How To Build Your Shopify Store's Email List FAST

0:00Most Shopify store owners are paying for ads, sending all the traffic to their store, and then letting 98% of it simply disappear. They've done no purchase, they didn't capture their email, nothing. And then they wonder why they have to keep spending more on ads every single month just to hit the same numbers. Here's what the most profitable e-commerce brands do differently. They capture that traffic into an email list that they can market to for free forever. [music] And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to build that list fast using the same system we've used across 150 plus e-commerce brands. And stick around because there's

0:39one tool towards the end that completely changed how we approach this. So, my name is Emil and I run Magically, where we've helped over 150 e-commerce brands in the past 7 years scaling their business with our retention marketing services. And list growth is one of the first things that we fix for every new client. So, let's get into it. Okay. So, before I get into the how, I want to quickly talk about why this even matters cuz I think a lot of the people are underestimating it. So, if somebody is visiting your store and they leave without giving you their email, then that's it. They're basically gone. You

1:18paid for that click and you got nothing back. There's no sale, there's no way to follow up with them, nothing. But when you do grab their email address, then everything changes cuz they will drop into your welcome series flow. And a good welcome flow turns somewhere between 10 and 20% of these people into first-time buyers. And even the ones who don't buy right away, they're still in your world now. You can email them. You can build trust with them and you can convert them down the line. And look, the math on this is kind of wild when you actually think about it. So, say you've got 10,000 visitors a month to

1:55your store. If your form converts at 2% right now, that's 200 [music] new email subscribers. But if it converts at 10%, that's 1,000 new [music] email subscribers with the same traffic. And over a year, one store ends up with around 2,400 subscribers and the other one has 12,000. And since every subscriber is worth real money to your business, that gap just keeps compounding. So when you improve your signup form, you're not just getting a one-time bump, but you're getting a lift that pays you back every single month from there on out. All right, let's get into how to actually do this. So most Shopify stores have some kind of signup

2:35form right now, and usually it's just a standard Klaviyo pop-up. So sign up for 10% off, and it just shows up a few seconds after a person lands on your website. And most people just close it without even reading it. And those forms, they usually convert around 1 to 3%, which honestly sounds fine until you flip it around. Cuz it also means that 97 to 99% of your site visitors are leaving without giving you anything. So you pay to get all these people to your site, and almost none of them stick around. And here's the thing, this is not just a discount that is the problem,

3:13because yeah, discounts do work, it's everything else. The offer is generic, the timing is off, there's no real reason for the person to engage, and it just feels like an interruption in their user experience. Honestly, people are so used to those pop-ups now that they close them on autopilot. So here's what I think that most store owners are missing out on. When somebody lands on your site, they're in this very specific headspace, because they're browsing, they're comparing you to other options,

3:43and they haven't decided anything yet. And a pop-up that throws a generic discount at them the second they arrive isn't meeting them where they're at. It's simply friction for them. So, the brands that are hitting 10, 12, even 20% sign up rates, they are doing something completely different. They are creating an actual moment of interaction before they ask for an email address. And that's the one shift that is changing everything. So, for years we've just used Klaviyo's native sign up forms for all of our clients. And to be fair, if you optimize them well, they can do a decent job. But about a year ago, we

4:21started using this tool called Aliyah, and the results were good enough that it's now pretty much what we recommend to every single brand we work with. So, let me walk you through why. The main thing that Aliyah does differently is how it grabs attention before asking for the email. [music] So, instead of just hitting you with a discount pop up, it uses quizzes, questions, and little game-like experiences that get the visitor to actually engage with you first. And there's actual psychology behind it. It's called a micro commitment. So, the idea is that when somebody takes even a tiny action, so answering a question, making a choice,

5:01clicking something, they get a little bit more invested. They're not just passively sitting there anymore. They're participating, and that makes them way more likely to actually finish and hand over their email address. And the numbers back it up. With Aliyah, we're consistently seeing sign up rates of 8- 15%. And on well-optimized setups with good ad traffic, sometimes 20% or even higher. So, that's three to five times what a normal pop up in Klaviyo does, on the exact same traffic. Now, the second thing that I really like about Aliyah is the timing, cuz most default forms just trigger on a timer, uh so a few seconds after page loads, no matter what the

5:44person is actually doing. And Aliyah got this triggering system where a form shows up based on the actual behavior. So, how far they actually scroll, what page they're on, whether they're about to leave, how long they've been there. So, it pops up when somebody is generally engaged instead of just interrupting them the moment that they arrive on your store. And timing makes a huge difference here. So, with the right message at the wrong moment, you will still get ignored. So, that's why this timing is so important. And the next feature is the one that really sets Aliyah apart in my opinion. Cuz they released this AI layer called Prism AI

