The 10 Best Email Marketing Automations for Ecommerce

Top ecommerce email automations

Generated by Klaviyo AI

The article explains why automated email flows outperform one-off campaigns for ecommerce revenue and customer engagement. It outlines 10 core automations, from welcome and abandonment flows to post‑purchase, review, and lifecycle journeys, with practical tips on timing, content, and personalization.

Automation value: Email automations triggered by real-time customer behavior can generate significantly higher revenue per recipient than standard campaigns while reducing manual effort.
Core lifecycle flows: Welcome, browse abandonment, abandoned cart, and thank-you flows help capture intent, recover potential lost sales, and build early loyalty with new and returning shoppers.
Post-purchase experience: Instructional, product review, cross-sell, upsell, and replenishment automations educate customers, encourage feedback, and drive repeat purchases with relevant recommendations.
Inventory and timing: Back-in-stock and replenishment emails rely on smart triggers and inventory thresholds to avoid disappointing customers while maximizing conversion opportunities.

You’re picking the segment, writing the copy, designing the template, scheduling the send, then starting over next week. Meanwhile, the emails earning more revenue per recipient (RPR) than any one-off campaign are the ones you built once and mostly leave to their own devices.

With email marketing automation, you get the payoff of personalised marketing without the manual work of one-time email campaigns.

Email automations, also known as flows, generate 4–10x more RPR than one-off campaigns, according to Klaviyo’s 2026 Omnichannel Benchmark Report.

That’s because they’re sent automatically based on what people do in real time, which makes them inherently timely and relevant.

We’re not saying you should ditch your one-off email campaigns. Those still earn their place for promotions, limited-time offers, and other messages that make sense for a wider, segmented audience.

But here are just a few of the benefits of getting the right email marketing automations in place:

More revenue:

Abandoned cart flows alone generate an average $6.77 RPR, compared to $0.20 for standard email campaigns, according to Klaviyo’s 2026 benchmarks.

Greater team efficiency:

After initial set-up, automations work 24/7 without any input from your team. That means you generate revenue in your sleep.

Better customer experience:

74% of consumers expect more personalised experiences from brands in 2025, according to Klaviyo’s 2025 Future of Consumer Marketing Report. Email marketing automations engage subscribers with 1:1 messaging at every stage of their journey, based on real-time actions they take.

10 email automation examples to inspire your email marketing strategy

Here are 10 of the best email marketing automations for ecommerce, with examples from brands putting them into practice.

1. Welcome series email automations make a strong first impression

Your welcome series greets new subscribers and introduces them to your brand. It’s an opportunity to highlight what makes your brand unique, tell your brand story to newcomers, and show how your products fit into people’s lives as you begin to build a genuine relationship with them.

The welcome email is “your first introduction to that contact,” says Sean Donahue, director of email marketing at Power Digital. “You really need to make sure you’re building that brand sentiment and awareness, and giving them a full understanding of what your brand is all about.”

You can also use your welcome series to promote your social media channels and find out how your customers would like to hear from you in future communications. Once you’ve introduced your brand, think about how you’ll keep building the relationship.

Beauty brand UKLASH sends this welcome email to new subscribers. It’s clear about where the brand stands on beauty standards, and the friendly, playful tone gives the discount a personal touch.

Image shows a welcome email from UKLASH with warm, earthy colors that reads, “Welcome to UKLASH. We are so excited to have you here!” The first image in the email shows three models holding mascara and smiling. Below the image, body copy reads, “At UKLASH we believe that in order to have beautiful full lashes you don’t need to spend hours in front of a mirror, or money buying products you don’t actually need or don’t actually work.” The bottom half of the email includes a product image and a welcome discount code. — Image source: UKLASH

2. Browse abandonment email automations bring window shoppers back for more

Shopping in person is fun. You can browse different products, get a feel for the brand, and see all your options. Why not recreate that experience through an email?

With a browse abandonment email, you can send messages based on the product pages and items someone looked at on your website.

