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Question 1

Won’t running both the tag and the Conversions API double my conversions?

Accepted Answer

Only if you skip the event ID. Pinterest matches the browser copy and the server copy of an order using a shared event_id, then counts it once. Send both streams without one, and yes, every order reports twice.

Question 2

Can I just add the Pinterest tag with custom code instead of a plugin?

Accepted Answer

You can. Paste the base code into your theme header and attach the event codes by hand. The catch is what comes next: you have to write JavaScript that pulls the order total and order ID from the WooCommerce session. That code breaks on theme updates, and it needs attention every time Pinterest revises its spec. Most stores end up on a plugin or Tag Manager for exactly that reason.

Question 3

Should I trust Pinterest’s numbers or GA4’s?

Accepted Answer

Neither on its own, and we would not pick a winner. Pinterest counts view-through conversions that GA4 does not, so Pinterest reporting higher is expected. Pinterest reporting fewer conversions than GA4 is the real warning sign, because it usually means events are not arriving at all.

Question 4

Can Pinterest track WooCommerce subscription renewals?

Accepted Answer

Not with the browser tag. A renewal charge occurs on your server with no browser session open, so no client-side event can exist. To attribute recurring revenue back to Pinterest, send those renewals through the Conversions API.

Question 5

Do I still need UTM parameters if the tag is installed?

Accepted Answer

Yes, they answer a different question. The tag reports conversions inside Pinterest Ads Manager. UTMs let you compare Pinterest against your other channels in GA4 or any analytics tool. Without them, Pinterest traffic is much harder to isolate cross-channel.

Question 6

Can I track custom events?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pinterest supports a Custom event type plus advertiser-defined events, and recommends mapping any custom event to a standard one so it stays usable for optimization. In WooCommerce, that usually means firing on a specific hook, like a wholesale application or a booking confirmation.

Question 7

Does any of this comply with GDPR?

Accepted Answer

Only if you make it. The Pinterest tag sets cookies, so it has to stay blocked until an EEA or UK visitor consents. Your consent platform handles that. Sending events from your server doesn't remove the obligation either, because consent applies to the data rather than how you deliver it.

Question 8

How do I add the Pinterest tag to WordPress without WooCommerce?

Accepted Answer

Paste the base code into your site header with a header and footer plugin, then add Signup or Lead event codes to the pages where those actions are completed. Most of the complexity in this guide comes from ecommerce events, which a content site doesn't need.

Question 9

Can customers see how many units are on backorder?

Accepted Answer

Not by default, and we would leave it that way. Telling a shopper that 43 people are ahead of them usually costs the sale.

Question 10

What is the difference between backorder and pre-order in WooCommerce?

Accepted Answer

A backorder is for a product that was previously available, sold out, and expected to be restocked. Buyers can read the existing reviews. They see the exact photos. They know the track record. The transaction is completely normal, except that delivery gets delayed. A pre-order is for a product that has never been available to customers. It might be a new release, a limited edition, or an upcoming product line. You are selling hype. Shoppers lock in a strict future release date for something completely unproven.

Question 11

How long does a backorder normally take?

Accepted Answer

There’s no universal answer. It depends on your supplier, production time, and shipping process. For many retail products, seven to 14 days from order to dispatch is a reasonable target. But the exact number matters less than communicating it honestly. A three-week wait that’s clearly explained is usually easier for customers to accept than a one-week wait they weren’t told about until after ordering.

Question 12

Can I allow backorder for wholesale customers only?

Accepted Answer

Not with the built-in settings, which apply equally to every visitor. Extensions with user-role restrictions let you expose the option to specific roles while everyone else sees the product as out of stock.

Question 13

Will backordered products still appear in my Google Shopping feed?

Accepted Answer

Usually, since most feed plugins map onbackorder to an available or backorder value rather than out of stock. Check what yours sends, because a feed that disagrees with the product page can get items disapproved.

Question 14

Can I charge customers only when the backordered item ships?

Accepted Answer

Not natively. Delayed capture is a pre-order workflow, and it needs an extension that supports charge-on-release plus a gateway that allows authorization without immediate capture.

Question 15

Is any of this available through the REST API?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The products endpoint shows backorders, backorders_allowed, and backordered fields, so you can read and update the settings programmatically or fire a webhook when stock changes.

Question 16

Won’t this annoy customers who saved something and don’t want to be chased?

Accepted Answer

It will annoy customers if you send five emails in a week. Cap the sequence at four in 30 days, set a goal so buyers exit immediately, and suppress anyone already in a cart recovery flow. A reminder about a product someone deliberately saved is a service. A reminder every third day is not.

