Booking & Appointment Confirmation Emails

Confirmation Emails Are the Most-Opened You Send

Confirmation email is opened at rates no campaign will ever reach, because the reader is looking for something specific and expects to find it. That attention is the asset, and the way to waste it is to make them hunt for the reference number.

Lead with the facts. What was confirmed, when it happens, where, and the reference the reader will quote back to you. Four things, in a block near the top, in text large enough to read at arm’s length on a phone screen.

Add the actions that follow the fact. A calendar link, a map link, a reschedule link and a cancel link cover almost every case, and they remove almost every support ticket a confirmation would otherwise generate.

Keep the transactional part clean. Confirmation email is sent on a different legal footing to marketing, and in most markets it can reach people who have opted out of everything else. Loading it with promotion puts that footing at risk and hurts deliverability for the messages that must arrive.

There is room for one gentle next step at the bottom, below the facts and clearly separated from them - a related help article, a referral link, a note about what happens next. One, not a second email stapled underneath the first.

5 Kinds of Confirmation Email

Order receipts are the most familiar confirmation and have a collection of their own. These five cover everything else a confirmation has to do.

1. Booking or reservation - Date, time, location, party size and a reference. The confirmation most likely to be opened at the venue door with one bar of signal.
2. Appointment - Same facts, plus reschedule and cancel links. A reminder sent the day before belongs to the same template family.
3. Event registration - Ticket or joining details, a calendar link, and anything the attendee has to bring or install beforehand.
4. Account or email verification - One link, almost no design, sent within seconds. Every extra element here is a deliverability risk on the most time-critical email you send.
5. Payment received - The amount, the method, the date and what it paid for. Short, filed by the recipient, and requested back from you more often than any other email.