WooCommerce marketing automation is limited to transactional emails (shipping updates and order confirmations), so recovering abandoned carts and welcoming subscribers require additional tools.
As a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is designed to be flexible, so instead of including expansive features, the platform relies on a vast ecosystem of plugins and integrations. WooCommerce merchants can build a marketing stack that fits their business needs.
While that flexibility can be freeing, it also means decision fatigue; store owners have to navigate dozens of automation tools before they know which one actually meets their needs.
With this guide, you can explore three main approaches to WooCommerce marketing automation, which automations to prioritize, and the common mistakes to avoid when running automation on a self-hosted WordPress store.
- Why WooCommerce does not include marketing automation
- WooCommerce automations: Which option should you pick?
- What to automate first on WooCommerce
- WooCommerce automations beyond the core four workflows
- Common WooCommerce automation mistakes
- How the Brevo WooCommerce integration works
- How does Brevo help you automate WooCommerce marketing?
- Take control over your automations with Brevo + WooCommerce
Why WooCommerce does not include marketing automation
WooCommerce includes some built-in marketing automation capabilities, primarily around transactional emails and basic store workflows. It can send essential emails such as order confirmations, shipping updates, account creation emails, and password reset alerts, but its native automation options are limited compared with dedicated marketing automation tools.
If you want to recover abandoned carts, welcome new subscribers, recommend products, or win back inactive customers, you may need additional plugins or a dedicated marketing automation platform, depending on the workflow you want to build.
This is less a limitation of the platform than an opportunity for WooCommerce stores to build a marketing stack that fits their needs.
You can add plugins (for example, Best Email plugins for WooCommerce) or automation builders to extend WooCommerce's native capabilities and give you more control over your workflows.
The right approach depends on the level of automation, flexibility, and channels you need. Since the question for WooCommerce merchants is not whether they can automate but which automation path best fits their needs, we will go over some options.
WooCommerce automations: Which option should you pick?
Unlike Shopify, where most merchants start with the platform’s native email tool before deciding whether to upgrade, WooCommerce merchants need to choose an automation path from the beginning.
You can automate email marketing on WooCommerce using the following three methods, each of which has its pros and cons, depending on your store’s size, technical preferences, email marketing strategy, and long-term goals:
| FEATURE | NATIVE WOOCOMMERCE EXTENSION (AutomateWoo) | WORDPRESS AUTOMATION (Funnelkit) | MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORM (Brevo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs inside WordPress | Yes | Yes | No |
| Visual workflow builder | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Multichannel marketing | Limited | Limited | Email, SMS, web push, WhatsApp |
| Best for | Simple email automation | Growing WooCommerce stores | Stores that want to expand beyond email |
The table below shows which WooCommerce automation use cases each solution supports natively and where a third-party connector is needed:
| Use case | WooCommerce core | AutomateWoo | FunnelKit Automations | Brevo plugin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order confirmation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Product-view tracking | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed | Yes |
| Review request after purchase | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Review submitted on a third-party platform | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed |
| Subscription lifecycle events | 3rd-party connector needed | Yes | Yes | 3rd-party connector needed |
| Loyalty milestones | 3rd-party connector needed | 3rd-party connector needed | Yes | 3rd-party connector needed |
Here is a deep dive into each approach:
Native WooCommerce extensions
If you want to keep everything within WordPress, native WooCommerce extensions are the most straightforward path.
AutomateWoo, which is WooCommerce’s official marketing automation extension, comes with 50 workflow templates. These automation templates cover common e-commerce use cases such as abandoned cart recovery, welcome emails, follow-up emails, and review requests.
Since it works directly with WooCommerce, it can access your store’s products, orders, and customer information without requiring a separate integration.
The trade-off is reduced scalability and flexibility.
Native extensions rely on WordPress’s built-in editing experience rather than a visual workflow builder. Expanding into channels like SMS or WhatsApp typically requires additional plugins or integrations.
Managing multiple marketing channels can become more complex as your store grows.
WordPress-native automation builders
Some merchants want to stay within WordPress while also upgrading their automation experience.
Tools like FunnelKit Automations add a visual drag-and-drop workflow builder directly inside the WordPress dashboard. You can build customer journeys visually using triggers, delays, conditions, and actions.
This approach combines the simplicity of WordPress with workflow-building capabilities that feel closer to dedicated automation platforms.
It is often a good fit for merchants who want more sophisticated automation without moving completely outside the WordPress environment. Anything native comes with roadblocks related to expansion, especially if you want to scale to enterprise-level marketing.