Question 17

Can I send a wishlist reminder for free?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Free wishlist plugins like SaveTo Wishlist Lite will capture saves, and FunnelKit Automations Lite handles core automations at no cost. The wishlist-specific triggers and merge tags sit in the paid tier of every tool we’ve looked at, so the free path gets you the data but not the automatic send.

Question 18

Do I need consent to email people about their wishlist?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Saving a product is not opt-in for marketing. Capture consent at registration or with a checkbox on the wishlist itself, and keep the record. This matters more than the email copy does.

Question 19

Can I send a coupon based on what’s in someone’s wishlist?

Accepted Answer

Add a condition checking for a specific product or category, then generate a dynamic coupon with an expiry as the next action. That’s how you promote one category without discounting the whole catalog.

Question 20

Can I email guests who saved items without an account?

Accepted Answer

Only if you captured an address. Some plugins store guest lists in the browser session, and with no email on file, there’s nobody to send to. Asking for an email in exchange for saving the list is the usual trade.

Question 21

Could I just build this with custom code?

Accepted Answer

You could hook into the add-to-wishlist action, store a timestamp, and schedule a wp_cron event that queries saved items and calls wp_mail. Then you’d rebuild delays, unsubscribe handling, deliverability, and reporting on top of it. For a production store, that’s a lot of maintenance to avoid a plugin.

Question 22

Should I use test mode or a sandbox in Stripe?

Accepted Answer

For a single store tested by one person, the test mode toggle is enough. Create a sandbox once you have a staging site, an agency, or more than one person testing, because sandboxes keep each environment’s keys, webhooks and data separate.

Question 23

Why is my test order stuck on Pending payment?

Accepted Answer

The charge succeeded in Stripe, but the confirming webhook never reached your store. Check recent payments on your webhook endpoint, confirm the endpoint belongs to the environment you are testing in, and check that caching or a firewall is not blocking the request.

Question 24

Can I test Stripe payments on a live store without customers seeing test mode?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but only with a plugin that supports it. Stripe Gateway for WooCommerce by FunnelKit offers an admin-only test mode that shows the test environment to logged-in administrators while shoppers see live payments. The official Stripe extension and WooPayments switch the whole store at once.

Question 25

Can I test Stripe in the WooCommerce block checkout?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and you should test whichever layout your store actually uses. The block checkout and the classic shortcode checkout render payment fields and display errors differently, so passing one does not prove the other works.

Question 26

Do test payments generate any Stripe fees?

Accepted Answer

No. Test charges never touch the card networks and cost nothing. The one exception is that test cards from a different country than your registered business show simulated fees, which exist to help you model real pricing.

Question 27

Why does my test payment show in Stripe but no money left my bank?

Accepted Answer

Because test charges never reach the card networks. There is no settlement and no payout. If you see this on a real live-mode charge, it is the payout schedule: first payouts arrive 7 to 14 days after your first successful payment, then on your regular schedule.

Question 28

Why do customers stop buying from a store?

Accepted Answer

A few usual suspects. A competitor undercut you on price. Their budget tightened, and your product slid from "need it" to "nice to have." Or priorities just shifted, nothing dramatic, life moving on. The reason matters less than catching it early. Watch for these signals stacking up: Opens drop off. A cart gets abandoned with no follow-up purchase. T heir login gap stretches longer than usual. One signal alone means nothing. Two or three together, and you've got someone worth reaching before they're gone for good.

Question 29

Do win-back campaigns work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, winback campaigns indeed work. As per research, 45% of email subscribers who received a winback campaign read future emails from a brand. Out of them, 75% of re-engaged subscribers read the brand’s messages for up to 89 days. At the same time, the other 25% read their messages up to 300 days after the initial winback email. Winback campaigns can be pretty effective to re-engage with your subscribers, but these workflows should be ongoing.

Question 30

How many emails are in a winback campaign?

Accepted Answer

For the best results, we recommend you consider 4-5 emails (no more than this) over a span of 5 days. If you try sending 3-4 emails within two days, you may annoy your customer and miss the re-engagement opportunity. Once you’ve set up the inactivity period for your winback campaigns, you can work on an ideal email schedule.

Question 31

Do you always need to offer an incentive in a winback campaign?

