Have you ever been shopping and ended up buying more than you planned?
Maybe it was because a relevant, complementary product was right there next to what you were looking for, and you just couldn’t resist.
That’s the power of product recommendations!
They don’t just work in physical stores—online giants like Amazon generate 35% of their sales through product recommendations.
When you show the right products at the right time, customers effortlessly add more to their carts, boosting your average order value (AOV).
In this blog, we’ll walk you through seven powerful ways to set up product recommendations in WooCommerce and optimize every step of your customer’s journey.
So, let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
WooCommerce product recommendations suggest additional products to customers based on their browsing and purchasing history, preferences, and behavior on your site.
Recommendations can also highlight popular, seasonal, or sale items.
These recommendations help guide customers, encouraging them to spend more time on your site and purchase more items, ultimately boosting sales while enhancing the shopping experience.
Here’s a breakdown of common product recommendation types:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Related Products | Items directly related to what the customer is viewing. |
| Cross-Sell Products | Complementary products to what the customer is buying. |
| Upsell Products | Premium versions or upgrades of the selected product. |
| Recently Viewed | Items the customer previously viewed to remind them of their interests. |
| Best-Selling Products | Frequently purchased products to build trust and highlight popular choices. |
| Personalized Suggestions | Recommendations based on customer data, like past purchases or browsing behavior. |
| Top rated products | Show products with a maximum number of positive reviews. |
Adding product recommendations to WooCommerce can offer several benefits, including enhanced user experience, boosted sales, and improved store performance, all of which contribute to growing your business.
Here are more details:
Product recommendations, in any form, upsells, cross-sells, best sellers, etc., encourage users to add more items to their carts.
This increases the AOV and generates more revenue per transaction, helping you grow your business profit.
Personalized recommendations make shopping easier by helping customers discover items that match their interests and needs.
This reduces decision fatigue and speeds up the buying process, creating a smoother, more engaging shopping experience.
According to Salesforce, shoppers who clicked on product recommendations were 4.5 times more likely to add items to their cart and complete a purchase.
So, recommendations are highly effective when it comes to boosting the conversion rate of your store.
Re-engage customers and encourage repeat business by suggesting products based on previous purchases.
Offering personalized suggestions in follow-up emails or on thank-you pages strengthens customer relationships.
Recommendations can highlight best-sellers, seasonal products, or sales items, increasing their visibility and potential.
Highlighting popular items builds trust with customers—because they’re seeing what others love—and encourages purchases by leveraging social proof.
Let’s explore WooCommerce’s default product recommendation features. With the default, you can showcase recommended products directly on the product and cart pages to boost engagement and sales.
Why recommend products on the WooCommerce product page?
Recommending products directly on the product page makes it easier for customers to discover more options. This increased visibility increases their chances of adding additional items to their cart, boosting sales and improving the shopping experience.
On each product page, WooCommerce recommends the upsell products you would set in the background in the section headlined “You may also like…”.
You can add the upsell products from the Linked Products tab in the Product Data section of WooCommerce product options.
Along with upselling products, WooCommerce automatically recommends products from the same category in the “Related products” section.
Pros and cons of product recommendation on the product page
✅ Pros: It's a default option for WooCommerce, so it doesn’t require any extra setup.
❌ Cons: Users have to edit each product individually to add product recommendations. Moreover, when users click on different product recommendations, they may get distracted from the initial purchase.
👉 For more details, please read our blog on product recommendations product page.
Why recommend products on the WooCommerce cart page?
On the cart page, users can see their items, order details, and even apply a coupon. This allows them to rethink what they want to buy before heading to checkout. By recommending complementary products on this page, you can boost your sales.
WooCommerce recommends cross-selling products on the cart page of a store under the heading “You may be interested in…”
You can set up cross-sell products like upsell products from the Linked Products tab.
Here is what the cross-sell recommendation looks like on the default cart page:
Pros and cons of product recommendations on the cart page
✅ Pros: As it’s a WooCommerce default feature, you don’t need to install any extra plugins.
❌ Cons: Adding product recommendations on the cart page can divert users from the checkout process, leading them to different product pages.
So, these are the two options available by default in WooCommerce for product recommendations. To fully leverage the power of product recommendations, you’ll need additional plugins that offer advanced techniques.
You need additional plugins to use more recommendation techniques. The following section lists the best WooCommerce product recommendation plugins.