Independent multichannel marketing platforms using plugins
Platforms like Brevo connect to WooCommerce through a plugin. It syncs data related to your customers, products, and orders into a dedicated marketing platform.
Once connected, you can build automations using a visual workflow builder and engage customers across multiple channels, including email, SMS, and WhatsApp, all from a single interface.
Since you are stepping outside of the WordPress environment, you can access advanced segmentation, more granular reporting, omnichannel features, and overall better marketing infrastructure.
What to automate first on WooCommerce
WooCommerce marketing automation should begin with workflows that recover lost revenue.
That starts with abandoned cart recovery.
The core email automations every e-commerce business needs do not change because you are using WooCommerce. The following remain the highest-impact marketing automations for building customer relationships:
- Welcome emails: introduce new subscribers to your brand
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Post-purchase communication: nurture recent buyers and encourage repeat purchasers
- Win-back campaigns: re-engage dormant customers
What does change for WooCommerce stores is the starting point.
Shopify merchants have access to basic abandoned cart emails through Shopify Email.
WooCommerce does not include any native cart recovery. Unless you have already installed an automation solution, every abandoned cart is simply lost to distraction and/or competitors.
Once WooCommerce abandoned cart recovery is in place, build the rest of your automation stack based on the customer lifecycle.
Rather than launching every workflow at once, start with the automations that address your biggest revenue opportunities, then expand as your email list grows and your email marketing goals mature.
WooCommerce automations beyond the core four workflows
The standard e-commerce automation stack covers most online stores. But to upgrade your automation ecosystem, you will need custom syncs or connectors.
Native integration: The Brevo plugin that connects WooCommerce to Brevo and syncs supported store data automatically.
Connectors: A bridge that passes data from third-party WooCommerce plugins (such as WooCommerce Subscriptions or WooCommerce Membership) into Brevo so that it can trigger automations.
Custom syncs: An integration built using APIs or custom code to sync data that is not supported by the native integration or connector.
Here are a few specialized automations you need: subscriptions, memberships, and loyalty programs.
Subscription renewals and failed payments
Problem: A failed payment means losing a recurring customer. Renewal reminders and dunning emails, i.e., messages that businesses send customers to remind them about failed transactions and overdue payments, are a key part of a subscription-based marketing strategy.
Limitation: Your payment gateways handle retrying failed payments. Brevo does not retry charges; it sends reminder emails to customers to update their payment details.
Payment recovery is different from customer communication.
Brevo’s native WooCommerce integration does not receive subscription events such as cancellations or failed payments out of the box.
Solution: If your store runs on WooCommerce Subscriptions, bridge those events into Brevo using tools like WP Fusion or Bit Integrations. Once synced, subscription status changes can trigger various lifecycle workflows related to renewal campaigns.
Membership and loyalty programs
Problem: Membership sites and loyalty programs create high-value engagement opportunities, from welcoming new members to celebrating VIP status or giving rewards for birthdays and anniversaries.
Limitation: These events are managed by membership and loyalty plugins, not WooCommerce itself, so they are not available through Brevo’s native WooCommerce integration.
Solution: A connector or custom sync can send membership and loyalty events to Brevo, which will then trigger automation workflows when your customers become eligible for rewards or reach a new loyalty tier.
Review requests
Problem: Reviews are for social proof, but customers rarely leave them without a reminder.
Limitation: Unlike subscriptions or loyalty programs, review requests do not require access to plugin-specific events.
Solution: Because Brevo supports the product purchase trigger, you can automatically send a review request a few days after an order is completed.
Wishlist and pre-order notifications
Problem: Wishlist reminders, price-drop alerts, and pre-order updates help re-engage shoppers who have shown purchase intent.
Limitation: These workflows depend on whichever wishlist or pre-order plugin your store uses, so there is no universal WooCommerce implementation.
Solution: Most dedicated wishlist and pre-order plugins expose the events needed to automate these notifications. Check whether your chosen plugin integrates directly with your marketing platform or through a connector.
Common WooCommerce automation mistakes
A small configuration mistake or an overlooked integration can bring your automations to a standstill. Here are some more mistakes WooCommerce stores make:
Not enabling the tracking script
Automations work based on customer behavior. The tracking script helps record behavioral events like page visits. If your email marketing platform cannot track these, the automations based on this data will simply not get triggered.
Before testing any behavioral workflow, confirm that the tracking script is active on your WordPress website.
Assuming every WooCommerce event syncs automatically
Not every event generated by your WooCommerce store is supported out of the box through your marketing platform. Before building an automation, verify whether the trigger is supported natively or needs a connector such as WP Fusion.
