigger:** Kayo Sports leveraged [BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™](https://www.braze.com/product/brazeai-decisioning-studio) to build a solution that delivers unique and personalized experiences for each subscriber. Decisioning Studio runs a daily process that recommends the best message, channel, timing, frequency, and offer for each subscriber. Email goes out when it's chosen for that person on that day.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your team plays tonight. Here's where to watch"
- **The email:** The decisioning engine sends an API payload with the copy version, offer, and send time, and [Liquid](https://www.braze.com/docs/user_guide/messaging/design_and_edit/personalize/liquid/using_liquid) personalizes the email template from that payload.
- **The sequence:** Email is one of four API-triggered journeys in Canvas, alongside SMS, push notifications, and in-app messages. Each journey runs only when the AI selects that channel.
- **The results:** In FY24, Kayo saw a 14% increase in subscriptions, an 8% increase in average annual occupancy, and a 105% increase in cross-sells to its sister service, BINGE. These are program-wide results across all four channels, and they came while average subscription prices rose 20%.

**Best for:** subscription streaming platforms using AI to choose the channel and content for each subscriber at scale.

#### Illustrative example: New content alert

A new season matters most to the people who watched the last one.

- **Trigger:** A new title or episode becomes available that matches a subscriber's viewing history or saved list.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "[Show name] season 3 is here"
- **The email:** A personalized recommendation with a button that goes straight to playback.
- **The sequence:** Held back for subscribers who are already active in the app.

**Best for:** streaming platforms with large content libraries, where matching the right title to the right subscriber keeps them engaged.

#### Illustrative example: Pre-renewal retention email

A mostly inactive subscriber has less reason to renew, so this email reminds them what the service offers.

- **Trigger:** A subscriber's renewal date approaches, and their engagement has declined over the past 30 days.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your year on [brand], and what's coming next"
- **The email:** A recap of what they've watched and a preview of what's coming, with the service itself as the reason to stay and no discount attached.
- **The sequence:** One triggered email ahead of the renewal date.

**Best for:** subscription streaming services where cancellations cluster around renewal.

### Travel and hospitality

People can spend weeks deciding where to go, then months waiting to leave. Email covers both stretches, with offers and member prices while they browse and booking details once they've committed.

#### Luxury Escapes hits 142% of its signup goal in two weeks

[Luxury Escapes](https://www.braze.com/customers/luxury-escapes-case-study) is a premium travel brand with more than eight million members worldwide. When it launched its LuxPlus+ membership program, the daily newsletter got a redesign.

- **Trigger:** The newsletter goes out on a daily schedule, and Braze Catalog and Liquid Personalization checks each subscriber's membership status at the moment of sending and tailors the message.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Today's escapes, with member prices inside"
- **The email:** Every offer block was redesigned with three states, chosen instantly based on the subscriber's membership status. [Braze Catalogs](https://www.braze.com/docs/user_guide/data/activation/catalogs/use#using-catalogs-in-a-message) update the eligible LuxPlus+ regions in one click, which keeps program messaging out of the 27 markets where LuxPlus+ isn't available.
- **The sequence:** The newsletter ran daily alongside the program launch email.
- **The results:** A 10% increase in click-through rate for the daily newsletter in the first month of the campaign.

Alongside the newsletter, Luxury Escapes sent a one-off launch email to its full database.

- **Trigger:** A one-off launch send to the full subscriber database.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Introducing LuxPlus+: member-only prices on every escape"
- **The email:** Redesigned offer blocks with personalized content, member pricing, and a clear way for non-members to sign up.
- **The sequence:** An A/B test identified the winning variant, which was then used for the send to 85% of the full database.
- **The results:** A 100% increase in click-through rate compared with Luxury Escapes' other full-database campaigns, a 1.5% increase in open rate from the winning variant, and 142% of the membership signup goal in the first two weeks.

**Best for:** travel brands with a tiered membership program and a large global subscriber base, including brands launching or relaunching a membership tier.

