Understanding automation triggers for Shopify

Overview

Create Automtions using Contacts' behavior and activity in your Shopify store.

🚨 Some triggers require website visitors to be cookied before the Automation will fire

Triggers marked with an asterisk * in the table below require website visitors to be cookied before they can trigger the automation. Contacts are cookied when:

You have installed Beacon general tracking in your Shopify store, AND
They receive an email from you, AND
They click on a link in an email from you

This process allows Sendlane to identify the Contact and track their activity on your website. Website visitors using incognito windows or other anonymous browsing options will not be tracked.

In this guide

The table below provides a brief description and suggested use case for each Shopify automation trigger. Click the name of the trigger to learn more about it.

Trigger	Contacts enter an automation with this trigger when:	Use this trigger to:
Product Viewed*	They are cookied and view a product on your website.	Follow up with Contacts who have viewed a product on your website
Abandoned Product Viewed*	They are cookied, view a product on your website, and do not complete a purchase within the specified time frame	Follow up with Contacts who have viewed a product specified in the trigger's settings and did not make a purchase in a specified time frame
Added to Cart*	They are cookied and click the add to cart button	Follow up with Contacts who have added products specified in the trigger's settings to their cart
Abandoned Cart*	They are cookied, click the add to cart button, and do not complete a purchase within the specified time frame	Notify Contacts that they have products in their cart; if using the abandoned cart email block only the product that was first added to the cart within the specified time frame will be displayed
Abandoned Checkout*	They are cookied OR logged in to your store OR have entered their email or phone on the checkout page and do not complete a purchase within the specified time frame	Notify Contacts that they did not finish completing the checkout they started; if using the abandoned cart email block all products in the abandoned checkout will be displayed (Abandoned Checkout is the only trigger that enables all products in a cart to be displayed in one email)
Checkout Complete	They complete checkout and have checked the marketing opt-in box	Notify Contacts that their checkout is complete
Product Purchase	They purchase a product specified in the trigger's settings	Follow up with Contacts who have purchased the products specified in the trigger's settings
Product Variant Purchase	They purchase a product variant specified in the trigger's settings	Follow up with Contacts who have purchased product variants specified in the trigger's settings
Order Placed	They place an order and, optionally, when their order reaches a status specified in the trigger's settings	Follow up with Contacts who have placed an order or whose order has reached a specified status
Subscribed to Back in Stock	They sign up for back in stock notifications	Notify Contacts that they have subscribed to back in stock notifications for products specified in the trigger's settings
Product Back in Stock	The product they've signed up to receive back in stock notifications for has been listed as back in stock in your store	Notify Contacts that the product they've subscribed to back in stock notifications for is back in stock
Review Submitted	They submit a product review	Thank Contacts for submitting a review
Review Reply	You reply to their review	Notify Contacts that you've replied to their review
Customer Created	They create an account for your store (by manually creating their own account or placing an order and having an account automatically created for them)	Notify Contacts that their account has been created
Customer Deleted	Their account for your store is deleted	Notify Contacts that their account has been deleted
Tag Applied	A Shopify customer tag is added to their account in your store	Trigger flows based on Shopify customer tags

Product Viewed

You can use the Product Viewed trigger to follow up with Contacts who have viewed a product on your website.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is viewed in your store by a cookied website visitor

Use caution with this trigger, particularly if selecting Any as the specified products, which means that any product in your store can trigger the automation, and/or No limit as the Limit Per Contact.

No block in the email builder will automatically pull product information for this trigger. Use advanced templating syntax to pull product information into an automation using the Product Viewed trigger.

Abandoned Product Viewed

Sometimes referred to as "browse abandon flows," you can use the Abandoned Product Viewed trigger to follow up with Contacts who have viewed a product specified in the trigger's settings and did not make a purchase in a specified time frame.

When setting up a browse abandon or abandoned product viewed automation, do not add another trigger to the automation.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Consider abandoned after - select a period of time to check for completed checkouts before triggering the automation; for example, if you select 1 hour, a website visitor will trigger the automation if they view the specified product(s) and do not complete a checkout in the hour after they view the product.
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is viewed in your store by a cookied website visitor who does not complete checkout within the selected Consider abandoned after time frame.

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting Any as the specified products, which means that any product in your store can trigger the automation,
Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time they view a product without completing a purchase
Selecting a Consider abandoned after setting of 5 minute and 30 minutes, which does not leave much time for contacts to complete a purchase after viewing a specified product. We highly recommend using the 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours options for live automations. Use the the 5 minute and 30 minute settings for internal testing purposes.

You can use the Shopify Abandoned Cart block in the email builder to insert an abandoned product's image, name, average reviews (if using Sendlane Reviews), price, and link to the product's page.

Added to Cart

You can use the Added to Cart trigger to follow up with Contacts who have added a specified product to their cart. This trigger starts an automation when contacts click the "add to cart" button.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is added to a cookied contact's cart

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting Any as the specified products, which means that any product in your store can trigger the automation,
Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time they add a product to their cart

Abandoned Cart

You can use the Abandoned Cart trigger to follow up with Contacts who have added a product specified in the trigger's settings to their cart and did not make a purchase in a specified time frame.

When setting up an abandoned cart automation, do not add another trigger to the automation.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Consider abandoned after - select a period of time to check for completed checkouts before triggering the automation; for example, if you select 1 hour, a website visitor will trigger the automation if they view the specified product(s) and do not complete a checkout in the hour after they view the product.
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is added to cart and not checked out within the specified Consider abandoned after time frame

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting Any as the specified products, which means that any product in your store can trigger the automation,
Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time they add a specified product to their cart without completing a purchase in the specified time frame.
Selecting a Consider abandoned after setting of 5 minute and 30 minutes, which does not leave much time for contacts to complete a purchase after viewing a specified product. We highly recommend using the 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours options for live automations. Use the the 5 minute and 30 minute settings for internal testing purposes.