Our experts have handpicked the five best WooCommerce product recommendation plugins you can use to optimize your store for a better experience.
FunnelKit Funnel Builder is the most potent product recommendation tool. It capitalizes on customers' buying momentum by suggesting products at checkout, right before checkout, and as one-click upsells immediately after checkout.
More than just recommendations, it’s a WordPress sales funnel builder that transforms your store’s checkout flow into a conversion-optimized system with AOV-boosting features.
In addition, you can create high-converting sales funnel pages, including opt-in pages, landing pages, checkout pages, order bumps, one-click upsells, and thank you pages.
Features of the FunnelKit Funnel Builder:
Price: It is available in both lite (free) and premium versions, which start at $99.50 annually.
FunnelKit Cart for WooCommerce is a slide cart that offers in-cart product recommendations (upsells or cross-sells) that users can add directly to their orders without visiting the product page.
Along with adding recommendations, users can update their cart, apply coupons, and go straight to checkout—skipping the cart page entirely.
Key features:
Price: FunnelKit Cart has free (lite) and premium versions with advanced capabilities. The premium version includes the Funnel Builder package.
FunnelKit Automations is a marketing automation and broadcast CRM for WordPress and WooCommerce. It’s the perfect solution for email and SMS product recommendations after a purchase.
It’s an all-in-one tool that helps you set up automation to send emails, SMS messages, and email broadcasts. You can also create and share dynamic coupons to encourage customers to make their next purchase.
Features of FunnelKit Automations:
Price: FunnelKit Automations offers both free (lite) and premium versions. The premium version costs $99.50 a year.
OptinMonster helps is a lead generation plugin that can also work as advanced product recommendations with page-level targeting and exit-intention technology.
It comes with an easy-to-set-up dashboard where you can easily customize the popup or slide notification you plan to use for product recommendations.
Here are the key features:
Price: Starts at $7/month (billed annually), amounting to $84 a year.
This WooCommerce plugin lets you offer smart upsells, cross-sells, and frequently bought-together recommendations.
You can improve the shopping experience by placing item recommendations at strategic locations.
Additionally, you’ll be able to measure their impact and optimize your strategies with in-depth analytics.
Key features:
Price: The Product Recommendations for the WooCommerce plugin are only available in the premium version, which costs $99 a year.
All the plugins we enlisted are highly useful for recommending products at various stages of a buying journey, maximizing their impact.
In the following section, we will share different use cases. Keep reading…
Why recommend products on the slide cart?
A WooCommerce slide cart is an excellent replacement for the cart page. It allows users to view their order summary and apply coupons instantly with just one click. This real-time overview ensures that product recommendations based on cart items are super relevant and timely.
With an advanced plugin like FunnelKit Cart, you can enhance the experience by offering milestone-based rewards. This motivates users to add recommended products to their carts to unlock gifts, effortlessly boosting average order value.
We will use FunnelKit Cart (both free and pro) for this method. The pro version of FunnelKit Cart is available with FunnelKit Funnel Builder Plus and above.
The first step is to enable the Slide-in cart by FunnelKit. To do so, navigate to FunnelKit ⇒ Cart and turn on the “Enable Cart” toggle button.
🔔 For more details on displaying the Woocommerce product recommendations list on the mini cart, read our blog on adding a mini cart in WooCommerce.
To enable the Upsells option, go to the Upsells tab and turn on the “Enable Cart Upsells” option.
Now, choose the display type. You get 4 options:
After choosing how you want to display your recommended products, customize the following:
The “Default Upsells” option lets you add items to show up as upsell recommendations in case the existing cart products don’t have any upsell products assigned to them.
You can just search products by name and add them to the default upsell in WooCommerce.
You can add as many upsell products as you want, but the “show maximum upsells” option will limit the number of items on the front end.
Note: Turn on the “Always Show Default Upsells” option to always recommend the default upsell products.
Adding upsells and cross-sells directly from the WooCommerce product page can be tedious since you need to edit each product separately.
FunnelKit Cart simplifies this with a sleek interface that lets you manage upsells and cross-sells right from the cart setup page—no back-and-forth required. Just click “View All Products” to get started!
Next, you'll see a sleek interface where you can scroll to find a product or use the search bar. Expand the product section to add upsell.
🔔 Note: If a product already has upsells or cross-sells assigned, you'll see them here.