#### Illustrative example: Pre-departure sequence

Between booking and takeoff, travelers have plenty of questions, and the answers depend on their booking.

- **Trigger:** A booking is confirmed, which starts a countdown tied to the departure date.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "7 days until Lisbon: everything you need"
- **The email:** Dynamic content pulls in booking details and destination tips, plus an app download prompt for travelers who haven't installed it yet.
- **The sequence:** A series of emails at set points before departure, such as seven days and 24 hours out.

**Best for:** travel brands with a booking-to-departure window long enough for a multi-step pre-travel sequence.

### Financial services and fintech

Opening an account or consolidating a pension takes several steps, and people often stop partway through. Triggered emails can pick up at the step where someone paused, with enough detail to answer whatever held them up.

#### Legal & General gets customers moving with 220% more email-driven actions

[Legal & General](https://www.braze.com/customers/legal-and-general) is a Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index (FTSE 100) financial services group in the United Kingdom, covering pensions, investments, insurance, and asset management. Its 190-year history had left it with separate systems and batch processing that made real-time personalization difficult, so it moved to Braze partner Tealium to build strong data foundations and then connected to Braze to harness that data.

- **Trigger:** Real-time events and data on each customer's life stage, product holdings, and interaction behavior.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "A quick check on your cover after your move"
- **The email:** Dynamic content, personalized with Liquid by life stage, demographics, product holdings, and behavior, recommends the most relevant product or guidance for each customer.
- **The sequence:** Email works alongside SMS, push notifications, [Content Cards](https://www.braze.com/product/content-cards), and messaging apps in a cross-channel lifecycle program.
- **The results:** A 220% overall increase in meaningful actions resulting from email activity, and a 30% increase in engagement compared with L&G's previous email capabilities. Across the wider program, digital registrations rose 125%, and app downloads rose 85%.

**Best for:** financial services and insurance brands with a broad product range and strict rules on how customer data is handled.

#### Stash invests in onboarding emails for a 72% jump in opens

[Stash](https://www.braze.com/customers/stash-case-study) is a US personal finance app that lets people start investing with as little as $5. Getting started means verifying a Social Security number (SSN), signing agreements, linking a bank account, and making a deposit, so the team grouped new users by how far they got in the process and sent each group messaging about its next step.

- **Trigger:** A new user stalls at a specific onboarding step.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "You're one step from your first investment"
- **The email:** Content matched to the step each user is stuck on. For users hesitating at SSN verification, for example, the messaging focuses on security.
- **The sequence:** Two Canvases split the journey. One starts right after signup and covers SSN verification, and the other starts after verification and routes users by their next action. Email runs alongside push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS.
- **The results:** A 72% increase in email open rate and a 64% increase in email click-through rate. Across the campaign, conversion rose 20.34% for starting a first deposit.

**Best for:** fintech brands with a multi-step onboarding flow, where losing users at any single step means losing a customer.

#### Illustrative example: Product eligibility trigger

Hitting a savings goal or receiving a credit limit increase can change which products make sense for a customer.

- **Trigger:** A customer reaches a threshold, such as a credit limit increase, a savings milestone, or an investment goal.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "You've hit your savings goal. What's next?"
- **The email:** A personalized product recommendation that fits the customer's current financial situation and life stage, with one clear next step.
- **The sequence:** Sent once, when the threshold is crossed.

**Best for:** banks and financial services brands with a broad product range and account data they can trigger from.

### Subscription and consumer apps

A subscription can be lost early, when a new subscriber never really gets started, or late, when renewal arrives, and nobody has reminded them why they signed up. Both show up in the data ahead of time, which gives email a chance to step in.

#### Dyn Media's renewal emails keep 75% of targeted customers subscribed

[Dyn Media](https://www.braze.com/customers/dyn-media-case-study), part of Axel Springer, is a European sports streaming subscription platform. Half the subscribers who joined during the 2024 European Handball Championship canceled within a month, and subscribers on annual subscriptions were up for renewal. Dyn wanted to proactively win back and extend subscriptions from both these groups.

