8 Best E-Commerce Marketing Automation Tools & Strategies in 2024 [Full Review]

E-commerce marketing automation tools are the answer to optimizing efficiency, customer engagement and retention, and buyer support for online businesses.

However, the overwhelming options available and the various tasks they perform can be difficult to navigate if you’re unfamiliar with these platforms.

This guide will examine e-commerce automated marketing and how it works, its top advantages, and the top strategies and software solutions for 2024.

Scroll down for a detailed review of the pros and cons of these platforms, what channels they support, how they work, and how much they cost.

8 Best E-Commerce Marketing Automation Tools for Every Online Store

Let’s take a quick look at the top 8 e-commerce marketing tools to automate your online business and then read further for an in-depth guide to everything you need to know about e-commerce promotional automation.

1.Omnisend

Omisend is one of the best e-commerce marketing tools for automating customer engagement.

Businesses can easily create content from pre-built templates and use the drag-and-drop editor to combine SMS, email, and push notifications into a single workflow.

The A/B testing feature makes it simple to compare different elements. You can also rely on automated reports and an intuitive sales dashboard to stay ahead of your performance.

Supported Channels

• Email
• SMS
• Websites

Key Features

• Automated Workflows
• Drag-and-Drop Editor
• Ready-Made Templates
• A/B Testing
• Automation Reports
• Analytics
• Personalized Recommendations

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• The welcome automation and email marketing features are easy to use.
• Users say the customer support is super helpful and friendly.
• Omnisend constantly improves and updates its features and functions.

Cons:

• Some of the features are very basic compared to competitors.
• Managing content is tricky because you can’t organize pictures into folders.
• The backend interface is cumbersome.

Pricing

• Free Plan: Includes 250 contacts, 500 emails and web push notifications per month, and 60 SMSs simultaneously.
• Standard Plan: From $44 p/m for 2500 contacts, 30,000 emails per month, unlimited web push notifications, 60 SMSs simultaneously, and 24/7 Priority support.
• Pro Plan: From $59 p/m for 2500 contacts, unlimited emails and web push notifications, 3,933 monthly SMSes, 24/7 priority support, and advanced reporting.

Our P2P Score: 4.7

Website: omnisend.com

2.ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is about automating email marketing and CRM to help businesses boost customer experience.

This software supports loads of third-party integrations, and you can send automated follow-up emails to keep customers interested in your brand and add tags to segment your most engaged subscribers.

Like many of the top e-commerce marketing tools we’ll review on this list, ActiveCampaign also provides A/B testing.

Supported Channels

• Social Media
• SMS
• Email
• Website

Key Features

• Dynamic Email Content
• Customer Segments
• A/B Testing
• Drip Campaigns
• Event Tracking
• Custom Audiences
• Pre-Built Templates
• Site Tracking

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Users say the automation features are brilliant and easy to configure.
• The AI writing assistant makes it simple to create customer-centric content.
• Managing contacts is straightforward and efficient through segmentation and tags.

Cons:

• Some integrations may not work immediately.
• Users can’t bulk edit customer segments.
• The reporting feature isn’t intuitive, and viewing the data you need for specific timeframes is tricky.

Pricing

• Lite Plan: From $39 p/m or $29 (billed annually) for one user, 10 contact email send limit, 1,000 marketing contacts, email marketing and automated marketing, and campaign reports, and site event tracking.
• Plus Plan: From $70 p/m or $49 (billed annually) for three users, 10 contact email send limit, 1,000 marketing contacts, and everything in the Lite plan + pop-ups, lead forms, landing pages, lead scoring, and conditional content.
• Professional Plan: From $187 p/m or $149 (billed annually) for five users, 12 contact email send limit, 2,500 marketing contacts, and everything in the Plus plan + Salesforce integration, split automation, predictive sending, and conversions.
• Enterprise Plan: From $323 p/m or $259 (billed annually) for ten users, 15 contact email send limit, 2,500 marketing contacts, and everything in the Professional plan + unlimited email testing, custom objects, and custom reporting.

Our P2P Score: 4.9

Website: activecampaign.com

3.Klaviyo

Klaviyo combines a sophisticated suite of automation features for email and SMS marketing.

This tool will create automated workflows, customer-centric campaigns, and targeted web forms to capture qualified leads.

It’s also much easier to get started with a wide variety of pre-built templates that you can quickly filter by type to find what you need.

Another impressive aspect of Klaviyo is how many segmentation conditions are available to hone in on your target buyers.

