Email Footer: What to Include in an Ecommerce Email Footer (With Examples)

An ecommerce email footer needs two things by law in the US: your physical postal address and a clear way to unsubscribe. After that, use it to give people one more reason to click. We add your main product categories, a short line of trust (like free returns or your physical store), customer service contact details and links to the social accounts you actually use. Keep it short, readable on a phone and the same in every email.

Most people never look at their email footer.

It gets set up once, when someone builds the first template, and then it sits at the bottom of every campaign and every flow for years. A logo, a few social icons, a block of tiny gray text.

But the people who scroll all the way down are still interested. They read the whole email and they're still looking for a reason to click. A good footer gives them one, and keeps you on the right side of the law while it's at it.

Here's what we put in an ecommerce email footer, what the law requires, what to leave out and four example layouts you can copy.

By Emiel Dingemans, Founder of Magicianly

Updated November 2026

What Is an Email Footer?

The email footer is the section at the very bottom of an email, below the main content and the last call to action. It's where your unsubscribe link, your address and your contact details live.

In most email platforms, including Klaviyo, you can save the footer as a reusable block and use it in every email. That's why it's worth getting right: you build it once and it works in everything you send.

What Does an Email Footer Need by Law?

In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act requires every marketing email to include two things that usually live in the footer:

• Your valid physical postal address. That can be your street address, a PO box registered with the US Postal Service or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency.
• A clear way to opt out. It has to be easy for an ordinary person to find and understand. You can offer a menu to opt out of certain types of emails, but you have to include an option to stop all marketing emails.

The law also says you have to honor an unsubscribe within 10 business days, and the opt-out has to keep working for at least 30 days after you send the email. You can't charge a fee or ask for more than an email address to unsubscribe someone.

CAN-SPAM has other rules too, like honest subject lines and accurate sender information. Read the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide for the full list. If you send to people outside the US, check the rules in those countries as well, and ask a lawyer if you're not sure.

Order confirmations and shipping updates are a different category of email. Here's the difference between transactional and marketing emails.

What Else Should an Ecommerce Email Footer Include?

Here's what we add to almost every ecommerce footer, on top of the address and the unsubscribe link:

• Your main product categories. A short row of links to your main collections, like Shop Men, Shop Women and Best Sellers. More on why below.
• A line of trust. Your strongest reasons to buy, in a few words. Free shipping over a certain amount, free returns, a guarantee, a rating, or a physical store people can visit. Only list what's true for your store.
• Customer service contact details. An email address or a link to your contact page, so people with a question don't hit reply on a no-reply address.
• Social links, only for the accounts you actually use. If you haven't posted on a platform in a year, leave it out.
• A manage preferences link. Someone who wants fewer emails is worth more than someone who unsubscribes.
• A short reminder of why they get your emails. Something like "You're receiving this because you signed up at [Website]." It helps people who forgot they subscribed.

Why Should You Put Product Categories in Your Email Footer?

Because the people who reach your footer are still looking for a reason to click. Give them one.

Somebody who scrolled past your products and your last button didn't find what they wanted in that email. But they're still interested in your brand. A row of category links gives them a quick way to go and look for themselves, without hunting for your website.

It's one of the first changes we make when we want to improve an account's email click rate. It takes a few minutes, and once it's in your saved footer, it's in every email you send.

Keep it to your main categories. A footer with twenty links is just another wall of text.

Should You Hide the Unsubscribe Link?

No. Make it easy to find.

A hidden unsubscribe link doesn't keep people on your list. It just means they mark you as spam instead. And spam complaints are usually worse for your deliverability than unsubscribes. An unsubscribe is someone using the path you gave them. A spam complaint tells inbox providers your emails are unwanted.

Gmail also shows its own unsubscribe option at the top of many marketing emails now, so hiding the link in your footer wouldn't stop people anyway. A clean, visible opt-out is better for everyone. Here's what's a normal email unsubscribe rate and when to worry.

Should Every Email Have the Same Footer?

Mostly yes. Build one footer as part of your email design system and use it in every designed campaign and flow. It keeps your emails recognizable and saves time on every send.

There are a few exceptions:

• Flows can highlight what matters at that moment. In an abandoned cart or browse abandonment email, the trust line does a lot of work. For a furniture store with a physical showroom, for example, we've highlighted the store in the footer to build trust.
• Post-purchase emails can put customer service first. Someone who just ordered is more likely to have a question about their order than to want a new collection.
• Plain-text emails get a minimal footer. No logo, no icons, no category row. Just your name, your address and the unsubscribe link. Anything more and the email stops looking like it came from a person. Here's when plain-text emails work best.

What Does a Good Ecommerce Email Footer Look Like?

Here are four layouts we'd start with. Replace the brackets with your own details.

1. A standard footer for campaigns and flows

• Shop Men | Shop Women | Best Sellers | New Arrivals
• Free shipping over [Amount] | Free 30-day returns
• Questions? Email us at [Support Email]
• [Instagram] [TikTok]
• You're receiving this because you signed up at [Website].
• [Brand Name], [Postal Address]
• Manage preferences | Unsubscribe

2. A footer for a brand with a physical store

• Shop [Category 1] | Shop [Category 2] | Shop [Category 3]
• Visit our store: [Store Address], open [Opening Hours]
• Questions? Call us at [Phone Number] or email [Support Email]
• [Brand Name], [Postal Address]
• Manage preferences | Unsubscribe

3. A footer for post-purchase emails

• Questions about your order? Email us at [Support Email]
• Track your order | Returns and exchanges | FAQ
• Shop [Category 1] | Shop [Category 2]
• [Brand Name], [Postal Address]
• Manage preferences | Unsubscribe

4. A minimal footer for plain-text emails

• [Your First Name], founder of [Brand Name]
• [Brand Name], [Postal Address]
• Unsubscribe

"Free 30-day returns" is an example. Only use the trust points that are true for your store.

What Should You Leave Out of an Email Footer?

• A wall of legal text. Your address and unsubscribe link are enough for most marketing emails. Link to your privacy policy instead of pasting it in.
• Icons for every social platform. Only the accounts you actually use.
• A footer that's one big image. If the image doesn't load, your address and unsubscribe link disappear with it. Keep those as live text.
• Tiny, light gray text. If people can't read the unsubscribe link, it's not clear and easy to find.
• Links that are too small to tap. On a phone, links that sit too close together are hard to hit. Give them room, or stack them.
• Anything that's out of date. Old opening hours, a discontinued category or a closed social account all make the brand look neglected.

How Do You Know If Your Footer Is Working?

Look at where people click. Check the click data in your campaign reports to see whether anyone uses the category links in your footer, and which ones.

If nobody clicks a link for months, swap it for a category or trust point that matters more to your customers. And look at your unsubscribe rate and spam complaints together. Low unsubscribes with rising spam complaints can mean people can't find the unsubscribe link. Here's our full email deliverability checklist.

So What Should Be in Your Email Footer?

• Your physical postal address and a clear unsubscribe link. Those are required in the US.
• A short row of your main product categories, so people who scroll down still have a reason to click.
• One line of trust: shipping, returns, a guarantee or your store.
• Customer service contact details and a manage preferences link.
• Social links only for the accounts you actually use.
• Live text, readable on a phone, with room to tap.
• One footer for every designed email, a customer service footer for post-purchase emails and a minimal footer for plain-text emails.

If you're writing the emails that go above that footer, here are our newsletter subject lines for emails that aren't sales.