#### Dyn for the win-back:

- **Trigger:** Subscribers acquired during the championship who canceled within the first month.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "The handball's over. The season isn't."
- **The email:** Two A/B-tested versions showed what a subscription offers beyond the championship, with personalized promotions. Custom attributes pulled from Snowflake through Cloud Data Ingestion, including most-watched sports, viewing habits, and subscription status, drove the segmentation.
- **The sequence:** A targeted win-back send, with the winning version identified through the A/B test.
- **The results:** A 10% re-engagement rate.

#### Dyn's most loyal subscribers got a very different email as their renewal approached:

- **Trigger:** Annual subscribers from the summer 2023 launch whose subscriptions were nearing expiration.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your personal code to keep watching"
- **The email:** A unique voucher code for each customer, imported into Braze and assigned to their profile.
- **The sequence:** A recurring daily email over several days, made up of an initial email and two reminders, with exclusion rules to prevent duplicate sends.
- **The results:** An 80% unique open rate, a 50% unique click rate, and 75% of targeted subscribers extending their subscriptions after the three waves.

**Best for:** subscription platforms with event-driven sign-up spikes and a defined renewal window.

#### Illustrative example: Usage-based re-engagement

Someone who hasn't opened an app in weeks might not know what's changed since they last looked.

- **Trigger:** A subscriber hasn't used the product for a set window, such as 14 days for an app or 30 days for a platform.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Here's what you've missed since [date]"
- **The email:** A personalized summary of new features, content, or activity since they last logged in, with a single button to jump back in.
- **The sequence:** One triggered email once the inactivity window passes.

**Best for:** consumer apps and subscription services that want to reach low-usage subscribers well before renewal.

## Email marketing examples by lifecycle moment

A customer's first email from a brand and their last one before going quiet have very different jobs to do. The marketing email examples below take each of those moments in turn, roughly in the order they happen along the [email marketing customer journey](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/email-marketing-customer-journey).

1. Welcome and onboarding

A new subscriber has just said yes to hearing from you, and the first few emails decide whether they keep reading. A short series gives each email one job, so nobody gets a single message that tries to do everything at once.

#### Illustrative example: Three-part welcome series

- **Trigger:** Someone signs up for email or creates an account.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Welcome in. Here's what to expect", with preview text that confirms how often emails will arrive.
- **The email:** The first email confirms the signup, says how often emails will arrive, and asks for a couple of preferences, such as favorite categories. The second shows how to get the most from the product or app. The third makes a first-purchase offer to anyone who hasn't bought yet.
- **The sequence:** Two or three days apart. Anyone who makes a purchase exits the series before the offer email, so they never get a discount on something they've already bought.
- **What to watch:** How many new subscribers set preferences, and how many make a first purchase or take a first key action within the series.

**Best for:** any consumer brand with a steady flow of new signups, especially apps where the first action, such as linking an account or placing an order, matters most.

### 2. Browse and cart abandonment

Abandonment emails follow up on a shopper who showed interest and then left, either from a product page or from a full cart. Our guide to [abandoned cart emails](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/abandoned-cart-email) covers timing, content, and cross-channel follow-up in detail, so this example sticks to the basics.

#### Illustrative example: Cart reminder with a second nudge

- **Trigger:** A shopper adds items to their cart and leaves without checking out.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "You left something behind"
- **The email:** The items in the cart, shown with images and prices, and a button that takes the shopper straight back to checkout.
- **The sequence:** A first email goes out a few hours after the cart is abandoned. If there's no purchase, a second email the next day adds reviews or a delivery promise. The sequence stops the moment the order is placed.
- **What to watch:** Recovered orders as a share of abandoned carts, and the revenue they bring in.