Accepted Answer

No, but a message without one has a lower ceiling. A reminder alone works on customers who lapsed for a reason unrelated to price, they got busy, they forgot, life happened. A discount or a bundle matters more for the customer who left because a competitor undercut you, or because the value stopped feeling worth it. If you're only sending one message, pairing the reminder with a modest incentive covers more ground than either alone.

Question 32

When should you send a winback email?

Accepted Answer

Timing depends on what you sell and how often people normally buy from you. Most stores start the sequence somewhere between 30 and 90 days of inactivity, matched to how long a typical customer usually goes between orders. A skincare brand and a furniture store aren't working with the same window, so set yours based on your own purchase cycle, not a generic default.

Question 33

What's the difference between a re-engagement campaign and a winback campaign?

Accepted Answer

The two terms get used interchangeably, but there's a real distinction. A re-engagement campaign targets customers who are starting to drift, still around, just less active than before. A winback campaign targets customers who've already gone fully inactive. Same underlying goal, different point in the timeline, one catches the drift early, the other recovers what's already been lost.

Question 34

Is a multi-channel approach necessary for a winback campaign?

Accepted Answer

Not necessary, but it helps. Email alone reaches most customers just fine, and for a lot of stores that's enough. Where multi-channel earns its place is with customers who've already stopped opening email, a text or push notification reaches them somewhere email can't. Start with email, add SMS or push for the segment that's gone quiet on email specifically, rather than running all three from day one.

Question 35

Does WordPress have SMTP?

Accepted Answer

No. WordPress does not have built-in SMTP functionality by default. It relies on the PHP mail function to send emails. However, you can add SMTP capabilities using any WordPress SMTP plugin.

Question 36

What Are The Benefits of Using a WordPress SMTP Plugin?

Accepted Answer

Using a WordPress SMTP plugin has several key benefits for improving email deliverability and security: Improved Email DeliverabilitySMTP ensures that your emails are properly authenticated, reducing the likelihood of them landing in spam folders and increasing the chances of them reaching your recipient's inbox. Secure Email TransmissionSMTP plugins often support SSL or TLS encryption, ensuring that emails are securely transmitted over the internet, preventing unauthorized access or tampering. Email Tracking and LoggingMany SMTP plugins provide detailed email logs, allowing you to track sent emails, monitor their status, and troubleshoot any delivery issues. Reliable Transactional EmailsSMTP ensures that important emails, such as order confirmations, password resets, and customer notifications, are reliably delivered to users' inboxes, enhancing the user experience.

Question 37

Is WP SMTP free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Many WordPress SMTP plugins, such as WP Mail SMTP, offer free versions with basic features. Some premium features may require a paid subscription, but basic SMTP functionality is typically available at no cost.

Question 38

Can I use any email provider with SMTP?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can use any email provider that supports SMTP, including services like SendGrid, Mailgun, etc. Just ensure you have the correct SMTP settings for the provider you choose to configure in your WordPress site.

Question 39

What is the difference between SMTP and PHP mail?

Accepted Answer

SMTP is a dedicated email protocol for better deliverability and security. In contrast, the PHP mail() function is less reliable and can result in emails being marked as spam more frequently.

Question 40

How can I troubleshoot SMTP issues in WordPress?

Accepted Answer

If your WordPress site isn’t sending emails properly, start by checking your SMTP configuration. Make sure your SMTP host, port, encryption type (SSL/TLS), username, and password are entered correctly in your SMTP plugin. Even a small typo can prevent emails from being sent. Next, confirm that: Your hosting provider is not blocking SMTP ports (commonly 25, 465, or 587). SMTP authentication is enabled. Your email provider supports external SMTP connections. Your domain has properly configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to prevent deliverability issues. You should also send a test email from your SMTP plugin and enable debug logging to view detailed error messages. These logs usually reveal whether the issue is related to authentication, DNS configuration, server connectivity, or rate limits. If the problem continues, check your SMTP provider’s status page for outages or contact their support team.

Question 41

What are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and why are they important for SMTP?

Accepted Answer

SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) are authentication protocols that help improve email deliverability and security. These protocols verify that your emails are sent from authorized servers and ensure they aren’t tampered with in transit. SPF: Helps verify that the email sender is authorized to send emails for a domain, reducing the risk of spoofing. DKIM: Ensures the email content hasn’t been altered during transit by adding a digital signature to the email. DMARC: Builds on SPF and DKIM by instructing email servers on how to handle emails that fail authentication, helping protect against phishing attacks. Together, these protocols work with SMTP to ensure your emails are trusted by recipients' servers, significantly reducing the chances of being marked as spam.

