Email automation: What it is, how it works & best tools

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt from email automation is that any flow, no matter how insignificant it appears, can drastically improve marketing ROI. My approach is always the same now; I cover the complete customer journey, not bits of it.

You can follow my approach with marketing automation software, and the understanding that your customers have different lifecycle stages.

Some of your customers are in the pre-purchase stage, some post. Others are new, old, unengaged, active, and so on. It changes how you write, personalize, and target emails, so that each message is contextual and built for engagement.

I consistently achieve fantastic results with considered email automations. Omnisend gives me the tools to do that, and others are seeing success too, with automated emails earning 30% of revenue from 2% of sends in 2025.

ROI, revenue, better customer experiences, and results are the aim of the game with email automation, and I’m going to show you how to achieve them in this article. You’ll learn:

• What email automation is
• Its role within email marketing
• The 10 best tools for automation
• Best practices for your flows
• AI features and what’s helpful
• Plus, get inspired with five email automation examples

What is email automation?

Email automation is the sending of messages by software, triggered by events and activities that you define in flows. Those flows, also known as automations, can contain one email or a series of emails depending on their purpose and recipient.

The first flow I create for my new stores is a welcome series, triggered when new subscribers complete the signup form. Instant delivery or a delay of five minutes with that one. 

I also create cart abandonment flows for one day following abandonment. The image below shows how my flow shifts through the event, delay, and sending of the email:

Notice how I’m covering behavior-based events there? My customer abandons their cart, and my email tool triggers the email. They sign up, again, my email tool triggers the email. 

Behavior is one trigger you can use, and there are two main others:

• Time-based: Slightly simpler than the behavior triggers because they are more about gating and pacing, this time covering frequency settings, such as in the last X hours or weeks.
• Segment-based: Triggers an email when customers enter a segment. Could be active, inactive, at risk, or something more granular, such as customers who purchased X amount from Texas in the last 30 days.
• Behavior-based: As above, these are actions your customers take, be that opening a message, clicking through, viewing a page, or adding a product to their cart.

As an aside, I was recently asked, “What is email marketing automation?” after explaining to another marketer how they can use inboxes to generate revenue. I misassumed they knew the difference between campaigns, mass sends, and flows.

I’ll clarify here if you have the same question. A campaign is a standalone or scheduled email send. A mass text is also a campaign, but to thousands of addresses. An automation is a triggered email, not something you hit the go button on, and it arrives.

Why did I recommend email automations, and not campaigns, to my fellow marketer? There’s more money in them. Although they only accounted for 2% of email sends in 2025, they won 30% of revenue, earning 16× more per send than scheduled campaigns.

Another point I’ll make is that email automation is one channel in your mix. Omnisend handles email, SMS, and push notifications, and its customers saw a fantastic $79 ROI for every $1 spent in 2025 across all channels. Email automation is the big one, but don’t neglect the others.

Email automation vs. email marketing: What’s the difference?

Email marketing is the umbrella term and broad strategy for email activities across your ecommerce store, so it includes email automation, as well as campaigns.

I sometimes also say “email marketing automation” to my team to point out when we’re discussing promotional sends or those that influence purchasing decisions via marketing.

Good examples for email marketing automation include cross-sells and thank-you messages, which are automated, yet have a crystal clear marketing intent.

The table below explains the differences between email marketing and automation:

Email automation series vs. single emails

Your flows can contain single emails or a series. I refer to this as the flow structure, which sets the pace and depth of the messages my customers receive:

• Single emails: Triggered by a flow containing one email element. Once my message is sent/delivered, the flow stops and doesn’t trigger another.
• Series: From flows that contain two, three, or more emails. They trigger different emails based on frequency settings, behavior, or segment activity.

I use a mixture of series and single emails in my marketing. There isn’t an incorrect approach, but there are times when one is more appropriate than the other:

• Single emails are suitable for confirmations, feedback requests, thank-yous, and most scenarios requiring only information sharing between you and customers. Back-in-stock alerts are my best performers and achieved a 6.46% conversion rate in 2025.
• A series is more effective for nurturing, retention, and generating revenue from complex customer journeys. A welcome series is the first one I add to my stores to grow my list and encourage initial purchases. Multiple emails typically convert better because they let me space incentives and escalate the urgency. 

