“Thanks for your order!” Sounds familiar, right? It should, because this is the opening of any good transactional email.

Transactional emails have an average open rate of 48% compared to 18% for non-transactional emails. This is because transactional emails are relevant and highly expected by customers.

But few marketers take advantage of them, and this leads to a massive loss of potential profit. If you properly optimize your transactional emails, you will increase email engagement and earn more profit from your consumers.

1. Create personalized emails

Always personalize your emails. Include the recipient’s name. This will help deliver and improve open rates. Simply put, we like to see our name.

If you’re sending a B2B automated email, make sure your submission form captures your customers’ full name and adds it to the email. And if you’re sending an e-commerce email, make sure the sender’s name is your brand. Also, make sure it’s an email that people can reply to and ask about your order.

2. Give personalized suggestions for the next step

Suggest other products the customer might like based on what they bought. This is easy to achieve for eCommerce transactional emails if you have more data about who the customer is and what they might want.

For B2B emails, you don’t need to customize each email uniquely, but treat each email as your drip campaign. Give the reader a blog to read and share, offer an introduction if they’ve just signed up for your service, or offer inquiries if they’ve just downloaded your product information.

3. Give the consumer the information they are looking for

You have access to the traffic of the pages of your site, so use it! Don’t make customers wander your site after they’ve received an email when you know what they’re likely to want.

Include an email footer with quick links to the pages your customers are likely to need, or put eye-catching calls-to-action that respond to their needs based on the email they receive. Be proactive and anticipate what your readers will need. This is a great way to provide personalized value.

4. Write well

Consider how customers view your brand. Don’t write formal emails if you’re an informal business, and don’t use very familiar copy if you offer professional services.

If your email is for a business, it should reflect the copy you use in other emails, your social networks, and your site. And if your email is to a real person with a real name, experiment with the copy and see if more relaxed copy will be more relatable and create more engagement.

Don’t write a robotic email if you can’t read it yourself. Think about the value you can add through content, and make your email personal through tone and writing style.