With ecommerce email marketing automation, B2C marketers can expect more of the revenue benefits of personalized marketing, without the manual work of sending email campaigns.
Email automations, also known as flows, consistently deliver 6–8x more revenue per send vs. campaigns, according to Klaviyo's 2026 Omnichannel Benchmark Report. That’s because they’re sent automatically based on people’s real-time actions, which makes them timely, targeted, and relevant.
To be clear, we’re not saying you should ditch your email campaigns. These are still vital for promotions, limited-time offers, and other messages that make sense for a wider, segmented audience alongside your automated emails.
But here’s where you can expect to see some differences when you implement the right email automations:
- Higher revenue per recipient (RPR): Abandoned cart flows alone generate an average $6.77 RPR, compared to $0.20 for standard email campaigns, according to Klaviyo benchmarks.
- Personalized messages at scale: Email automation works 24/7, which means you can engage
- Improved customer experience: Personalized, data-driven messaging can address some of your most common and simple customer service requests, while freeing up your human support team to handle complex requests more quickly.
In this updated guide for 2027, we share the 10 best ecommerce email marketing automations every business should implement. We also include real-world results backed by Klaviyo benchmarks to help you optimize your strategy.
1. Welcome series email automaions
Your welcome series goes out automatically when someone first subscribes to your email list. The goal of your welcome series is to introduce your brand and convert new
According to the latest benchmark data from Klaviyo, thousands of ecommerce brands are reaching that goal: the average welcome flow generates $5.75 per recipient, while top-performing welcome emails earn click rates of 13.3% and an RPR of $13.27.
What makes a great welcome email is different for every brand. It could mean describing a compelling offer, or introducing your brand with a memorable story, or using social proof to build credibility and trust.
But now, with AI, there’s no need to guess what might be effective for your brand. An AI marketing agent built into your CRM can draw on your existing customer data and product catalog to suggest welcome offers you may not have thought of. These offers can also differ depending on whether someone has signed up for email or text messages.
It’s important to remember that when someone signs up for your email list, that doesn’t mean you have their consent to text them, too. But for new
Here’s a great welcome email example from candle brand . With gorgeous product shots, a clear list of product benefits, an introduction to their founder, and a 10% discount, this welcome email is likely to seal the deal for new
Otherland
2. Abandoned cart email automations
Your abandoned cart email goes out automatically when someone places an item in their cart on your website but doesn’t end up buying. Its goal is to encourage shoppers to return to your site and complete their purchase.
And it works. According to the latest Klaviyo benchmarks, the abandoned cart flow has the highest RPR of any automation, averaging $6.77, while top-performing abandoned cart flows earn an RPR of $13.70.
To see results like this, personalization is a must. Branching rules allow you to personalize your abandoned cart email messaging based on event and profile data such as purchase history, cart size, and product preferences. For example:
- Browse or purchase history: Reference the product pages someone viewed before abandoning their cart, or the products they’ve purchased in the past. For customers who are abandoning high-value carts or who have a high customer lifetime value (LTV), offer the opportunity to chat with someone on your team if they have any questions.
- Loyalty or rewards points: Instead of offering a discount to VIPs who might be more likely to buy without one, include someone’s unique points number or tier in the email and encourage them to use their rewards on their purchase.
- Customer support interactions: Exclude customers with open support tickets from receiving an abandoned cart email at all.
An AI marketing agent built into your CRM can improve and speed up the personalization process. When it’s trained on your product and brand data, the AI marketing agent uses what it knows about your customers and business to not only create abandoned cart emails for you, but also help you personalize their content, offers, timing, and even channels.
Sportswear brand Montirex varies their cart recovery messaging according to the value of the item(s) left behind: shoppers only get a discount if they abandon a high-value cart. This way, the brand doesn’t waste resources trying to capture lower order values. And the strategy works: the flow generates 30% of Montirex revenue attributed to Klaviyo.
Montirex
3. Browse abandonment email automations
Browse abandonment emails go out automatically when your online store visitors leave without adding an item to their cart. The goal is to nudge people back to your website so they can either browse similar products or complete a purchase.
According to Klaviyo benchmarks, these emails generate an average click rate of 5.6%, while top-performing browse abandonment flows earn an RPR of $4.32.
You can make these emails more expansive than abandoned cart flows because they don’t need to reference any specific items left behind. We suggest asking your AI marketing agent to craft a “You may also like” section that features complementary products to the ones the customer viewed. In your prompt, include criteria to recommend products based on a
Take a look at this browse abandonment email example from shoe brand Charlotte Stone, which goes out after a shopper spends enough time looking at a certain product. The product recommendations are a great way to extend the shopper’s online browsing behavior, first in the email, and then, hopefully, back on the website.