Supported Channels

• SMS
• Email
• Website

Key Features

• Customer Segmentation
• Pre-built Templates
• Automated Workflows
• AI Campaigns
• Web Forms
• Reporting and Analytics

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• The customer segmentation and targeting features are sophisticated.
• Users say the dashboard is super informative without being overwhelming.
• The customer service team is fantastic, and users can expect speedy responses.

Cons:

• This tool does require a steep learning curve to enjoy all its automation features.
• The pricing is expensive compared to competitors.
• Automating campaigns takes a bit of time and can become frustrating.

Pricing

• Free Plan: Includes 250 contacts, 500 monthly email sends, 150 monthly SMS/MMS credits, and email support for the first 60 days.
• Email Plan: From $45 p/m for 1,001 – 1,500 contacts, 15,000 monthly email sends, 150 monthly SMS/MMS credits, mobile push notifications, and email and chat support.
• Email & SMS Plan: From $60 p/m for 1,001 – 1,500 contacts, 15,000 monthly email sends, 1,250 monthly SMS/MMS credits, mobile push notifications, and email and chat support.
  

Our P2P Score: 4.6

Website: klaviyo.com

4.ShipStation

ShipStation focuses on automating your shipping and delivery process – a crucial aspect of e-commerce businesses.

This platform can help you design and create custom shipping labels, use shipping discounts, and import orders from over 100 selling channels and marketplaces.

Handling order fulfillment and inventory management can take loads of time, but using ShipStation to automate this process means increased efficiency, and you can eliminate the risk of incorrect or incomplete orders.

Supported Channels

• Websites
• E-commerce Marketplaces

Key Features

• Order Management
• Shipping Labels
• Customized Shipping Portal
• Order Tracking
• Inventory Management

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Connecting multiple sales channels with one shipping platform is easy and convenient.
• The pricing structure is affordable for growing businesses.
• There are countless integrations available that are simple to use.

Cons:

• The reports aren’t automated, and users can’t customize them.
• There are occasional software glitches and downtimes.
• Users say the inventory management features could be improved.

Pricing

• Free Trial: Try all paid plan features for 30 days.
• ShippingEasy: Free for 25 monthly shipments, one user, automation, shipping labels, and discounted shipping rates.
• Starter: $9.99 p/m for 50 monthly shipments, three users, and everything in the ShippingEasy plan + 24/7 chat, email, and community forum support, 300+ integrations, and branded tracking.
• Bronze: $29.99 p/m for 500 monthly shipments, one user, and everything in the Starter plan.
• Silver: $59.99 p/m for 1,000 monthly shipments, one user, everything in the Bronze plan, customizable packing slips, and phone support.
• Gold: $99.99 p/m for 2,000 monthly shipments, three users, and everything in the Silver plan + product bundles.
• Platinum: $149.99 p/m for 5,000 monthly shipments, five users, and everything in the Platinum plan.
• Enterprise: $229.99 p/m for 7,500 monthly shipments, 10 users, and everything in the Enterprise plan.
• High-Volume: Contact ShipStation for a custom quote

Our P2P Score: 4.6

Website: shipstation.com

5.HubSpot

HubSpot is a dynamic e-commerce marketing tool that offers an extensive range of automation features for businesses of all sizes.

This tool can help you create personalized landing pages and web forms using any of the hundreds of ready-made templates available.

HubSpot also implements automated email campaigns, helping you curate the perfect content for your audience while providing you with advanced analytics, among other features in this customer engagement platform.

Supported Channels

• Websites
• CRM Platforms
• Email

Key Features

• Landing Pages
• Forms
• Pre-built Templates
• Automated Reports
• Automated Campaigns
• Lead Scoring
• Automated Emails

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• There are loads of pre-built templates to get you started.
• Users say that the automation features are sophisticated, easy to use, and impressive.
• You can track all customer communications, draw data reports, and set custom KPIs.

Cons:

• This tool can be expensive for small teams looking for robust automation features.
• There is a steep learning curve when configuring this software.
• Sometimes bugs and glitches occur, which can become disruptive.

Pricing

• Free Plan: Includes email marketing, a form builder, landing pages, and live chat.
• Starter Plan: From $18 p/m for all the features in the Free plan + no HubSpot branding, email health insights, and multiple currencies.
• Professional Plan: From $800 p/m for all the features in the Starter plan + campaign management, SEO, social media, and custom reporting.
• Enterprise Plan: From $3,600 p/m for all the features in the Professional plan + adaptive testing, predictive lead scoring, and customer journey analytics.

