Happy Wednesday! Chase and Jimmy here. 👋

If you’re an eCom brand founder or retention marketer, you know the grind.

Juggling acquisition, retention, and everything in between? It’s a lot. But here’s the thing—you don’t have to do it all manually.

The right automations can help you sell more, engage customers, and keep your brand top of mind without lifting a finger.

But automation isn’t magic. Set it up wrong, and you’ll end up with robotic emails, missed opportunities, and customers slipping through the cracks.

That’s why we’re breaking down 11 best practices for automating your eCommerce marketing the smart way—so you can work less and sell more.

Let's dig in!

Running a business is exciting. Email marketing? Shouldn’t be.

If your current platform feels like an adventure—guessing games with deliverability, confusing interfaces, sky-high prices—you’re doing it wrong.

Omnisend keeps it refreshingly boring:

✅ Automations that just work. Set them once, watch the sales roll in.

✅ An interface so intuitive, it’s like you designed it yourself. No learning curve.

✅ Support that answers in under 4 minutes. No adventures here.

✅ Pricing that makes sense. Up to 60% cheaper than Klaviyo.

Email shouldn’t be an uphill battle. It should be predictable, profitable, and honestly… kind of dull.

Try Omnisend for free today.

🎙️ New Episode Alert! The 2025 Email Playbook: Tactics Myths and Insights for Success - EP 17

What worked in 2024, won’t in 2025. With evolving privacy regulations, new laws and fast-changing consumer behavior, this new year has already brought on new challenges. But we did the digging so you don’t have to and we're about to break it all down. 

In this episode, the two hosts lay out their full 2025 playbook including the state of email marketing, non-traditional metrics that actually matter, deliverability mastery, audience management and insights for strategic planning. Plus, they’re busting the biggest email marketing myths so you can build and execute your strategy with clarity.

And a major thank you to our friends at Omnisend and Nacelle for sponsoring the show! Now, without further adieu, let’s send it! Watch the episode on YouTube or listen in on Spotify or Apple.

11 Tips for Automating Your eCommerce Marketing

Marketing automation can take a huge load off your plate.

You can sell more, engage your audience, and turn one-time buyers into repeat customers – without lifting a finger.

But here’s the catch: automation only works if you do it right.

Here are 11 best practices for automating your eCommerce marketing like a pro.

1. Map your lead flow

Before automating anything, understand how leads move through your sales funnel. Where do they come from? What steps do they take before making a purchase?

🛠 What to do:

• Identify your biggest lead sources. Find out where your traffic is coming from (e.g. ads, organic search, social media etc.).

• Track how leads interact with your site. Do they browse, abandon carts, or sign up for emails?

• Set up automated sequences. that make sense, such as welcome emails for new visitors or reminders for cart abandoners.

Without a clear lead flow, you’ll automate randomly instead of strategically. The goal is to meet leads where they are and guide them to conversion.

2. Use segmentation to personalize your emails 

Not every customer is the same – so why send everyone the same email?

Segmentation helps you tailor messages based on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history. This makes your emails more relevant and engaging.

🎯 How to segment effectively:

• Use behavior-based targeting. Group customers by past purchases, browsing history, or abandoned carts.

• Send interest-driven emails. Pet store? Send cat product promotions to cat owners, dog offers to dog lovers.

• Use tagging to automatically segment new customers as they join your list.

Personalization = better open rates, more clicks, and higher revenue.

3. Upsell and cross-sell to increase order value

Encourage customers to buy more by recommending relevant products, such as complementary add-ons (cross-sells) or premium upgrades (upsells).

💡 Easy upsell and cross-sell automation ideas:

• Post-purchase product suggestions. “You got a camera – need a memory card?”

• Limited-time upsells. Offer a premium version at a discount right after checkout.

• Create AI-driven recommendations based on purchase history.

Smart recommendations = bigger carts and higher profits.

4. Recover abandoned carts automatically

Did you know over 75% of online shopping carts get abandoned? That’s a huge chunk of potential revenue left on the table.

Sending automated emails can help bring customers back.

🔄 How to win them back:

• Send an automated reminder email within 24 hours. “Hey, you left something behind!” or “Still thinking about this? It’s waiting for you!”

• Show, don’t tell. Add high-quality images of the exact products they abandoned to help them visualize what they’re missing out on.

• Use scarcity or urgency. This is a psychological tactic to encourage purchase by tapping into FOMO (e.g. “Your cart expires in 24 hours!”)

• Offer an incentive. Include a small discount or free shipping to encourage purchase.

Abandoned cart emails can recover up to 30% of lost sales – don’t skip them!

Here’s how 7 For All Mankind does their abandoned cart emails. Simple, clean, and with an offer that’s hard to refuse.

