Creating marketing automations in Shopify
You can create and manage your marketing automations from your Shopify admin in the following ways:
- using a template offered by Shopify Email or third-party apps on the Automations page of your Shopify admin.
- manually creating a custom automation by creating a workflow in the Flow app that includes a trigger, conditions, and actions.
If you create a workflow using Shopify Flow that includes a marketing activity action, then it also displays in your Shopify admin as a marketing automation, and can be edited from the Automations page or in the Flow app.
On this page
Requirements for creating marketing automations
To create and edit marketing automations, your store needs to meet the following requirements:
- Your store must be on the Basic plan or higher.
- For full functionality, your store needs to have the Shopify Flow app installed.
- A staff member must have both the Marketing and Flow App permissions on their store account. Learn more about staff permissions.
Considerations for creating marketing automations
- When you set up your automations, consider how they interact with each other. For example, if you activate two welcome email automations, then your customers receive twice as many emails.
- If you're using a mobile device, then you can only create the following types of automations:
- Convert abandoned product browse
- Recover abandoned cart
- Recover abandoned checkout
- To create non-abandonment automations, create a custom automation, or edit an automation, you need to use a desktop device.
Create a marketing automation
Before you create a marketing automation, review the considerations for creating marketing automations, and marketing automation types.
When you create a marketing automation, you can configure the specific settings for how the automation works. For example, you can adjust the wait time between when your customer abandons their cart and when an abandoned cart email is sent.
Steps:
Desktop
From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
Click View templates.
Do any of the following: To create an abandoned checkout, abandoned cart, or abandoned product browse automation, click or search for the automation template that you want to use. * Optional: Click Edit > Edit email to edit the template in the Shopify Email editor. * Optional: If you're creating a Recover abandoned checkout automation, then in the Shopify Email editor, you can use the To: drop-down menu to send to All customers.
- To create any other automation from a template, click or search for the automation that you want to use, click Use template, and then review and edit your workflow actions.
- To create a custom automation, click Create custom automation, and then configure the workflow of your automation.
Depending on the automation that you create, click Turn on automation or Turn on workflow to activate your automation.
iPhone
- From the Shopify app, tap …, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations, and then tap +.
- Depending on the automation that you want to create, tap Recover abandoned checkout, Convert abandoned product browse, or Recover abandoned cart.
- Tap Turn on automation to create and activate your automation.
Android
- From the Shopify app, tap ☰, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations, and then tap +.
- Depending on the automation that you want to create, tap Recover abandoned checkout, Convert abandoned product browse, or Recover abandoned cart.
- Tap Turn on automation to create and activate your automation.
After you turn on an automation, you can access marketing automations metrics and reporting to learn how your automation is performing.
Edit a marketing automation or template
You can edit the workflow for a marketing automation to change when a message is sent to a customer. You can also edit the template used in the automation.
Steps:
From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
In the Automations section, edit your workflow or template:
- 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 template, click the … button on the automation, and then click Edit. Make any desired changes, then click Save.
Click Exit.
Turn off a marketing automation
You can turn off a marketing automation. Any workflows that are in a wait stage are cancelled so that no further messages are sent as part of the automation.
Steps:
Desktop
From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
In the Automations section, click the automation that you want to turn off.
Click Turn off automation, and then click Turn off.
iPhone
- From the Shopify app, tap …, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations.
- Tap the automation that you want to turn off.
- Tap ⋮, and then tap Turn off automation.
Android
- From the Shopify app, tap ☰, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations.
- Tap the automation that you want to turn off.
- Tap ⋮, and then tap Turn off automation.
Marketing automation metrics and reporting
You can access key metrics and reports 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.
Key metrics
You can view key metrics about all of your marketing automations from your Shopify admin on the Automations page, in the Results from marketing automations section. To view metrics for a specific automation, click the title of the marketing automation that you want to review.
The following metrics are provided about your marketing automations:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Reach | The total number of impressions for all marketing activities used in marketing automations. For example, for an email automation, this is the number of email sends. |
| Sessions | The total number of sessions on your online store that are attributed to marketing automations. |
| Orders | The total number of orders that are attributed to marketing automations. |
| Conversion rate | The percentage of sales attributed to each marketing activity that resulted in an order. |
| Sales | The net sales (gross sales minus discounts and returns), plus taxes and shipping, that are attributed to marketing activities from within the marketing automation. |
View reporting for marketing automations
You can view a marketing activities report for each of your marketing automations. This report includes detailed information about the marketing activities within your automations, such as conversion rates and top orders by sales.
Steps:
Desktop
From your Shopify admin, go to Marketing > Automations.
In the Automations section, click the automation that you want to access the analytics for.
In the activity index, tap …, and then tap View report.
iPhone
- From the Shopify app, tap …, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations.
- Tap the automation that you want to access analytics for.
- In the Activities in this automation section, tap the automation.
Android
- From the Shopify app, tap ☰, and then tap Marketing.
- Tap Automations.
- Tap the automation that you want to access analytics for.
- In the activity index, tap …, and then tap View report.