Worth noting, too, is that my email automation series can become a single email if my flow removes customers early when they complete what I want them to, such as purchasing from an abandoned cart email. It reduces fatigue and preserves my send quota.

Benefits of email automation

A conundrum that ecommerce store owners ask me about is justifying automating more emails and creating new flows beyond the confirmations that Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and others do by default.

I always say that sticking with confirmations as your only email automations leaves money on the table and doesn’t cover your complete customer journey. There are stages of their journey that email automations cover, and you should use all of them to your advantage.

These benefits of email marketing automation are why you should prioritize it:

• Revenue generation: I set up email automations before launching any new store and continue optimizing them because they consistently generate revenue. Omnisend’s own data shows they outperform campaign conversion rates by a staggering 2,361%.
• Return on investment: Free or paid, your email tool requires time investment for the initial configuration and ongoing stuff. Automated emails arrive at high-intent moments and when customers are most at risk. They generate more revenue per email sent, and for Omnisend customers, contribute to a 76x email marketing ROI.
• Better customer experiences: My customers find email automations to be beneficial to their journey because they arrive at the moments they are signing up, browsing, joining a loyalty program, abandoning, or on an anniversary. A well-timed email provides what they expect and can re-engage those I’m about to lose.
• Less customer churn: Some of my best-performing email automations are those that close the gap between customers going quiet and me reaching out. Those who haven’t clicked an email in 60 days aren’t useless contacts, but opportunities to win back. An automation can do the job without me having to spot and target them manually.
• Personalization opportunities: A campaign doesn’t use event or behavior-based triggers, so it can’t show dynamic content in the same way as automations and satisfy the 71% of consumers who expect personalized experiences (McKinsey). With a flow, my customers receive personalized emails that don’t just mention them by name. The product recommendations and language are contextual to how they interact with my brand.
• Time savings (for you): Two factors here. The first is reaching customers on autopilot. The second is replacing email campaigns you’d create manually. A flow for automated email marketing is built once and reaches your customers without more work.

Best email marketing automation tools 2026

The table below includes all my favorite email automation software for 2026, which I personally tested to learn their features. Some platforms I’ve used for years include Omnisend, Sender, and Brevo. My list only contains those good enough for ecommerce.

Click any of the jump links below to skip to the top email marketing automation platforms that interest you. I’ve been fair to all of them and approached my reviews without bias.

Quick note: I created the above marketing automation tool table in March 2026.

Top 10 email automation tools: Tested and reviewed

1. Omnisend — Best for ecommerce automations

Who I’d recommend this to

I recommend Omnisend for ecommerce automation, no matter your store size. Its native integrations have higher review ratings than most others on Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Wix, and its third-party dashboard makes you extremely productive.

Some of my installations include:

• A Shopify electronics marketplace with >30,000 visitors/month. Omnisend grows my list, retains customers, and integrates with Judge.me to segment reviewers by rating and automate thank-you emails for five-star reviewers.
• A one-product Wix store. Has fewer than 2,000 visitors/month but targets high-intent keywords with a 3% conversion rate. Omnisend creates a professional experience with automated welcome series, abandoned cart, and thank-you emails.

I’ve found that Omnisend has one of the lowest learning curves (Sender and MailerLite come close) and can scale as well as Klaviyo with better value. Consider Omnisend if:

• You are an ecommerce store selling physical or digital products
• Native integration to your ecommerce platform is a must
• Your tech stack leans heavily on apps, such as Gorgias
• You don’t want any standard feature restrictions across any plan
• SMS is as critical to you as email, since Omnisend treats both channels as primary, with multichannel capabilities across all flows

The video below provides an Omnisend primer:

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• The pre-built automations cover all common ecommerce scenarios and have assigned triggers and filters, so minimal work is necessary to get them going.
• Its workflow builder is fast to master because it lets you drag and drop message types and actions into it. Errors show with red borders around those elements, and there’s a notification icon at the top for the same.
• Multichannel isn’t an afterthought. Message types for automations include email, SMS, and push notification (of the web variety, not mobile). As mentioned before, you can drag these into flows, and they work perfectly after setup.

