Are you struggling to keep up with all the activity in your online business?

You are not alone. Running an online business is a daily job that requires 200% of your effort and time, especially in the beginning.

But with the advancement of technology, there are many resources that can ease your burden and start automating your process. In fact, with eCommerce marketing automation, you can accomplish more in less time.

Marketing automation is vital to growing your online business; it can help you attract more traffic and convert repeat customers very effectively. And I'll show you how you can do it in this guide.

In fact, by the end of this eCommerce marketing automation guide, you will know:

• What is eCommerce Marketing Automation?
• Benefits of using it.
• Email and social media automation.
• Where to start?
• And one more thing!

So, what are you waiting for? Let's break in.

What is eCommerce Marketing Automation?

In this section you will learn more about this term.

Marketing automation for eCommerce means handling and controlling routine activities with the help of eCommerce automation tools. This allows human resources to focus on management and other activities.

For example, consider hiring just one person to manage your entire online store. That’s a hell of a job for one person. However, marketing automation software can help you manage cart abandonment, email subscriptions, and more. Not only are these tools great for marketing purposes, but they can also help you monitor and track so you can learn and re-adapt your strategy.

Marketing automation tools allow you to focus more on other important tasks, such as email marketing, advertising, and lead generation.

Additionally, in eCommerce, email sequences are the most popular examples of marketing automation for eCommerce. With the right email service, you can create powerful evergreen funnels that will generate passive income once they are set up. All you have to do is set up the email sequence once, and then you can automate the process.

The main benefit of marketing automation for eCommerce is increased power. You will find that automation will boost your marketing efforts in many ways, such as:

1. save your time

Think about those mundane tasks like data entry, customer addresses, social media management, etc. When you can automate most of your mundane tasks, you can free up a lot of your time.

You can schedule eCommerce promotions to run at the right time, automate the release of recent products, remove outdated products, change prices, implement incentives, track orders, offer rewards, and more.

In most cases, eCommerce automation can perform these tasks faster and very efficiently.

2. Cost reduction

As mentioned initially, an eCommerce site typically requires multiple people to manage every aspect of the business. However, the right marketing automation platform can literally do the job in a fraction of the time and likely at a fraction of the cost.

Once set up, you can automate most of your processes.

3. Reduce the likelihood of errors

Repetitive work can often lead to human errors due to lack of excitement and decreased attention.

Marketing automation software does not tolerate fatigue or boredom; therefore, errors that occur due to these human reasons will not be a problem as automation will become a part of eCommerce marketing practices.

4. Improve customer experience (CX) and engagement

A valuable marketing automation solution can help you customize your messages to a great extent. With this improved personalization, you can improve your engagement with prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey and potential sales.

Automation also allows you to identify what your successful strategies are. Through various analytics and metrics, you will know which emails are working, which are converting, and have a clear picture of your customer’s journey.

5. Be more efficient

When it comes to streamlining your processes, automation provides a two-fold benefit. First, you have a clearer picture of many of your campaign activities. This allows you to see how one variable can impact another.

Additionally, A/B testing will help you understand which strategies resonate best with your customers. You can create and test your campaigns with automated results to learn and fine-tune.

Email is a fast and effective way to reach your existing and potential customers wherever they are. Plus, it delivers one of the best ROIs (return on investment) of any marketing channel you'll find; what's more, email marketing automation makes it even more effective.

You can prepare incredible promotions with the help of email marketing automation that will bring you great results without much effort.

Here's how you can effectively use email marketing automation for eCommerce:

1. Automated email campaigns

The first impression can be the last, especially in marketing.

Email is an important component in establishing a positive connection between your brand, customer, and product. You can use email by setting up a welcome sequence of emails where you can introduce your brand and the benefits of using your products.

Setting up an automated welcome email sequence is almost a must, as it will allow you to accurately send each message at the time when it is most valuable and convenient for your new contacts. This can increase the open rate of your welcome email and the likelihood that your follow-up emails will be listened to.

Moreover, an automated greeting schedule allows you to maintain a stable CX regardless of the number of new connections you receive. In addition to fully utilizing the potential of automation, some best practices include:

• Prioritize providing value to your prospects to establish trust. 
• Use the welcome sequence to collect additional contact information so that you can improve your personalization efforts in the future.

2. Lead education

Lead nurturing is the process of developing and strengthening relationships with your potential customers. Email marketing automation is a great tool for this purpose.

For example, lead generation campaigns are great because they allow you to deliver relevant content to your target audience. You gain their trust, guide them through the buyer's journey, and move them closer to making a purchase.

Marketing automation for eCommerce will also allow you to spread information in a timely manner. Just make sure you:

• Customize your emails (this is something your automation software can help with).
• Set your brand apart from your competitors with your USP (unique selling proposition).
• Stay relevant to maintain customer trust.
• Use HTML-based emails to a minimum extent compared to plain text emails.

3. Abandoned Cart Emails

This is an integral part of automation capabilities that cannot be ignored.

According to a recent study, by March 88.05, approximately 2020% of online shopping transactions had been abandoned. This suggests that these orders never translated into purchases and that companies lost their profits.

While the reasons why consumers abandon a sale vary (forgetfulness is a key factor), you can win them back with abandoned cart emails. These are typically email notifications sent to people who have abandoned your cart to remind them that they did not complete their purchase. As a result, some of them will return and complete the purchase process.

This is a great chance to easily increase your sales. You probably already have the cart recipient's email address because they offered it when preparing your order. What's more, because they had a hard time putting things in their cart, they're likely to come back for more.

This method is easy to set up and provides a high return on investment.

Some of the best practices for doing this job are:

• A/B testing email subject lines to find the most effective ones.
• Offer a small discount to entice them to buy.
• Use simple and clear emails.

4. Transactional emails

During and after the purchase process, you may need to send your customer notifications such as purchase confirmation, shipping reminder, password reset, legal documentation, security alert, and more.

With email marketing automation, you only have to create transactional emails once. That's a real time saver.

5. Cross-selling and product recommendations

Cross-selling means increasing sales revenue by recommending new or similar products to loyal customers. With automated emails, you can encourage your customers to continue visiting your store and send relevant offers in the future.

Existing customers always convert better because they already know you and your products. That's why it's important to continue nurturing them.

Some of the best practices to keep them coming back are:

• Keep your offers relevant.
• Present cross-selling opportunities in a simple way, emphasizing the benefits.
• Reward customers for their loyalty.
• Show your customers value.

6. Click Segmentation

Click segmentation is a way to segment or classify your contacts based on what they click. Basically, it helps you classify your contacts based on their interests.

The reason why click segmentation is so effective is because you will only send relevant offers to your subscribers. This will increase the chances of converting them from subscribers to customers.

When it comes to quick yet effective email practices, segmentation is at the top of the list.

You can include links, buttons or interactive images in your emails as you combine this with automated tools and instantly group your contacts into relevant lists based on the links they clicked on. This will allow you to send them more personalized emails and potentially increase sales.

7. Automated e-commerce reviews

In e-commerce, reviews matter. According to a Concordia University survey, about 73% of consumers checked their choices before making a purchase. Additionally, 92% of customers say they are unwilling to buy without reviews. This clearly shows the impact reviews can have on your business.

Using eCommerce marketing automation tools, you can request and collect customer feedback with the click of a button. This is much more efficient than contacting each of your customers manually. It will also help you improve your response rate.

Consider these tips to increase your chances of success:

• Ask clear questions to get the expected feedback from the client.
• Add a little "bonus" to encourage your customers to leave a review.
• Make sure you express your gratitude to your customers with a thank you message or page.