AutomateWoo is a plugin for WooCommerce. It allows shop owners to email customers automatically. For example, it can be set up to email customers who buy specific products and ask for a review. Or it can suggest other products they might like, or send them a discount code.
I set up AutomateWoo a day or two ago and see that I can set triggers, rules, and actions. Rules are not an essential part of the workflow, and one can simply set up triggers and actions.
An example will explain this.
I can set up an AutomateWoo workflow to trigger on ‘order complete’. And I can set a rule that the workflow will only trigger if the order is the customer’s first purchase. And I can set an action – an email with a money-off coupon that will be sent on Tuesday at 11:00AM with a delay of 14 days.
In that case the email will go on the first Tuesday after 14 days from the purchase completion to a customer who has purchased their first product.
One thing to note. AutomateWoo workflows run only for those orders that are placed after the workflow is created, not for past orders.
The workflow will run, that is it will be triggered, as soon as a new order is placed. But the action will not run until it reaches the scheduled time, if one is set. Until then the action will stay in the queue. The default if a delay is not set, is for the action to be done immediately. Plainly, one doesn’t want to be asking for a review two seconds after notifying a customer that the product is on its way to them.
Guests versus Accounts
AutomateWoo distinguishes between guests and those who created an account. Only when ‘is transactional’ is enabled in the workflow, will AutomateWoo send emails to guests as well as to those who created an account.
Imagine one is going to send a discount to customers who fit a profile such as ‘has completed first purchase’. Then it is appropriate to enable ‘is transactional’ in the workflow. That’s because everyone who purchases deserves the offer of a discount.
Setting Coupons To Private
The documentation for AutomateWoo in this page states as follows. When you create a coupon (in WooCommerce/coupons) that you intend to use in AutomateWoo, you should set the visibility of the coupon to Private. I thought I knew why that might be, but I asked Support.
Support: That’s a good question. When a coupon is set to ‘Private’, it can’t otherwise be used. So in the context of the workflow, you want it to be private so that it can only be used in this workflow, and not during an otherwise normal checkout by a customer.
Me: Let me understand what personalised coupons are. What I mean is, are they personalised in the sense that they are tied to that workflow because the coupon is set to ‘private’? Or is there more to it so that the coupons are individual – so customer ‘A’ gets coupon zx20-A and customer ‘B’ gets zx20-B, etc?
Support: The latter part is spot on, yes. You don’t want anyone to use your “zx20-” coupon, but you’ll let individuals use “zx20-A” etc.
Me: So when I would look in AutomatWoo coupons when they are used, would I see the name of that individual coupon? And if I create zx20, does the system do all the tagging to create the coupon that is tied to each person who fits the workflow?
Support: You’re correct on both counts. The AutomateWoo workflow will, well, automate the creation of the coupon, tie them to the relevant customer, and add them to your list of coupons along with your normal coupons.