Our P2P Score: 4.7

Website: hubspot.com

6.Sendible

Sendible is an e-commerce automation platform primarily focusing on social media content.

Online stores can use this tool to optimize their social presence through AI content suggestions, automated content scheduling, and in-depth reporting and analytics to implement the best social media strategy.

While this tool doesn’t offer a wide variety of functions like other e-commerce marketing tools, it’s ideal for small to mid-level businesses looking to extend their reach.

Supported Channels

• Social Media

Key Features

• Custom Dashboard
• Social Monitoring
• Reporting and Analytics
• Content Suggestions
• Content Planning
• Content Scheduling

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Well-performing automation features are abundant.
• The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.
• The collaboration and security features make this tool ideal for sharing content, analytics, and campaigns with clients and team members.

Cons:

• There is a steep learning curve when getting started with this software.
• You can’t mass schedule video content.
• Sometimes Sendible also notifies users about failed posts an hour after they have tried to post the content, and this can be extremely frustrating.

Pricing

• Free Trial: Access all the paid plan features for 14 days.
• Creator Plan: $29 p/m for one user, six social profiles, unlimited scheduling, planning, and content ideas, monitoring and responding, and reporting.
• Traction Plan: $89 p/m for four users, 24 social profiles, team collaboration, assignment and approval, client dashboards, and user management.
• White Label + Plan: $750 p/m for 100 users, 300 social profiles, access to all features, and dedicated customer success.

Our P2P Score: 4.3

Website: sendible.com

7.Drip

Omnichannel marketing has never been easier than Drip! This e-commerce marketing software will help your brand create custom workflows with minimal manual effort.

Over 20 easy-to-use workflow templates can skyrocket your brand engagement on social media, email, and your website.

There are loads of e-commerce integrations to leverage; you can create custom triggers personalized to each customer and craft remarketing campaigns for Instagram and Facebook.

Supported Channels

• Email
• Website
• Major social media platforms

Key Features

• Pre-built Workflow Templates
• Customer Segments
• Behavior-Based Automation
• Social Retargeting

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• There are loads of pre-built templates with amazing, modern designs to help users save time.
• The AI assistant is extremely handy in composing and scheduling emails.
•  Users say the integration is seamless and easy to configure.

Cons:

• The sign-up forms tend to have bugs that can be frustrating to solve.
• For beginners, there is a learning curve, and they will need to spend time reviewing the resources and tutorials before getting started.
• The customer support team takes some time to respond, and no phone option is available.

Pricing

• Free Trial: Access all paid plan features for 14 days.
• Paid Plan: From $39 p/m for 2,500 contacts, unlimited email sends, on-site campaigns, email support and free migration.

Our P2P Score: 4.4

Website: drip.com

8.MailChimp

MailChimp is an automated email marketing platform that allows users to create personalized email campaigns, customer journeys, and retargeting campaigns with just a few clicks.

This platform supports many integrations to import buyer data from your most-used software and ensures MailChimp can deliver audience-centric strategies.

Businesses can also rely on multivariate and A/B testing, priority support, and a dedicated account manager to make onboarding quick and seamless.

Supported Channels

• Email
• Website
• SMS
• Major social media platforms

Key Features

• Email Marketing
• SMS Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• A/B Testing
• Customer Segments
• Landing Pages
• Forms
• Pre-built Templates
• Audience Management

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• The analytics are comprehensive and easy to analyze and export.
• The free plan makes this tool ideal for businesses of all sizes.
• Integrating MailChimp with other marketing tools and navigating the user interface is super easy.

Cons:

• Companies with huge email lists may find this tool more expensive than competitors.
• The automation features have limited customization capabilities.
• Users need coding experience to leverage advanced automation functions.

Pricing

• Free Plan: Includes 1,000 monthly email sends, limited pre-built email templates, limited reporting and analytics, email support for the first 30 days, and forms and landing pages.
• Essentials Plan: From $10.07 p/m for 5,000 monthly email sends, limited reporting and analytics, 24/7 email and chat support, and everything in the free plan + three seats, three audiences, remove MailChimp branding, email scheduling, A/B testing and four automated customer journeys.
• Standard Plan: From $14.85 p/m for 6,000 monthly email sends, unlimited reporting and analytics, unlimited pre-built email templates, 24/7 email and chat support, and everything in the Essentials Plan + five seats, five audiences, 200 automated customer journeys, one session of personalized onboarding, content optimizer, and customer segments.
• Premium Plan: From $291.64 p/m for 150,000 monthly email sends, and everything in the Standard plan + unlimited users, unlimited audiences, phone and priority support, four personalized onboarding sessions, and premium migration services.