**Best for:** eCommerce and retail brands with online checkout, where shoppers often compare before buying.

### 3. Post-purchase and replenishment

Post-purchase is where transactional vs. promotional email sit side by side. The order confirmation is a transactional message, while the review request or cross-sell that follows is promotional, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) judges an email by its primary purpose, so [adding a sales pitch to a receipt's subject line can make it count as commercial email](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business). Keeping the two apart makes each email easier to read, too.

#### Illustrative example: How-to-use email after delivery

- **Trigger:** An order is marked as delivered.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your [product name] has arrived. Here's how to get started"
- **The email:** Simple setup or care tips for the exact product the customer bought, plus one or two items that go well with it.
- **The sequence:** Sent a day or two after delivery, then followed a week or so later by a review request. A replenishment reminder, like the one in the retail section above, can follow once the product would typically be running low.
- **What to watch:** Clicks on the tips, review submissions, and repeat purchase rate among customers who received the email.

**Best for:** brands selling products that need setup, care, or regular reordering, such as beauty, home goods, and electronics.

### 4. Personalization and recommendations

These personalized email marketing examples go further than adding a first name. The content itself changes from person to person, based on what each customer has bought, browsed, or watched. For more on why personalization matters and how to approach it, see [why personalized emails still matter to marketers](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/why-its-more-important-than-ever-to-personalize-emails).

#### Illustrative example: "Picked for you" recommendations

- **Trigger:** A scheduled weekly send, with content assembled for each recipient at the moment of sending.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "New in, picked for you"
- **The email:** A dynamic content block of product recommendations based on each customer's purchase and browsing history, with items they've already bought left out.
- **The sequence:** Send-time optimization delivers each email at the hour that person usually opens. Customers who bought in the past few days are held back so they're not shown more of the same.
- **What to watch:** Click-through rate on the recommendation block, and revenue per email compared with a non-personalized version.

**Best for:** brands with a large catalog or content library and enough customer data to tell people apart.

### 5. Loyalty and VIP

Loyalty emails work with what a customer already has, whether that's a points balance, a tier, or a membership perk. A loyalty member usually has a reason to open these, because there's something of theirs inside.

#### Illustrative example: Points expiry reminder

- **Trigger:** A loyalty member has points due to expire within the next 30 days.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "Your 1,200 points expire on [date]"
- **The email:** The exact points balance and expiration date, plus a few rewards the member can claim right now with what they have.
- **The sequence:** A first email 30 days before expiration and a final reminder a few days before. Members who redeem in between exit the sequence.
- **What to watch:** Redemption rate before expiration, and purchases made by members who redeem.

**Best for:** brands with a points-based or tiered loyalty program, where unused rewards are a reason to get in touch.

### 6. Seasonal and promotional

Sales events bring the biggest sends of the year, and the temptation is to send everyone everything. Segmenting by engagement lets your most loyal customers hear first and keeps people who just bought from seeing the same item at a lower price.

#### Illustrative example: Early access holiday sale

- **Trigger:** A scheduled seasonal sale, with a segment of loyalty members and recently engaged subscribers chosen ahead of time.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "You're in early: our holiday sale starts now"
- **The email:** Early access to the sale, with featured products drawn from each customer's favorite categories.
- **The sequence:** The early access email goes to the chosen segment a day before the sale opens to everyone else. The full list gets the main announcement on launch day, and anyone who bought in the previous week is left out of both.
- **What to watch:** Revenue from the early access segment compared with the full list, and unsubscribe rate across the event.

**Best for:** retail and consumer brands that run sales around holidays or key dates in their calendar.

### 7. Win-back

A customer who has gone quiet hasn't necessarily gone for good. A short win-back series gives them a reason to come back and, if they don't, an easy way to say so.

#### Illustrative example: Lapsed customer series with a sunset step

- **Trigger:** A customer hasn't bought or opened an email in a set window, such as 90 days.
- **Subject line (illustrative):** "It's been a while. Here's what's new"
- **The email:** What's changed since their last visit, such as new products, features, or content, plus a personalized offer based on what they used to buy.
- **The sequence:** A second email follows a week later if there's no response. A final email asks whether they still want to hear from the brand, and anyone who doesn't engage is moved to a lower-frequency list, which protects deliverability for everyone else.
- **What to watch:** Reactivation rate, revenue from reactivated customers, and how many choose to unsubscribe or reduce frequency.