A browse abandonment email is similar to the abandoned cart email automation (which we’ll cover next). Both flows help re-engage customers who showed interest but didn’t buy. The primary difference is that browse abandonment emails remind customers what they were looking at, even if it never reached their cart.

Reusables brand Cheeky Wipes sends this playful browse abandonment email after a shopper spends a while looking at a product. The email offers support through the brand’s customer service team, and takes the opportunity to gently up- and cross-sell complementary products.

Browse abandonment email from Cheeky Wipes in blue and white. A 5-star customer review reads, “I have ordered several period items from Cheeky Wipes and they are all fantastic quality. They wash really well and are a good price. Highly recommend.” Images show a person wearing Cheeky period pants, reusable wipes with storage boxes, and a pad being spritzed with wipes spray. The body copy reads, “First time switching to reusables? Or maybe you just have questions? Feel free to contact our team, they LOVE to talk pee, poo and periods!” The bottom half shows a baby wipes kit and a mesh washing bag, each with a “Shop Now” button. — Image source: Cheeky Wipes

Email automation tip: Keep your messaging for this automation simple. The customer already showed interest in the item by looking at it on your website, so don’t distract them with intensive cross-selling or multiple calls to action (CTAs). A gentle reminder of what caught their eye is often enough to bring them back.

3. Abandoned cart email automations recover lost sales

Let’s say your customer gets as far as adding an item to their cart, then gets called away because the baby’s crying or dinner’s ready. They never make it to check-out.

People abandon carts for all kinds of reasons. Distraction, price concerns, second thoughts, unresolved questions. Defaulting to “You forgot this” messaging only addresses one of those.

This is where your customer data comes in handy. Your abandoned cart email should open the door for customers to come back on their own terms, whether that’s through a gentle reminder, an offer of help, or a reason to feel more confident about the purchase.

The ideal abandoned cart automation populates with dynamic content, like an image of the exact product the recipient added, so each reminder feels specific to that shopper. It should also remove any barriers that keep people from checking out.

Brew Tea Company, a Manchester-based tea brand, leads their abandoned cart email automation with a “We saved you some tea” headline that acts as a gentle reminder rather than a pushy attempt to make a sale. The rest of the email matches that restraint, showing the decaffeinated Ceylon the shopper left behind, a simple “Shop” CTA, and a reminder of free shipping over £20.

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

Email automation tip: Some brands include a discount code in their cart abandonment email. But “you don’t always want to start off with big discounts to get someone to check out,” warns Lindsey Murray, VP of performance marketing at Blue Acorn iCi. “Sometimes just the reminder is enough. Once you start heavily using lots of promotions, it’s really hard to go backwards.”

If you’re trying to ease off discounts without hurting your bottom line, split your abandoned cart emails between those who do and don’t qualify for free shipping. Reminding people who qualify that they’re eligible for free delivery can feel like a discount.

4. Thank-you email automations foster loyalty

The thank-you flow, which is a type of post-purchase email, builds brand loyalty by expressing gratitude to your customers for their business.

Your first thank-you email post-purchase sets the tone for everything that follows. The “thank you” is the anchor, but this email can also welcome someone into your community, expand on your brand story, and surface relevant product recommendations, doing the work of 3 separate flows in a single touchpoint.

Skincare brand The Body Shop does this well. Their first-order email thanks the customer for their purchase, then welcomes them to the brand (“You’re officially part of something meaningful”), reinforces values, and closes with 4 product recommendations under “Want to explore more favourites?” The thank you carries the email and makes the customer feel special.

Image source: The Body Shop

Email automation tip: A/B test text-only emails vs. image-heavy ones for this type of automation. It may surprise you that some audiences respond better to a plain-text email that reads and looks like a letter from a friend than to a flashy message with tons of imagery.

Image shows a Tweet saying that plain-text thank you emails from founders can increase customer retention. — Source: X

5. Instructional email automations educate customers

By now, you’ve told your customer how much you appreciate their business. To keep them coming back, show off what your products can do.

“After somebody buys something, they shouldn’t be dead to you, right?” Donahue points out. “You need to create an opportunity to continue the conversation. That’s really important.”

