Sending WooCommerce order notification emails is a great way to update your customers about their orders.
Setting up custom WooCommerce order notifications offers much-needed transparency throughout the order fulfillment process.
This will allow you to provide your customers with timely updates and improve their experience in your store.
Even though WooCommerce offers a steady system for handling order notifications, the default emails aren’t suitable for customizing according to your brand and interaction.
For that, you need to customize and send WooCommerce order status email notifications using a separate plugin.
In this post, we’ll guide you through the step-by-step process of replacing default WooCommerce order notification emails with custom interactive ones.
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A WooCommerce order notification email is an automated email sent to customers to inform them about their order statuses.
Order notifications serve different purposes and are critical for streamlining the communication between the store, customers, and the store’s admin or staff.
These transactional emails cover various stages of the order fulfillment process. It includes order confirmation, payment pending, order failed, order refunds, and more.
Types of WooCommerce order notification emails
In fact, WooCommerce has the default email templates for different order statuses:
As a WooCommerce store owner, sending email notifications based on order statuses can help you in various ways.
Here is the default WooCommerce email template for new order purchases:
As you can see, the default emails look entirely bland. You cannot customize them entirely for your brand. Furthermore, you cannot interact with your customers via feedback surveys or product recommendations.
Also, you can not even add your socials so that customers can connect with your brand.
That’s why you need a plugin that gives you CRM abilities to send emails and understands WooCommerce.
Plus, it should have several email templates and the power of an enhanced visual email builder, so you can design your emails without writing any code!
Here are some key reasons why customizing WooCommerce order notification emails can be beneficial:
Customizing the WooCommerce order notification emails will help create engaging customer interactions, increasing trust and loyalty.
Brand value is crucial in influencing user behavior and driving business success. Most businesses capture their user’s attention by using consistent branding elements in their store, emails, newsletters, etc.
However, WooCommerce uses default emails that can’t be customized to your brand’s look. To do so, you need some serious coding skills.
If you don’t want to write custom codes, you can easily customize emails with FunnelKit Automations.
FunnelKit Automations is the most potent marketing broadcast and automation CRM for WordPress.
You can set up automated sequences, send email broadcasts or SMS texts, track orders and conversions for each campaign, and more.
In this section, we’ll demonstrate the step-by-step process to send custom emails for different WooCommerce order statuses.
Before we begin, get a copy of FunnelKit Automations and install it on your WordPress website.
👉 Refer to our documentation to install and activate FunnelKit Automations on your website.
Let’s set up an automation that automatically sends a custom email when an order goes to pending status.
Setting up an SMTP plugin on your WordPress website ensures your emails get delivered to your recipient’s inbox.
We recommend the following SMTP service providers:
Here, we’ll use the WP Mail SMTP plugin. And don’t worry - it complies with the latest Google and Yahoo deliverability rules.
Configure the settings through the setup wizard once you install WP Mail SMTP.
Proceed through the setup and configure your SMTP plugin.
Before we start setting up custom WooCommerce order status email notifications, it’s important to disable the default WooCommerce emails. You can do it from WooCommerce email settings.
To do so, navigate to WooCommerce ⇨ Settings.
Under the ‘Emails’ section, click on ‘Manage’ next to the order status you want to disable the default notification and send a custom email.
Let’s say you want to send a custom new order purchase email after a successful purchase from the checkout page. So, we’ll disable the default WooCommerce email here.
Now, uncheck the option next to ‘Enable this email notification’ and save the changes.
This is how you can disable the default WooCommerce email notifications under each order status.
Now that you’ve disabled the default WooCommerce order notifications, it’s time to set up custom emails for better engagement.
Go to the Automations section in FunnelKit Automations.
From there, hit the ‘Create Automation’ button.
You’ll be directed to the recipes section. Here, you can find some pre-built automated recipes for specific use cases.
These recipes can be imported and customized to set up your automated campaigns.
We’ll create a fresh automation. So, click on ‘Start from scratch’ and name your automation.
Clicking on ‘Create’ will set up a new automation.
Hit the ‘Select an Event’ button and go to the WooCommerce tab. Here, we’ll choose the “Order Status Pending” event.
Once done, click ‘Done’ to add this event to your workflow.
Next, configure this event.
