9 essential e-commerce email marketing automations for more sales and less work

Our data shows that automations have a 31% higher conversion rate than regular campaigns. And once you set them up—which is surprisingly easy to do using Mailerlite's drag-and-drop automation builder—they run in the background without requiring any input.

This article will help you start by highlighting 9 e-commerce email automations you can create, and providing essential tips for getting set up.

E-commerce email automations are automated emails that go out at specific points in the customer journey. They allow you to contact customers when they need to hear from you, boosting sales and improving the customer experience.

The beauty of e-commerce email automations is that you truly can set and forget. Once you create your automation, it will take the predefined step whenever someone triggers it, whether that’s for your 100th customer or your one millionth.

Automations rely on triggers

Email automations work by performing an action based on a predefined trigger. This action is typically sending an email, but it could also be adding a subscriber to a group or updating a field in their profile. 

MailerLite has 16 automation triggers you can use to start an automation, including 9 that are specific to e-commerce stores. You can access these as soon as you connect your store to MailerLite with an e-commerce integration.

You can also use multiple triggers for a single workflow. This saves time as it means you don’t have to create a new workflow for every trigger. For example, you could send the same welcome email to people who complete different website forms.

Your options are almost endless

It’s possible to create everything from a single email automation, to an entire email series with multiple messages and routes that change based on customer behavior. 

This flexibility is possible because, as well as the 10 triggers that start the automation, you can use in-automation conditions to tailor the automated workflow based on how the recipient interacts with your content.  

But, before you dive too deep, you’ll want to set up some of the basic heavy-hitter automations that all e-commerce stores can benefit from. 

Here are 9 types of e-commerce email marketing automations that we think almost all e-commerce stores will benefit from. The best thing is that they’re all easy to set up using an email marketing automation tool like MailerLite. 

Every e-commerce store needs a welcome email. It’s the first email you send when someone signs up for your email list and it ensures potential customers start their journey with you the right way.

Use your welcome email to: 

• Provide essential information about your brand

• Link to your top products

• Explain the type of content you will send

• Provide information about what makes your brand stand out

Some e-commerce stores offer an incentive for new subscribers, such as a discount coupon. If you choose to use this marketing strategy, include your discount code in the welcome email. 

To create a welcome email, you first need to set up a form or pop-up that lets people join your list. Then, create a workflow that goes out when they complete this form. You can also trigger the automation when someone joins your list by accepting marketing emails during the buying process. 

And you don’t have to stop with a single email; you can create multi-email workflows to create an entire welcome series. Check out our welcome email automation template below to get started.

Post-purchase emails are messages you send when someone buys from your store. There are many different kinds, including transactional emails like shipping confirmation emails and delivery updates and marketing emails like thank you messages and surveys.

What you send after a sale depends on your product and your brand. Think about the types of content new customers would benefit from and include this information. 

This could be:

• User guides

• Community invites

• Loyalty program information

• Invites to follow social channels

• Styling tips

Remember that you don’t have to use a single email—you can also create a drip sequence that covers all your customer needs. 

Abandoned cart emails go out when an email subscriber visits your checkout page but doesn’t hit buy, reminding them to complete the purchase. Abandoned checkout emails are similar but go out when someone visits the checkout page without buying.

Both emails are effective ways to drive sales as they go out to people who are already close to buying. In fact, our data shows that 12% of people who receive abandoned checkout emails click back to the cart. 

When creating a cart or checkout abandonment email, put the focus on conversion by keeping it simple.

Just include: 

• A headline that explains what the email is for

• An image of the product

• The description and price

• A link back to the shopping cart

MailerLite has an abandoned checkout automation template that you can use to set up your workflow in a few clicks. Just choose the template and then edit the email content.

Purchase frequency triggers go out when a customer makes a predefined number of purchases from your store. 

This enables you to create a loyalty program that gives people a gift for making multiple purchases, without needing extra tools. 

When setting this up, you need to create a gift that encourages people to buy. This could be a percentage discount, fixed amount of store credit, a freebie, or any other gift that you think your audience would like.

In the example below, the cookware company offers $20 off a purchase made at the store after 5 purchases.

If you use this strategy, you can also set up additional emails to promote the program. For example, you can add info about your loyalty program to your welcome email or create a dedicated email to introduce the program when someone joins your list.

Interest-based recommendations are automated emails that promote products based on the customer's purchase history. You just need to use a trigger that relates to a product the customer bought. 