You can use the Shopify Abandoned Cart block in the email builder to insert products' image, name, average reviews (if using Sendlane Reviews), price, and link to the product's page.

Abandoned Checkout

You can use the Abandoned Checkout trigger to follow up with Contacts who have added a product specified in the trigger's settings to their cart, started the checkout process, and did not make a purchase in a specified time frame.

When setting up an abandoned checkout automation, do not add another trigger to the automation.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Consider abandoned after - select a period of time to check for completed checkouts before triggering the automation; for example, if you select 1 hour, a website visitor will trigger the automation 1 hour after they started the checkout process if checkout was not completed in that hour.
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is viewed in your store by a cookied website visitor

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting Any as the specified products, which means that any product in your store can trigger the automation,
Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time they view a product without completing a purchase
Selecting a Consider abandoned after setting of 5 minute and 30 minutes, which does not leave much time for contacts to complete a purchase after viewing a specified product. We highly recommend using the 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours options for live automations. Use the the 5 minute and 30 minute settings for internal testing purposes.

You can use the Shopify Abandoned Cart block in the email builder to insert an abandoned product's image, name, average reviews (if using Sendlane Reviews), price, and link to the product's page.

Checkout Complete

You can use the Checkout Complete trigger to follow up with Contacts who have completed checkout on your website.

This trigger does not provide the ability to specify products that must be included in the checkout. To follow up with Contacts who have completed checkout for specified products, use the Product Purchase trigger.

This trigger does not provide the ability to re-trigger based on order status. To follow up with Contacts whose order is at a specified status and contains specified products, use the Product Purchase trigger. To follow up with Contacts whose order is at a specified status regardless of which products were included in the order, use the Order Placed trigger.

When using this trigger, the first action(s) in the automation should be an Update Automation action set to End Other for any automations using the following triggers:

Product Viewed
Abandoned Product Viewed
Added to Cart
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned Checkout
Checkout Started

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Product Purchase

You can use the Product Purchase trigger to follow up with Contacts who have purchased specified products and when orders reach specified statuses.

When using this trigger, the first action in the automation should be an Update Automation action set to End Other for any automations using the following triggers (create as many Update Automation actions as needed at the beginning of your Product Purchase automation to specify all automations using the following triggers):

Product Viewed
Abandoned Product Viewed
Added to Cart
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned Checkout
Checkout Started

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Order Status - select an order status that the order must reach before the automation is triggered; select Any to retrigger the automation each time the order status is updated
Products - search for products to trigger when viewed. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any product is viewed in your store by a cookied website visitor

Product Variant Purchase

You can use the Product Purchase trigger to follow up with Contacts who have purchased specified product variants and when orders reach specified statuses.

When using this trigger, the first action in the automation should be an Update Automation action set to End Other for any automations using the following triggers (create as many Update Automation actions as needed at the beginning of your Product Variant Purchase automation to specify all automations using the following triggers):

Product Viewed
Abandoned Product Viewed
Added to Cart
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned Checkout
Checkout Started

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Order Status - select an order status that the order must reach before the automation is triggered; select Any to retrigger the automation each time the order status is updated
Product variants - search for variants to trigger when included in an order. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any variant is purchased in your store.

Order Placed

You can use the Order Placed trigger to follow up with Contacts who have placed an order and when orders reach specified statuses.

When using this trigger, the first action in the automation should be an Update Automation action set to End Other for any automations using the following triggers (create as many Update Automation actions as needed at the beginning of your Product Variant Purchase automation to specify all automations using the following triggers):

Product Viewed
Abandoned Product Viewed
Added to Cart
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned Checkout
Checkout Started

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Order Status - select an order status that the order must reach before the automation is triggered; select Any to retrigger the automation each time the order status is updated
Product variants - search for variants to trigger when included in an order. The default selection is Any, which will trigger the automation whenever any variant is purchased in your store.

Subscribed to Back in Stock

You can use the Subscribed to Back in Stock trigger to follow up with Contacts who subscribed to back in stock notifications via the Sendlane specific back in stock button you've installed in your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time they sign up for a back in stock notification via the Sendlane specific back in stock button you've installed in your Shopify store.

Product Back in Stock

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Use caution with this trigger and its options, particularly when:

Selecting No limit as the Limit Per Contact, which means the contact will be sent through the automation every single time a product they've signed up for back in stock notifications for is back in stock
Setting the Units restocked to notify too low, which risks the product being sold out when contacts click on your email

Review Submitted

You can use the Review Submitted trigger to thank customers for leaving a review in your store. This trigger only works if Sendlane Reviews is installed for your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Review Reply

You can use the Review Reply trigger to notify customers that you've replied to the review they left on a product in your store. This trigger only works if Sendlane Reviews is installed for your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Customer Created

You can use the Customer Created trigger to create automations when a new customer has been created in your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Customer Deleted

You can use the Customer Created trigger to create automations when a customer has been deleted from your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only

Tag Applied

You can use the Tag Applied trigger to trigger an automation when a Shopify customer tag is added to a customer profile in your Shopify store.

Available options:

Store - select a Shopify store
Limit Per Contact - select a limitation on the number of times a Contact can trigger the automation
- No limit
- Do not trigger when already in Automation
- Once Per Day
- One Time Only
Order Status - select an order status that the order must reach before the automation is triggered; select Any to retrigger the automation each time the order status is updated
Tags - select the Shopify customer tags you want to trigger the automation