Send branded Tracking emails to your customers

Purpose: Learn how you can send personalised, automated Tracking emails to your clients to inform them about the delivery status of their parcels.

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Did you know? Tracking emails have an open rate of 90-100 % - this makes them an unmissable opportunity to market your brand and offer promotions and calls to action to your online buyers. 

Step 1. Enable automated Tracking emails 

Tracking emails need to be enabled in both the Settings of your Sendcloud account and your Webshop Integration settings before they will be triggered. 

1. Go to Settings > Tracking messages > Email and toggle the "Send Tracking emails to customers" switch to Active.
   
2. Go to Settings > Integrations > Select your integration and click Configure > Make sure to tick the option "Allow Sendcloud to send tracking updates to customers." to enable the branded emails.

Step 2. Decide if you want to show order content and product images in your emails

You can decide whether to show purchased products in the tracking emails that are sent to your customers. This feature is inactive by default. To activate it, go to Settings > Tracking messages > Email > Toggle the option Show purchased products in tracking emails. You will see a placeholder in the email drafts and if you click Preview.

Purchased products can be toggled on/off for all 5 shipping emails. This cannot be done separately per country or per template. This means that if you activate order content, it will be visible for all shipping emails that you send to your customers.

If you activate purchased products, you will see a list of items with product images (unless images are not supported for your integration). The list of purchased products and the product images can only be activated or deactivated together. It is not possible to activate or deactivate them separately.

Step 3. Choose when to send a Tracking email 

You can send notification emails that will be triggered at five different stages of the delivery journey. All notification e-mails are available for Lite subscription and higher. When you use our Essential subscription, you are only able to activate the Ready for shipment e-mail.

They are not enabled by default, so you have full control over what kinds of notifications your customers will receive. For each type of email you want to activate, enter the relevant tab in Settings > Tracking > Tracking Emails and ensure the toggle is Active. 

1. Ready for shipment: sent 10 minutes after label creation within the Sendcloud panel. Consider disabling this option if you do not ship your packages on the same day as you print your shipping labels. 
2. Out for delivery: This message is sent out when the package receives the first scan from the carrier and indicates to the customer that the order is on its way (the most chosen option).
3. Delayed: This message will be sent if a package is delayed and will not be delivered at the previously indicated time. This message is currently supported by all carriers except Deutsche Post, DPD (including Benelux, DE, and AT), Lettre Suivie, and SEUR.  For these carriers, no email will be sent to notify the customer of the delay.
4. Ready for pick-up: This message is sent when the package is ready for collection at the service point. It's only applicable when the "Delivery to Service Point" shipping method is chosen. 
5. Delivered: This message is sent when the package has been successfully delivered.
6. Post-purchase: You can use this template to ask for reviews, share advice or resources about the product, offer discount codes, etc.

Please note: We are not able to prevent the customer still receiving e-mails with status updates from carriers.

Activate/Deactivate Toggle vs. Delete Button for country destinations

When you use the Activate/Deactivate Toggle to deactivate a country template, the messages won't be sent to this specific country. In the example below, you won't send this email to the United Kingdom.

When you use the Delete Button to remove a country template, then you will still send messages to this country if the template of Other Countries is active. 

Step 4. Edit the appearance of your tracking emails

Now that your tracking emails are enabled, it's possible to adjust both the appearance of the email itself and also the text that will be included in the body of the email. 

What can you adjust?

• Your brand
  When you create a brand in your Sendcloud account, your shop logo and brand color will be displayed on your tracking emails. If you have multiple brands and webshops, you can send unique tracking emails for each of them.
  If you have not installed a brand yet, we recommend doing this first via Settings > Brands to get the most out of your Tracking emails. Click here to see how to set up your brand.
• 'Reply to' email address
  With this option, you can add an email address that the customer can respond to directly from the Tracking email. 
• BCC email
  Do you want to receive a copy of the tracking messages in your own mailbox? Add an email address in BCC (blind copy) here.
• Are you sending a lot of packages abroad?
  It is also possible to add templates for countries you regularly ship to and adjust the messages accordingly. When you add any other country, the default language will be English.
  By default, we have already made Tracking emails available in English, Dutch, German & French. You can edit the text that is displayed on the email, as shown in Step 4.