To add a new upsell, click “Add Upsell,” search for the product, and select it from the dropdown. Then, click “Add” to confirm.
Follow the same steps to add a cross-sell.
🔔 Note: You can add variable products to upsells and cross-sells, letting buyers choose variations directly from the cart.
Once you've added your product recommendations, click Save to update your changes. You can then click Preview on Page to see how your WooCommerce cart upsell looks in action.
Here is a preview of how the product recommendation in the Woocommerce slide will look like:
🔔 Note: FunnelKit Cart offers milestone based rewards like free shipping, discounts, and gifts to encourage higher spending.
Pros and cons of product recommendations on the mini cart:
✅ Pros: This method boosts sales with a milestone-based reward system and in-cart upsell recommendations to increase Average Order Value (AOV). Its user-friendly interface makes adding upsells and cross-sells easy without editing individual products.
❌ Cons: While FunnelKit Cart offers a free plugin, access to the rewards system and upsells requires the Pro version. However, just a few upsells can easily cover the cost of the package.
Why recommend products on the checkout page?
People have the strongest buying intent right on the checkout page. Offering highly relevant complementary items just before they hit the "Place Order" button can be a powerful way to boost sales.
You can make this easy by presenting product recommendations as order bumps, allowing customers to add them to their cart with just one click, increasing the order value effortlessly.
To recommend products on the WooCommerce checkout page as order bumps, we will use FunnelKit Funnel Builder.
This is a powerful tool for creating sales funnels and offering rule-based pre- and post-purchase recommendations.
You need to install and activate both FunnelKit Funnel Builder (free) and FunnelKit Funnel Builder Pro.
After activating the plugins, follow these steps:
Firstly, we need to create a store checkout that will replace the default WooCommerce checkout page.
To do so, navigate to FunnelKit ⇒ Store Checkout and click on “Create Store Checkout”.
Choose a prebuilt FunnelKit checkout template, preview it, select single-page or multi-page checkout, and then import it as your default store checkout.
We are going with Minimalist here.
This will import a store checkout with three steps: Checkout, One click upsell, and Thank you page.
🔔 Note: You can customize the Checkout Page and the Thank You page templates according to your requirements.
On the checkout page, you must add a new step to offer an order bump. To do so, click “Add Order Bump”, provide a title, and click ‘Add’.
After that, choose an order bump skin, for that hover on the skin you like, and click on Import.
Now, search for the product and click on ‘Add’.
This will add an order bump step to your store checkout funnel.
Set the call-to-action text and description that will show up on the checkout page.
Move to the Style tab. Here, you can choose the position where the order bump will show up on the checkout page.
Make sure to click on Save to update the changes.
Once you have added the offer, you can discount the order bump and specify a quantity. You can also select the display behavior and placement on the checkout page.
Offering the same order bumps for every order may not always lead to conversions.
To ensure a higher conversion rate for your product recommendation on the checkout page, you must provide relevant order bumps by aligning them with each customer's needs and preferences.
For example, if someone buys from the summer clothing category, you can offer sunglasses—complementary products that enhance the customer's purchase experience and increase the likelihood of conversion.
To do so, move to the Rules tab and click on “Add Rules”. Next, select the "Cart Category(s)" rule, set the condition to "matches any of," and add the categories.
This will trigger the order bump only if someone buys from the preset category.
Make sure to click on Save.
Similarly, you can create another order bump; for instance, offer a makeup wipe if someone purchases from the beauty category.
You can add as many order bumps as you want, and to make them more relevant, FunnelKit offers various criteria like cart items, order details, customer history, geography, and more, which you can use to tailor your offers.
After setting up the personalized product recommendations as order bumps, it is time to activate the store checkout.
To do so, enable the “Enable Store Checkout” option.
Here is a preview of how an order bump looks like on the checkout page:
Pros and cons of product recommendations on the checkout page
✅ Pros: This method drives impulse purchases. Its rule engine enables highly targeted offers to keep users focused during the buying process.
❌ Cons: You need to be thoughtful of the offer for maximum results. If you need order bump ideas, you can read our blog on "order bump ideas".
You can recommend products in WooCommerce after users checkout using the one-click upsell feature by FunnelKit Funnel Builder (which we will discuss next).
🔔 Note: You can read our blog on Top 10 Upselling Techniques to Generate More Revenue.
