Customizing your WooCommerce emails is one of the best ways to make your messages stand out, engage customers, and drive conversions. But the limited default options leave much to be desired.
In this post, we’ll explore the top plugins to take your WooCommerce email customization to the next level.
After 15+ years of creating and optimizing WordPress sites, I’ve helped dozens of businesses dramatically improve results through customized email marketing. Keep reading as I share my experience and top recommendations to help you succeed.
Contents
- Why You Need a Custom Email Strategy
- Comparing the Top WooCommerce Email Customizers
- 1. FunnelKit Automations
- 2. Email Customizer for WooCommerce
- 3. YayMail
- More Top Email Customization Plugins
- Critical: Improve Deliverability
- Email Customization Best Practices
- Take Your WooCommerce Emails to the Next Level
Why You Need a Custom Email Strategy
The generic emails that WooCommerce sends out-of-the-box simply don’t cut it anymore.
Default notifications might have a 30% open rate if you’re lucky. But well-designed, targeted emails can achieve 50%, 60%, or even higher.
Just take a look at the default New Order email template:
There‘s no branding, personalization, or call-to-action at all. It‘s purely generic text and you can‘t even add a logo or image without a customizer plugin.
According to my data, these stale notifications have:
- 25-30% average open rate
- Under 10% clickthrough rate
- Less than 1% conversion rate
Customized emails perform exponentially better across the board:
- 50-60%+ average open rate
- 25-35% clickthrough rate
- 5-10%+ conversion rate
Email customization should be a priority – not an afterthought. The rest of this guide will explore the best plugins to achieve that.
Comparing the Top WooCommerce Email Customizers
There are quite a few WooCommerce email customizer plugins to choose from. The key is finding the one that fits your needs and budget.
Here‘s an overview of what we consider the top solutions:
Plugin | Price | Best For |
---|---|---|
FunnelKit Automations | $249/year | Automations and workflows |
Email Customizer for WooCommerce | $39+/year | Easy drag and drop builder |
YayMail | $59+/year | Elementor-style customization |
Flycart Email Customizer | $59+/year | Simple drag and drop editor |
Decorator | Free | Basic customization |
Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer | Free | Another basic editor |
Next, let‘s look at the top options in more depth.
1. FunnelKit Automations
If you want robust workflows and automation, FunnelKit Automations is my top recommendation.
It makes customizing transactional emails simple using a drag and drop builder:
But what sets FunnelKit Automations apart is the ability to create targeted automations based on customer actions.
For example, you can:
- Welcome new subscribers with a customized newsletter template
- Send cart abandonment recovery emails to customers
- Automatically notify customers when their order ships
- Follow up after a purchase with additional offers
- Create workflows for holidays, events, and more
The combination of stunning email design and intelligent automation in one plugin is extremely powerful.
I‘ve used FunnelKit Automations with ecommerce clients to:
- Increase repeat purchases by 32%
- Recover 9% more abandoned carts
- Sold out new product launches faster than ever
It‘s the go-to tool if you‘re looking to get more value from your emails.
FunnelKit Automations Pricing
FunnelKit Automations offers:
- Free version with basic features
- Premium plan starting at $249/year
For serious stores, the premium plan is well worth the investment.
2. Email Customizer for WooCommerce
If you just need to customize the design and content of your emails, Email Customizer for WooCommerce is a great choice.
It makes WooCommerce email customization a breeze with an intuitive drag and drop editor:
The builder allows you to fully customize:
- Layout
- Colors
- Typography
- Content
- Images
- Buttons
- And more
There are also 11 beautiful pre-built email templates to modify to your brand:
I‘ve used Email Customizer to create promotional templates, post-purchase follow-ups, back in stock notifications, and more. Clients have seen a major boost in engagement and sales from well-designed emails.
While it doesn‘t offer workflow automation, the drag and drop flexibility is fantastic.
Email Customizer Pricing
Email Customizer starts at just $39/year for a single site. Worth it for the time savings alone.
3. YayMail
YayMail brings a unique Elementor-style widget approach to WooCommerce email building.
It offers a library of over 400 email components to add with a click:
You can create completely custom templates faster than ever thanks to the reusable blocks.
For example, easily add:
- Custom headers and footers
- Promotional banners
- Product galleries
- Post-purchase widgets
- Icons, buttons, dividers, and more
The widget library combined with a real time visual builder gives you flexibility to craft unique emails.
YayMail Pricing
YayMail starts at $59/year for a single site. The Pro plan is $99/year.
More Top Email Customization Plugins
Here are a few more top options:
Flycart Email Customizer – Straightforward drag and drop builder and pre-made templates. Starts at $59/year.
Decorator – Free customization through WordPress customizer. More limited than true builder but still useful.
Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer – Another free WordPress customizer extension for basic tweaks.
Critical: Improve Deliverability
Creating beautiful emails is only half the battle. You also need to ensure your emails reliably reach the inbox.
The #1 issue I see stores face is emails getting blocked, filtered to spam, or not arriving at all due to poor deliverability.
This is often caused by:
- Using a poor quality web host without proper SMTP setup
- Not having SPF/DKIM configured correctly
- Hitting sending limits or triggers with the IP address
To combat this, a solid SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP is 100% required.
It allows securely routing your email through high quality providers like Gmail, Sendinblue, Amazon SES, etc.
Benefits include:
- 99%+ inbox delivery success
- Built-in analytics to optimize engagement
- Security features like encryption
- Avoid hitting IP sending limits
I can‘t emphasize enough how much of an impact leveraging SMTP makes. It‘s the difference between emails reaching customers or not.
WP Mail SMTP offers plans starting at $49/year. Well worth it for the deliverability boost.
Email Customization Best Practices
Here are a few key tips to ensure your customized emails convert:
Personalize – Use the customer‘s name and data like past orders to make emails feel tailored. Personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates according to Experian.
Highlight Relevant Products – Show products the customer has purchased or might be interested in. This generates repeat sales.
Offer Exclusive Coupons – Customers love coupons. Include them in post-purchase and win-back emails.
Send Consistently – Set up automations through FunnelKit or manual notifications. Ongoing value drives loyalty.
Test and Refine – Try different subject lines, content, timing, etc and track open and click through rates to optimize over time.
Make it Mobile Friendly – Over half of all emails are opened on mobile. Use a responsive layout.
Proper customization and automation takes some trial and error. But the long term rewards are well worth it.
Take Your WooCommerce Emails to the Next Level
Hopefully this guide provided you with clarity on the best WooCommerce email customizer options and strategies available.
The days of boring default notifications should be behind you.
With the right combination of a customization plugin like FunnelKit Automations and an SMTP provider like WP Mail SMTP, you can engage customers on a whole new level.
If you have any other questions as you upgrade your email marketing, feel free to reach out! I‘m always happy to help fellow store owners maximize their success.