Here are 2 ways this could work: 

1. A sports store could use the Buys from category trigger to promote golf equipment to people who have already bought a golf-related item. 

2. A coffee store could use the Buys specific product trigger to cross-sell its best-selling blends to people who recently bought a coffee machine.

Timing is an important factor to get right when recommending products. Leave some time between the customer buying the product and recommending new ones to give them a chance to enjoy their initial purchase.

MailerLite customer Live The Creed automates upsell emails to go out with products that are related to the initial item the customer bought.

Purchases aren’t the only trigger you can use to recommend a product. Another option is to use email link clicks to identify what customers are interested in and then send product recommendations on this topic.

Pathpages founder Modest Mitkus has a welcome email marketing automation that sends emails on topics related to the products he sells. When someone clicks on a relevant link, he uses this as a sign that the customer is interested in the product and sends further information about it.

This works because it means that people who are curious receive more emails about the products they are interested in.

Another way to recommend relevant products is to use surveys or quizzes to discover interests and then send relevant content based on their answers. For example, a cosmetics brand could ask customers about their skincare needs and then send relevant products based on answers.

Email automations aren’t just for generating sales. One of the most useful workflows for e-commerce stores is sending review request emails. These emails ask people who have recently bought a product from you to leave a review on your chosen platform. 

Keep them focused on the task by highlighting the recently purchased items and including a link to the platform where the customer can leave a review.

You can set one of these up using any of the MailerLite post-purchase triggers. Just be sure to leave enough time between the purchase and the review request so the customer has time to try out the product. 

You can use the MailerLite Buys any product automation template to quickly set up this email automation. Just change the email content from the default to one asking for a review.

Just be sure to leave enough time between the purchase and the review request so the customer has time to try out the product. 

Date-based emails go out on the anniversary of a date. A common kind of date-based automation is a birthday message. Use these email marketing campaigns to send your subscribers a happy birthday message and a discount to encourage them to buy. 

Jennifer from Hyggekrog sends a birthday automation email to her customers, which includes a congratulatory message and a code for a 15% discount. 

Re-engagement emails are those you send to people who haven’t been interacting with your emails. These are typically people who bought from your store and then lost interest in your brand. 

An effective re-engagement email catches the recipient’s attention by including content that stands out. Common ways to do this include offering discounts or using their name in the subject line.

With MailerLite, you can use our Re-engage inactive subscribers segmentation template to trigger the automation. Then just add one or two follow-up emails to give the subscribers multiple chances to engage. 

Since the automation is triggered when the subscriber joins the inactive subscribers segment, they will be automatically removed if they open or click on any of the emails, as they will no longer be part of the segment. 

Here are 4 more best practices to ensure you get the most out of your automations. 

Create a reusable email template

One of the most time-consuming parts of setting up automations is designing the emails you’ll use. Save time by creating a reusable email template and then customizing it for each one. 

You can also get a head start by choosing one of our pre-built email templates. Choose a design that matches your brand and then customize it to your needs. See some of our favorites in the gallery below.

With MailerLite, you can also create a template for each section in your newsletter and then reuse the most relevant ones. 

For example, you could design a product box and simply drag it into place each time you want to promote a product. 

Discover what works with A/B testing

Use A/B testing to optimize the steps of your automations. You could test different subject lines to see which version of an email has the best open rate, or test email content and CTAs to see which version of a product box gets the most clicks. 

Personalize your emails

Use customer data to send personalized emails that are more relevant to their needs. An easy way to do this is to use information you have about the customer, such as their name, to add personalized snippets to your emails. Collect this via signup forms, surveys or a subscriber preference center.

You can also use more general information such as their interests or past purchases to create emails that target their needs. 

Track the results of your campaigns

Connect your e-commerce platform to MailerLite to track how each of your e-commerce automations results in orders. You can see the exact number of sales as well as metrics like the total revenue brought in by each automation.

The ideas in this article cover some of the most common types of automations. But they aren’t the only kinds of emails you can automate and your store may benefit from emails not mentioned here. 

For example, if you have a referral program or a customer loyalty program, you could set up an automated email inviting people to sign up soon after their first purchase. Or you could send out a survey email to gauge people’s experience of shopping at your store. 

The key is to consider the interactions that will push your e-commerce business forward and then automate relevant emails.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in March 2024 and has been updated with new triggers.