The Difference Between Marketing and Transactional Emails

An email can be set to one of two types: Marketing and Transactional. Transactional emails are described below. If an email is not transactional, it is considered marketing. It is very important that you understand how and when to use transactional emails.

When you send an email within a funnel or broadcast you’ll see that the email by default is set as “Marketing” but you can change the message type to transactional. But what is transactional email, and should you use it?

Usually transactional emails are automated and are related to account activity or a commercial transaction.

There are many examples of transactional emails, like:

• Account alerts (account creation, new login from a new device, request for new password, details like credit card or phone number changed on file)
• Email address confirmation (if you create an account somewhere then an email is sent to confirm that the email address belongs to you)
• Notification about event (product purchased, product shipping update, free access about to expire)
• Purchase receipt (if you buy something then get emailed a receipt)

Why should you use transactional emails?

Transactional emails should be used if the information is critical to the recipient’s customer account. Transactional emails bypass email preferences set by the customer. For instance, if a customer unsubscribes from your emails, they are still able to receive transactional emails. For this reason it is legally imperative that you only set an email to “transactional” if it is truly transactional. Very few emails fall into this category and if this is abused, it can result in legal trouble.