Shopify email marketing is the cheapest way to get more out of the traffic you already have. Before you raise an ad budget, set up a handful of automated flows that follow up with people who signed up, started a checkout, looked at a product or bought once. This guide covers the five flows I set up first, how to grow your list with proper consent, the deliverability basics that keep you out of spam folders, and how to measure the results without fooling yourself.
Why flows come before ad spend
Ads buy visitors, and most visitors leave without buying. A flow is a series of emails that sends itself when someone does something specific: signs up, abandons a checkout, places a first order. Once it is built, it works on every visitor you paid for, every day, without anyone pressing send. Campaigns still matter, but flows are the base layer. Without them, every visitor who leaves is gone unless you pay to bring them back.
Shopify Messaging or a dedicated platform?
Shopify’s own tool is now called Shopify Messaging. It was Shopify Email until the rename, and it now handles SMS and WhatsApp campaigns as well as email, with SMS limited to certain countries. At the time of writing, stores on the Basic plan and up get 10,000 free emails a month, then pay $1 (USD) per 1,000 extra emails, and abandoned checkout automations are always free. Its automations live under Apps > Messaging > Automations, with templates for abandoned checkouts, carts and product browsing, welcome emails, post-purchase thank-yous and upsells, and win-backs. They rely on Shopify Flow, so install the free Flow app too.
Dedicated platforms such as Klaviyo and Omnisend connect to Shopify through their own apps and go further: finer segmentation, more branching inside flows, more channels and deeper reporting. They also cost more as your list grows. I have built flows in Klaviyo, Omnisend and ActiveCampaign for clients, and my rule is simple: start with Shopify’s own tools if your list is small and your flows are straightforward, and move when you hit a limit you can name. Whatever you choose, run each flow in one place only, or customers get the same reminder twice.
The five flows to set up first
1. Abandoned checkout
This catches people who entered their email at checkout and left. They were closest to buying, so build it first. Shopify still offers its original abandoned checkout email, which it now calls legacy, alongside the newer Recover abandoned checkout automation. Switching to the automation is permanent, so check its settings before you do, and never run both. A sensible sequence is a first reminder a few hours after they leave, then a second the next day that answers the usual doubts about shipping costs, delivery times and returns. Make sure the flow stops the moment they buy. There is a matching abandoned cart template for people who added items but never reached checkout.
2. Welcome series
This one starts when someone joins your list. The first email delivers whatever the signup form promised, straight away. The next two or three introduce your best sellers, explain how to choose (sizes, materials, which product suits whom) and show real reviews. Anyone who buys should leave this flow and move into the post-purchase one.
3. Post-purchase
Shopify already sends order and shipping confirmations, so do not duplicate them. Use this flow for what those notifications leave out: how to use or care for the product, what to expect if delivery takes a while, and a review request once the item has arrived. Save cross-sells for later, once the customer has had time to use the first product. On the pre-sale clothing store I built, the launch emails were part of the setup, because people who pay before a product ships need to hear from you before it arrives.
4. Browse abandonment
When a known subscriber views a product and leaves without adding it to the cart, one gentle email with that product and a couple of alternatives is enough. It can only reach people your store can identify, and Shopify’s Flow templates for this skip anyone who received an abandoned checkout, cart or browse email in the last 14 days, so nobody gets three reminders in a week. Keep the tone low pressure. This person only looked.
5. Win-back
Set the timing from your real buying cycle. A coffee store and a furniture store need very different windows. Look at how long repeat customers usually take to order again, and start the win-back a little after that. Send two or three emails, then stop. People who never open or click anything should eventually come off your sending list, because mailing them can hurt delivery to everyone else.
Build the list with consent
- Use a signup form or popup that says what people get and how often. Shopify Forms, Shopify’s free forms app, handles both popups and inline forms.
- Offer a marketing checkbox at checkout, and leave it unticked.
- Consider double opt-in, where people confirm by clicking a link. In Shopify, it sits under Settings > Notifications > Customer notifications.
- Never buy a list or upload contacts who did not agree to marketing.
- Treat SMS separately. Shopify records email and SMS consent separately, and email consent does not carry over to texts.
By default, Shopify’s automations only email subscribers, and that is the safe setting. Consent rules differ between countries, and this is not legal advice, so check what applies to the markets you sell in.
Deliverability basics
A flow is useless if it lands in spam, so start with your sending domain. In Shopify, go to Settings > Notifications > Sender email and authenticate your domain by adding the DNS records Shopify gives you, plus a DMARC record. Until you do, Shopify rewrites your sender address to a shopifyemail.com address, so your emails arrive from Shopify instead of from your own domain.
Gmail requires every sender to authenticate mail and to keep the spam rate reported in its Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Senders who send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts also need DMARC and one-click unsubscribe in marketing emails. Yahoo has similar rules. Beyond the setup, the habits matter: honor unsubscribes quickly, email people at the rhythm you promised, and remove addresses that bounce.
How to measure Shopify email marketing honestly
Every tool counts email sales its own way. Shopify Messaging’s email report uses last non-direct click attribution by default, while other platforms may credit an email that was only opened within a set number of days. None of them tells you how many of those people would have bought anyway. Open rates are unreliable too, because some mail apps load images automatically, and that registers as an open. So:
- Judge flows on clicks, orders and revenue per recipient, not opens.
- Tag links with UTM parameters so GA4 shows the sales from its side, and check both against Shopify’s own order reports.
- If your platform supports a holdout group, use it on your biggest flows to see how many sales the emails actually add.
- Watch unsubscribes and spam complaints next to revenue.
If GA4 and your store disagree about sales before you even start, fix that first. It is the kind of problem my conversion tracking service exists for.
What to do next
- Authenticate your sending domain.
- Switch on abandoned checkout, then the welcome series, then post-purchase.
- Add browse abandonment and win-back once the first three run cleanly.
- Put a signup form on the site and a marketing checkbox at checkout.
- Review the numbers once a month and change one email at a time.
Setting up flows on a new or existing store is part of my Shopify development work. If you want texts, calls and sales pipelines on top of email, that is where a CRM fits, and my GoHighLevel service covers it.
Related reading: How I Set Up Shopify Markets to Sell Internationally and Shopify Conversion Tracking: GA4, Google Ads and Meta Pixel Done Right.
FAQ
Is Shopify Messaging enough, or do I need Klaviyo?
For many small stores, Shopify Messaging is enough to start. It covers the core flows and is free up to its monthly allowance. Move to Klaviyo or Omnisend when you need segmentation, branching or reporting it cannot give you, and move every flow at once so nobody gets duplicates.
Should abandoned checkout emails include a discount?
Not in the first email. Lead with help: the cart contents, shipping costs and your returns policy. If you use a discount at all, keep it for the last email, and watch whether regular customers start waiting for it.
Can I email customers who bought but never subscribed?
You can send transactional emails such as order and shipping updates. Marketing emails need marketing consent, and the exact rules depend on the countries you sell to. When in doubt, ask for consent rather than assume it.
Want the right flows set up properly on your store? Get a free website review and I will tell you which three to build first.