Question 42

Can I offer free trials with WooCommerce subscription plugins?

Accepted Answer

Yes, all major WooCommerce subscription plugins support free trial periods. You can set trial lengths in days, weeks, or months.

Question 43

Do WooCommerce subscription plugins work with all payment gateways?

Accepted Answer

No, not all payment gateways support recurring billing. Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, and Braintree are the most common gateways with native subscription support.

Question 44

Can WooCommerce subscription plugins handle automatic renewals?

Accepted Answer

Yes. All the subscription plugins we listed in this blog automatically charge customers on the billing schedule, with email notifications sent beforehand.

Question 45

Are WooCommerce subscription plugins worth the investment?

Accepted Answer

Yes. They automate billing, reduce manual work, and improve revenue forecasting, often paying for themselves within a few months.

Question 46

Can I create a subscription without a plugin using custom code?

Accepted Answer

Technically, yes, but we do not recommend it. Building subscription functionality from scratch requires managing recurring payment schedules, securely storing payment tokens, handling failed payment retries, and maintaining PCI compliance. A subscription plugin handles all of this and receives regular security updates.

Question 47

How do subscription plugins handle upgrades and downgrades?

Accepted Answer

Most subscription plugins support mid-cycle plan changes with proration. When a customer upgrades, they are charged the prorated difference immediately. Downgrades typically take effect at the next renewal date to avoid refund processing.

Question 48

What are the best practices to maximize revenue from WooCommerce subscriptions?

Accepted Answer

Offer multiple subscription tiers with clear value, use free trials, send renewal reminders, allow a grace period for failed payments, let customers pause instead of canceling, personalize recommendations based on purchase history, and test different subscription intervals.

Question 49

What is the difference between Memberships and Subscriptions? Can I use either one? Do I need both?

Accepted Answer

Subscriptions handle recurring payments, while Memberships control access and benefits. You can use either one on its own: Use Subscriptions for recurring billing. Use Memberships for access control. Use both together if you want automatically renewing memberships.

Question 50

Can I offer a product as a one-off purchase or as a subscription using a subscription plugin?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Most subscription plugins, including WooCommerce Subscriptions and Sublium Subscriptions, let you offer a product as either a one-time purchase or a recurring subscription.

Question 51

Why Use a WooCommerce Subscription Plugin?

Accepted Answer

According to Bain & Company, increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%, which shows why subscription businesses focus heavily on retaining customers over time. As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce doesn't have a built-in subscription feature. Without a plugin, you have to manually track renewals, send invoices, and process payments. This means you will need to hire more people, which entails higher costs and a greater likelihood of mistakes.  But a WooCommerce subscription plugin changes all of this. Here's why you should go for a subscription plugin:  Get income forecasts: Regular income helps you plan inventory, manage cash flow, and make growth decisions. Recurring revenue makes future income more predictable. Automate recurring revenue: A plugin handles billing cycles, payments, and renewal reminders. This means you don't have to collect payments every billing period. A subscription plugin handles all these tasks for you. Save time on manual work: Customers can pause, upgrade, downgrade, or cancel subscriptions on their own. This reduces support requests and work for you. Recover failed payments: Automatically tries to collect payments and sends emails to customers. This helps you retain revenue that would otherwise be lost due to expired cards or insufficient funds. Increase customer lifetime value: Customers who subscribe spend more over time. You can offer upgrades and additional sales during the subscription period. Subscription customers make more purchases than one-time buyers.

Question 52

Why are my WooCommerce subscription emails going to spam?

Accepted Answer

WooCommerce sends emails using the default WordPress wp_mail() function, which often lacks proper authentication. To fix this, install an SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP and configure it with a dedicated transactional email service such as SendGrid, Mailgun, or Amazon SES. Then set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your sending domain. This ensures your subscription notifications are properly authenticated, which dramatically improves inbox delivery rates.

Question 53

Can I customize WooCommerce subscription emails with custom code?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can override WooCommerce Subscriptions email templates by copying the template files from the plugin’s templates folder into your theme’s woocommerce directory. From there, you can edit the HTML and PHP directly. However, this approach requires development expertise, is difficult to maintain, and template customizations can break with subscription plugin updates.

Question 54

How do I troubleshoot WooCommerce subscription emails that are not sending?