The instructional email automation, another type of post-purchase email, educates customers on how to use, take care of, clean, or assemble what they’ve purchased. This type of onboarding email also cuts customer service enquiries and lowers the risk of poor product adoption.

An instructional email is instrumental to your lead nurturing efforts. Think of it as an educational effort that helps a buyer actually use, better understand, and love what they just bought.

On that note, “instructional” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “how-to.” Beauty brand bareMinerals UK centers their instructional email on a side-by-side pour of their water-based Complexion Rescue Tinted Moisturizer that blends with skin’s natural moisture, compared to an oil-based formula that separates and turns uneven. The lesson is the product itself: the customer learns why it behaves the way it does.

Instructional email from bareMinerals UK in black and cream. The headline reads, “The clean difference is clear,” followed by “Mixing tinted moisturizer with water.” A side-by-side photo shows two hands pouring from glasses. On the left, “Complexion Rescue Tinted Moisturizer,” a “hydrating, water-based formula” that pours smoothly and “blends with skin's natural moisture.” On the right, a “competitive tinted moisturizer” with an “oil-based formula” that “separates and becomes uneven.” The product tube sits between them, and a black “Shop now” button appears at the bottom. — Image source: bareMinerals UK

Email automation tip: As long as your instructional email has no sales or marketing content, you can get it tagged as a transactional email. That way everyone on your list gets this important messaging, not just the ones who’ve opted in to email marketing. Double-check your consent requirements.

6. Review request email automations build community

You’ve told your customers how important they are to you. Now let’s see if you can get a little love from them. This next automation will help you identify your brand ambassadors.

The review request automation is your chance to hear from customers about their experience with your product. It’s also your chance to collect the kind of social proof that can help remove hesitation for a new online shopper who doesn’t have the luxury of feeling and testing your products in person. It’s one thing for your brand to highlight how your products or services are exceptional. It’s another for real people to echo a similar sentiment.

By using a time delay, you can send a review request after customers have both received and had time to enjoy what they bought. How long that takes depends on the product. A fast-moving consumable might be ready for review in a week. Products that take longer to use and evaluate could take a month. Time the delay to when the customer is likely to have an opinion to share.

Maternity activewear brand Natal Active folds a review request into a Big Birthday Sale email celebrating the brand’s own anniversary. Claire, the founder, thanks customers for years of support, flags that the big sale ends at midnight, and asks for a Trustpilot review, framed less as a favour to the brand and more as a way to help other mums deciding whether to buy their first maternity kit.

Email from Natal Active reminding about a Big Birthday Sale ending and asking for Trustpilot reviews. — Image source: Milled

Email automation tip: Not every product review’s going to be a positive one, and that’s okay. Critical feedback helps you grow and improve your product or service offerings. When someone leaves a negative review, it’s an opportunity to listen, understand their pain points, address the issue, and flip them from being an unhappy customer into a brand ambassador.

7. Cross- and up-sell email automations drive repeat revenue

Sometimes the number of options in your online store overwhelms shoppers. Other times, shoppers just don’t have enough time to do a thorough search.

The cross- or up-sell automation helps shoppers find exactly what they’re looking for.

Use this automation to showcase some of your other products or services. Hand pick your flagship or best-selling items, or use AI-powered product recommendations to make suggestions based on a shopper’s purchase history and that of similar customers.

AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) sends this email with products that complement a shopper’s history, with a clear, colourful CTA button above the fold.

Image source: AG1

Email automation tip: Implement time delays so that after someone buys, you can follow up with a complementary item, or the next step up in an up-sell.

8. Replenishment email automations remind customers they’re running low

For brands that sell products that customers buy on a regular cycle, like beauty products, skincare products, and consumer packaged goods (CPGs), replenishment automations can be a welcome reminder.

These automated flows let customers know that their supplies may be running low, and that it’s time for a refill. While you likely know the average usage timeline for most of your products, everyone’s personal timeline is different. Use AI-powered predictive analytics to determine when each individual is most likely to run out, and send your replenishment email on that exact date.