5. Automate your promotions & special offers

Running a sale? Don’t rely on social posts alone to spread the word. Automate your promotional emails to make sure customers never miss a deal.

⚡ How to do promo automations:

• Schedule flash sale emails in advance so you’re always ready.

• Trigger personalized discounts, like birthday coupons or VIP deals for repeat buyers.

More strategic promotions = more conversions without extra work.

6. Use omnichannel marketing to stay top-of-mind

Customers interact with brands across multiple touchpoints – email, SMS, social media, even WhatsApp. Automating an omnichannel strategy helps you show up wherever they are.

📱How to do it right:

• Sync email & SMS. Send order confirmations, promotions, and abandoned cart reminders via both channels.

• Retarget customers on social media who visited your site but didn’t buy.

Reaching your audience on multiple channels helps you deliver more targeted engagement and drive higher conversions.

7. Educate customers with automated sequences

Customers don’t always know how to get the most out of your products. By automating educational content, you can increase retention and reduce support requests.

📚 What to send:

• How-to guides or tutorials. Send them right after purchase to help customers use their new products.

• Value-packed content series. “5 ways to style your new dress” or “How to maintain your espresso machine.”

• FAQs to reduce customer support tickets.

Educated customers use products more, return less, and stay loyal longer. Here’s how ILIA Beauty sends some quick product info to new customers via email.

8. Reward VIP customers with exclusive offers

Loyal customers deserve extra love. Create an automated system that rewards repeat buyers to keep them engaged and spending.

🏆 How to build a loyalty system:

• Tag high-value customers (e.g., those who’ve spent $500+) and send VIP-only deals.

• Offer early access to sales or exclusive discounts.

• Set up a loyalty tier system. The more they spend, the better the rewards.

Remember: keeping existing customers happy is way cheaper than acquiring new ones.

9. Clean your contact list to improve deliverability

Over time, email lists get cluttered with inactive subscribers. Keeping unengaged contacts only hurts your email performance and deliverability.

🧹 How to keep your list fresh:

• Automate re-engagement campaigns. “We miss you! Here’s 15% off to shop again.”

• Remove inactive subscribers after a set time period (e.g., no opens in 6 months).

A cleaner list = better (and more accurate) open rates and lower email costs.

10. Automate repetitive tasks & streamline operations

Automation isn’t just about marketing emails. It can also streamline backend tasks to save you time and reduce human error.

⚙️ Where to automate beyond marketing emails:

• Integrate with inventory systems to avoid promoting out-of-stock products.

• Automate order updates & tracking emails to cut down on customer service requests.

• Use chatbots to instantly answer common questions around the clock.

Automating routine tasks gives you more time to focus on strategy and growth.

11. Create a seamless post-purchase experience

A sale shouldn’t be the end of the customer relationship. Automate follow-ups to drive repeat purchases and brand loyalty.

🔄 Post-purchase automation must-haves:

• Follow-up emails asking for reviews & feedback (great for social proof!)

• Monthly newsletters with exclusive deals and product recommendations.

Happy customers drive more referrals and lifetime value – so keep them engaged! Check out Evergreen’s post-purchase review request email for inspiration.

Final Thoughts: Automate Smarter, Sell More

With the automation tips above, you’ll build a system that works in the background to:

✅ Recover lost sales

✅ Increase customer lifetime value

✅ Help you work less while selling more

Automate the right way and watch your eCommerce store run like a well-oiled machine. 🚀

🗞️ Quick Clips

• Is the juice worth the squeeze? This Super Bowl we saw a couple DTC brands take the ad plunge for the first time. But was it worth it? Digiday dissects the case for and against the most expensive ads of the year.

• Bluesky soars to new heights: The Twitter/X competitor has just surpassed the 30 million user mark and shows no signs of slowing. The platform is also set to launch a new photo-sharing app, Flashes, which is currently in beta.

• Reduce, Reuse, Resale: Archive raises $30M to aid their battle against fashion's pollution problem. The software platform enables brands around the globe to own and scale a profitable resale program—a timely raise with the second-hand market expected to reach $73B by 2028.

• Shop local, made simple: The Shop app shipped a new feature last week that enables users to filter their shopping experience by the country their in. A quick move to support small businesses amidst tariff chaos.

Annnnd that’s a wrap for this edition! 

Thanks for hanging with Chase and me—always a pleasure to have you here.

If you found this newsletter helpful (or even just a little fun), don’t keep it to yourself! Share ecomemailmarketer.com with your favorite DTC marketer. Let’s get them on board so they don’t miss next week’s drops.

Remember: Do shit you love.

🤘 Jimmy Kim & Chase Dimond