Accepted Answer

Start by checking whether the WooCommerce subscription email is enabled and that the recipient is set correctly. Next, verify that your WordPress site can send emails at all by installing a test plugin like WP Mail Logging or Check & Log Email. If emails are not being sent, the most common fix is to install an SMTP plugin and connect it to a transactional email provider. Also, check your hosting provider's email-sending limits and make sure your site's cron jobs are running properly, since WooCommerce relies on wp-cron for scheduled tasks like renewal processing and email triggers.

Question 55

Can I send renewal reminder emails before a subscription renews?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can send renewal reminder emails using the Email Reminders for WooCommerce Subscriptions extension or the Sublium Subscriptions plugin.

Question 56

Can I send newsletters to my WooCommerce subscription customers?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can send newsletters to your WooCommerce subscription customers using plugins like MailOptin or FunnelKit Automations to broadcast emails to your subscription customer base. Here you can segment users by subscription status, specific products, and individual subscribers.

Question 57

Why should I send WooCommerce subscription emails?

Accepted Answer

According to The Business Research Company, the global eCommerce subscription market size is expected to reach $904.28 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 65.67%. Offering subscriptions in your business allows you to capitalize on the compounding value of customer relationships. WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin has an in-built email notifications service that can send some standard emails. But even then, you’d need basic HTML to modify them. This could drag the process of setting up your follow-up emails and make it time-consuming. Its built-in notification service has some serious challenges and limitations. It cannot do some of the most crucial things, like: Ability to personalize emails Design aesthetic emails Subscriber analytics Automated emails and follow-up sequences with timed delays SMS notifications In addition, if you head to WooCommerce email settings, there is little customization or personalization to do. Navigate to WooCommerce ⇨ Settings on your WordPress dashboard and hit the Emails section to see all the order status notifications. Scroll down to see the default WooCommerce subscription emails. These pre-built email subscription notifications are limited and difficult to personalize. If you click on the ‘Manage’ button of any email notification, you will see that you cannot customize the content or add a personalized touch. You can change the email subject, heading, additional content, type, etc. To customize the subscription emails in WooCommerce, you’ll need a tool that helps you design your email notifications the way you want. And this is precisely what we’ve covered in this post.

Question 58

Is it worth switching to a single-page checkout?

Accepted Answer

For most stores selling a small catalog, a single offer, or digital products, yes. You remove three page loads and up to a dozen fields from the path between intent and payment, and that is the cheapest conversion work available. If you sell wholesale, configurable products, or anything with complicated shipping rules, leave the multi-step layout alone.

Question 59

Is there a free WooCommerce one page checkout plugin?

Accepted Answer

Yes. One Page Quick Checkout, Direct Checkout, Fluid Checkout, and FunnelKit all have free versions. The official WooCommerce extension has no free tier.

Question 60

Will one page checkout work with variable products?

Accepted Answer

Yes, one page checkout usually works with variable products, but this is where plugins most often break. Test that changing a variation replaces the cart item rather than adding a second one before you send traffic.

Question 61

Does one page checkout work with WooCommerce Subscriptions?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Create the subscription product first, then add it to the checkout page like any other product. Shoppers pick between one-time and recurring on the same screen.

Question 62

Does it work with the WooCommerce Cart and Checkout blocks?

Accepted Answer

Support varies by plugin. Several third-party tools still expect the older shortcode checkout and need a fallback on block-based stores. Check each plugin’s compatibility notes, as this is the most common cause of checkouts breaking after a WooCommerce update.

Question 63

What is the best WooCommerce one page checkout plugin?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the job. For product selection, a payment form, and order bumps on one page, FunnelKit covers it. For the shortest setup, the official WooCommerce extension does it with one shortcode.

Question 64

Will one page checkout work with my theme?

Accepted Answer

Most well-coded themes work, including Storefront, Astra, Kadence, and GeneratePress. Builder-rendered checkouts sidestep theme conflicts entirely because they do not use the theme template. The official extension is more theme-sensitive.

FunnelKit Blog

How to Set Up Pinterest Conversion Tracking in WooCommerce

How to Set Up Backorders in WooCommerce to Keep Selling Out-of-Stock Products

WooCommerce Carding Attacks: 7 Prevention Tips to Follow

How to Send WooCommerce Wishlist Reminder Emails (Step-by-Step)

How to Test Stripe Payments in WooCommerce Before You Go Live

Winback Campaign: What It Is and How to Build One in WooCommerce [2026]

WordPress SMTP: How to Fix Email Deliverability (2026 Guide)

6 Best WooCommerce Subscription Plugins: Tested and Compared (2026)

How to Customize WooCommerce Subscription Emails

WooCommerce One Page Checkout: 6 Plugins Tested and Compared