Toilet paper supplier Who Gives A Crap sends this replenishment email when their customers might need another shipment. It’s silly, laugh-out-loud funny, and, most importantly, memorable. There’s usually nothing exciting or fun about buying toilet paper, let alone clicking a button to schedule your next shipment. But Who Gives A Crap subverts that expectation with a thoughtful, beautifully designed, game-like flowchart.

Replenishment email from Who Gives A Crap. The headline reads, “Due for a top up?” above the subhead, “There’s only one way to find out for sure.” Below is a colourful, branching decision-tree flowchart titled “Due for a top up?” The questions and their answer options, by colour: “Do you have a bum?” (No / Yes). “Do you live with someone who does?” (Yes / No). “Has it been wiped recently?” (Yes / No). “When you wiped, did you use loo roll?” (No / Yes). “Is everything ok?” (“I really don’t want to talk about this” / “I’m fine, just out of toilet paper”). “But is it like a fibre thing, or…?” (“Yeah, it’s probably a fibre thing” / “I’m not discussing this with a flowchart”). A green node reads, “Well when the time comes, we’re here for you. And if anything changes, you can always…” “Wait, the paper part or the cardboard part?” (Paper / Cardboard). “Did you leave any for the next person?” (Yes / No). The paths intentionally loop and cross, but all resolve to one action: an “Order more TP” button near the bottom. A final green node jokes, “How did we end up down here? Let’s turn around.” — Image source: Who Gives A Crap

9. Back-in-stock automations help you capture demand

Regardless of your industry, back-in-stock email automations prevent you from missing sales, even when you’re short on inventory.

A back-in-stock journey begins by prompting customers to sign up for an alert when a sold-out item returns. Then, the back-in-stock email goes out the moment it’s available.

Ethical fashion brand Brava Fabrics’ back-in-stock automation is one of their highest-performing flows. It features a clean, simple design with concise, informative copy, plus a line that injects a sense of urgency: “Shop it now before others take it from you!”.

Image source: Brava Fabrics

Email automation tip: Set minimum inventory rules to control when customers get notified after a re-stock. You don’t want to tell 100 customers a popular item is back in stock if only 10 are available. You can also set up an advanced back-in-stock automation that gives your VIP customers a little extra love with early access to re-stocked items.

10. Birthday automations make customers feel special

Connecting with customers on this personal level is something ecommerce does well. How many brick-and-mortar salespeople remember their customers’ birthdays? Probably not many.

With on-site sign-up forms, you can gather details about your audience to personalise future communications, including:

Their birthday
Who they’re shopping for
Collections they’re into
Their first and last name

A birthday email automation uses the information you gather up front to make a deeper, more personal connection with your customers. Celebrate your customers on their special day with a discount, free shipping, a free birthday gift, or a simple happy birthday message.

Outdoor Voices takes this idea one step further with a half-birthday email. It’s a smart move—your customers’ inboxes are likely to be pretty full during their birthday month, but not during their half-birthday month. An email like this just may catch their eye and encourage a purchase they might not have made otherwise.

Image source: Outdoor Voices

Email automation tip: Birthdays aren’t the only date worth collecting. Tag users with the date of their first purchase to send an anniversary email next year. If you’re in the business of selling baby or maternity products, you can set up an automation to trigger on important dates, like due dates. Feel free to mix and match these ideas in whatever way best suits your brand.

How to coordinate email automations with other channels

The email automation examples above form the backbone of any ecommerce retention programme. But run them as email-only flows, and you’re getting a fraction of what they could give you.

82% of consumers use more than one channel to shop, according to Klaviyo’s 2026 future of consumer marketing research. From email, text messaging, and WhatsApp to social, search, and even AI platforms like ChatGPT, people browse and buy in all kinds of ways and on all kinds of devices.