Step 5. Personalize the content of your emails

We have provided some generic text for your Tracking emails, but you can edit the content of your emails however you like. You can use dynamic tags to automatically send personalized information per email, such as the tracking number and customer name. 

The following labels are available for your Tracking e-mails:

{{tracktrace}} - Shows the generated tracking link.

{{name}} - Shows the name of the recipient.

{{email}} - Shows the email address of the recipient.

{{companyname}} - Shows your company name.

{{ordernumber}} - Shows the order number of the shipment.

{{carrier}} - Shows the name of the carrier that belongs to the shipping method.

{{parcelstatus}} - Shows the status of the package

{{parcelshop}} - Parcel shop location where the parcel can be collected/dropped off for return

{{returnLabelType}} - Shows type of return label, for example QR code.

Good to know

Before you actually send these messages to your customers, it is always useful to preview them. Click the eye icon to preview your mail and send a test mail to your email address, or view how the email will look on a mobile device. 

Step 6. Set up Tracking messages for return shipments (optional)

These messages will only be sent when you have selected a brand for the return shipment. You can either create a manual return or create a return with the return portal to process your returns. You can enable them the same way as shown in Step 1.

1. Label created: This message is sent when the label is created within the Sendcloud panel. If you don't activate this email, the label will not be sent to the customer.
2. Handed in at drop-off: Indicates that the package has been returned to the selected service point.
3. Return received: An email is sent to your customer when the parcel has been received at the return address.

Step 7. Post-purchase emails (Trustpilot, Google Review, REVIEWS.io)

The post-purchase emails are only available from a Lite subscription or higher. 

Sendcloud allows you to send post-purchase emails to your customers. You can choose to use a Standard Template to request reviews, share product advice and resources, offer discount codes, and more, or set up Automatic Feedback Service provided by Trustpilot.

How to set up post-purchase emails (Standard Template)

Just like setting up your Shipping and Returns emails, you can also set up your Post-purchase emails through Settings > Tracking emails.

1. Select Post-purchase 
2. Click on Post-purchase email
3. Fill in the Subject of your email, the Button text, and the Button link
4. Next, you can add and edit the body of the text, change the style of the text, and add dynamic tags like {{companyname}}
5. Choose a time frame for sending the post-purchase email, ranging from immediately to one month later.
   
6. Make sure to set the toggle to Active to enable the Post-purchase email

Automated Feedback Service (AFS) provided by Trustpilot

Trustpilot's Automatic Feedback Service (AFS) streamlines the process of collecting customer reviews. By automating this task, AFS helps businesses enhance their online reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and gain valuable insights. Reviews gathered through AFS are labeled as verified on Trustpilot, adding credibility to your customer feedback.

1. Select Post-purchase
2. Click on Automated feedback service 
3. Fill in the Trustpilot BCC email
4. Choose a time frame for sending the post-purchase email, ranging from immediately to one month later.
5. Make sure to set the toggle to Active to enable the Post-purchase email

Once you set up either the Standard Template or AFS, your post-purchase email will be sent to your customer within the timeframe you selected. If the parcel is marked as delayed during shipping, the post-purchase email will not be sent. This helps prevent negative reviews resulting from carrier-related issues.

Carrier ratings

The carrier ratings are turned on by default. It's a five-star system at the bottom of the Delivered tracking email. Your customers can use this feature to rate their experience with the carrier (e.g. DHL).

Troubleshooting

If your customers report that they are not correctly receiving tracking emails, here are some steps you can take to check that everything's running smoothly. 

1. Check that notifications are being sent - in the Shipped Labels overview, click the eye icon to view the Label Details and then look under the heading Notification History to see which emails the recipient of this particular label received.
   
2. Check that Tracking emails are enabled in all three areas of the Sendcloud panel: at the top of the Tracking page, in your Integration settings, and for each individual email type you want to send.
3. Do you have the Tracking Page enabled? Are the dates in your emails not refreshing? Then go to Settings > Tracking > Tracking Page and deactivate and then publish your page again. Note that you will have to do this for every brand you have enabled the Tracking page for.