Transform Subscribers into Loyal Customers: The Ultimate D2C Email Funnel Guide

In the Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) world, loyal customers are significantly more valuable than new ones. Past research indicates that returning shoppers spend up to 67% more than first-timers, demonstrating how an effective email marketing strategy can benefit your revenue and brand loyalty.

However, building an impactful D2C email funnel isn’t just about sending promotions or product updates. You need to manage overwhelming data, integrate multiple marketing technologies, and prove financial impact under tight timelines – all while ensuring your email content resonates enough to drive profitable growth. 

We know how stressful it is to demonstrate the revenue impact of your campaigns, especially with so many channels to juggle. The good news? Data-driven, automated, and personalized emails can ease your workload while clearly illustrating return on investment (ROI) and performance gains.

Think of this guide as your blueprint to accelerate your ability to generate revenue from email. From real-time personalization to advanced segmentation, we’ll show you how to align campaigns with broader business outcomes.

In 2024, e-mail marketing revenue was projected to surpass 9.5 billion USD. Few, if any, other channels can compare with its average ROI. In a late 2023 poll, more than half of responding marketing professionals reported a 100 percent improvement rate in their e-mail marketing campaigns’ ROI, leaving no doubt why e-mail has maintained its claim to fame since its 1970s advent. (Source).

To understand the current state of D2C email marketing, it is also essential to examine the main challenges faced by D2C email marketers:

• Building brand awareness: With many competing direct-to-consumer brands, standing out in crowded inboxes is more challenging than ever.
• High competition and acquisition costs: Paid ads and influencers are expensive. Email is a cost-effective channel that fosters deeper relationships at scale.
• Integration issues: Siloed data across eCommerce platforms, loyalty apps, and CRM systems can hamper personalization efforts.
• Data overload: Sorting large data sets to glean insights becomes overwhelming without a centralized platform.

Below, we break down the funnel into four main stages: Awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Each stage has distinct goals, email types, and metrics. Emarsys-powered examples illustrate how to put them into action.

Awareness (top of funnel)

What is it? At this earliest funnel stage, you’re attracting potential subscribers who might not be familiar with your brand yet. The aim is to pique their curiosity and encourage them to learn more about your products or mission.

Goal: Attract new subscribers and build an initial sense of trust or intrigue that keeps them engaging.

Tips to implement:

• Define your value proposition: Clearly communicate why a new subscriber should care about your brand—be it unique product features, competitive pricing, or an impactful mission statement.
• Craft welcome emails: A multi-email welcome series sets the tone for future communications. Consider including brand values, product overviews, or a small incentive (like a discount) to nudge a first purchase.
• Offer a lead magnet: Downloadable or PDF guides, free webinars, or e-books can effectively gather emails. Using SAP Emarsys’s dynamic content capabilities helps tailor these magnets to different audience interests.
• Leverage content promotion: Introducing blog posts, lookbooks, or recipes in your top-of-funnel emails can warm leads by demonstrating expertise. Tools like SAP Emarsys Cross-Channel Marketing Automation ensure these promotions reach the right segments.

Example: A D2C coffee subscription brand captures new subscribers with a 15% discount on their first delivery. After sign-up, they receive a three-part welcome series:

• Email 1 introduces the brand’s roasting philosophy and highlights their most popular blends.
• Email 2 uses dynamic content to recommend the ideal roast based on the subscriber’s preferences (light vs. bold, single-origin vs. blend).
• Email 3 includes a brewing guide tailored to their selected roast and a clear CTA to start their subscription.

With SAP Emarsys automation, the brand personalizes content based on quiz results or browsing behavior—building trust while nudging toward first purchase.

Key metrics: Open rates, click-through rates, subscription growth. Want deeper knowledge on hooking new subscribers? Learn to craft lifecycle emails that convert.

Consideration (middle of funnel)

What is it? At the consideration stage, leads are “warmed up” but not entirely convinced. They’re actively evaluating whether your brand or product is worth the investment, comparing you against competitors.

