What order reminder emails are
An order reminder email prompts a customer to complete a pending action related to a purchase or booking. It typically follows an incomplete transaction, such as an abandoned cart or an unconfirmed booking. The email's goal is to guide the recipient back to their order and finalise it.
This page is one slice of the Nitrosend email library. It holds 64 real emails from 18 brands, all of them collected out of two ordinary inboxes. Nothing here is a mockup.
Order reminder emails you can look at
Filter by industry, design style, layout or length. Open any one to read the subject line, what it is doing, and the prompt that rebuilds it.
What 64 of them actually do
We collected 64 order reminder emails from 18 distinct brands. Most of these emails, 92% of them, adopt an instructional tone. They are often long, with 70% falling into this category, and 81% are visually dense with text. This suggests brands prioritise clear, detailed instructions over quick visual appeal when reminding customers about an order.
The design of these emails is overwhelmingly functional. We found 84% use a utilitarian style, and 89% stick to a single-column layout. There is no hero image in any of the examples we collected. Only 2% included a product grid, and another 2% used a data table. This segment focuses on utility, not elaborate design.
Brands use direct subject lines for these reminders. 66% are descriptive, while 22% are transactional plain. Personalisation is present, with 11% of subject lines using it, and 92% of emails addressing the recipient by their first name. This direct approach aims for clarity, ensuring the recipient immediately understands the email's purpose.
The call to action count is moderate. The median email contains 3 calls to action, but only 9% have exactly one. This indicates brands provide multiple ways to complete the order. For example, a Thoughtful Foods reminder might link to the cart, the checkout, and a help page. We find that for a reminder campaign managed by Nitrosend's system, we see a 1.3% unique click rate. This shows the potential for even simple reminders to drive action.
Food and beverage brands dominate this category, making up 66% of the emails. Travel follows at 11%. This concentration suggests industries with frequent, often time-sensitive, transactions rely heavily on these reminders. Kam, who built our deliverability layer, often reminds us that consistent, expected communication builds trust, especially for repeat purchases.
None of this helps if the send never lands, which is a promotional email problem rather than a design one.
What to take from these
- Prioritise clear, instructional language in your reminders, as 92% of brands do.Keep your design utilitarian and simple; avoid hero images or complex layouts.Address the recipient by their first name, mirroring the 92% of brands that personalise.Use descriptive or transactional plain subject lines to set clear expectations for the email's content.Provide multiple calls to action, as the median email in our corpus offers 3 ways to complete an order.
Once the shape is right, the rest is the definition.
What is in this set
By industry
64 emails from 18 brandsNext to this one
The same corpus, cut a different way: promotional, newsletter, account notice.
Questions people ask
The primary purpose is to prompt a customer to complete an incomplete transaction. This could be finishing an abandoned cart, confirming a booking, or taking another specific action related to a purchase.
Most brands opt for a utilitarian design with a single-column layout. They prioritise clear instructions and text-heavy content over elaborate visuals, with no hero images found in our collected examples.
Yes, personalisation is common and effective. Our data shows 92% of these emails address the recipient by their first name, and 11% use personalisation in the subject line. This makes the reminder feel more relevant to the individual.