As your business grows, manually sending every marketing email becomes time-consuming and difficult to manage.
Marketing Automation helps you deliver the right message at the right time by automatically sending emails based on customer actions or predefined conditions. Instead of manually creating every campaign, you can build automated workflows that run for you in the background.
What Is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is a series of automated actions triggered by customer behavior or specific conditions.
For example, you can automatically:
- Welcome new subscribers
- Follow up after a purchase
- Re-engage inactive customers
- Send promotional emails to specific audience segments
- Deliver a series of onboarding emails over several days
Once activated, the workflow runs automatically whenever a customer meets the defined criteria.
Why Use Marketing Automation?
Automation helps you stay connected with customers while reducing repetitive work.
Benefits include:
- Save time by automating repetitive marketing tasks
- Deliver timely, personalized messages
- Improve customer engagement
- Increase repeat purchases
- Create consistent customer experiences
- Scale your marketing as your business grows
How Marketing Automation Works
Every automation consists of several building blocks:
Trigger
Defines when the automation starts, such as when a customer joins a segment or is added to a list.
Actions
The tasks performed automatically, such as sending an email.
Wait Time
Delays the next action for a specific period, such as one day or one week.
Conditions
Create different paths based on customer behavior or audience criteria, allowing you to deliver more relevant messages.
By combining these elements, you can create personalized customer journeys that run automatically.
How to Create a Marketing Automation
Most marketing platforms—such as HubSpot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Brevo, ActiveCampaign, and FastCommerce—allow you to build automated workflows that send emails based on customer behavior or predefined conditions.
While the setup process varies by platform, it typically includes the following steps:
- Create a new automation or choose a pre-built automation template.
- Give your automation a descriptive name.
- Define the trigger that starts the workflow, such as a customer joining a segment, subscribing to your mailing list, or completing a purchase.
- Add one or more actions, such as sending an email or updating customer information.
- Configure wait times between steps to control when messages are delivered.
- Add conditions or branching logic to personalize the customer journey based on specific behaviors or attributes.
- Review and test your workflow to ensure it performs as expected.
- Activate the automation when you’re ready, or save it as a draft for future editing.
When designing an automation, keep the customer journey in mind. Start with a clear goal, avoid sending too many emails in a short period, and use audience segments and personalization to deliver relevant messages. A well-designed automation can improve customer engagement while reducing the need for ongoing manual work.
Common Automation Ideas
Here are a few workflows every ecommerce business should consider:
Welcome Series
Automatically greet new subscribers and introduce your brand.
New Customer Onboarding
Help first-time customers learn more about your products and encourage future purchases.
Promotional Campaigns
Send special offers to targeted audience segments automatically.
Customer Re-Engagement
Reconnect with subscribers who haven’t interacted with your business recently.
Seasonal Campaigns
Schedule recurring promotions for holidays, product launches, or special events.
Best Practices
To get the most from marketing automation:
- Start with one simple workflow before creating more advanced automations.
- Use audience segments to deliver more relevant content.
- Keep emails focused on one clear goal.
- Add appropriate wait times to avoid overwhelming customers.
- Review campaign performance regularly and optimize your workflows over time.
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