Why recommend products right after checkout?
After completing their purchase, customers still have buying momentum. Offering one-click upsells right after checkout makes it easy for them to add relevant products—no need to re-enter payment details. This seamless experience encourages additional purchases with just a single click!
Here is how you can recommend one-click post-purchase upsell:
To offer post-purchase one-click upsell on your WooCommerce store, you need to click on the Offer step.
Here, you can customize the content and look of the upsell template by clicking on the Edit Elementor Template option.
Go to the Products tab, click "Add Product,” search for the product, select it from the dropdown and click "Add" to set it as an upsell offer.
You can offer discounts on the upsell offer to make it more lucrative and customize the settings.
We recommend checking the option “Skip this offer if the product(s) exist in parent order”.
Make sure to click on Save to update.
Using conditions ensures your upsell offers are more targeted, leading to higher conversions.
For instance, by applying rules like showing upsells only for orders above a specific value, you make the offer more relevant and likely to be accepted. This way, you’re presenting the right products to the right customers at the right time.
🔔 Note: You can create conditions based on order details, customer history, shipping and billing addresses, and timing for more personalized upsell offers.
Make sure to click on the 'Save' button when done.
Here is what your upsell template will look like:
Pros and cons of post-purchase one-click product recommendation
✅ Pros: Sell more with high-dollar as a post-purchase, one-click offer that doesn't interfere with the primary offer, ensuring a distraction-free, seamless checkout experience.
❌ Cons: One-click upsells are supported by some popular gateways like Stripe, Mollie, Braintree, and PayPal, but not all, as not every gateway can tokenize users' cards, which is required for post-purchase upsell offers.
Why recommend a product using an exit intent popup?
Getting customers to visit your site takes effort, but sometimes they leave without buying. In such cases, you can use exit intent popups to recommend your best sellers or highly rated products, giving them one last nudge before they leave.
To do this, you’ll need to use OptinMonster. Ensure the plugin is installed and activated and you've subscribed to OptinMonster. Then, connect it to your WordPress site to start using it.
Next, follow these steps:
For this, navigate OptinMonster ⇒ Campaigns and click on “Create Your First Campaign.”
Next, choose a template.
Provide a name and start building your campaign.
Next, customize your campaign to highlight products that are likely to engage customers. For instance, you could offer a 40% sale on women's clothing and a limited-time discount to seal the deal.
Move to the “Display Rules” tab and make sure the Exit Intent trigger is selected.
Move to the Publish tab, Choose the Publish Status as “Publish”, and hit Save.
Here is what the popup recommendations look like:
Pros and cons of exit-intent product recommendations:
✅ Pros: Exit-intent recommendations can boost sales by showing products to customers who are about to leave your site, enticing them with offers just before they go. This method can help capture potential lost sales.
❌ Cons: While effective, exit-intent recommendations may annoy some users if not executed correctly, leading to an increase in bounce rates if the timing or offer isn't right. Additionally, some visitors may view these as intrusive.
Your product recommendation strategies don’t have to stop when users are done shopping in your store.
You can use the power of recommendation even after customers leave your website using email automation.
Move to the next section to find out how to do WooCommerce product recommendations in post-purchase emails.
Why offer product recommendations via post-purchase email?
Post-purchase emails are a great opportunity to keep customers engaged and increase their lifetime value. After customers have completed a purchase, they are in a positive buying mindset and more likely to act on relevant product recommendations.
To offer product recommendations using email automation, we will use FunnelKit Automations.
Ensure you have installed and activated FunnelKit Automations before moving on to the main process.
The first step is to create a new automation. For that, navigate to FunnelKit Automations ⇒ Automations and then click on Create New Automation.
Select the blank template, provide a name, and click on Create.
This will add a blank automation on your workspace.
Now, it’s time to select a trigger. To do so, click on the “Select Trigger” option.
On the WooCommerce tab, select the “Order Created” event. This will trigger this automation once someone orders on your WooCommerce site.
Choose the order statutes for which you want this automation to trigger. Here, we are going with the order completed as we want to send product recommendations after the previous order is delivered.
Choose "Multiple times" for runs on contact to send recommendations to customers every time they place an order.
Now, we are going to add some delay because you don’t want to overwhelm the user just after they make an order. You should recommend their product after a gap of some time.
