You plan, write and run the email flows and campaigns for an online brand, so more of its sales come from customers it already has.
Many online brands pay for most of their sales through ads, so each rise in ad prices eats into margin. WordStream’s 2025 Google Ads benchmarks cover 16,446 US campaigns. They found the average cost per click rose 12.88% and went up for 87% of industries.
Email reaches customers the brand has already paid to win. Yet the welcome, cart and repeat-purchase flows are often missing or out of date. The founder knows email matters but has no lifecycle marketer in-house to plan, write and test it.
You sign up for the brand’s emails as a shopper, rewrite its welcome series and send it to the founder with a short note.
You propose a flat fee to build the core flows, such as welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase, with a written list of deliverables.
You hand over the live flows and offer a monthly retainer to plan campaigns, test subject lines and report results.
They watch ad spend closely, and sales from email come from customers they have already paid to win.
The fee often comes out of the ad budget, since a sale from email needs no new ad spend.
What buyers pay: $400 to $2,500 per month freelance, or $3,000 to $10,000 or more per month at agencies
Shopify stores and subscription brands with a growing customer list and steady ad spend are a strong fit.
There are 4 places to start, in the order most people find their first buyers.
Tell founders and marketers you worked with that you now run email programs for online brands, and ask who relies mostly on ads.
Offer email work to Shopify developers and design studios whose clients ask for help after launch.
Join e-commerce founder groups on Slack, Reddit and LinkedIn and answer questions about welcome and cart emails.
Post before and after rewrites of public welcome emails, with notes on what you changed and why.
Every idea has weak spots. These are the ones to test before you spend money.
Build consent and unsubscribe checks into every flow, since CAN-SPAM penalties can reach $53,088 per email and GDPR covers European customers.
Ask for list size and email sales before you pitch, and start with flows that pay off on a small list.
Check sender setup and spam complaint rates at the start and fix them before you send new campaigns.
Check any non-compete or side-work clause, and avoid brands that compete with your employer.
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