Charlotte Stone
4. Post-purchase transactional email automations
A transactional email is a type of post-purchase email that goes out automatically to one person to confirm an order, communicate important information, or deliver a specific notification, like a shipping confirmation.
The goal of a transactional email is to enhance communication and build trust and confidence with customers, all in the hopes of laying the groundwork for repeat purchases and re-engagement down the line as part of a well-mapped customer journey.
Transactional emails are especially important if your product comes with a complex production process. Manly Bands, for example, makes unique, hand-crafted wedding rings that often take weeks to produce. For them, stellar customer service means constant communication with their customers about the status of their order.
When Manly Bands’ manufacturers scan a ring at a new stage of production, it automatically updates a Google Sheet that Klaviyo’s API checks hourly. Status changes trigger update emails, which give customers insight into the 3- to 5-week production process.
This kind of proactive communication reinforces a decision to purchase, which can lead to a recommendation to a friend later. It’s also a great example of the kind of marketing strategy and brand values that helped Manly Bands generate 36% of overall revenue from email within a 90-day period.
Before you set up your post-purchase emails, it’s important to understand compliance laws around transactional vs. marketing emails. Depending on where your recipients live, your transactional emails may not be permitted to contain any promotional material at all.
OLIPOP’s order confirmation email is a great example of a post-purchase automation that’s purely transactional but also creative. Their hero banner clearly confirms the order, but the recipient also gets a cheers for ordering.
And after all that delight, OLIPOP is clear about next steps when they give recipients a heads up to stay tuned for their shipment email.
5. Product review request email automations
Product review request emails go out automatically after a purchase to ask the customer for a review. The goal is to collect testimonials and build social proof, so that it’s easier to acquire new customers.
As more consumers use AI to shop, product search queries are becoming more specific and situational. LLMs rely on detailed product reviews to answer those queries, meaning brand investment in getting those reviews needs to increase, too.
To get more detailed reviews, we recommend first timing your review requests based on product usage. This gives customers time to get the full benefits of your products before writing their review. And if you want customers to leave reviews that match what you’re seeing in your brand’s AI search queries, you can also send custom review questions as part of your product review flow.
It’s also common to incentivize customers to leave a detailed or photo review. Compass Coffee devised a way to get even more value from their discount incentive, using Klaviyo Reviews to set up a conditional split: if a review has a photo, the reviewer gets a 15% discount on their next order; if it doesn’t, they simply get a thank-you email and a reminder to leave a photo next time.
In their first quarter with Klaviyo Reviews, Compass Coffee saw a 3.7x QoQ jump in reviews submitted with images and a 70.5% jump in total reviews submitted. Now, their review section looks like an Instagram feed you want to engage with, and shoppers can better envision how the brand’s coffee will fit into their lives.
Compass Coffee
6. Replenishment reminder email automations
A replenishment reminder email goes out automatically to remind the customer to re-stock their supply when they’re running low on a product. The goal is to encourage repeat purchases for consumable products.
Rather than scheduling this flow to go out on a fixed timeline, you can use predictive analytics to send reminders immediately before customers are likely to run out, based on their unique predicted date of next order. And when you combine someone’s predicted next order date with their predicted average order value (AOV), you can create targeted replenishment flows aimed at raising the AOV of customers who don’t spend a lot.
Toilet paper supplier Who Gives A Crap sends this replenishment email when their customers might need another shipment. It’s silly, laugh-out-loud funny, and, most importantly, memorable.
Who Gives A Crap
If you sell a lot more products than just toilet paper, you can get more granular with your replenishment reminders. Force of Nature, for example, has a large catalog where some products last longer than others. So, the brand sends replenishment reminders on SKU-specific timelines to maximize the likelihood that a customer’s supply is running low when they receive the email.
This was part of a revamped flows strategy that has driven 140% YoY growth in YTD revenue from Klaviyo flows.
7. Back-in-stock email automations
Back-in-stock notifications automatically inform customers when previously unavailable items are available for purchase again. These automations are important for creating a sense of scarcity and urgency.
Keep in mind that, as urgent messages, back-in-stock notifications work particularly well on mobile. If you have consent to send texts or WhatsApp messages, don’t assume email is the best way to notify someone that a product is back in stock. With AI-powered channel affinity, you can automatically reach shoppers on the channel they’re most likely to engage with next.
