WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails: How to Set Them Up and Recover More Sales

The official WooCommerce "Follow-Ups" extension has been retired, leaving store owners with one practical question: how do you send automated follow-up emails now?

With automated follow-up emails, you can keep your customers engaged, bring them back to buy again, and maximize every sale, without lifting a finger.

In this guide, we'll walk you through setting up your first follow-up automation step by step and compare the best plugins (free and paid) for cart recovery, review requests, win-backs, and product education.

By the end, you'll know exactly which tool fits your store and how to send your first follow-up today, without touching code.

What Are WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails?

WooCommerce follow-up emails are automated messages sent after a customer takes an action on your website, such as abandoning a cart, completing an order, leaving an item unreviewed, or going quiet.

The aim of these emails is to recover sales and build loyalty.

One thing to note is that they're not the same as transactional emails.

Transactional emails inform people about their orders. WooCommerce follow-up emails, on the other hand, can be pre-purchase and post-purchase.

Types of WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails That Drive Revenue

Not every follow-up is equal. These six do the heavy lifting for most stores, roughly in order of revenue impact.

• Abandoned cart reminders: Remind users about the items they left behind and encourage them to complete their purchases. You can include a small discount or free shipping offer to increase conversions.
• Post-purchase follow-up emails:  Follow up with customers after they receive their order to ask about their shopping experience. This builds trust and gives you valuable feedback to improve your store.
• Product education emails: If your product requires setup or has specific usage instructions, send an email with helpful tips, guides, or video tutorials. This reduces customer confusion and increases satisfaction.
• Win-back or re-engagement emails: Sent to customers who haven’t purchased in a defined window (say, 60 or 90 days). A simple “we miss you” with a small incentive often reactivates buyers far more cheaply than acquiring new ones.
• Cross-sell and replenishment emails: Sent after a purchase to recommend complementary products, or to remind customers about consumables to reorder before they run out. Replenishment timing is the lever to send it a few days before the average reorder interval.
• Loyalty discounts: Encourage repeat purchases by offering a special discount or exclusive deal for returning customers. This helps build long-term relationships and boosts customer retention.
• Review request emails: Send a short survey or request a product review after the purchase. This helps you understand customer satisfaction and improves credibility through social proof.
• Failed payment follow-up emails: Sent when an order fails at payment. A short, friendly “your order didn’t go through, here’s how to complete it” email recovers revenue that would otherwise vanish silently.

How to Set Up WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails (Step by Step) 

We are going to use FunnelKit Automations to set up follow-up emails in WooCommerce.

This plugin includes 15+ prebuilt automation recipes. Since these are ready to import, you can use them with minimal effort.

Best part? You can add unlimited contacts and send unlimited emails to your contacts.

Make sure to install and activate FunnelKit Automations.

Step 1: Create an abandoned cart reminder automation 

We are going to use an abandoned cart reminder prebuilt automation. This automation sends three sequential emails to encourage users to complete checkout on their abandoned carts.

Go to the Automations section and click 'Create Automation'.

Now, click on Abandoned Cart Reminder from the list to send WooCommerce follow-up emails for free.

Now, to import the prebuilt recipe, click on Import. Then, provide a Name and click on Create.

Step 2: Configure the event trigger for WooCommerce follow-up emails 

Now, let’s go through each step of this automation so you can better understand it and customize it to your needs. 

The first step is to select the event that will trigger the follow-up actions. In this case, of course, the event is cart abandonment.

Click on it to configure the event trigger.

You can run this automation once or multiple times per contact. Since a customer may leave their cart multiple times, it's wise to choose Multiple Times for the Run on Contact option. 

For the same reason, it's advisable to enable the "Allow currently active contacts in this automation to re-enter" option.

In the next step, the automation waits 30 minutes before proceeding after someone abandons a cart.

This is because if the shopper returns within 30 minutes to complete the order, we can assume they never really abandoned it. 

You can adjust the first delay to suit your follow-up strategy. You can create a delay of a specified number of hours, days, or weeks if you want.

Step 3: Set up and design the WooCommerce follow-up emails 

After the delay, the automation will send its first abandoned cart email. 

FunnelKit Automations uses a merge tag to personalize the email. Merge tags help you add dynamic user information to the email.

For example, use the customer's first name in the subject line to personalize it. 

Here is a preview of the first automated follow-up email that comes with the prebuilt recipe.

This template was built with the Rich Text Editor. You get three options for designing your WooCommerce automated emails. Visual Builder (New), Rich Text, and Raw HTML.

The Visual Builder is the best option for creating visually appealing emails using drag-and-drop technology.

But this is a premium feature. You need to upgrade to FunnelKit Automations Pro to use the visual builder.

 To do so, select Visual Builder (New) and click Edit. 

FunnelKit provides many pre-built email templates that you can import to use. Hover over the prebuilt template you like and click 'Preview'.

Let's import an email template designed for abandoned carts. 

Then, click on “Import This Template” to import. 

After importing, you can customize the email template’s content and design. You can remove or add any section.

Go through our detailed guide on customizing WooCommerce emails with the visual builder.

Here is a preview of the email built with the new visual builder: 

After the first email, this automation waits 12 hours, then 24 hours, and sends two more emails.

You can customize each step according to your strategy. If needed, you can also set up condition-based workflows in your WooCommerce follow-up email sequences.

