This article discusses how to implement Follow-Up Emails. To learn more about the Follow-Up Email feature, click here.
Requirements
To successfully implement your Follow-Up Email solution, ensure you've read through and met the following requirements:
- If you're using PowerReviews as your Email Service Provider (ESP), you must opt into the PowerReviews email program. Contact your Implementation Team or Account Team to check you have the correct account settings configured.
- Follow-Up Emails are driven by Order Data. If you're using PowerReviews as your ESP, determine which Order Data delivery solution is the best fit for you.
- Ensure your Write-a-Review wrapper page is set up and configured properly. You must provide the Write-a-Review URL to PowerReviews when you opt into using our email program. If this URL ever changes, you must notify PowerReviews immediately so that we can update your account settings; otherwise, your collection will be disrupted.
- If you are using PowerReviews as your ESP, any email copy you populate is not automatically translated for non-English locales. The default email copy for non-English locales is also not automatically translated. Your team is responsible for populating the email copy in the language you want it to appear in, for all Merchants.
Setting Up Your Follow-Up Email
Once you've read through and met the previous requirements, you can begin setting up your Follow-Up Email.
You have two options for sending your Follow-Up Email via an Email Service Provider (ESP):
1. Using Your Own ESP
2. Using PowerReviews as Your ESP
Using Your Own ESP
If you're using your own ESP to send your Follow-Up Emails, you will need to include a Write-a-Review link for customers to leave their review. The Write-a-Review link in your email must include these two variables:
1. pr_source=email
2. pr_merchant_user_email=<user email> (if you are encrypting email addresses, you must use pr_emuid instead)
For example, a Write-a-Review link may look like this for a given product (note that both variables are included in the string):
Reviews collected in this manner with the included variables will receive the 'Verified Buyer' badge in your Review Display.
Encrypting Email Addresses
If you're using your own ESP to send your Follow-Up Emails, PowerReviews recommends encrypting your customers' email addresses to ensure their privacy when they submit reviews.
By forcing email address encryption, the URL of the Write-a-Review form won't accept clear-text email addresses, even if the customer's email address exists in the PowerReviews database. It's also important to note that you can't pass the pr_merchant_user_email parameter to generate your Write-a-Review form. Instead, this parameter is replaced with pr_emuid, and the value associated with this parameter is an encrypted version of your customer's email address. PowerReviews uses a 128-bit AES/CTR/NoPadding cipher, along with the AES algorithm.
Contact your Implementation Team or Account Team for the necessary information needed to encrypt the email address strings. Once received, use the following steps to complete the process:
1. Lowercase the email string
2. Encrypt the email using an AES cipher, with the unique 16-digit string provided by PowerReviews as the encryption key and 'EmailPWRIVSpecIV' as the IV
3. Convert any '+' characters to '==PLUS==' in the encrypted email string in Step 2
4. URL-encode the string from Step 3 using UTF-8 encoding
5. Assign the resulting string to the pr_emuid parameter within the Write-a-Review wrapper page URL
Using PowerReviews as Your ESP
Once you've read through and met the previous requirements, navigate to the PowerReviews Portal to get started.
1. Click + Setup in the left navigation menu
2. Click Email Manager on the Products page
3. You will be directed to the Content tab, where you can begin filling out the required information (this can be edited at any time in the future):
- From Name - This can be your company name or brand name.
- Reply-To Address - This is not the email address the emails will come from; all emails originate from a powerreviewsemail.com address that contains your business name, which you cannot modify. This field should instead contain a customer service email address or similar, so that customers can contact you if there is an issue with their review submission. Do not use a 'do-not-reply' email address here, as this can cause the Follow-Up Emails to go to spam or junk folders.
- Subject - This is the subject line of your email. For example, 'Rate your recent purchase,' or 'Rate your <Brand Name> purchase.' To add your customer's first name for personalization, include {FIRST_NAME} in the subject line. The PowerReviews system will pull their name from your Order Data and display it as part of the subject line (ie, 'Hi {FIRST_NAME}, please rate your recent purchase'). The {LAST_NAME} variable is also supported.
- Header Logo (optional) - Choose your company/brand logo that will be displayed in the email. This image will be resized to 250 pixels wide x 75 pixels tall.
