Every marketer knows the struggle. You're often drowning in daily tasks, with no time left to actually grow your business. Leads slip through the cracks as you're too busy just keeping up. 

Worse yet, you're wasting precious hours on repetitive marketing work. Follow-up emails, social posts, and so on—the grunt work seems unending. 

If this sounds familiar, it could be the best time for e-commerce marketing automation. It handles the marketing tasks, from personalized content to timely follow-ups and insightful analytics. Now, you can peacefully focus on strategy and drive those leads and conversions.

In fact, Business 2 Community data suggests that businesses employing marketing automation to nurture prospects see a 451% increase in qualified leads.

This detailed guide reveals how e-commerce marketing automation will streamline your business and generate incredible ROI.  Let's turn automation into your secret weapon!

What is E-commerce Marketing Automation?

At its core, ecommerce marketing automation harnesses the power of software tools to automate repetitive marketing tasks like content creation and customer segmentation. 

Marketing automation includes A/B testing, omnichannel engagement, and AI assistance. It can be used to personalize customer experiences across various channels, such as emails, social media, and SMS. This saves time and cultivates stronger customer relationships through targeted messaging and timely follow-ups.

Marketing automation platforms also offer analytics to help you track metrics, measure performance, and refine strategies for continuous improvement. 

Key aspects of e-commerce marketing automation

1. Email marketing automation

With email marketing automation, you can send abandoned cart emails, product recommendations, discount codes, celebratory coupons, and promotional offers to your customers automatically. 

The automation software analyzes customer interactions to send tailored messages to the right customers at the time.

2. Behavioral tracking 

Behavioral tracking is important to understand your customers’ unique needs. An ecommerce marketing software monitors customer behavior to track:

• How customers interact on your website
• Which products do they like or wishlist
• Which products do they leave in the cart
• Which pages are receiving the most traffic

This data gives you a bird’s eye view of your customers' likes and dislikes. You can create customer groups with similar behaviors for more targeted marketing, bringing us to our next point.

3. Segmenting customers

With ecommerce marketing automation, you can segment customers based on demographics, purchase history, and behavior on your website. Then, you can create targeted messages for each customer segment to deliver a more personalized experience. 

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4. Personalized messages 

96% of customers have reported feeling annoyed by SMS marketing messages. 

Why? Because without personalization, the messages could appear irrelevant to customers. 

So, you can use behavioral tracking and customer segmentation to create more personalized messages. 

Take a clothing brand, for example. In April, they can share an offer on summer clothes for Texas and winter clothes for New York because the weather is different in both places. Such messages have a better chance of response as those are more relevant to your customers in both regions. 

5. Analytics and reporting 

With ecommerce marketing automation, you can track the performance and ROI of your marketing campaign. An efficient ecommerce marketing automation tool shares the status of your campaigns, revenue, and other metrics to iterate your marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions. 

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6. Workflow automation

Once in place, marketing automation functions independently. It automates manual tasks and builds workflows for various marketing tasks. 

For example, when one of your customers leaves a product in the cart, the automation will trigger a follow-up email with offers to nudge that customer to complete the purchase. The automation can also write personalized emails for your customers.

The Benefits of Marketing Automation Software for E-commerce Businesses

1. Improved customer segmentation

Marketing automation lets you divide your customers into granular groups based on various factors such as purchase history, browsing behavior, demographics, and engagement levels. You can send highly personalized and relevant messaging, offers, and promotions to each segment to increase the chances of conversion. 

2. Better customer engagement 

You can leverage automation workflows and triggers to send timely and contextual communications. These help you nurture customer relationships and promote long-term loyalty. Also, you can use automated re-engagement campaigns to reactivate lapsed customers.

3. A/B testing opportunities

Many marketing automation platforms offer built-in A/B testing functionalities. So, you can test different variations in subject lines, calls-to-action, and visual elements. With A/B testing, you can continuously optimize your marketing efforts by identifying and using the most effective options to gain maximum ROI.

4. Omnichannel engagement 

Marketing automation software enables you to deliver consistent customer experience across multiple channels. You can streamline creating and executing targeted campaigns across various channels, such as email, SMS, push notifications, and social media. 

5. AI to optimize your marketing efforts

Ecommerce marketing automation leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize campaigns and provide data-driven insights. AI can analyze customer data, identify patterns, and predict future behavior. 

With this data, AI creates personalized content to increase the efficiency of marketing campaigns.

Types of E-commerce Marketing Automation

You can automate your marketing strategy across three channels:

1. Email marketing automation

52% of customers still prefer emails for marketing messages. It makes email automation a powerful tool to have in your arsenal. Email automation allows you to create and send highly targeted and personalized emails based on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history. 

You can segment your email list based on customer behavior, purchase history, and engagement levels. Then, set up workflows and triggers to send abandoned cart reminders, welcome series, product recommendations, and post-purchase follow-ups – all without manual intervention.

This will help you offer the most relevant emails to your customers.

2. Mobile marketing automation

60% of US adults believe mobile shopping is necessary for convenience. Also, m-commerce sales are estimated to reach ​​$558.29 billion in 2024, which is a good enough reason to invest in mobile marketing automation. 