For example, with Brevo, abandoned carts and page visits are natively supported; other events like failed payments and loyalty milestones are not.
For these events, you will need additional integrations.
Further, customer, product, and order data sync into platforms like Brevo, but the sync is one-way. Changes made inside Brevo do not update WooCommerce, so it cannot read that data.
Merchants end up building renewal reminders or membership workflows that never trigger because the underlying event never reaches Brevo.
Letting multiple tools own the same workflow
WooCommerce’s plugin ecosystem makes it easy to install overlapping tools.
For example, you might have a WooCommerce extension that sends the same automation that your email marketing platform does.
Besides creating duplicate messages for customers and potentially spamming them, this makes reporting unreliable because it is difficult to know which workflow to attribute conversions to.
Before activating automations, ensure you are not duplicating workflows across different plugins and platforms.
Treating every requirement as a new plugin
One of WooCommerce’s biggest strengths is its plugin ecosystem, but it can also lead to overcrowding. Installing a dedicated plugin for every small requirement increases the chances of database bloat and compatibility issues, which subsequently lead to slower site performance.
With every plugin you add, you create a dependency that requires regular updates and long-term maintenance. Review your plugin stack periodically and remove anything that is not essential.
If a task can be done with the native setup and custom snippets, do not add a plugin.
Overlooking your WordPress infrastructure
Marketing automation does not exist in isolation. Shared hosting affects transactional email deliverability.
Outdated plugins or poorly tested updates interrupt checkout and create security vulnerabilities.
Follow these four steps to ensure your WordPress infrastructure is intact:
- Use a dedicated email service for transactional emails instead of relying on your web host.
- Back up your store before major updates.
- Test changes in a staging environment where possible.
- Complete a real purchase after every significant update to confirm that the checkout process is smooth, and that confirmation emails are being sent.
How the Brevo WooCommerce integration works
WooCommerce manages your storefront, products, orders, and checkout, while Brevo will use that data to trigger personalized email and SMS campaigns based on real-time customer behavior.
How?
The first step is the data sync. The WooCommerce plugin syncs your contacts, products, and orders so that Brevo has all the data it needs to:
- Segment customers
- Personalize campaigns
- Trigger automations without manual imports
Data integration is one-way. Your store data flows from WooCommerce to Brevo in real time.
Some automation triggers rely on more than synced store data.
Page visits and abandoned carts require Brevo’s tracking script to be active on your WordPress site so customer activity can be recorded before an order is placed.
Product purchase triggers are based on WooCommerce order data. If the tracking script is not installed correctly, browsing-based automations will not fire, even though the rest of the integration is working.
WooCommerce generates transactional emails (order confirmations and shipping notifications) by default through your web host’s mail server.
On shared WordPress hosting, that can affect inbox placement.
By routing those transactional emails through Brevo SMTP, you can improve email deliverability while letting WooCommerce handle transactional emails.
How does Brevo help you automate WooCommerce marketing?
Once your WooCommerce store is connected, Brevo brings your customer data and communication channels together to create automation workflows in a single platform.
Instead of relying on multiple plugins for different marketing tasks, you can build and manage customer journeys from one place.
For example, Brevo connects to WooCommerce through a plugin that syncs your store’s contacts and product data in real time.
You can start building workflows without relying on custom integrations or manual imports.
Once you have entered the Brevo-WooCommerce ecosystem, you can set up automations using the drag-and-drop automation builder for key moments through the customer journey.
These triggers can help with welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, cross-sell campaigns, and more.
Beyond marketing campaigns, Brevo can also improve how your store sends transactional emails such as order confirmations and shipping notifications. Instead of relying solely on your web host, you can route these emails through Brevo’s email infrastructure to improve email deliverability.
The WooCommerce plugin captures consent during checkout, thus helping you grow your subscriber list while respecting customer opt-in preferences and email marketing regulations.
Finally, as your marketing strategy evolves, Brevo lets you extend automation beyond email.
From the same workflow builder, you can combine email, SMS, web push, and WhatsApp to create more connected customer experiences without managing separate automation tools.
Brevo’s free plan includes up to 9000 emails per month and no limit on the number of contacts, so you can explore marketing automation using WooCommerce before paying.
Take control over your automations with Brevo + WooCommerce
WooCommerce gives stores complete control over their e-commerce stack. That flexibility comes with an important tradeoff: marketing automation is not built in.
From recovering abandoned carts to nurturing repeat customers, every automated touchpoint depends on the tools you choose and how well they work together. Choosing the right platform helps you build a marketing foundation that can scale without you having to patch multiple new tools and plugins.
Start automating your WooCommerce store with Brevo
