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Free Shipping Day Email Strategy

No shipping fees, no minimum order and guaranteed Christmas delivery: there is a lot to promote in your Free Shipping emails

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Free Shipping Day is the day procrastinating shoppers dream about – no shipping fees, no minimum order, and guaranteed delivery by Christmas. What’s not to love?

It was created by the owners of FreeShipping.org, a portal website for ecommerce and free shipping deals. Many marketers who don’t participate in the website’s official promotion piggyback off it with their own free shipping offers on the same day or the day before to increase sales during the holiday season.

Below, you can find some great Free Shipping Day email examples and subject lines. Use these as inspiration for your own Free Shipping email campaigns.

Free Shipping Email Examples
Free Shipping Day Email Tips and Strategy

Free Shipping Email Examples

A textbook-perfect campaign

Here’s a textbook-perfect Free Shipping Day email.

The sender name, Free Shipping email subject line, and pre-header all work together to highlight the free shipping promotion. The message body combines essential information with a beautiful hero image that shows thought and care went into this message. The code (FSWEEK) is easy to remember. Then, it goes right into the shopping categories. Short, sweet, attention-grabbing, and efficient, all in one package.

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Promote products, too

Design By Humans has its complimentary shipping offer at the top of the email and includes the limitation that only apparel ships free. Next, the email promotes T-shirts that fall within that category to inspire subscribers to shop.

The brand also mentions that it’s the final day to order art prints, shirts, and sweaters if you want to get them in time for Christmas and finishes its email with a clear list of shipping deadlines.

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Keep it short and sweet

Here’s a short and sweet free delivery email that shows you can generate a lot of impact with a simple design. We love the animation, the easy-to-remember incentive code, and the efficient display of crucial information.

Note how the Free Shipping email subject line creates a sense of urgency by mentioning that the recipient can get free shipping “today only”. This message is repeated in the body of the email while the fine-print details exactly when the free shipping ends.

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Share your shipping schedules

Although Free Shipping Day is not the primary focus in this email, we included it because it showcases a great approach for posting shipping schedules. Many emails roll this important info down to the bottom of the holiday email template.

However, with few days to go until Christmas, your time-pressed shoppers will be looking for that information, and it could spell the difference between clicking to your site and moving on to the next email.

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Offer freebies on top of free shipping

Tarte also did something out-of-the-box. Along with free two-day shipping, the cosmetics brand threw in a free full-size product. The offer is communicated in the subject line, the pre-header, and the body of the email, making it impossible to miss.

Giving customers freebies is an excellent way to make your offer feel special and exclusive. Plus, if you offer free shipping frequently, your freebie offer tells subscribers you’re not just trotting out the same old promotion.

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Make it a celebration

Like 80% of the Free Shipping Day emails we analyzed, Ideel’s email was sent on the day of the holiday. Both the design and the concept are extremely simple. There isn’t a complicated promotion structure or an overwhelming number of visuals, allowing subscribers to immediately home in on the call-to-action.

As the limited-time offer is emphasized (“today only”), recipients are more likely to click the CTA button.

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Make your subject lines stand out

Most free shipping email subject lines are a variant of “It’s Free Shipping Day!” Simply being a bit more creative with your own subject line can already make you stand out in the recipient’s inbox.

With its “It’s an add-to-cart kind of day” subject line, Russian Pointe induces curiosity. Once they’ve opened the email, subscribers instantly see why today is the day to shop new pointes: they’ll get free shipping!

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Add an upsell

City Furniture participates in National Free Shipping Day but they also use the holiday to upsell customers to their premium delivery option.

It’s a smart way to provide what customers are expecting (free delivery) whilst trying to generate extra revenue on top of it.

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Free Shipping Day Email Tips and Strategy

Free Shipping Day has a built-in sense of urgency that you can easily communicate to your subscribers in different ways. Depending on how long your offer lasts, you can use phrases such as:

  • “Free shipping ends tonight”
  • “Free shipping ends tomorrow”
  • “Free shipping ends today”

Add them to the body of your emails but also to your subject lines to prevent subscribers from missing out and improve your open rate. Even early on in your Free Shipping Day email campaign, it’s a good idea to communicate when your free shipping ends.

We’ve gathered some more strategic tips below.

Start promoting your participation in Free Shipping Day early

Build anticipation by adding a line to the emails that precede your Free Shipping promotion to let subscribers know Free Shipping offers are coming their way, and to give them a sneak peek of the items that will be included.

Worried that your Free Shipping offers will deter subscribers from buying straight away? Run a test to find out.

Share your shipping schedule regularly

Regardless of whether you participate in Free Shipping Day, it’s good customer service to share your shipping schedule in your emails. Include your deadlines for standard, express and next-day shipping and emphasize special shipping offers you have, such as complimentary overnight shipping or free shipping on orders above a certain value.

Offering free returns? Mention those as well as they go hand-in-hand with your shipping policy.

Front load your email with your Free Shipping offer and limiting conditions

We love beautiful emails as much as anybody, but with a limited-time event like Free Shipping Day, you want to get your offer in front of your customer as quickly and clearly as possible.

That means mentioning your Free Shipping offer in your Free Shipping email subject lines. Remember that your dedicated online shoppers are most likely getting emails from your competitors and other senders promoting Free Shipping offers too. Do you want to risk being overlooked? Don’t bury the lede.

Use easy-to-remember codes for your Free Shipping offer

FreeShippingDay.org suggests using “FreeShippingDay” (naturally!) but you can also add a bit of wordplay here. One of the funniest discount codes we saw for a Free Shipping offer is “HOLYSHIP.”

Be ready to up your game

With every merchant offering a Free Shipping deal, especially one with no minimum and guaranteed Christmas delivery, you’ve got to meet or beat your competition.

One way to do that is by creating multiple Free Shipping offers. One could be the basic “Enjoy free shipping, no minimum order value” offer, whereas another could be complimentary overnight shipping for orders of a minimum value.

Run the numbers with your finance team to know which free shipping offers you can make. Perhaps you can’t afford to have all orders ship free but there’s something else you can do.

While most shoppers love free shipping, they may like a discount even more. Some ecommerce brands offer their customers the choice between free shipping and a decent-size discount (more than 20%). This can be a good strategy to convince customers who’ve done all of their holiday shopping already to buy something for themselves.

Use a Free Shipping email template

Whichever type of email campaign you’re creating, use a template as the base. This allows you to save your best-performing email as a default and easily run A/B tests. Experiment with how you present your Free Shipping offers, try out different subject lines, and play with design elements.

Each time a new variation wins, you adapt your template and create a new default.