Mobile marketing automation allows you to meet customers where they are–on their smartphones. You can deliver timely and personalized messages to create a seamless omnichannel experience that drives engagement and sales for your business.

First, build your mobile subscriber list by implementing SMS opt-in forms at strategic touchpoints, such as checkout or account creation. Then, create automated SMS campaigns for cart abandonment, back-in-stock notifications, and limited-time offers tailored to individual preferences.

For example, Plivo CX creates triggers based on events and actions to send timely and relevant messages to customers. It also lets you incorporate media and emojis into your messages so they stand out and capture attention. 

3. On-site marketing automation

45% of respondents in a McKinsey survey agreed that on-site display advertising provides high ROAS. On-site marketing automation focuses on enhancing the customer experience on your e-commerce website. 

With this automation, you can deliver exit-intent pop-ups to capture abandoning visitors, product recommendations based on browsing history, and dynamic content that changes based on the visitor's location, device, or previous purchases.

Design landing pages in a way that captures the most attention and includes high-converting CTA to gain maximum ROI from on-site marketing. You can also leverage AI-powered product recommendation engines to suggest relevant items based on your customer's browsing history and purchase patterns.

Effective Marketing Automation Strategies for E-commerce Brands 

Use email triggers to send personalized content

Email triggers are a powerful way to deliver timely and relevant content to customers based on their behaviors and interactions with your brand. For instance, you can trigger abandoned cart emails whenever a customer leaves items in their shopping cart. 

Similarly, you can trigger shipping confirmation and order update emails to keep customers informed and engaged throughout the delivery process. 

Re-engage old customers with incentive emails

It's common for customers to pause engagement with a brand over time. Incentive emails can be highly effective in re-engaging these customers. You can share exclusive discounts, limited-time promotions, or loyalty rewards to entice customers back to your store.

For example, offer a percentage discount or free shipping on their next purchase or provide a special coupon code for a specific product category they've shown interest in previously. 

You should personalize these incentives based on past purchase behavior and preferences to significantly increase the chances of conversion.

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Use lead scoring for higher conversion

Lead scoring is a technique that assigns a numerical value to each lead or potential customer based on their interactions with your brand, such as website visits, email engagement, and social media activity. You can prioritize your marketing efforts for high-scoring leads and target those most likely to convert.

For example, segment your email list based on lead scores and send personalized product recommendations, exclusive offers, or invitations to webinars or events. This targeted approach can significantly improve conversion rates and ROI compared to blanket marketing campaigns.

Reward loyal customers with offers and discounts

Retaining existing customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, and rewarding loyalty is a powerful way to retain long-term relationships. 

Analyze customer purchase history and engagement levels to identify your most loyal customers and offer them exclusive discounts, early access to new products, or loyalty program rewards.

These rewards not only incentivize repeat purchases but also create a sense of appreciation and exclusivity for your customers.

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Engage on mobile with SMS marketing

52% of customers purchased a product after being influenced by brand messaging received via SMS or other messaging platforms. SMS campaigns have high open and engagement rates, making them an effective channel for delivering time-sensitive promotions, order updates, and personalized recommendations.

You can leverage SMS automation to send cart abandonment reminders, back-in-stock alerts, or limited-time offers tailored to individual preferences and behaviors. SMS can also be integrated with other channels, such as email and push notifications, to create a seamless omnichannel experience for your customers.

Upsell and cross-sell by displaying complementary products

Upselling and cross-selling are powerful strategies for increasing average order value and customer lifetime value. You can analyze customer purchase data and browsing behaviors to display complementary or related products that customers may be interested in.

For example, if a customer purchases a camera, recommend compatible lenses, camera bags, or tripods as upsell opportunities. You could cross-sell matching accessories or shoes if a customer adds a dress to their cart.

Use chatbots to engage customers

Chatbots provide instant, 24/7 customer support and engagement. They use conversational AI to assist customers with product recommendations, order tracking, and addressing common inquiries or concerns.

Well-designed chatbots can enhance the customer experience and gather valuable data on customer preferences and behaviors, which you can use in future marketing strategies to personalize content. Chatbots can also be integrated with other channels, such as email and SMS, to create a cohesive omnichannel customer experience.

The AI chatbot in Plivo CX handles common questions automatically so customers can self-serve and find quicker answers. 

E-commerce Messaging Templates to Power up Marketing Automation

Here, we’ve compiled email marketing templates for various use cases that you can steal for your next marketing campaign:

Get Started with E-commerce Marketing Automation

Now that you know the power of e-commerce marketing automation, you can get started right away. But you need a robust marketing automation tool by your side. 

Plivo CX is a top-notch e-commerce marketing automation platform that lets you attract your target audience. It provides end-to-end marketing automation from customer segmentation to creating personalized content and analyzing metrics to optimize your campaign. 

Plivo CX also comes with AI assistance to write content for you, so you don’t need a huge team to get started. When it comes to data security, the platform is GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS compliant. 

Redefine your e-commerce marketing workflow with Plivo CX’s comprehensive automation. 

Book a demo today.