What doesn’t work

• You can’t set local time zones in automations. Instead, all automations use your store’s time zone. The way I work around this is to create new flows and assign regional segments to them with delays appropriate for the time difference.
• Stats reset when you edit blocks in live flows. I’ve been caught out by it a few times. It then takes 30 days without further changes to show stats. Taking screenshots of their performance before editing is essential.

Pricing

Omnisend’s free plan gives access to all standard features. Paid plans use contact-based pricing with generous send limits. The Pro plan is the highest tier and includes personalized content based on behavior and advanced reporting.

The table below shows Omnisend’s pricing from 250 to 5,000 contacts:

You can join Omnisend for free here.

2. Sender – Best for mass automations and transactional emails

Who I’d recommend this to

I recommend Sender for ecommerce stores that send thousands of marketing emails and transactional messages/month. Its cheapest plans have standard automations, and these cover email flows, with multichannel flows in more expensive ones.

The automations are more basic than Omnisend’s, with 10 triggers versus Omnisend’s 20+ with custom events, so it’s suitable for less complex customer journeys. My Sender setups consist of confirmations and welcome series messages primarily.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• It separates transactional and marketing automations, keeping confirmations, resets, and notifications on a dedicated sending path to maximize deliverability.
• The automation builder requires no learning curve whatsoever, and there are pre-built flows for multiple scenarios. My favorite is the Spin to Win flow, which delivers coupons to those who win and also resends to those who didn’t open.
• Each flow includes action steps for subscriber management, such as moving contacts between groups, updating custom fields, sending webhooks, and notifying yourself.

What doesn’t work

• There are no native Wix, BigCommerce, or OpenCart integrations. If you use those platforms, you’ll need to use Zapier as a workaround.
• Advanced automations require the Professional plan from $20/month, which gives you double the send volume of Omnisend at the same price but still lacks the automation depth Omnisend offers at that tier.

Pricing

Sender’s pricing is based on contact count. Its free plan is the most generous on my list, and its paid plans are among the cheapest. The table below reveals Sender’s pricing for contact counts from 1,000 to 5,000 subscribers:

3. Brevo — Best for B2C and B2B email automation

Who I’d recommend this to

Brevo is my pick of email automation tools for any small to mid-sized business selling to consumers and businesses. It has a built-in CRM for companies and contacts, and you can create flows for both groups and custom segments for appropriate targeting.

Its workflows cover ecommerce basics like a welcome message and abandoned cart email. But I rate its Sequences the most, part of its Sales Advanced package, which automates outreach with a mix of standard flows and 1:1 emails. Perfect for complex sales cycles.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• It offers the broadest automation trigger variety for sales and marketing, spanning email, ecommerce, deals, meetings, loyalty, and phone.
• One-to-one conversations are built into it. I can compose and reply to emails and SMS from contact, deal, or company pages, and Brevo’s AI assistant can generate follow-up emails from call transcripts.
• The segmentation capabilities are suitable for all store sizes. All paid plans have advanced segmentation, and these update in real-time with store updates, so I don’t have to maintain my lists manually.

What doesn’t work

• There isn’t an ecommerce focus. Brevo’s triggers and flows are built for sales and general marketing rather than covering your buyer journey pre- and post-purchase.
• WhatsApp is mentioned as a primary channel, but disappointingly, it’s only available when I subscribe to the expensive Professional plan.
• Its cheapest plan, Starter, has significant limitations, including no A/B testing, no contact scoring, no landing pages, and no popups.

Pricing

Brevo has a free plan with a daily sending limit of 300 emails/day. Its paid plans are priced based on send volume, not contact count. The table below covers Brevo’s pricing for 5,000 or 10,000 emails/month:

4. Klaviyo — Best for complex automations based on data

Who I’d recommend this to

I recommend Klaviyo when your store generates lots of behavioral data to feed its complex automations. Its 80+ pre-built email flows cover your complete customer journey, and you can use multichannel SMS to reach people with time-sensitive alerts.

Like Omnisend, Klaviyo is best for ecommerce, not small businesses, but it trades Omnisend’s small learning curve for advanced features. 