Here, we have configured this automation event to run multiple times on already active contacts in this automation. This way, this automation will run every time someone orders, not just the first time.
Hit ‘Save’ when done.
To add an action, click the (+) icon and hit ‘Action’.
Next, select the ‘Send Email’ action under Messaging.
Click on ‘Done’ to add this action to your automation workflow.
We’ll create a custom email for the WooCommerce pending order status here.
Enter the email subject line. As you can see, we’ve added a personalization of the first name in the subject line using merge tags.
Next, select your template type and craft your custom email accordingly.
Select the ‘Rich Text’ editor and write your custom email for pending order status.
As you can see, we’ve used the merge tags: {{order_id}} to display the order ID and {{order_items}} to fetch the order details.
Once done, click ‘Save & Close’ to return to your workflow screen.
If you want, you can even custom-design your branded emails with FunnelKit Automations’ built-in visual email builder.
It has various pre-designed email templates that you can import with a single click and customize according to your business requirements.
You get access to various WooCommerce blocks such as order summary, cart item, product, coupon, shipping/billing address, cart link, and more.
In addition, it has basic content blocks, such as images, text, columns, social icons, menus, lists, etc., to help you design beautiful emails.
Watch this tutorial to see how you can design emails with the enhanced visual builder:
Make sure to save your design when done.
Once everything is done, toggle the automation to ‘Active’. This will activate your automation on your website.
Well done! This is how you can create and send a custom email for the pending order status in WooCommerce.
We hope you’ve learned how to set up and send custom emails for WooCommerce pending order status.
FunnelKit Automations is not limited to this use case only. You can use it to change the status of each order in WooCommerce.
Here, we have explored some valuable use cases for these automations and engage with your customers:
For failed orders, the order status first goes to ‘Pending’. After a failed payment confirmation, the status changes to ‘Failed’.
So, choose the ‘Order Status Changed’ event trigger in FunnelKit Automations.
Next, configure the FROM STATUS ‘Pending’ and TO STATUS as ‘Failed’ in your event.
Now that your event is set up, you can compose your failed order emails in the action step.
👉 You can even refer to our detailed blog post on WooCommerce failed orders here.
Sending a custom order delivered email is quite easy.
You just need to assign the ‘Completed’ status from the ‘Processing’ status.
Now, you just have to craft an email regarding order delivery. You can even pitch product recommendations or add exciting discount coupons within this email to encourage another purchase.
You can send a custom email once your customer’s order has been returned and refunded.
FunnelKit Automations provides the ‘Order Refunded’ event.
Next, you can compose an email about their refunds and some service feedback emails as well.
FunnelKit Automations also lets you send emails for WooCommerce custom order statuses.
You can create WooCommerce custom order status programmatically in two ways:
👉 Check out our detailed guide on creating custom order statuses in WooCommerce.
Let’s say we have two custom order statuses: Order Placed and Awaiting Shipment.
You can assign the ‘Order Status Changed’ event as:
Next, you just have to send an email that the order has been packed and is awaiting the shipping partners to pick it up.
Once everything goes well, you can send the WooCommerce order status shipped email notification. This way, you can inform your customers of their order tracking status during the fulfillment journey.
This is how you can send WooCommerce custom order status email notifications with FunnelKit Automations.
These were some of the use cases we discussed. When setting up your automated sequences, you can test various other opportunities.
Here are some effective best practices and tips for crafting and sending order notifications to your customers.
1. Improve email deliverability
Ensuring your WooCommerce order notifications reach your customers’ inboxes is crucial for maintaining a smooth customer experience.
Choose a reliable email service provider (ESP) and SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP for high deliverability rates.
Authenticate your emails by properly setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configurations. Make sure to follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy in your emails and business ethics.
2. Compelling subject lines
Use clear and engaging subject lines that encourage recipients to open your emails.
Add action-oriented words like "Thank you for your purchase", "Your order is on its way", and more.
Maintain a tone that reflects your brand’s voice, whether formal, friendly, or fun.
3. Maintain brand consistency and enhance design readability
Use a simple and clean WooCommerce order notification email template that aligns with your brand design and aesthetics.
Break down information into simple bullet pointers or separate sections to enhance its readability.
Ensure your emails reflect your brand’s logo, colors, and overall style to make them instantly recognizable.