**Best for:** brands with a large base of past customers and a clear signal of when someone has lapsed.

## Email marketing examples that work as a sequence, not on their own

Most email marketing strategy examples come down to timing: an email works because of what reached the customer before it and what was held back after. Planning that across email, push, SMS, and in-app is a big part of any [email marketing strategy](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-high-impact-email-marketing-strategy). Here are three campaigns we've already shown you, mapped out step by step across channels.

### Cart recovery: in-app first, SMS last

An in-app message only reaches people who come back to the app on their own, so it's the gentlest place to start. Email and SMS follow only if the in-app message isn’t successful.

1. **In-app message:** The next time the shopper opens the app, a message shows their saved cart with a button to check out.
2. **Email:** If there's no purchase within a few hours, the cart email described under browse and cart abandonment goes out, with the items, prices, and a link back to checkout.
3. **SMS:** If neither has been opened by the next day, a short text message goes to shoppers who've opted in to SMS.
4. **Exit:** A purchase at any point stops every remaining step, on every channel.

### Replenishment: one reminder, no competing promotions

If the weekly sale email lands the same morning as a reorder reminder, the customer has two different asks from the brand to choose between. This sequence gives the reminder a few days before the next send:

1. **Email:** A set time after the original order, the replenishment reminder from the retail section goes out, showing the product the customer bought and a one-click reorder button.
2. **Suppression:** The customer is flagged for the next few days, and any promotional send already queued for that week checks the flag and skips them.
3. **Reorder or follow-up:** A reorder clears the flag and puts the customer back on the regular promotional schedule. Without one, a follow-up reminder goes out before the flag expires.

### Win-back: email vs. push, with a holdout

You can't tell from a lapsed customer's profile whether an email or a push notification is more likely to bring them back, but a test can show which channel reactivates more of them overall:

1. **Split:** Customers who haven't bought in a set window, such as 90 days, are randomly divided into three groups. One gets the win-back offer by email, one gets it by push, and a holdout group gets nothing.
2. **Same offer:** Both channels carry identical offers, so the channel is the only thing that differs.
3. **Measure:** After two weeks, reactivation in each group is compared with the holdout. That shows how many customers each channel brought back beyond those who would have returned without a message.
4. **Next round:** Whichever channel reactivated more customers becomes the default for the next win-back cycle. Customers who responded to neither move to the sunset email in the lifecycle win-back example.

### What it takes to run sequences like these

All three of the above sequences depend on the same few capabilities working across every channel at once:

- **One customer profile** that every channel reads from and updates, covering purchases, app activity, email opens, and consent.
- **Exit and suppression rules** that apply everywhere, so a purchase made after the in-app message stops the email and text.
- **Frequency caps** that count every message a customer gets, whether it's email, push, SMS, or in-app.
- **A single record of opt-outs and preferences**, checked by your system before any channel sends.
- **Holdout groups** that let a test measure what a campaign added beyond what customers would have done naturally, without prompting.

### What happens without them

By contrast, when you run each channel through separate tools, using the data each system has access to, it creates a poor customer experience. For example:

- A shopper abandons a cart and then gets the same reminder by email and by push within a few minutes, because neither system knows the other has already sent one.
- A frequency cap of three emails a week does nothing about the four push notifications and two texts the same person already received that week.
- A customer opts out in one tool, but other systems continue sending messages because the preference never reached them.