Channel affinity ranks each customer’s top channels in order of preference. Your AI marketing agent can help you build multi-channel back-in-stock flows that automatically start with a customer’s preferred channel, then follow up on their second-most preferred channel next.
You can also be proactive with your back-in-stock notifications, like Red Clay Hot Sauce. The brand uses a back-in-stock flow for customers who request updates on a specific SKU, but they also send low-in-stock campaigns to broader audiences. These branded sends, which include quotes and recipes, create FOMO around bestsellers to drive conversions.
8. Post-purchase instructional email automations
Instructional emails educate customers on how to use or maintain their products. Similar to other types of post-purchase emails, the goal of an instructional email is to demonstrate proactive customer service and improve the post-purchase experience.
Now, with AI, instructional emails are easy to whip up. Just feed your existing educational content to an AI marketing agent, and it can automatically draft options for different products your customers have bought.
Instructional emails are also a great place to connect customers to an AI customer agent that can answer any specific questions they may have about product use. During those conversations, the AI agent may also recommend a complementary product that can improve usage, which can lead to another purchase.
If you want your instructional emails to be timely and relevant, try sending educational content that follows seasonal trends. For example, beauty brand ILIA sent this email in August, teaching their audience how to apply their makeup by “following the sun” to achieve that “golden-hour glow.”
ILIA
9. Loyalty email automations for VIPs
Loyalty emails go out automatically to reward your best customers with special perks. Once a customer spends a certain amount or buys a certain number of times, it triggers an email that sends an exclusive discount or early access to new product launches.
Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit automated their VIP offers after points-based apps failed to gain traction with their customers. On average, Callie’s customers made two purchases per year. But with the right incentives at the right time, their CEO suspected they would buy more often.
To test this theory, they set up Klaviyo flows so that:
- A customer’s second order in a year triggers an alert that they’ll get V.I.B. (Very Important Biscuiteer) status with their next order.
- A customer’s third order triggers an alert that they’ll get free shipping on their next order.
When this VIP automation first launched, it helped power 157.8% YoY growth in revenue from flows.
If you’re currently running a VIP automation, you may want to run a flow audit with an AI marketing agent to assess performance. An AI audit like this can generate suggestions for improvement you may not have thought of because of human data analysis limitations.
10. Birthday and anniversary email automations
Birthday and anniversary emails celebrate milestones, and that strengthens customer relationships. Everyone remembers brands that give them a little extra something for a special occasion, and milestone emails are a way to make sure your brand is top of mind for the rest of the year.
French lifestyle brand Les Raffineurs offers a few unique takes on the birthday email. The example below is a birthday email celebrating all Sagittariuses, who are apparently known for their smiles, optimism, and joie de vivre. The email is a gift guide catering to the characteristics of this specific star sign, which readers can either apply to themselves or their favorite Sag friend.
The brand also celebrates half birthdays as a fun twist on the conventional birthday email. “We have subscribers’ birthday data in our accounts, so why not use it?” points out Jean-Baptiste Gauche, the brand’s ecommerce manager. “Our half-birthday flow is a good excuse to say something like, ‘What did you buy last time you bought something from us? Maybe these new products will also interest you.’”
Les Raffineurs
How to get started with ecommerce email automations
1. Centralize your customer data infrastructure
Timely and relevant email automations depend on real-time customer data. A B2C CRM like Klaviyo acts as a single source of truth and integrations for all customer-facing platforms, centralizing all customer data to unified profiles that update in real time as shoppers interact with your brand.
These profiles are the springboard from which email flows trigger automatically based on pre-defined rules and criteria.
2. Train an AI marketing agent on your data
To speed up the process of testing flow experiments, improving existing flows, and launching new ones, train an AI marketing agent like Klaviyo Composer on your centralized customer data, product catalog, and brand policies and guidelines.
When your AI marketing agent exists in the same platform as your customer data, you’ll notice it can generate much more effective flows than AI models that aren’t drawing on real customer context.
3. Start generating flows with AI
Whereas email automations used to be created primarily through templates, AI marketing agents can now generate more flexible and creative flows based on your goals, flow performance, and shifts in customer data.
Composer is your always-on AI marketing agent, built directly into Klaviyo B2C CRM. With Composer, you can create on-brand net-new emails in minutes.
Start with a goal, a brief, or something Composer uncovered in your customer and performance data. Composer can help build the audiences, flows, and campaigns across email, text message, and mobile push, using your brand and business context throughout the process.