Goal: Nurture leads by providing more in-depth knowledge, building trust, and demonstrating your unique selling propositions (USPs).

Tips to implement:

• Educational emails: Offer detailed insights about features, ingredient sourcing, brand ethics, or user stories that speak directly to potential concerns.
• Leverage social proof: Highlight glowing testimonials, user reviews, or influencer endorsements. An SAP Emarsys-enabled brand can dynamically insert real-time review snippets to show off fresh feedback.
• Invite interactive engagement: Webinars, Q&A sessions, or virtual demos let you gather first-party data and address hesitations. Emarsys event triggers can seamlessly remind sign-ups about these events.
• Segment for relevance: If you have a wide product range, tailor email content to subscriber subsets. For instance, if you’re a D2C electronics brand, your “home office” segment might appreciate relevant product comparisons, while your “gaming” segment would prefer specialized add-on accessories.

Example: A D2C vegan cosmetics brand sends a “Behind the Scenes” email series. Each email covers one aspect of its supply chain (ethically sourced, cruelty-free, etc.). With SAP Emarsys analytics, they can see which topic yields the best engagement—then pivot future emails to highlight those aspects more frequently.

Key metrics: Click-through rates, time on site, content downloads, product page visits. Check out customer retention tips to learn how thorough brand interactions sustain consumer interest over this mid-funnel phase.

Conversion (bottom of funnel)

Definition: This is the crucial moment where nurtured leads decide to buy (or not). Your emails should remove final roadblocks—price hesitations, shipping concerns, or cart abandonment—and push them to complete the purchase.

Goal: Convert leads into paying customers through well-timed offers, frictionless CTAs, and personalized re-engagement tactics.

Tips to implement

• Promotional and discount emails: For cost-sensitive audiences, short-term sales or “exclusive for subscribers” deals can close the sale fast. Emarsys’s segmentation ensures only relevant groups see significant discounts.
• Cart abandonment workflows: If a shopper drops out mid-purchase, Emarsys can automatically send a reminder email, possibly offering free shipping or a minor discount to sweeten the deal.
• Upsell and cross-sell: Provide suggestions based on the user’s browsing/purchase history. For instance, you can highlight complementary products or newly launched items to encourage a higher cart value.
• Clear CTAs: Ensure minimal friction. Prominent “Checkout Now” or “Complete Purchase” buttons that lead directly to their cart can significantly raise conversion rates.

Example: A D2C meal kit service sees people sign up for recipes but rarely finish subscription sign-ups. They implement a multi-email cart abandonment flow that can go like this: 

• First, a friendly reminder. 
• Next, a small discount for finishing the sign-up. If it’s still unclaimed, a final email highlighting unique meal variations. 
• The brand’s data reveals a boost in completed subscriptions thanks to these triggered emails.

Key Metrics: Conversion rates, average order value, revenue per email. For more ways to maximize revenue at critical moments, see email marketing KPIs & benchmarks to keep refining your approach.

To bring each funnel stage to life, these best practices ensure your strategy is scalable and data-driven, plus how SAP Emarsys can help in every step of the way.

1. Personalization is key

Use real-time data from browsing histories, purchases, or past email engagement. Key features like SAP Emarsys’s AI-driven personalization transform generic blasts into meaningful, relationship-building content.

With SAP Emarsys, you can personalize emails every step of the way. It connects you to the data you need to scale 1:1 personalization across every email throughout the campaigns you create. Use AI in your email marketing to tailor and personalize email subject lines or content based on your customers’ engagement levels, lifecycle stages, or predicted actions.

Example: A D2C brand selling pet supplies personalizes emails by referencing each subscriber’s pet type, offering breed-specific product recommendations. 

2. Use segmentation strategies to drive relevance

Segment your contact list by factors like demographics, purchase history, or engagement level. This ensures each group receives relevant updates, promotions, or content.

With SAP Emarsys, you can effortlessly segment your contacts based on data from any source, including their behavior across all customer touchpoints. Launch tailored email campaigns to segments with the highest revenue potential based on predicted actions and product affinities.

