Gift guides email examples

Having various categories for shoppers can appeal to the masses and their holiday shopping lists. Consider curating different lists by category. For example, clothing company, Naadam, categorizes gifts by the recipient (for him and for her) and by price with a call to action to purchase a gift card if nothing in the guide piques shoppers’ interest.

Have 24/7 customer support during the busy season? Free shipping on orders over $50? A shipping deadline? It’s important to communicate these details so the shopper understands when they need to have their order placed by. Take a look at outerwear company, Outerknown. They highlight their shipping deadline within their guide email based on the shipping options available.

Women’s retailer, Unique Vintage, highlights a variety of products within their gift guide and also has a call to action for browsers to shop other products and collections. Highlighting a variety of products will target the many and not the few.

This email wins because it combines the product assortment of a gift guide with the recommendations of a personal salesperson and enough how-to advice to help shoppers feel confident about the bikes they’ve selected.

The email design and flow make it easy for browsers to scan the email to look for the right age groups. We also like the use of “We recommend …” to make the product recommendation more authoritative.

Gift guides by price can be either compelling or ho-hum depending on how well they’re put together. This guide gets its message across quickly and easily with a minimum of copy but maximum information.

It’s easily scanned; the images show products as someone might use them, not just glamor shots. Each category is easy to click on because each image is linked to a unique landing page with an assortment of products in that category. We also like the stocking-stuffer list under the main images.

Etsy is a champ at gift guides, partly by using clever categories that give shoppers specific and helpful advice. You don’t get that level of detail and immediacy with a “Gifts for Him/Gifts for Her” organization.

This email combines several guides into one. We love this tagline: “The zombie who doesn’t become human until coffee number four” and the email structure that combines several shopping themes – persona, price or emotion – without creating a monster message.

Among U.S. consumers, spending on gifts for pets doesn’t rank high enough yet to get called out in the National Retail Federation’s annual holiday spending forecasts. But pet-product purveyors both large (Petco, PetSmart, Pet Supplies Plus) and small (Lily’s Kitchen, PetsPyjamas) are doing their best to correct that with clever emails like these.

We love the gentle spoof of persona-based guides – is your critter a Jolly Holidayer or a Secret Stocking Filler? (What, no “Relentless Tree Destroyer?”) The artwork-based images and subdued colors encourages readers to keep scrolling through the email; it’s a restful break from hard-sell, flashier emails.

Jewelry brand Pandora starts the email with a birthday gift guide and different product recommendations. Then, they talk about personalization services and digital gift-giving. In the end, Pandora mentions gift cards as an option. This is a great example of providing different options to the customers and helping them find a perfect gift.

In this example, Zales used an animated gif to show different products that are recommended as great gifs. This is a good way to show a variety of products without sending a long and cluttered gift guide email. We love how Zales made an animated checklist at the bottom of the email and reminded customers about different family members that they should buy gifts for.

Here’s a good example of a gift guide that’s not holiday-related. Candle brand, Homesick, found a way to drive sales with gift guides by listing different special occasions and recommended great gifts from their inventory. They also used an animated gif to show how the product package can be personalized.

If you have an ongoing sale for the items that are included in the gift guide consider sending an email that notifies customers about the discount and encourage them to make the purchase. Boll & Branch sent this simple email that links to the gift guide and mentioned the discount in the subject line “15% Off Every 🎁 Single 🎁 Gift 🎁!”

To reassure the customer and highlight the quality of the product consider adding reviews to the gift guide emails. In their Father’s day gift guide, Bellroy included product recommendations, reviews, and creative CTAs.