The short version
- A handful of automated flows do most of the work for an online shop: welcome, browse and basket abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment or cross-sell, and win-back.
- Every flow needs exit rules. Stop selling to someone the moment they buy, and decide which flow wins when one person qualifies for several.
- Abandoned basket and browse emails promote products, so they count as marketing under PECR. Send them only to people who have consented or qualify for the soft opt-in.
- Judge each email by revenue per recipient and placed order rate. Open rates are inflated by Apple Mail and tell you very little.
An automated email marketing sequence is a set of emails that a shopper’s own action sets off, such as signing up, leaving a basket or placing an order. Once built, each sequence (most email platforms call them flows) sends the right email to each person at the right point without anyone pressing send.
Where email fits alongside ads and SEO is covered in our guide to ecommerce marketing strategy. Treat the timings below as starting points to test. Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend and Shopify’s own email tool all have templates for most of them.
Rules every flow needs before it goes live
Many problems with automated emails come from flows overlapping. Set these up before switching anything on:
- An exit rule. If someone buys, they leave the abandonment or welcome flow straight away and move to post-purchase.
- A priority order. Someone who leaves a checkout has usually viewed products and added them to a basket too. They should get the checkout email only.
- A frequency limit, so a regular browser doesn’t get an email every day. Many platforms can skip anyone emailed in the last few hours.
- A filter for recent buyers on selling emails, so a customer who ordered yesterday isn’t offered a first-order discount today.
Welcome series
Starts when someone joins your list, usually through a sign-up form or pop-up. Three or four emails over about a week is a sensible start.
- Straight away: deliver whatever you promised, such as the discount code or the guide, and say what kind of emails will follow. Link to your best sellers.
- Around day 2: why buy from you. How the products are made or chosen, who is behind the shop, your delivery times and returns policy.
- Around day 4: best sellers with reviews, or a buying guide that helps people choose.
- Around day 6 or 7: if the code has an expiry date, a reminder before it runs out. Only use a deadline that’s real.
Split the flow so anyone who buys part way through stops getting the sales emails.
Browse, basket and checkout abandonment
These are three separate flows, ranked by how close the person was to buying:
| Flow | Starts when | Starting point for timing |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout abandonment | Someone enters their email address at checkout and doesn’t finish | Two or three emails: within a few hours, about a day later, and an optional third a couple of days after that |
| Basket abandonment | A known shopper adds to basket but doesn’t start checkout | One or two emails, the first a few hours later |
| Browse abandonment | A known shopper views a product, often more than once, without adding it | One or two emails, lighter in tone |
Your platform can only email shoppers it can identify: people who are signed in, have clicked one of your emails before, or typed their email address at checkout. Browse and basket flows grow as your list grows.
What to put in them
- A picture of the exact product, the size or colour chosen, the price and a link that takes them back to their basket with everything still in it.
- Answers to the doubts that stop people at checkout: delivery cost and time, the returns policy, the payment options you take.
- Reviews of that product, and a real reply-to address for questions about sizing or delivery.
If every abandoned basket earns a code, customers learn to leave baskets on purpose. Hold any offer for the last email, and consider limiting it to first-time customers. Browse abandonment emails can show alternatives alongside the product viewed. The same shoppers can be reached with ads as well; our guide to retargeting strategies covers how the two fit together.
Post-purchase emails
Order confirmations and dispatch notices come from your platform and should stay about the order. The post-purchase flow runs alongside them:
- Getting started, timed to arrive with the parcel: how to use, wear, fit or care for what they bought. It also cuts returns and support emails.
- A review request once they’ve had time to use it, timed from delivery if your platform allows: a few days for clothing, a couple of weeks for skincare or equipment.
- A cross-sell later on: products that go with what they bought, such as refills, accessories or the next item in a range.
Repeat customers need a shorter version without the getting-started email.
Replenishment and cross-sell
If you sell anything that runs out, such as coffee, pet food or skincare, a replenishment email reminds people to reorder just before they run out. Base the timing on your own orders: export repeat orders for the product and look at the typical number of days between them.
Example: if a 250g bag of coffee usually lasts a customer about three weeks, a reminder around day 17 or 18 arrives just before the bag is empty. Include a link that puts the same product straight into the basket, and mention your subscription option if you have one.