Here are a few strategies for making sure your marketing automation strategy engages customers beyond the email inbox:

Reduce redundant messaging with a unified data foundation. When all your marketing channels live in the same platform and feed into the same customer profiles, it’s much easier to coordinate cross-channel messages so that they complement each other rather than competing for attention. When meal replacement brand Jimmy Joy implemented WhatsApp marketing alongside email marketing as an antidote to overcrowded inboxes during peak season, they were able to use email to drive WhatsApp sign-ups because both channels were operating out of the same platform. WhatsApp ended up driving nearly 30% of their Klaviyo-attributed revenue during their Black Friday early-access campaign.
Route messages according to channel affinity. With predictive AI, you can use flow filters and conditional splits to route messages to the right place at the right time, for each individual person rather than entire segments. The team at Marc Fisher Footwear used to send duplicate email and SMS messages to dual subscribers, but now, they use AI-powered channel affinity to send one message on the channel where each subscriber is most likely to engage, improving both efficiency and the customer experience.
Use an AI marketing agent to audit your live flows. Imagine you want to understand how your cross-channel post-purchase series is performing. In a chat conversation, you can ask an AI marketing agent to analyse your existing flow end to end, assessing engagement at each step, drop-off points, and timing gaps. The AI agent will surface its findings in plain language with specific recommendations on how to fix any problems.

Meet the autonomous B2C CRM behind your next high-performing email flow

While these 10 email automation examples are a great place to start, there are endless possibilities when it comes to curating relevant and timely experiences for your customers.

Once you have a solid understanding of your audience and what makes them tick (or click), you can really start to get creative and create messaging that resonates.

Klaviyo, the autonomous B2C CRM, has everything you need to keep customers engaged at every stage of the lifecycle, including:

Ecommerce flow templates: Choose from 60+ pre-built, customisable flow templates for top ecommerce email automations, like welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase, browse abandonment, and many more.
Omnichannel marketing automation: Easily build multi-step, omnichannel flows across email, text messaging, mobile push, and WhatsApp, all from one launchpad.
AI-powered personalisation features: Automatically hone your strategy across audiences, channels, content, and timing with 40+ predictive and generative AI features.
Agentic AI for marketing: Give Klaviyo Composer a prompt or goal, and it builds complete, structured flows across channels, based on your brand guidelines and other guardrails. Nothing goes live without your approval.

Ready to automate timely experiences across email, text messaging, mobile push, social, and more?

Try Klaviyo

Email automation FAQs

Which are the best email marketing automation platforms?

Klaviyo is the autonomous B2C CRM that helps brands automate profitable customer journeys. Over 350 pre-built ecommerce integrations with partners like Okendo, ShipBob, and LoyaltyLion help you personalise flows across the customer journey. And if you’d rather not build them by hand, Klaviyo Composer can create launch-ready flows based on a simple goal or prompt, with nothing going live until you approve it.

What are the best practices for setting up an email automation strategy?

Some best practices for setting up an email automation strategy include using sign-up forms on your website to grow your email list; setting up core automated flows, like welcome series, abandonment flows, and review requests; personalising your automations with AI; and incorporating email automations into your broader cross-channel marketing strategy.

What is the difference between an email marketing automation and a drip campaign?

A drip campaign is an automation that sends according to a set schedule: a day after a visitor signs up, for example, then 5 days later, then 10 days later. You can set up an email marketing automation to send on a set schedule, but it can also be triggered by a subscriber’s behaviour, like signing up for your email newsletter or abandoning a cart, etc.

Tiff Regaudie

Tiff (she/they) is a writer and content consultant who specializes in marketing, health, and the attention economy. Before devoting herself to freelance writing full-time, they led content teams at various startups and nonprofits in Toronto, Canada.

Tracey Wallace

Tracey is the director of content strategy at Klaviyo. Previously, she led marketing teams for early stage start-ups from $0 to $20M in revenue, and was the former Editor-in-Chief at BigCommerce, where she helped usher in the era of omnichannel retail. She started her career in journalism at Elle.com and Mashable, reporting on the convergence of fashion and technology––or what we all call today, "ecommerce."

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10 of the best email automation examples for ecommerce brands