To do so, click on the + icon and click on Delay.
After that, add delay and click on Save changes. We have added a delay of 3 days.
Now, you need to add another action that will send the email. To do so, click on the + icon and then select Action.
After that, from the Messaging tab, choose the “Send Email” action and click on Done to add the action.
First, provide the email subject and preview text.
You can use merge tags to add dynamic data values like customer names that help personalize your emails.
To add any merge tag, click on {{..}} and search, copy the merge tag, paste it on the email subject line, and preview the text as you need.
As per the email body, you can design in four ways: Visual Builder (New), Rich Text, Raw HTML, and Visual Builder.
Our experts recommend using Visual Builder (New). For this choose “Visual Builder (New)” and click ‘Edit’.
After that, you can choose any of the prebuilt templates. Here we will choose “Cross Sell Products Template”. For this hover on the template and click Preview.
Now, hit “Import This Template” to import.
You can customize the template according to your needs, like changing the logo, updating the menu, adding a new banner, etc.
As per the product recommendation section, the template already includes a built-in feature. Here, you can choose whether to share related products (upsell, cross-sell, or both), best-selling products, or specific products if desired.
Depending on the option you select, the email will populate with the corresponding products from your WooCommerce store.
You can also offer a discount coupon in your product recommendation email to incentivize your next purchase. You can easily add a discount section using the Coupon block by FunnelKit Automations.
For more details, read our blog on how to use dynamic coupons in email.
Sending a test email allows you to thoroughly review the email's content and layout, ensuring that it appears as intended to your recipients.
To send a test email, click on “Preview and Test”. Then, provide the receipt email and hit “Send Email”.
Here is what the email we created looks like :
Here is what the automation looks like:
The final step is to activate the automation so your users receive emails with WooCommerce product recommendations after the set delay. To do that, return to the automation page and turn on the toggle button at the top right center.
This will make your automation go live.
Pros and cons of product recommendations in post-purchase email
✅ Pros: With product recommendations in follow-up emails, you have the chance to bring users back to your WooCommerce website and encourage repeat purchases.
❌ Cons: As follow-up emails have a 40.5% open rate, your users may not open the emails. To avoid such issues, make sure to use enticing subject lines and follow up with at least 2-3 emails.
Here are some tips to follow for boosting revenue generated from WooCommerce product recommendations:
Don’t offer the same products to all your customers. Use segmentation to ensure your recommendations are relevant and useful based on their behavior, preferences, and purchase history.
This increases the likelihood of conversions.
You can conduct A/B tests to experiment with different recommendation strategies, such as order bumps, one-click upsells, and follow-up emails.
This will give you a better idea about what your customers want.
Present your product recommendations in a visually attractive way that grabs attention and invites customers to explore more.
Use clean layouts, high-quality images, and concise copy to make the recommendations stand out. Also, make sure your product recommendations look seamless across all devices.
You should keep track of analytics to find out how your product recommendations are performing.
Analyze reports in different matrices such as click rate, conversion rate, revenue generated, average order value, etc.
Offer discounts on product bundles by grouping related items together. This encourages customers to purchase more items at a reduced price, effectively increasing the average order value while driving higher sales overall.
💡 Bonus Tip: Develop a long-term strategy to optimize product recommendations
To achieve maximum results, you should develop a long-term plan for WooCommerce product recommendations and continuously refine it based on data and insights from customer interactions.
If you're offering order bumps and upsells, avoid recommending additional products on the thank you page to prevent overwhelming customers. Instead, offer a discount coupon for their next purchase to encourage repeat business.
You can easily do that with FunnelKit Funnel Buidler’s custom thank you page templates.
With FunnelKit Automations, you can easily track the revenue generated from order bumps and one-click upsells and filter the data for any specific time period.
WooCommerce’s default product recommendation options only cover 15-20% of the customer’s journey.
But by implementing the strategies we’ve discussed, you can effectively drive sales across up to 80% of the shopping process.
With FunnelKit Funnel Builder, you can recommend products at key stages, helping customers find the right items and spend more.
This WooCommerce recommendation plugin also provides detailed analytics to measure and optimize your strategies.
FunnelKit Automations further drives sales through email recommendations, even when you're not actively managing them.
Join over 30,000 users who trust FunnelKit to increase both sales and AOV.
Get FunnelKit today and start growing your store’s AOV!
