If you're in e-commerce, you have an email list. Maybe you increased your subscribers with a few lead magnets. Or maybe you picked up leads from a giveaway you hosted. At the very least, you have the email addresses of those who have purchased from your site. The question is, what do you do with this list? If you just let it gather dust, you're leaving money on the table. Email marketing has a whopping 3,800% ROI . This means that for every $1 you invest in email, you will receive $38 back. And the best part? Email marketing can sell without you having to lift a finger. Welcome to the beauty of email automation. To get the most out of your email marketing, here are the four email automations you need to set up for your eCommerce business today. 1. The welcome email If you're not sending a welcome email to your new subscribers, you're missing out on a great opportunity to build a relationship with your customers. The best metaphor I've seen for the lack of a welcome email comes from Constant Contact , who compared it to someone walking into a store and being ignored. This customer is very unlikely to buy; in fact, they will probably go away. Don't let this happen to your mailing list subscribers! Your first email to a subscriber is your first impression, so you want to make sure you succeed. Like many other business processes , it needs to be automated to send as soon as someone subscribes to employee email database your list. Here are the essentials you should include in that initial email: A bit about your story What the subscriber can expect from you in the future A call to action that encourages them to explore your site and products Ways for them to learn more about you, such as links to your social media accounts BluChic does a great job of incorporating the above elements into their welcome email. Here is an exerpt : BluChic's Email Marketing Automations It's important that you don't oversell in the welcome email . You are just beginning to establish a relationship; the sale may come later. There is one exception though, and that is if your listing was a discount code offer. In that case, you can send them the discount code and encourage them to use it, as Postable does in their welcome email here: Postable Welcome Email When someone joins your e-commerce mailing list, they just walked into your store and looked around. Be polite and start building rapport by walking up to them, introducing yourself, and letting them know how you can help them. You can accomplish all of this with your welcome email. Get a FREE lesson from our course: Masters in E-Commerce! Discover the fastest way to a million dollar store 2. Cart Abandonment Emails A cart abandonment email is a marketing automation email that is sent to every customer who adds something to their cart but doesn't complete their purchase within an hour or two. You can see why it's so powerful, can't you? Many shoppers add items to their cart and, given the nature of the internet, get sucked into another window or tab and forget about your site.