Step 4: Activate the automation to send follow-up emails

Once you are happy with each step of the email automation, click the Active button in the top-right corner to activate it.

This will start sending abandoned cart recovery emails to WooCommerce users.

Want to create other follow-up emails? Check our guide below:

• Review-request follow-up emails
• Failed order follow-up emails

That’s three live sequences covering the moments where most WooCommerce stores quietly leak revenue.

Best WooCommerce Follow-Up Email Plugins (Free & Paid) Compared

Since the official extension is gone, here's how the leading replacements stack up.

All five can send follow-up emails; they differ on free tiers, automation depth, and price.

Let's go through the key points one by one.

• FunnelKit Automations has a genuinely usable free Lite version on WordPress.org that includes abandoned cart recovery and post-purchase sequences, with paid plans adding the full visual builder, SMS, broadcasts, and segmentation. It’s the most beginner-friendly plugin of the group, and our recommendation for most stores, but the comparison above is there so you can decide for yourself.
• AutomateWoo is the tool WooCommerce officially points retired Follow-Ups users toward. It’s powerful and deeply integrated with other Woo extensions, but there’s no free tier. It’s $159/year for a single site.
• ShopMagic offers a free core plugin and is the tool most often positioned as a like-for-like replacement for the old Follow-Ups extension, with paid add-ons for advanced features.
• MailPoet is strongest for stores that want email newsletters and follow-ups in one place, with a free tier that scales with subscriber count.
• Follow Up Emails (the WordPress.org plugin literally named that) is a free, no-frills option for basic automated follow-ups with pre-made templates and triggers.

If you only want a free path, start with FunnelKit Automations Lite or ShopMagic. If you want the deepest native Woo integration and don’t mind paying, AutomateWoo is the safe choice.

How to Measure the Performance of Follow-Up Emails

Once your follow-up email sequences are running, watch a short list of performance metrics rather than vanity stats:

Open rate

This is your subject line earning the click. If it's below 20%, you've subject/sender issues.

Click-through rate

This stat indicates the number of people who acted on the email that you sent.

Recovery or conversion rate

This metric indicates what share of the audience completed the goal (recovered the cart, retried the failed order, left the review)?

Email engagement

Track email engagement through key metrics such as sent, open, and click rates. These insights help you understand how users interact with your emails and optimize your strategy.

The click rate is the percentage of recipients who click links in your email, indicating engagement. A high open rate without clicks won’t drive sales, making it essential to monitor.

Revenue per person 

The primary purpose of follow-up emails is to increase sales and generate more revenue. That's why you must consider revenue from follow-up email campaigns as a metric for measuring success. 

Set a target revenue you want to achieve through a follow-up campaign. This will help you measure the success of your follow-up emails more effectively.

Unsubscribe rate

This matrix should be considered because a high unsubscribe rate indicates something is wrong with your follow-up emails.

You may be sending emails too frequently, at the incorrect time, or simply aren't communicating effectively with your audience.

When you know what's wrong, you can correct it so your follow-up email campaigns deliver better results.

Most follow-up plugins, including FunnelKit Automations, attribute recovered revenue directly to each sequence so you can see which ones earn their place.

7 Best Practices for WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails

Sending follow-up emails is easy, but sending ones that customers actually open and act on requires the right strategy.

These best practices will help you create more effective follow-up emails for your WooCommerce store.

1. Segment your audience first

Not every customer should receive the same follow-up email.

Segment your audience based on purchase history, browsing behavior, order status, engagement level, or customer lifecycle stage. Targeted emails consistently outperform generic campaigns.

2. Personalize your emails

Customers are more likely to engage with emails that feel relevant to them.

Use personalization such as the customer’s name, past purchases, product recommendations, or browsing behavior. Even small personalization elements can significantly increase open and click-through rates.

3. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA)

Every follow-up email should guide the customer toward a specific next step.

Whether it's completing a purchase, leaving a review, or exploring related products, a clear and visible CTA makes it easier for users to take action.

4. Time around shoppers' behavior

Manual follow-ups are not scalable for growing WooCommerce stores.

Automation allows you to trigger emails based on specific actions such as abandoned carts, completed orders, or customer inactivity. This ensures customers receive timely and relevant follow-ups without manual effort.

5. A/B test your emails

What works for one store may not work for another.

Run A/B tests on subject lines, email copy, CTAs, sending times, and layouts to understand what resonates best with your audience. Continuous testing helps improve open rates, clicks, and conversions over time.

6. Cap email frequency and set exit conditions

Avoid overwhelming customers with too many emails.

Limit how often follow-up messages are sent and automatically remove shoppers from a sequence once they complete the desired action or conversion goal.

7. Set consent and compliance

Follow email marketing regulations and only contact customers when permitted.

Honor unsubscribe requests immediately, maintain proper consent records, and handle customer data responsibly to stay compliant with privacy requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Ready to Set Up WooCommerce Follow-Up Emails?

Follow-up emails are one of the simplest ways to build lasting relationships with your customers, and the results compound over time.

Whether you're recovering abandoned carts, educating buyers, or winning back lapsed customers, a well-timed email can make a real difference.

The good news is that you don't need to send these manually.

Tools like FunnelKit Automations make it easy to set up trigger-based sequences that run in the background while you focus on growing your store.

Start with one or two email types, track what's working, and expand from there. Small, consistent improvements to your follow-up strategy will pay off far more than any one-time promotion.

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