6:23that personalizes the whole sign-up experience based on what the visitors is doing and what they've told you through those interactive questions. So, instead of everyone seeing the same offer, different people get different experiences based on what they're actually interested in. So, someone who tells you they're looking for one specific thing gets a different message than somebody who's just window shopping. And the offer feels more relevant because it generally is. And it feeds right back into your Clavio flows, too, because Aliyah passes more data about the subscriber into Clavio than a regular normal form will do for you. So, your welcome flow can be more targeted from the first email that you send to

7:06them. And then the last reason why I love Aliyah so much, and that's their reporting. Because most form tools, including Clavio's default one, they basically just show you one number, which is your sign-up rate, which is important, don't get me wrong, but it's only one part of the picture. Aliyah goes deeper because it shows you the actual revenue that your form is driving, the LTV of subscribers from different form variations, how these people convert through your welcome flow. And this matters because a high

7:37sign-up rate isn't always a good thing. Cuz if you're pulling in a bunch of people who just want a discount and never buy, that high sign up rate is actually costing you margin. What you really want is a form that brings in people who becomes buyers from your store. And Aliyah lets you see that directly instead of optimizing for the wrong number. Oh, and by the way, if you want the full step-by-step guide on how to set up Aliyah from scratch, I've got a dedicated video on this channel that walks you through the whole thing from A to Z. I'll put the link in the description below. And if you want to

8:12try it out yourself, I can hook you up with a free 30-day trial through the link in the description below. And yeah, full transparency, this is a referral link. So, it does mean that I will get a small commission if you sign up. But again, it costs you nothing extra and you just get the free 30 days to test it out for yourself and see yourself what it does with your sign up forms. I only recommend the stuff that we actually use with our own clients and yeah, Aliyah is just one of them. Now, okay, the tool matters, but honestly, the offer on your form matters just as much. And most

8:46brands just default to the same thing without ever testing if it's actually the best fit for their audience. So, the go-to is almost always a percentage discount. So, 10% off, 50% off. And yeah, it works, but it is worth knowing that it's not always the best option. And sometimes it's not even close. Because we've seen brands seriously bump up their sign up rates just from switching up from a percentage discount to something like a free gift with a first purchase or a mystery discount where you don't know the amount until you sign up, which just creates that little hit of curiosity. Or for example, early access to a sale or even a free

9:26digital product if it's something that your audience actually wants. But here's the key thing. You don't just want to look at the sign up rate as I just told you. You want to look at what happens after. Like, if your 20% off offer gets a sign-up rate of 10%, but those people only convert at 8% in your welcome flow, that could actually be worse than a free gift offer that gets a 7% sign-up rate, but converts at 50%. So, you've got to look at the whole picture here. So, sign-up rate, welcome flow conversion, and what each subscriber is actually worth in revenue. And this is exactly

10:02why I love Ali's reporting analysis tools because it lets you see the full funnel instead of just a number at the top. And one last thing I want to mention before we wrap up this video. So, list growth isn't a one-time project. It's an ongoing thing because every email list shrinks over time because people will unsubscribe, people lose their interest, and email addresses

10:24just go dead. And that's totally normal. But, if you're not constantly bringing new subscribers, your email list is quietly getting smaller and less valuable every single month, even if you're not touching it. So, your sign-up form needs to be live, tested, and getting optimized all the time. The brands that are killing it in 2026, they treat their list growth like an engine that needs ongoing attention. And they don't treat it as just another set-it-and-forget-it thing that they do once and walk away from. So, you want to test your offer every few months. You want to test the timing. You want to test different formats, different headlines, different button copies. Even

11:02small wins, they just simply add up to a lot more email subscribers over a year. And you want to pay attention to where your traffic is coming from. So, if you're running paid ads, you want to make sure that your forms is dialed in for cold traffic. If you got a strong organic following, you want to make sure that you're actually pointing those people towards your site and to your form. Every traffic source is a chance to just simply grow your email list. And the brands that think about it that way, they end up with a way bigger, more valuable email list over time. But here's the real thing to sit [music]

11:35with. A well-optimized signup form on steady traffic can add thousands of new email subscribers a month. And those subscribers, they enter your welcome flow. They become buyers. They enter your post-purchase flow. And some come back for a second, a third, or fourth order. Every single of them is worth real money to your business. And all of it started from capturing an email address that you would have otherwise lost. But none of this matters if you do not know how to email those subscribers

12:02in a way that actually gets them to buy. So, a big list that gets bad emails is just an expensive clay video bill for you. So, if you want our team to set up the entire email and SMS system for you, including signup forms, flows, campaigns, deliverability, segmentation, all of it, just click on the first link in the description below and book a free call with me. And during the call, we will look at your current setup and we'll show you exactly what we will build for your brand and what it will do for your business. And right after this, go watch my video on how to scale an

12:34e-commerce brand properly in 2026. Because once your list is growing, the next step is making sure your back-end email system is set up to turn those subscribers into repeat buyers. So, I'll see you over there.