It is Monday after Black Friday. You have a few hundred orders to process, the courier calls you twice an hour, and in the admin you can see the carts abandoned over the weekend. You have no time to write to anyone. These are exactly the days automations exist for: you set them up once, and they send the right email when a customer does something or, just as important, when they stop doing anything.
A campaign you send once. An automation works every day, without you.
Below are ten, in the order in which they are worth building. For each one you will find what starts it, what to write in it, and the mistake we see most often in small stores. We are not giving you conversion percentages, because they depend on your product, your price and your customers. You measure your own after the first few weeks.
1. The welcome email
When it starts: someone subscribes through the form on your site, a pop-up, or at checkout.
What to write: who you are, what they will get from you and how often. Then a reason to buy: your best-selling products, or a code for the first order if your margin allows it. A new subscriber pays the most attention to the first email, so send it right away, not the next day.
The mistake: an email with your logo and a "See the store" button. That is all. The person subscribed and learns nothing.
2. Browse abandonment
When it starts: a visitor you know (they left you their email at some point) looks at a product or a category and leaves without adding anything to the cart.
What to write: the product they viewed and two or three close alternatives. A discreet tone. The person only looked; they have not said yet that they want to buy.
The mistake: the email goes out a few seconds after the visit and feels like you are following them. Let a few hours pass.
3. The abandoned cart
When it starts: products in the cart and no order after the interval you chose.
What to write: the products in the cart, with photo, price and a button that leads straight back to the cart. The second and third emails answer what usually stops the customer: shipping cost, returns, paying by card or cash on delivery.
The mistake: the discount in the first email. If you give a code right away, you teach your customers to leave the cart and wait. Keep the discount for the last email in the series, if you give one at all.
Tip! A rhythm often seen in our guides: the first email one hour after abandonment, the second at 24 hours, the third at 72 hours. It is a starting point, not a law.
4. The abandoned checkout
When it starts: the customer reached checkout and filled in their contact details but did not pay.
What to write: this is the closest to a purchase of all the abandonments, so the email is short: "Your order is waiting for you", a direct link, and an offer of help if they had a problem with payment.
The mistake: treating it like any other cart. If you already have a cart series, take out of it anyone who enters the checkout series. Otherwise the person gets two emails saying the same thing.
5. Confirmation and the parcel's journey
When it starts: the order is placed, shipped, delivered.
What to write: what happens next and when: the tracking number, the estimated date, who to write to if something is wrong. Customers expect these emails and open them, so there is room for one link to a how-to guide or to a complementary product. One, not ten.
The mistake: staying on the platform's default texts, without your brand and without the information the customer is looking for.
6. After delivery: how to use it and what goes with it
When it starts: a few days after delivery.
What to write: how to use the product and which accessories or consumables fit it. First you solve the customer's problem, only then do you suggest something.
The mistake: recommendations unrelated to what they bought. Someone who bought an espresso machine wants coffee and descaler, not a phone case. Start from the category of the product they bought.
7. The review request
When it starts: after the customer has had time to use the product.
What to write: one question, one link. Reviews help on the product page and give your ads credibility.
The mistake: sending it before the parcel arrives, or asking only satisfied customers. Selecting inflates your rating and breaks the rules of many review platforms.
8. Replenishment
When it starts: the customer bought a consumable (cosmetics, coffee, supplements, pet food) and about as much time has passed as the product lasts.
What to write: "You are probably running out. Order it again?" and a link that goes straight to the product, not to the home page.
The mistake: the same interval for the whole catalog. A shampoo and a large bag of dog food do not run out at the same time. Set the interval per category, from your own data: how long usually passes between the first and the second order.
9. Win-back
When it starts: the customer has not ordered for longer than is normal in your store between two orders.
What to write: what is new since their last order and, if the margin allows, a reason to come back. Two or three emails, no more.
The mistake: insisting endlessly. Whoever does not respond to the series leaves the regular sends. Ignored emails damage your sender reputation, and that is then felt across the whole list.
10. Birthdays and other moments
When it starts: a birthday, one year since the first order or since joining the loyalty program.
What to write: a short, personal message, with a small gesture or with loyalty points if you have a program. It is the simplest way to write to the customer about something other than products.
The mistake: asking for the date of birth without saying why. Say at collection what you do with it, and keep it only if the person agrees.
Where to start
If you are starting from zero, do three: welcome, abandoned cart and the order emails (confirmation, shipping). Then add the after-delivery email and win-back. Browse abandonment and replenishment come when you have enough traffic and enough order history.
Two rules that spare you, and your customers, a lot of annoyance:
- At most one commercial email a day, per person. If several automations start at once, you decide which one has priority.
- Whoever buys leaves the series. When the customer places the order, every series aimed at them stops. Nothing is more irritating than a "Did you forget something in your cart?" an hour after you paid.
How you build them in Aopy
Aopy is built by the team behind Clinica de Marketing, which has worked in e-commerce since 2016.
Automations in Aopy start from more than 40 types of triggers. Among them: abandoned cart, browse and checkout, order stages, the review request, a product back in stock, a price drop, a birthday and a customer entering an RFM segment. You build the automation from steps: wait, add a condition, send a message. You can test two versions of the same email (A/B) and put email and SMS in the same automation.
Pop-ups and forms on your site bring you subscribers, and a new subscriber can start the welcome email directly. If you use the loyalty program, its events can start an automation too: points earned or points about to expire.
What Aopy does not do: it does not write the emails for you and it does not guess the right intervals for your products. Those remain decisions you make, based on your store's data. The plans are on the pricing page.