I can trigger flows from five trigger types, including price drops, date properties, and customer actions, and add conditional and trigger splits to send customers down different paths. Also, it lets me use predictive analytics as segment filters.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• Building flows for common customer journeys takes minutes. The pre-built automations are all I need for most ecommerce stores.
• Automations allow advanced branching and conditional logic. One of the features I regularly use is setting profile filters that re-check before each step, so customers in the flow get skipped if their status changes.
• The predictive segmentation in Klaviyo is my favourite feature. It lets me use predictive analytics to create segments based on churn risk and lifetime value and then target them in automations.

What doesn’t work

• There’s a learning curve for those advanced features. The documentation is good, but I’ve had to contact support multiple times to clarify and troubleshoot.
• The triggers, filters, and conditions in flows and segments are overkill for any store that wants only to cover the basics well.
• Klaviyo is also a fantastic customer service tool with a helpdesk, customer hub, and customer agent. However, these features are too expensive for modest stores ($140/month for 200 AI conversations with Customer Agent, for instance).

Pricing

Klaviyo’s pricing uses the number of your active profiles. It has a free plan, although it restricts generative AI and customer product recommendation features.

The table below shows Klaviyo’s pricing per 500 to 5,000 active contacts:

5. Mailchimp — Best for small business email automations

Who I’d recommend this to

Mailchimp is one of the best marketing automation tools for small stores and email newcomers. It lets you quickly build single or email series automations with flow templates or create them from scratch using its visual flow builder.

Automation rules can be relatively complex, with a conditional split, percentage split, wait for, and time delay, with conditional splits allowing five conditions on Standard plans.

The first automation I always create for stores using Mailchimp is an email with a survey, since Mailchimp has survey features built in (don’t need another app). Another is two welcome series, one for low spenders and one for those who purchase over $100.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• I can create automations that add and remove contacts accurately using actions. The best settings are tag/untag and group/ungroup.
• The visual automation builder is easy to use, and I can add a marketing objective. Adding an objective influences the data Mailchimp provides in reports.
• It integrates with 300+ apps, including Wix and BigCommerce, which Sender lacks. Its native integrations also extend to TikTok Lead Ads, Snapchat Lead Generation, Meta Lead Ads, and X to categorize leads into segments, which you can add to your automations.

What doesn’t work

• Free plans don’t include marketing automation flows. Even the lowest-cost Essentials plan limits you to four flow steps.
• No SMS available in the free plan. It’s a significant limitation when you consider that Omnisend lets you send SMS in all plans.

Pricing

Mailchimp uses contact-based pricing and applies a multiplier (such as 10x) to send limits in paid plans. The table below reveals pricing up to 5,000 contacts:

6. ActiveCampaign — Best for AI email automation features

Who I’d recommend this to

ActiveCampaign is my favorite marketing automation tool when managing large ecommerce stores with complex customer journeys. 

Its AI features lend a massive helping hand in making tasks fast. The AI flow builder, AI-suggested segments, and AI content generation are my hot picks. They can build what I want with prompts and have the uncanny ability to do it right the first time.

Also, if you manage sales and want a tool to link how all automations work together, this is the one for you (pick the Pro plan for its automations map).

What works and what doesn’t

• Its 950+ automation recipes always impress me. Not only is the volume and depth superior to any other tool on my list, but they’re available across all plans.
• My flows can be granular with multiple steps and automation actions, such as sending a second email, sending an SMS, adding a custom delay, or amending a tag.
• The Plus plan includes sales automation features, which interconnect with marketing automations for outreach, meetings, and deals.

What doesn’t work

• No cross-channel marketing in the Starter plan, email only.
• Only five actions per automation are allowed in the Starter plan, which limits my ability to create complex automations. ActiveCampaign then wants a massive increase in price, from $15 for Starter, to $49/month for Pro, for unlimited actions and 1,000 contacts.

Pricing

ActiveCampaign uses contact-based pricing. It doesn’t offer a permanent free plan, but it does offer a money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied in 30 days.

Here’s ActiveCampaign’s pricing up to 5,000 contacts:

7. Drip — Best for automations with unlimited email sends

Who I’d recommend this to

I recommend Drip if you want unlimited email sends immediately and access to every automation feature without any limitations or fuss.

There are several features in Drip that I rate, primarily its intuitive dashboard, which makes switching between flows, forms, and segments fast. But it’s the workflow builder that steals the show because it describes what the components are and do, perfect for beginners.

For instance, it asks what kind of step you want to add. Action, decision, parallel paths, goals, delays, split tests, exits, and so on, with descriptions. You can then build complex flows without worrying about them doing things you don’t want them to.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• The behavioral and customer-action-based triggers are extremely effective for targeting when people buy, browse, click, and interact with your ecommerce store.
• You can add an SMS to workflows. Drip then attributes revenue to whichever channel contributed to the sale, such as an email or text.
• If you have a large team, then Drip’s unlimited sub-accounts ensure everyone can collaborate without spending more.

What doesn’t work

• Its automations only scale in volume to a point, with all plans capping you to 50 workflows.
• There’s no live chat support unless you spend over $99/month, and even then, it’s only available Monday to Friday between set hours.

Pricing

Drip has one plan, with contact-based pricing starting from 2,500 contacts. There isn’t a free plan. The table below reveals Drip’s pricing up to 5,000 contacts:

8. AWeber — Best for getting email automation setup done for you

Who I’d recommend this to

AWeber could be the best email marketing automation platform if you want automations, landing pages, and the ability to process payments from one platform.

Yes, AWeber has Shopify, WooCommerce, and other integrations, but its biggest sell is its ecommerce features with low transaction fees. You can use email automations to target your customers and bring them to your sales pages.

I also like AWeber’s email template library, which has 600+ marketing and newsletter templates that I can assign to my flows. Another feature I enjoy is the Smart Designer, which generates branded templates based on my web content.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• Building workflows is relatively easy with the drag-and-drop editor. I like being able to add steps, messages, waits, and tags on the canvas.
• Dynamic content is present in all paid plans. It lets me show different text, images, and offers to subscribers based on tags and custom fields.
• AWeber Ecommerce lets you sell products and services on landing pages, with the customers you target in automations clicking through to them.

What doesn’t work

• Its automations lack Klaviyo’s or ActiveCampaign’s complexity, and its flow builder isn’t as intuitive as Omnisend’s.
• The free and lite plans only allow one email list, one segment, and three email automations. If you want more, you’ll pay a minimum of $30/month for the Plus plan (Omnisend and Sender offer much better value).

Pricing

AWeber has a free plan, and its paid plans use contact-based pricing, so the more contacts you have, the more you pay. The table below includes pricing from 500 to 5,000 contacts:

9.  MailerLite — Best for low-cost email email automations

Who I’d recommend this to

MailerLite is the best email automation tool if you need to send up to 12,000 emails/month for free or have a small list you send to frequently.

It’s an absolute steal that you can get unlimited emails for as little as $10/month with dynamic content, A/B testing, email click maps, and real-time automation reports.

I appreciate the approach to minimalism in the dashboard and how it makes it as fast as possible to start new flows. Only the Advanced plan supports multiple automation triggers and provides complete access to automation templates, though.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• I’m a fan of the email automation builder. It lets me drag and drop items into it, and the sidebar displays settings for rules and actions. A separate tab has triggers. Only Omnisend offers a similarly intuitive interface.
• The 15 pre-built automation templates cover most of what I need, including a welcome email, abandoned cart email, and membership renewals.
• Like AWeber, MailerLite lets you sell on its webpages. For instance, it supports digital and physical product sales, paid newsletters, and recurring subscriptions. It isn’t one of my most-used features, but it does provide new revenue opportunities if you’re a creator.

What doesn’t

• The cheapest plan, Growing Business, doesn’t let me edit email templates with HTML or use the AI writing assistant. I’m stuck using the default templates and writing copy myself, or leaning on other tools to do it for me.
• MailerLite’s automations don’t extend to transactional emails. Transactional emails require an additional paid plan, starting from $7/month for 5,000 emails, with email API access and SMTP relay.

Pricing

MailerLite has contact-based pricing starting from 500 subscribers/month. Its free plan is also suitable for 500 subscribers/month with generous send limits. The table below covers MailerLite’s pricing from 500 to 5,000 subscribers:

10. Privy — Best for basic email and SMS automations

Who I’d recommend this to

I recommend Privy if you want basic ecommerce email automations and don’t plan on needing complex triggers and filters from the data you collect.

Privy’s found a place in my email automation toolkit for abandoned cart recovery and purchase follow-ups, where its cart value filters and time delays cover the essentials.

One of the things I really like about Privy is its SMS capabilities being built in and not feeling like an afterthought. My flows can trigger an email and an SMS based on customer behavior, and thanks to a recent update, I can split flows by email or SMS events.

What works and what doesn’t

What works

• There’s an ecommerce focus to email automations. Being able to filter by cart value, products, collections, order count, and whether customers placed or received an order is really helpful for targeting.
• Privy’s email + SMS automations treat both channels as primary. I appreciate being able to use the same triggers and filters across both.
• Unlimited email sends and 250 bonus SMS credits in all plans. That allowance lets me set up email automations without worrying about sending limits and add text messages to my most crucial flows (such as review requests).

What doesn’t work

• Very few native integrations compared to Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Mailchimp. For instance, its only reward and loyalty program integrations are Yotpo and Smile. 
• There isn’t any contact scoring or customer lifecycle map. So, I’m in the dark about where customers fit into my strategy. Omnisend and Klaviyo have contact profiles, and they also provide a customer breakdown with average order value and more.

Pricing

Privy charges by what it calls “mailable” contacts, who are those who have opted into receiving your marketing messages. Those who haven’t opted in don’t count. It doesn’t have a free plan.

The table below shows Privy’s pricing from 1,500 to 5,000 contacts for its email plan. All plans tiers unlimited emails and 250 SMS credits:

How to automate emails: Step-by-step guide

First, you need marketing automation software. It’s a non-negotiable. Shopify and other platforms do not handle enough automations to cover your customer journey. 

Omnisend is for ecommerce marketing, and I use it in most of my stores. The only exception is for extremely basic flow requirements, such as a one-email welcome series and abandoned cart email, where something like Shopify Messages will do.

There are multiple email automations you can set up in Omnisend. The first one I always create is a welcome email automation because I can link it to my forms and create my first customer experience (customer signs up, then they get a welcome email).

This video takes only 60 seconds to show you how to create a welcome email flow in Omnisend:

My second email automation is an abandoned cart flow. It’s crucial because it recovers revenue and effectively serves as a welcome email to those who haven’t submitted a form, but did fill out their email address in the checkout email field.

The email marketing automation how-to guide below covers all the steps for creating an abandoned cart flow in Omnisend:

1. Log in to Omnisend.
2. Locate the Automation menu item in the sidebar and click it.
3. Click the + Create workflow button at the top of the Automation page.
4. Find the pre-built Abandoned Cart flow and then click Customize workflow:

5. You will now enter Omnisend’s flow builder. The first highlighted item is the trigger, with the correct preset applied (added product to cart):

From here:

• Click Trigger filters > Add new trigger.
• Click Cart Total if you want your abandoned cart email to only trigger for customers who added a minimum amount to their cart. Add a value, such as 50:

6. Click the Email element in your flow and create a subject line via the settings menu to the right. The AI icon within the field lets you create a subject line with minimal effort:

7. Once you’ve entered a subject line, scroll down to Edit content:

• Click the Edit content button to open the email editor and change your email design, including all copy and media. Then click Finish editing.

8. Click Start workflow to turn your abandoned cart email automation on. You’ll then get redirected to your Automation dashboard:

Pro tip: You can show the stats for any email in your automations by toggling the Show stats button in the flow builder. I find this is an extremely useful feature when I’m reusing email templates and need the best-performing one per automation:

Prefer an interactive guide? There’s an app that walks you through building your first abandoned cart automation. Log in to Omnisend and work with it in another tab for easy setup.

AI in email automation

I use AI chatbots (Gemini, primarily) all the time to bounce ideas around and come up with new email automation ideas. Then, I use Omnisend’s AI features to improve my workflow and speed up the time to complete new segments, flows, and forms.

My point is that AI’s usefulness doesn’t end at the chatbot but also extends into the email tool you use, provided it offers AI features in the plan you pick.

AI saves me time and helps me market products and reach customers more effectively. Here are my top use cases, each available in Omnisend:

• Generative AI: I use it to create unique subject lines and preheaders. First, I write what I think reads well, and then ask AI to make it more engaging. I can then edit its language and remove or add emojis to give the text more pop:

• AI product recommendations: Part of the Pro plan in Omnisend, these are elements I add to my email templates. I can specify recently viewed products and products similar to past purchases, and it consistently picks products my customers want.
• AI segment builder: An incredibly helpful feature that gets better the more customers you have. I can prompt it, and it creates a segment for me. What I love is being able to get granular, such as with this request for “customers from New York who are over the age of 30 and purchased $30 of products in the last 60 days”:

Look at the quality of the AI-generated segment, below, and how it has accurately done what I asked it to. It saves me so much time.

• AI form builders: My paid plan (Standard or Pro) lets me build popups and flyout forms with AI prompts, even complex ones with multiple fields and images. I can add my content to it, and it’ll rewrite it for any season, too:

• AI support and assistance: Omnisend has OmniBot with a floating icon across the backend. I use it to get step-by-step instructions and information about features. The chat below sees me ask about adding a GIF instead of a static image to landing pages. Its response saved me time having to load the editor and find out how to do it:

Of course, I don’t lean on AI email automation for everything. I still maintain human control over these elements because (frankly) I know better:

• Send times, delays, and triggers
• Personalization, such as when to use names
• Segmentation filters, I want control over when my customers enter/exit
• Content, especially writing I know my customers will read, because I’ve noticed a downtick in engagement when emails are clearly AI-generated

Email automation best practices

I’ve added seven automation best practices below based on my personal experiences with multiple email marketing automation platforms. Omnisend has additional coverage where it’s appropriate to provide examples in action:

• Build three core email automations first. The big one to get you going without any complexity. These are the ones I recommend:
  • Welcome series: It introduces customers to your store and provides recognition following their signup. I set my email tool to trigger the message immediately so it arrives within minutes, and add any discount codes or other promises (such as loyalty points) within my template.
  • Abandoned cart: A portion of your customers, just like mine, will abandon their cart after entering their email address. This flow targets them with a saved cart and helps recover lost revenue. The results can be fantastic, with SM Global Shop generating 21.88% of email revenue from them.
  • Thank-you email, or a review request: A post-purchase flow comes third. Thank-you emails are suitable if your order confirmation doesn’t say thank you; otherwise, they are repetitive. In those situations, save your marketing email for after all confirmations and consider sending a review request instead.
• Map your customer lifecycle: The three automations above cover two pre-purchase and one post-purchase stage. There are plenty more, such as anniversaries, back-in-stock alerts, replenishment reminders, cross-sells, and so on. Omnisend has a lifecycle stage map for customers to improve their targeting:

• Set a low-fatigue cadence for your series: A delay of 24 hours, 48 hours, and then 72 hours is standard for the three flows above. Basically, don’t clog inboxes and make customers regret subscribing. I’ve found that unsubscribe rates go up if you send too many emails too frequently.
• Personalize your automations: Customer names are the basic standard to create a connection in your subject line and opening content. If you have behavior-based data, dynamic product recommendations make emails feel even more personal with items they recently browsed or products similar to what they purchased last week. Omnisend lets you create both suggestions in its Pro plan:

• Test subject lines with A/B tests: I have my subject lines down to a fine art thanks to A/B tests, and I’m not alone in seeing improvements. Bowy Made sees 5-10% better conversions from personalized subject lines, which it tests. Omnisend lets you test two versions and auto-sends the winning version to your recipients:

• Don’t discount by default: I know that logic dictates that discounts equal more revenue, but you’ll only train your customers to expect them if you always send them. Discounts should be for sales events and special moments, such as anniversaries. Some flows will convert perfectly well without any incentive (abandoned carts for one).
• Set and revisit exit conditions: Exit conditions are crucial to preventing my automations from triggering irrelevant sends. Omnisend lets me add up to four exit conditions in one flow and five filters. I recommend using its OR logic, such as ending the flow when a customer cancels an order OR gets a refund.