Our P2P Score: 4.9

Website: mailchimp.com

Benefits of Using E-Commerce Marketing Automation

It’s time to look at some of the advantages of e-commerce automated marketing strategies.

Save Time and Resources

One direct benefit of using e-commerce marketing tools and automation tactics is saving time and resources. Automation aims to reduce as much manual work as possible.

You can focus your team and resources on more essential aspects of your store.

Rather than handling customer support, event-triggered emails, content creation, and personalization yourself, e-commerce marketing tools and strategies can accomplish this for you.

Optimize Customer Engagement

Customer engagement significantly impacts sales, and e-commerce marketing automation can help you take this to the next level.

Businesses that have perfected their customer engagement campaigns are 41% more likely to report higher conversion rates than in previous years.

With e-commerce marketing tools and automation strategies, you deliver a more personalized shopping experience and stay ahead of consistent communication to optimize engagement. 

Video: Borderless Commerce

Retain More Shoppers

Retaining buyers is a constant obstacle for online stores, and e-commerce marketing automation is a solution.

E-commerce marketing tools leverage in-depth analytics on your target customer base and how they interact with competing products and brands online. They then design bespoke campaigns to keep these consumers invested in your brand.

By simply increasing customer retention by 5%, companies can boost revenue by 25 to 95%.

Improve Customer Support

To enhance customer engagement and retain more buyers, you must refine your customer support and how quickly you resolve queries and complaints.

Because marketing tools can automate most of your service team efforts, shoppers can rely on speedy, personalized responses that make them feel valued and heard by your brand.

Ultimately, improving customer support through automation sets the foundation for brand loyalty and ongoing e-commerce success.

7 Essential E-Commerce Marketing Automation Strategies for Your Store

Here are the top e-commerce marketing automation strategies to skyrocket your online store and how to leverage e-commerce marketing tools to get the best results from these tactics.

1.Use Chatbots

Chatbots have become a crucial strategy for marketing automation because of how efficiently this software makes customer communication.

Companies don’t have to invest manual resources in answering customer queries. Instead, they can configure canned responses to push leads through the sales pipeline.

In fact, Juniper research confirms that in 2024, chatbots can save businesses up to 2.5 billion hours of work – yes, you read that right!

Next, using chatbots ensures customers receive speedy communication. Delayed support response times have caused 52% of consumers to stop purchasing from a company.

Fortunately, chatbots can mitigate this risk and deliver automated responses to customer queries in record time.

To successfully use chatbots, businesses must invest in high-quality software tailored to all their communication channels.

In addition, stores should monitor chatbot performance to identify changes in customer support, make changes accordingly, and focus on helping customers reach resolutions as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

2.Leverage Remarketing

Another critical e-commerce automated marketing strategy is remarketing. This strategy can help e-commerce platforms attract direct customers who have interacted with their products but have not purchased them back to their offerings.

What’s more, sellers don’t have to do this themselves. Instead, they can rely on e-commerce automation tools, namely remarketing software, to create retargeting ads on other websites that the sellers’ web visitors often visit.

In other words, if a customer adds an item to their cart but doesn’t complete their purchases, remarketing software will create personalized ads for that product on the next websites the customer visits.

As shopping cart abandonment rates fall between 50 and 98%, and first-time web visitors only have a conversion rate of 2.4%, remarketing is a powerful automated strategy to get customers to the final sales stage.

Not to mention, retargeted web users are eight times cheaper to reach per click!

3.Set Up Triggered Emails

Successful email marketing takes a lot of time, and so much can go wrong! A quick and easy way to get around email marketing and optimize your performance is by investing in an e-commerce marketing platform to configure triggered emails.

Email marketing software can automatically send personalized emails triggered by specific events, such as new email sign-ups, disengaged subscribers, or festive periods during holidays such as Christmas and Easter.

Triggered emails will ensure customers have a personalized experience with your e-commerce store and remain engaged.

These campaigns generate 31% of all email orders and perform better than typical email campaigns in various metrics. For instance, triggered emails have 83.4% better open rates, a 2,270% increase in conversion rates, and 341.1% more click rates.

Here are a few tips to create triggered email campaigns that achieve the results you want for your e-commerce business:

• Ensure the automated tool you opt for uses customer behavioral data to personalize triggered emails or ‘behavioral targeting.’
• Use concise and direct content to engage subscribers.
• Make sure each email has a clear and enticing CTA.
• Highlight a value proposition in your triggered emails.
• Use A/B testing to help you adjust your triggered email campaign.

