What your email program can learn from e-commerce

Nonprofits chase a conversion almost every time they hit send, whether through a gift or a petition signature.

You know who else does that all day, every day? E-commerce.

Online retailers have spent years building email infrastructure around behavioral triggers, lifecycle sequences, and post-transaction engagement. 

And because we’re ultimately after the same thing — a conversion — a lot of it translates directly.

Here’s what’s worth stealing.

Automation is doing the heavy lifting
E-commerce brands figured something out a while ago: the emails triggered by subscriber behavior consistently outperform the ones on a content calendar.

Omnisend analyzed 27 billion emails across 150,000 brands in 2025 and found that automated emails made up just 2% of total sends but drove 37% of all email revenue — a 16x revenue-per-send gap.

For nonprofits, the equivalent is sitting right there: welcome series, lapsed donor re-engagement sequences, post-gift stewardship flows, and monthly giving upgrade nudges. 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation saw email renewal revenue jump 30% after automating a 12-email membership series that they used to manage manually.

Abandoned carts have a nonprofit cousin
About 70% of e-commerce shopping carts get abandoned before checkout. 

Nonprofits have a version of this problem, too. Someone lands on your donation page, starts filling out the form, and leaves. 

The intent was there, but the gift wasn’t!

Fundraise Up has published data showing that roughly 80% of donors who start a donation form never finish it, and that sending a reminder within the first hour meaningfully lifts completions.

If your donation platform tracks form starts (many do, including Engaging Networks and Fundraise Up), you can build a simple follow-up email for people who began a gift but didn’t complete it. 

Even one recovery email puts you ahead of many of your nonprofit peers.

Plain text is having a moment
When you’re asking for something personal, like a donation, emails that look like they’re from a real person tend to perform best.

We’ve seen this play out on the nonprofit side, too. KUOW tested a stripped-down email against a designed template and saw a 28% increase in donations. 

What happens after the transaction matters most
E-commerce invests heavily in post-purchase email flows, including thank-you sequences, product tips, review requests, and replenishment reminders.

Every email after the transaction is designed to deepen loyalty and drive the next one.

Consider building a simple post-gift sequence: an immediate thank-you (beyond the receipt), an impact update at 30 days, and a story about what the gift made possible at 60. 

Chive Charities built this kind of intentional stewardship and hit 98% monthly donor retention (!!!).

The bottom line
E-commerce brands have spent years obsessing over what happens between the big campaigns — behavioral triggers, lifecycle sequences, and post-transaction flows.

That thinking applies directly to nonprofit email, and most of it costs nothing beyond the time to set it up.

It’s clear: The inbox rewards senders who deliver relevant, well-timed messages, whether you’re selling sneakers or saving wetlands. 

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara