Create marketing automations in Shopify

Marketing automations let you send multi-channel communications, such as email, SMS, and push notifications, to customers automatically. You can increase customer engagement and drive conversions by connecting with your customers across multiple platforms.

Marketing automations use Shopify Flow and can be configured in the following ways:

• using a pre-built template offered by Shopify Email or third-party apps
• manually to create a custom automation

Marketing automations are available for stores on the Basic Shopify plan or higher. To create marketing automations, you must have the Marketing permission on your store account. For more information, refer to staff permissions.

Tip

When you set up your automations, consider how they'll interact with each other. For example, if you activate two welcome email automations, then your customers receive twice as many emails.

Create a marketing automation

When you create a marketing automation from a template, you can configure the specific settings of how the automation works. For example, you can adjust the timing of the abandoned cart email and send the email after a specific timeframe when your customer abandons a cart.

After you configure an automation, you can turn it on immediately, or you can save it as a draft. To edit an automation's workflow, you must use a desktop device.

Note

Marketing automations are intended for connecting to customers who have subscribed to marketing from your store, and shouldn't be used for transactional emails such as an order confirmation email.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
2. Click Create automation.
3. Click the automation that you want to turn on.
4. Click Use workflow.
5. Review and edit your workflow actions.
6. Click Turn on workflow, and then click Turn on.

After you turn on an automation, you can access marketing automation analytics to find out how the automation is performing. Learn more about using the Shopify Email template editor to customize your automation emails.

Edit a marketing automation or email template

You can edit the workflow for a marketing automation to change when an email is sent to a customer. Additionally, you can edit the email template used in the automation. To edit an automation's workflow or email template, you must use a desktop device.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
2. In the Automations section:
   • To edit the workflow, click the automation that you want to edit, and then click Edit workflow. Make any desired changes, and then click Apply changes.
   • To edit the email template, click the … button on the automation, and then click Edit. Make any desired changes, then click Save.
3. Click Exit.

Turn a marketing automation off

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
2. In the Automations section, click the automation that you want to turn off.
3. Click Turn off automation, and then click Turn off.

Any workflows that are in a wait stage are canceled so no further emails are sent as part of the automation.

Access marketing automation analytics

You can access analytics, such as conversion rate, for automations that you activate to help you understand the impact of marketing automations on your business. You can use this information to improve your automations and experiment with different configurations.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
2. In the Automations section, click the automation that you want to access the analytics for.
3. In the Marketing activities in the workflow section, click …, and then click View report.

Shopify Email

Marketing automations use Shopify Email to send email messages to customers excluding the custom marketing automations and third-party automations. Emails that are sent using marketing automations, other than the abandoned checkout automation emails, count towards your emails sent with Shopify Email. For more information, refer to Shopify Email pricing.

Types of Shopify Email marketing automations

Review the following table to learn more about the types of Shopify Email marketing automations:

Types of marketing automations and their descriptions.

Automation	Description
Abandoned cart	Sends an email message to customers who add products to their cart, but don't start the checkout process.
Abandoned checkout	Sends an email message to customers who start the checkout process, but don't complete an order.
Abandoned product browse	Sends an email message to customers who view a specific product, but don't add it to their cart.
Custom	Design your own email automations based on events that you choose.
Customer winback	Sends an email message to customers after a specified amount of time has passed since their last order was placed.
First purchase upsell	Sends an email message to customers after they maKe their first purchase.
Post-purchase thank you	Sends a thank you email to customers after their first and second purchases.
Post-purchase upsell email	Sends a post-purchase upsell email message after a customer buys something.
Welcome email series (brand story with discount)	Sends your brand story and social links in 3 emails. If no purchase is made, then an email with a discount is sent.
Welcome email series (discount with reminder)	Sends new subscribers an email with a discount, followed by 2 brand-building emails. If no purchase is made, then a discount reminder is sent.
Welcome new subscriber	Sends an email message to customers when they subscribe using the email signup form on your online store.

Types of third-party marketing automations

Review the following table to learn more about the types of third-party marketing automations:

Types of third-party marketing automations and their descriptions.

Automation	Description
Back in stock email	Uses Seguno and sends an email to customers who request a restock alert. Learn more about Seguno's restock automation and pricing information.
Browser push notification for specific product releases	Uses PushOwl to send a browser push notification to all of your PushOwl subscribers. The push notification is sent when a new product that you add includes the push notification product tag. Learn more about PushOwl's automated push notification for new product releases.
Post-purchase upsell email or SMS	Uses Shopify Email and AfterShip SMS to send a post-purchase upsell email message or SMS after a customer places an order. Learn more about how to send a post-purchase upsell email or SMS through AfterShip SMS, along with SMS pricing and subscription plans.