4. Personalization
Personalized emails have an opening rate of 82% more than generic emails.
Address your customers with their names in your emails to make them feel personal. Depending on the email, you can include other details such as their address, order details, and more.
If needed, reference specific products or services they purchased and any personalized recommendations or follow-ups.
5. Call to action
Your WooCommerce order notification email should always include a call to action (CTA), which allows users to take action.
These CTAs could be used to track orders, manage orders, complete payment, etc.
Furthermore, you can encourage actions like leaving a review, following on social media, or signing up for newsletters.
6. Mobile optimization
There are more than 4.3 billion active email users globally, of which 1.7 billion+ use their mobile phones to open emails.
That’s why it’s crucial to design your emails optimized for mobile.
Make sure the fonts, images, and buttons are easy to click on small screens.
7. Add value with extra content
Suggest related products or complementary items like upsells and cross-sells they might be interested in.
Include discount codes or special offers for future purchases. This will help encourage repeat businesses.
You can even encourage customers to follow your brand on social media or ask them to leave a product review on your store.
8. A/B test and optimize
Experiment with different email subject lines, email designs, inside elements, and email content to see what resonates best with your audience.
Take advantage of A/B testing with FunnelKit Automations’ built-in split path testing feature.
This allows you to figure out which paths convert better and generate good results.
Watch this quick tutorial to learn everything about Split path testing:
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In this section, we’ll answer the common questions related to WooCommerce order email notification:
1. Does WooCommerce send an order confirmation email?
Yes, WooCommerce sends a default order confirmation email. But this email looks quite dull and offers no personalization, branding, or marketing opportunities.
However, you can change it and send customized WooCommerce order notification emails we discussed in this post.
2. My WooCommerce custom order status email notification is not working. What should I do?
In case your WooCommerce custom order status email notification is not working, you can set up an automated email system that works.
With FunnelKit Automations, you can set up custom order status email notifications in WooCommerce with your business branding and personalization.
You just need to select the event and choose your custom order status. Then, set up the email action and write the text you want to send. We’ve discussed each of these details in this blog post.
3. How do I get notified of WooCommerce orders?
As a WordPress administrator, you can be notified of new WooCommerce orders when a customer purchases a product in your store.
To do so, enter the admin email in the recipient email address field when setting up custom emails in FunnelKit Automations.
Here, we have placed the admin merge tag in the recipient email field for new order purchases. This will send a WooCommerce new order email to the admin and customer.
You can send such custom WooCommerce emails to multiple recipients. You just need to enter the email addresses or email merge tags separated by a comma without any spaces.
4. How to setup email notifications in WooCommerce?
The default email notification options in WooCommerce are available inside the email settings. You can set up your email notifications by going to the particular order status.
However, if you want to send custom, branded email notifications to your users, our experts recommend using FunnelKit Automations. It’s a must-have tool in your repertoire if you want to set up automations and marketing campaigns for your business.
5. How do I add custom order status emails in WooCommerce?
You can add custom order emails in WooCommerce using FunnelKit Automations. Make sure to set up custom order statuses in your store.
Now, set up the order status changed event trigger and select that custom status inside FunnelKit Automations. Next, select the send email action and design your email.
Once done, activate your automation, and it’ll send this custom order status email once this order status processes in the fulfillment journey.
6. Why is WooCommerce not sending order emails?
There are several reasons why WooCommerce might not send order emails.
However, the first recommendation is to use an SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP to send emails from WooCommerce and WordPress.
Some common causes and potential solutions can be:
Order notification emails are critical components of an eCommerce business. They keep customers and staff informed about the order, improving the customer experience and streamlining the fulfillment process.
While your default WooCommerce emails look drab, you can send custom order notification emails with FunnelKit Automations.
FunnelKit Automations is an excellent marketing automation CRM tool that allows you to customize the content and layout of your emails. This gives you complete control over your business’s email messaging and branding.
You can set up different email notifications for different order statuses, such as order processing emails, pending orders, refunds, and failed orders. Not just that, you can even send emails for your custom order statuses.
This way, you can improve the engagement of your emails and boost conversions through effective marketing campaigns.
So what are you waiting for? It’s time to set up attractive WooCommerce order notification emails in WordPress.