For products people buy once, use the same slot for a cross-sell instead.
Win-back and sunset
A win-back flow goes to customers who haven’t ordered for longer than usual. Set the trigger from your own repeat purchase pattern. Example: if most repeat customers reorder within 60 days, start the win-back at around 90.
Two or three emails is plenty: what’s new, a reason to come back (perhaps an offer), then a short message asking whether they still want to hear from you.
Anyone who still doesn’t click or buy after several months should go into a sunset flow and then stop getting campaigns, because emailing people who never engage pushes more of your emails into spam. Judge engagement by clicks, site visits and orders, because opens are unreliable.
Consent: PECR and UK GDPR in plain terms
Marketing emails to individuals in the UK are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and UK GDPR. In general terms:
- You need someone’s consent to send them marketing emails. That means a clear action such as ticking an unticked box, with wording that says what they’ll receive. Record when and how each person signed up.
- The soft opt-in is the exception. You can email existing customers, and people who were in the process of buying, about your own similar products, as long as you gave them a clear chance to opt out when you collected their address and in every email since.
- Abandoned basket and browse emails promote products, so treat them as marketing. Only send them to people who have consented or qualify for the soft opt-in, and show the opt-out at the point where your checkout collects the email address.
- Order confirmations and delivery updates are service messages, not marketing. Adding a cross-sell to them can change that, so keep selling in separate emails.
- Every marketing email must say who it’s from and include a simple way to unsubscribe, and you must act on unsubscribes promptly.
This is a summary, not legal advice. The ICO publishes detailed guidance on direct marketing and the soft opt-in. Separately, Gmail and Yahoo now require bulk senders to authenticate their sending domain and offer one-click unsubscribe, so ask whoever manages your domain to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC before you scale up.
Measuring flows by revenue per recipient
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection loads emails automatically for many Apple Mail users, which counts as an open whether or not anyone read it. Clicks are more honest but don’t show who bought. For an online shop the most useful single measure is revenue per recipient: the revenue your platform attributes to an email, divided by the number of people it was delivered to.
Example: an abandoned checkout email delivered to 400 people with £1,200 of attributed revenue earns £3 per recipient. If a new version earns £3.60 over a similar number of sends, it’s better, even if fewer people opened it.
Use it to compare emails within a flow, decide whether a third reminder is worth sending, and judge tests. Watch placed order rate (the share of recipients who ordered) alongside it, and unsubscribe and spam complaint rates as warning signs.
Check how your platform attributes revenue. Most credit a sale to an email opened or clicked within a set number of days before the order. Counting opens, or a long window, flatters the numbers, so prefer click-based attribution where you can choose, and compare against the email revenue GA4 reports from UTM-tagged links. If your platform supports a control group that doesn’t receive a flow, use it once you have enough orders: it shows how many sales the flow added rather than how many it touched.
Frequently asked questions
What is an automated email marketing sequence?
It’s a series of emails that sends automatically when someone does something, such as joining your list, leaving a checkout or placing an order. Each email goes at a set interval, and people leave the sequence when they buy.
Which email flow should an online shop set up first?
Checkout abandonment usually comes first, because those shoppers were closest to buying. Then a welcome series for new subscribers and a post-purchase flow. Browse abandonment, replenishment and win-back can follow once those are running.
How many emails should an abandoned cart sequence have?
Two or three is a common starting point: one within a few hours, one about a day later and an optional third a couple of days after that. Compare revenue per recipient for each email and drop any that don’t earn their place.
Can I send abandoned basket emails without consent in the UK?
Abandoned basket emails promote products, so they count as marketing under PECR. You need the person’s consent, or they must qualify for the soft opt-in, which means you gave them a clear chance to opt out when you collected their email address. Check the ICO’s direct marketing guidance for your situation.
What is revenue per recipient in email marketing?
It’s the revenue attributed to an email divided by the number of people it was delivered to. It lets you compare emails and flows of different sizes on the same basis, and it’s more reliable than open rates.
Founder of The Pursuit Agency in Swindon. He has worked in SEO for fifteen-odd years and leads the agency's SEO and Google Ads work for owner-led businesses across the UK.