Resending emails: Increase revenue with automated remailing

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Resending email campaigns can be a game-changer for your email marketing strategy, potentially boosting your open rates.

The best part? 

This strategy isn’t as complicated as other marketing tactics. You don’t need any advanced tools or extensive technical knowledge. 

With a few simple steps, you can set up an automated resend process to improve your email campaign performance.

In this article, we’ll answer the questions you might have and show why you should consider incorporating this approach into your email marketing strategy. 

We’ll tackle the following: 

• What is resending and how does it work?
• Resending emails: Pros and cons
• What results can you expect from resending emails?
• How to resend an email
• Email resending: The best practices

What is resending?

Resending an email is a common practice where unopened emails are sent again to subscribers after a set time. You can manually resend emails or use automation tools to schedule and manage resends.

According to our ecommerce-focused research, the majority of all email opens occur in the first 48 hours. This means that after two days, you can safely attempt to re-engage subscribers by resending the same email to anyone who didn’t open your initial email campaign — as long as you follow email best practices.

Resending emails: Pros and cons

Resending emails can be a useful practice in certain situations, but it also comes with its own set of drawbacks. 

The following table outlines the pros and cons of a resending email campaign:

Pros	Cons
Improves email response rate	Can come across as pushy or spammy
Addresses soft bounces	Can damage your reputation with email providers
Emphasizes urgent messages that may have been missed	Multiple resends can hurt email deliverability
Sparks the interest of non-openers
Ensures important information is reiterated

What results can you expect from resending emails?

It’s essential to understand that resending to non-openers shouldn’t be treated the same as the original email — after all, you’ve already removed the most engaged portion of your audience. The results of resending emails should be measured separately from the first send.

Usually, the open rate of resending email campaigns is about half of the original campaign. Click and conversion rates may vary. However, by boosting email campaigns this way, you can improve the aggregated overall campaign revenue.

For example, an Omnisend fashion and apparel customer with a 30K subscriber base had a 17.9% open rate for their original campaigns. After the boosted campaigns, the client recorded an increase of 8.6% in their open rate. 

Resending emails reached an additional 2,100 subscribers per send, and although click and conversion rates were lower, resending messages generated 10 extra orders and accounted for nearly 8% of the total campaign revenue.

How to resend an email

To get your message across effectively, here’s a quick guide to walk you through the steps of resending an email: 

1. Choose the emails to resend
2. Make improvements
3. Wait for 48 hours
4. Resend
5. Use automation

Choose the emails to resend

Resending emails can be a good approach to improve open rates and engagement, but it’s important to be strategic about which emails you choose to resend. This ensures you remain professional and courteous in your email communications. 

Here’s a breakdown of what to consider when selecting emails for resending:

• Open rate: If an email campaign had a low open rate, it might be worth considering a resend with revised content or a different approach. As such, focus on emails with a lower-than-average email open rate
• Time-sensitive information: Emails containing time-sensitive information, like event invitations or limited-time offers, can benefit from a resend to remind recipients before the deadline
• Delivery issues: If you observe that the original email might not have been delivered due to technical glitches or a full inbox, resending can ensure it reaches the recipient

Make improvements

Don’t just resend — consider optimizing your email for better results. 

Here are some elements to refine before hitting send again: 

• Subject line: Consider tweaking the subject line to make it more attention-grabbing. 
  
  For example, you can use action-oriented words as well as emojis to draw attention. You can also use Omnisend’s subject line tester to get feedback on the strength of your subject line and suggestions on how to improve it. 
• Preheader: Similar to the subject line, keep your preheader concise, as some email providers display only a limited number of characters. 
  
  Consider including a subtle CTA in the preheader to encourage recipients to open the email.
• Email content: Check if the content is still relevant and valuable to your subscribers. Refresh your email with the latest information like dates, statistics, recent offerings, and trends to keep your content relatable.

Wait for 48 hours

It’s important not to bombard the recipient with multiple emails in quick succession. Following-up too soon can come across as pushy or impatient. 

Give them time to read and respond to your original email first. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least 48 hours before resending. Within this timeframe, recipients can catch up on their inboxes and respond to your initial message.

Also, if you’re emailing someone in a different time zone, a 48-hour wait can ensure they’re back at their desk and have had a chance to see your message. 

However, the 48-hour window is just a guideline. For urgent matters or time-sensitive communications, a shorter waiting period may be more appropriate. For example, if you’re running a sale that ends in 36 hours, waiting 48 hours is too long.

Additionally, if the recipient’s autoresponder indicates they’ll be unavailable for a specific period, you can adjust your resend timing accordingly. Wait until after their return to send a follow-up.

Resend

The process of manually resending emails may vary slightly depending on your email client or platform, but the general steps are similar. 

Some email providers offer a resend button or functionality within the opened email itself. If available, this feature will automatically copy the content and open a new compose window with the recipient and subject line fields already populated. 

You can then make any adjustments and ensure all links and offers are functional. Additionally, verify that the recipients’ email addresses are correct. If you’re resending to a specific segment within your email list, make sure you’ve selected the right list or group. 

Lastly, make sure to double-check the email for typos. Once you’re confident that everything looks good, hit the resend button.

Use automation

Resending emails manually can be tedious, especially when dealing with large email lists, which is why certain email marketing tools offer functionalities to automate the process. 

These tools can allow you to schedule resends at specific times or set up rules to automatically resend emails that haven’t received a response within a certain timeframe. 

Omnisend, for example, offers powerful automation features to make your resending email campaign easier. One of the key features is the Campaign Booster, which automates the process of resending emails to subscribers who didn’t open the initial email message. 

The Campaign Booster works by identifying subscribers who didn’t open the initial email within a set timeframe, usually 24 or 48 hours. Once these subscribers are identified, the system automatically resends the same email campaign to them but with a fresh subject line. 

Take a look at how to set up an automated resending email campaign with Omnisend’s Campaign Booster feature.

Email resending: The best practices

Although resending emails can be very effective, this tactic shouldn’t be overused.

The Campaign Booster is perfect for the following campaigns:

• “The last chance” sale reminders
• New product alerts
• Popular back-in-stock emails
• Other important messaging

Here are some tips for when you may want to avoid resending emails:

• Don’t resend your campaigns if you are a daily sender. You are at risk of overwhelming your audience with promotional messages, which might result in more spam complaints and unsubscribes. If you notice your unsubscribe rate increasing with remails, dial them back.
• Don’t resend every single email, especially if it’s not essential and won’t “wow” your audience.
• Resending is not the best choice for announcing flash sales and other limited-time offers. Instead, consider sending SMS campaigns that are more effective in such time-sensitive cases.
• Don’t resend email campaigns to unengaged contacts. If you don’t keep your list clean and have a dedicated re-engagement strategy, flooding their inboxes with emails won’t help you. On the contrary, you can spoil your sender reputation by repeatedly approaching unengaged customers.

Summary

The numbers prove that resending email campaigns works. 

This strategy isn’t as sophisticated as in-depth audience segmentation or personalization, but that’s the best part — anyone can do it. Resending critical email campaigns can be an effective practice to help increase ROI and revenue.

Also, a percentage of your subscribers might miss your initial email for various reasons. Resending emails can ensure they always get the most important messages you send. 

Moreover, automating your resending email campaign makes the process a whole lot easier. With this, you can easily re-engage subscribers and potentially improve email performance.