4.Create Automated Alerts and Reminders

Setting up automated alerts and reminders will help keep web visitors interested in your products and store and guide them to conversion.

We know how painstakingly high cart abandonment rates are, and using automated reminders to retain customers is a fantastic way to minimize losing sales.

E-commerce automated marketing software can send personalized reminders to web users before they exit your website.

These tools can also remind customers to check out if they spend too much time on your website without interacting with any items. In addition, you can also rely on this software to send automated discounts and sales alerts.

Unlike sending typical discount emails to persuade targeted buyers, automated marketing tools will send personalized discounts to specific customer segments.

Web visitors will receive alerts about deals tailored to them based on interests and behavioral data, and guess what – you don’t have to worry about manually handling this!

Another example of how to leverage alerts and reminders for automated e-commerce marketing is product updates and launches.

Do you have a new product a specific group of customers would love? Automated marketing will send these buyers emails to notify them of updates to products they are most likely to purchase and new items that will convince them to purchase.

5.Personalize Your Website

To discover more of the best e-commerce marketing automation strategies, let’s dive into personalizing your website.

Online stores should use e-commerce marketing tools or website personalization tools to achieve a web design and layout that reflects their brand and has elements targeted to individual customer segments.

Personalizing your website is a highly tedious process. You must implement different content and interactive components to engage each ideal buyer on your site.

With software, you can automate this process, which points to how imperative it is to choose the perfect platform for your growth, goals, and budget.

But website personalization isn’t just critical for sellers. Over 70% of buyers expect personalization and get frustrated when e-commerce sites don’t employ this strategy.

A few examples of how to personalize your website for different customer segments through automation include:

• Popups
• Product Recommendations
• Coupons
• Geo-Targeting
• Custom CTA’s
• Dynamic Content

6.Segment Your Customers

As we just covered website personalization as a marketing automation strategy, it’s vital to explore segmenting your customers.

Segmenting your buyers forms the foundation of your automation marketing strategy because different buyers require different marketing approaches.

Your automated marketing tool will create campaigns and content based on your target audiences.

What’s more, this software (depending on the one you choose) can also develop automated segments for you, saving you time and effort! 

To prove how important it is to segment your buyers, research confirms that 70% of marketers use customer segmentation, and 80% of businesses that use this strategy have increased sales.

The same data reveals that marketers typically target three to four customer segments, and the most common segmentation criteria are:

• Demographics
• Psychographics, and;
• Behavior.

From all these aspects, behavioral segmentation is the most effective for e-commerce stores.

7.A/B Test Landing Pages

Last but certainly not least, another of the best-automated marketing strategies is A/B testing.

This method entails testing two different landing pages and their types of content, elements, and marketing approaches to determine which performs the best.

The top marketing automation tools offer A/B testing functions to help businesses invest in the right landing page design and content layout.

This is ideal for e-commerce stores to avoid choosing the wrong landing pages and losing sales. The bottom line is – online businesses never really know how different types of content will perform, and A/B testing provides them with this knowledge.

Here are a few tips to leverage A/B testing for landing pages:

• Identify a specific objective and what you hope to achieve by testing different landing page elements.
• Single out landing page elements rather than analyzing landing pages as a whole.
• Analyze the essential metrics of landing page elements to identify which is best.
• Consider the most critical components to test. This includes your CTA, offer, and header.

Final Thoughts on E-Commerce Marketing Automation

E-commerce marketing automation entails automating tedious tasks and strategies for online sellers. Automation aims to help you leverage custom workflows, content planning and scheduling, retargeting, email marketing, and more with minimal manual effort.

There are many e-commerce marketing strategies, but the ultimate of these tactics include using chatbots for customer support, creating retargeting ad campaigns to re-engage buyers, and configuring triggered emails to stay ahead of customer engagement.

In addition, e-commerce sellers should also create automated alerts and reminders, personalize their websites for each user, segment shoppers, and use A/B testing

References

Twilio: The State of Customer Engagement Report

HubSpot: Here’s Why Customer Retention is So Important for ROI, Customer Loyalty, and Growth

Freshworks: Deconstructing Delight: Understanding the Complexity of Consumer Expectations

Statista: Online Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate in Selected Industries Worldwide

Business Insider: Returning Customers Are Far More Valuable to Online Retailers Than New Customers

ICOM: Remarketing – What’s It All About and Does it Really Work?

Mckinsey & Company: The Value of Getting Personalization Right—or Wrong—is Multiplying

NotifyVisitors: Segmentation Statistics That You Must Know in 2024