## What makes these email marketing examples work

The best email marketing examples above cover everything from sports streaming to first-time investing, and the same five traits apply to each. Use them as a quick check against your own campaigns before you dig into the full list of [email campaign best practices](https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/email-campaign-best-practices). Here's what good email marketing examples tend to have in common:

- **The trigger is based on a customer action (or inaction).** Grove Collaborative's email fires when a browsing session ends without a purchase, and KFC Ecuador's fires when a downloaded coupon goes unused. Both arrive while the customer's interest is still recent.
- **Each email has a single job.** The welcome series spreads preferences, product tips, and a first-purchase offer across a sequence of three emails, and Stash matches each onboarding email to the single step where a user has stalled. This makes the next step clear to the customer.
- **The content changes for each person.** Luxury Escapes' newsletter offer blocks switch between three states based on membership status, and KFC Ecuador used Intelligent Timing to send each message during that customer's own high-engagement window.
- **The email is one step in a channel sequence.** Dyn Media's renewal campaign ran as an initial email and two reminders, with exclusion rules to stop duplicates, and the cart recovery sequence only moves to email and SMS when the in-app message doesn't work.
- **The message only goes to people who want it.** Grove only emailed shoppers who had opted in and hadn't heard from the brand in the previous 24 hours, and the lifecycle win-back series ends by asking lapsed customers whether they still want to hear from the brand. Since February 2024, Gmail has required bulk senders to offer one-click unsubscribe and stay under a spam-rate threshold. With sender requirements like these, a clean, consented list now decides whether an email reaches the inbox at all.

## How Braze customers build the emails behind these examples

Each email referenced in this article represents a step in a cross-channel journey run from a single customer profile. [Braze email](https://www.braze.com/product/email) works alongside push, SMS, in-app, and WhatsApp from that same profile, so sequences like the cart recovery (that moves from in-app to email to SMS) run as one journey. Teams build those emails in a drag-and-drop editor with reusable content blocks.

[Creative Studio](https://www.braze.com/product/creative-studio) gives teams reusable layouts to quickly build content variants, while [BrazeAI™](https://www.braze.com/product/brazeai) generates on-brand content and selects which version each recipient gets, and [Intelligent Timing](https://www.braze.com/docs/user_guide/brazeai/intelligence/intelligent_timing/) chooses each person's send time.

To measure campaign performance, teams can choose to hold back a control group to compare against those who receive your messaging campaign. This gives you a more accurate picture of measured lift vs. a blanket before-and-after comparison, in which some customers may have purchased or taken action without the prompt.

_See how consumer brands build the email programs behind these examples on Braze._

## FAQs for email marketing examples

### What are examples of email marketing?

Email marketing examples are real campaigns that show what a brand sent, why it sent it, and what happened next, from a welcome message to a win-back offer. Common examples include a welcome series for new subscribers, a reminder after a shopper abandons a cart, a replenishment email when a product runs low, and an offer for a lapsed customer.

### What are the most common types of marketing emails?

The most common types of marketing emails are welcome, promotional, transactional, lifecycle and triggered, newsletter and content, and re-engagement emails. Transactional emails confirm something the customer did, such as placing an order, while promotional emails are scheduled by the brand. Triggered emails respond to behavior like browsing, and re-engagement emails go to customers who have gone quiet.

### What makes an email marketing campaign effective?

An effective email marketing campaign is triggered by something the customer did, gives each email one job, and changes its content for each recipient. It also works as one step in a sequence alongside other channels, and it goes only to people who opted in, which keeps the list healthy and helps ensure that emails reach the customer’s inbox.

### What are examples of personalized marketing emails?

Personalized marketing emails include a browse abandonment email showing the exact product someone viewed, a weekly email of recommendations based on purchase history, and a newsletter whose offers change with each reader's membership status. Personalization can also cover timing, with each email sent at the hour that person is most likely to open it.

### How do brands use email alongside SMS and push in a sequence?

Brands use email as one step in a cross-channel sequence, where each message depends on what the customer did after the last one. A cart reminder, for example, might start as an in-app message, move to email a few hours later, and reach SMS only if both go unopened, stopping on every channel once the customer checks out.

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*Published 2026-10-28T19:45:00.000Z · canonical lives at https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/email-marketing-examples*