Example: A vegan bakery segments its email audience based on dietary preferences—vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free—collected via signup forms and past purchase behavior. When launching a new product line, each segment receives a tailored campaign: gluten-free subscribers get a spotlight on the bakery’s new flourless brownie; vegan customers see behind-the-scenes photos of the plant-based ingredients used. 

3. Leverage automation for efficiency

Automating your funnel emails—welcome series, cart abandoners, or reactivation campaigns—lets you consistently deliver timely outreach. 

From sending transactional emails that blend with your brand’s look and feel to orchestrating strategic multi-email and cross-channel campaigns, SAP Emarsys allows you to do everything from a single platform and removes all manual guesswork.

Example: A D2C electronics retailer triggers a series of how-to videos after a customer’s first purchase, building brand trust while encouraging further sales.

For more on the fundamentals, see the email marketing automation guide: definitions, strategies, tactics.

4. A/B test and optimize your content

Incremental improvements yield significant gains. You can refine what resonates with each segment by systematically testing subject lines, email designs, or calls to action. 

With SAP Emarsys, you can review and test emails at scale. See your emails through the eyes of your audience and send campaigns with confidence. Inbox Preview allows marketers to view how email campaigns will be displayed in the inboxes of the most popular desktop, web, and mobile email clients.

5. Optimize for mobile

More than half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. Ensure responsive layouts, fast-loading images, and succinct copy to maintain user attention. 

For extra guidance, SAP Emarsys helps unify your multi-device approach with advanced design tools and testing features. With its drag and drop images, block-based content, and personalization tokens, it integrates into your email designs. 

You can easily add personalized product recommendations and special offers into emails based on browsing behavior, product affinity, and past purchase history. 

6. Keep tabs on compliance and deliverability

Staying on the right side of GDPR/CCPA ensures you keep user trust. High deliverability is also crucial—if your messages never reach the inbox, you can’t drive conversions. Let’s say, for example, a global retailer sets up double opt-in and clear unsubscribe processes, leading to better inbox placement and a more engaged subscriber base.

Even before GDPR came into force in May 2018, data protection was a core tenet of SAP Emarsys, and we were one of the first marketing platforms to be ISO 27001 certified. With the adoption of GDPR, this has come more into focus, so we have prepared a series of articles for all our customers that lay out what SAP Emarsys does concerning your data, and how we support your customers’ data. Learn more here.

Learn more about enhancing your email deliverability tactics while honoring privacy regulations.

7. Leverage the power of AI

AI capabilities within SAP Emarsys can forecast the best times to send, adjust discount levels based on predicted user spend, or propose cross-sells uniquely relevant to each subscriber’s interactions.

You optimize email campaigns based on performance. With insightful AI-powered analytics, SAP Emarsys helps you understand your customers and drive profitable growth. Our reporting capabilities are baked into the platform, making it easy for you to understand what’s working and pivot quickly to improve any under-performing metrics.

Example: A D2C meal kit brand uses AI to analyze each customer’s past orders and dietary preferences, then curates weekly recipe recommendations tailored to their tastes—like plant-based options for vegan subscribers or quick-prep meals for busy parents. These personalized emails include dynamic product blocks and “Add to Next Box” CTAs, making it effortless to reorder or try something new.

We’ve talked about key D2C email marketing best practices. Next, let’s take a look at how leading brands put them into practice:

Estée Lauder – emotional engagement and brand loyalty

Estée Lauder excels in creating emotional connections and fostering loyalty through personalized experiences and immersive brand engagements. They craft email campaigns that resonate emotionally with subscribers, nurturing enduring relationships and transforming subscribers into devoted brand advocates. Let’s take a deeper look at their journey with SAP Emarsys.

Challenge: They needed a funnel to transform subscribers into devoted advocates, focusing on emotional resonance rather than discount-driven tactics.