- Body Copy - Customize your email message, keeping in mind that you will need to translate/populate the body copy (and other required fields) for all merchant languages if you have multiple locales. The {FIRST_NAME} and {LAST_NAME} variables are supported here as well, if you'd like to include those in your greeting. Inline HTML and basic stylings are supported. See Customizing Your Follow-Up Emails for more information.
- Call to Action - Select one of three choices.
- Stars (recommended) - Shows blank star ratings. When a customer clicks on their star rating for a product, it automatically pre-populates when they get redirected to the full Write-a-Review form.
- Buttons - Shows a 'Write-a-Review' button.
- Links - Shows a 'Write-a-Review' link.
- Signature - This will be the email closing (ie, 'Thanks for shopping with us! We hope to see you again soon, <Brand Name>').
4. Click Save Content
5. You can send yourself an email preview by entering your email address and clicking Send Test Email (explained more below)
PowerReviews uses a process called IP warming, which gradually increases the number of emails sent, so that IP reputation is sustainably built over time. One factor that can impact ongoing IP reputation and prevent emails from being reliably delivered is sending drastically different volumes of emails on a day-to-day basis. To minimize these fluctuations and ensure a higher level of IP reputation, we automatically adjust the number of emails sent by a client per day, based on the expected volume.
More information about IP warming and how we scale our email sends can be found here.
For items purchased by the same customer on the same day, we will send up to 10 items in a single email. More than that, and it will be broken out into additional emails of up to 10 items.
Test Emails
When you click Send Test Email, you'll receive both an HTML version of the email and a plain-text version of the email. It's important to note that only one of these email versions is sent to your customers.
The HTML email is sent to your customers by default, unless their email preference is to receive text-only emails. In that case, those customers would receive the plain-text version.
The test email you receive will reference your Product Data and will pull in items from your catalog as 'dummy' data.
- If there are three or more valid products in your Product Data, the test email will pull in three products at random.
- If there are fewer than three valid products in your Product Data, the test email will pull in the same product(s) three times.s
- If there are no valid products in your Product Data (ie, if they are all test products), the test email will pull in three different products at random from the PowerReviews Demo Store
Scheduling Your Follow-Up Emails
Once you've read through and met the previous requirements and completed the email configuration setup under the Content tab, you can move on to the Settings tab to schedule and activate your emails.
Determine how many days after purchase you want to send your emails to your customers, and adjust the toggle arrows accordingly. If you use the Checkout Beacon for your Order Data, PowerReviews will use the date that is triggered at the point of purchase, not the shipping date. If you use an Order Feed for your Order Data, PowerReviews will use the date that is passed in the order_date column. Consider this as you are determining the number of days post-purchase you want to use for the first email send.
- As a best practice, PowerReviews recommends sending the first email 14-21 days after your customer makes a purchase.
- You may choose to schedule a second email send if no review is provided via the first email send (optional)
- Be sure to save your selections
- Toggle the Follow-Up Status to Active to begin your Follow-Up Email sends
Note: By default, emails are sent out at 10:22 am Central Time. Contact your Implementation Team or Account Team if you would like to specify the time of day your emails are sent out.
Follow-Up Email Formats
You may want to configure your Follow-Up Emails in a particular format, depending on your average customer's cart size and your desired user experience with the email itself. You can choose between two different email templates and two different review collection methods, which are explained below. All customization options can be selected on the Settings tab under Follow-Up Features.
Email Type
- Traditional Email - This type allows you to include multiple products purchased within a single email. It will send the customer to either the Standard Write-a-Review form or the Review Your Purchases (RYP) page from the email when a product is clicked.
- In-Mail - This type embeds a single product review form within the body of the email itself. Once submitted, users will be sent to a separate page with the ability to review more products purchased as applicable. This template is only available in English, and can only be used with the Review Your Purchases (RYP) collection method.
Example of In-Mail:
Review Collection
- Review Your Purchases (RYP) - This collection method allows customers to review multiple products they've purchased on a single page, promoting additional review collection and coverage. We recommend this method if your customers have an average cart size greater than one product. More information on RYP can be found here.
- Standard Collection Form - This collection method allows customers to review one product per one full Write-a-Review form each. We recommend this method if your customers have an average cart size of one product.
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Last update:
12-09-2025
12:14 PM
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