Email automation examples

My favorite email automation examples get to the point with descriptive subject lines and content that does the same. The emails below are from real brands. You can use their ideas for inspiration to create high-converting templates the first time around.

1. Lyka’s welcome email

Subject line: Smiles, welcome to the Lyka Pack!

Lyka is an Australian dog food retailer targeting the pet health sub-market. Its welcome email triggers following an order. I love how it’s practical and not promotional, giving three numbered preparation steps before the first delivery and including the delivery date.

Something else I like, which I do as much as possible in my own automated emails, is linking to guides and support. In Lyka’s case, these build trust at a moment when the customer is most likely to have questions about switching their dog’s food.

Key takeaways

• Lead with practical value when customers are new and need guidance
• Use CTAs to build trust through different support channels rather than pushing a sale

2. Prose’s abandoned cart email

Subject line: Forgot something?

Prose is a custom haircare brand with a fantastic cart recovery email. It uses a progress bar showing how far the customer got in their consultation, creating a sense of unfinished business rather than just reminding them they left items behind.

It leads with completing the experience before the 60% discount, plus uses value props like free shipping and a satisfaction guarantee for pricing objections, something I recommend you do to win over even the most hesitant customers.

Key takeaways

• Show customers how close they are to finishing rather than just reminding them they left
• Let the experience lead and position discounts as a secondary motivation

3. Promix’s back-in-stock email

Subject line: Restocked: Relax Magnesium

Supplement retailer Promix sends back-in-stock emails, which I’ve found have among the highest conversion rates of any automation. In fact, they delivered the highest conversion rates (6.46%) of any automation type in 2025.

Moving on to the email, it immediately tells the customer what’s available again and why it matters with three benefit tags.

The Truemed section is clever and something I might use in some of my emails to remind customers that they can use alternative payments. For most of my ecommerce stores, that would be mentioning Klarna or Afterpay.

Key takeaways

• Use a restock notification as an opportunity to convert one-time buyers into subscribers
• Remove purchase barriers by surfacing alternative payment options like HSA/FSA

4. Going’s survey email

Subject line: Tell us what you think about Going 💡🎉

Going is a cheap flight membership service. Its survey email is direct, with a single ask and a single CTA to “Take survey.”

There’s an incentive on offer that sounds substantial to customers, but minimizes financial investment for Going (a $100 Amazon gift card). The copy is short and frames the survey as quick (“take a minute”) to encourage clicks.

Overall, I think it’s an excellent email automation example for keeping things simple with one heading, a description, and a CTA button.

Key takeaways

• Customers are more likely to respond to requests when you keep things simple
• An incentive doesn’t need to be large to be effective

5. Noom’s win-back email

Subject line: Come back to get your Custom Plan for up to 90% Off

Noom’s win-back email targets lapsed customers with a heavy discount (up to 90% off) and a 14-day free trial, removing the two biggest barriers to returning. 

Its copy acknowledges why people fall off without being judgmental, using a conversational tone (“the occasional stress pizza” line). I like how it links to the customer’s course and reminds them of the progress they’ve already made.

Key takeaways

• Acknowledge why customers left without guilt-tripping them
• Combine a steep discount with a free trial to lower every possible barrier to returning

Start automating your emails today

Email automation is 100% necessary to provide a good customer experience. I usually leave confirmations to my ecommerce platform and invest all efforts into revenue-generating flows like welcome emails and abandoned cart sequences.

A well-timed, contextual automated email arrives at high-intent and critical moments in your customer journey, such as when they’re at risk of unsubscribing. They also satisfy their contact preferences and match browsing activity with personalized content.

Your next step is to test a few email marketing automation platforms. My advice is to start with Omnisend, Sender, and Brevo:

• Omnisend for multichannel automation, segmentation, and AI feature depth. It’s the top choice for ecommerce stores of all sizes, especially Shopify ones.
• Sender for enormous monthly send limits, basic automations, and newsletters. Its transactional emails are much better than stock ones.
• Brevo if you sell to consumers and businesses, since it has a CRM and email automation features in one platform.

All three email tools have free accounts to try. However, only Omnisend provides access to all standard features. Start there for the best value.

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