Estée Lauder’s approach:

Awareness stage: Estée Lauder implements a multi-part welcome series for new subscribers, likely introducing the brand and its values. Concerning email frequency, the brand sends an average of 14.02 emails per week, 56% higher than the previous year and 601% above the industry average.

Consideration: Personalized content uses a “super waterfall” approach with SAP Emarsys to tailor product suggestions and highlight trending items if cart or browse data is unavailable. For product recommendations: 

• If a customer added items to their cart in the past week, those products are shown in the email. 
• If no cart additions, recently viewed products are displayed. 
• As a fallback, trending products from relevant categories are shown.

Conversion: Heavy emphasis on promotions (80% of their emails) drives sales but is balanced by brand storytelling. This percentage is 45% higher than the previous year and 70% above the industry average. They also started implementing cart abandonment email strategies.

Retention: Onboarding flows and post-purchase journeys keep loyal fans returning and build emotional loyalty. The Estée Lauder brand focuses on perfecting the art of loyalty to drive retention and revenue.

Additional email marketing strategies that benefited Estée Lauder include:

• Visual Content Editor (VCE): Estée Lauder used SAP Emarsys VCE to create visually appealing email campaigns. Learn how VCE works.
• Mobile optimization: With the addition of Mobile Wallet to the SAP Emarsys platform, Estée Lauder leverages this for digital vouchers, coupons, and loyalty cards.
• Personalization: The brand uses data insights to create personalized, omnichannel experiences. Learn more about how you can personalize every interaction with AI and real-time data.

Kellanova’s AI-driven D2C email marketing funnel

Challenge: Kellanova, a global snack leader behind brands like Pringles and Cheez-It, needed a robust funnel to maintain interest across an ever-growing product range. Let’s look at their journey.

Kellanova’s approach:

Awareness: Their goal was to attract new subscribers and introduce Kellanova’s snack-led brands. This involved

• Welcome emails: Kellanova uses personalized welcome campaigns to introduce its portfolio, such as Pringles and Cheez-It, leveraging SAP Emarsys’s AI-powered personalization tools.
• Promotional content: Highlight new product launches like Pringles Harvest Blends through engaging visuals and storytelling in emails.
• Omnichannel integration: Emails are part of Kellanova’s broader omnichannel strategy, ensuring consistency across platforms to drive brand awareness.

Consideration: They wanted to educate subscribers and nurture interest in products. Here’s how their strategy panned out:

• Product recommendations: AI-driven personalization suggests products based on browsing behavior and consumer preferences (e.g., healthier snack options like Pringles Harvest Blends).
  Interactive content: Use quizzes and surveys to engage consumers and collect first-party data while educating them about their snacking habits.
  Shoppable media: Embed links to e-commerce platforms directly within emails for seamless shopping experiences.

Conversion: Drive purchases and convert leads into customers. This involved:

• Transactional emails: Send order confirmations and updates with branded visuals, ensuring a cohesive experience.
• Promotional offers: Use limited-time discounts or bundle deals tailored to consumer preferences to encourage purchases.
• Cart abandonment emails: Automate reminders for incomplete purchases, including personalized product suggestions powered by SAP Emarsys AI solutions.

Retention: Their objective was to build loyalty and encourage repeat purchases. Strategies involved: 

• Post-purchase follow-up: Request feedback via surveys or reviews after purchases to improve customer experience and engagement.
• Loyalty program emails: Highlight rewards or points earned through purchases, encouraging continued interaction with the brand.
• Exclusive offers: Provide early access to new products or special discounts for loyal customers.

Building a successful D2C email funnel is about more than just sending updates or promotions. By aligning each stage—Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, and Loyalty—with your brand’s more significant revenue and growth goals, you’ll create a self-sustaining system that turns subscribers into passionate, long-term customers. The key? A strategic approach grounded in data, advanced automation, and thorough testing.

SAP Emarsys provides the AI-driven tools to integrate data sources, personalize at scale, and automate complex workflows—so your marketing team can focus on creativity, innovation, and ROI rather than manual processes.