Do your emails look typical and lifeless? If yes, you need to customize WooCommerce emails to make your emails on-brand and engaging to your customers.
Transactional emails in WooCommerce often have open rates of 40-50% and click rates at around 10-20% – more than any typical marketing email you send.
Even though the importance it holds, many of the merchants fail to customize WooCommerce email templates and witness plummeting conversion rates as a result.
In this blog, we explain
- How to customize WooCommerce emails using the default editor
- How to send custom WooCommerce emails with a plugin.
- How to send WooCommerce custom email per product
- 3 Best WooCommerce Email Customizer Plugins
At the end of the blog, you will be able to create custom email templates for WooCommerce.
Automate all your WooCommerce email campaigns with Retainful’s pre-built workflows and templates in minutes.
What are WooCommerce transactional emails?
WooCommerce emails are transactional emails sent to customers and store administrators to update them on the status of orders, payments, and other events in your online store.
A good WooCommerce email marketing strategy has this: sending relevant messages that align with the stage in which the customers are in the email marketing funnel.
A good WooCommerce email marketing has this – sending relevant messages that align with the stage that the customers are in the buyer’s journey.
The different stages and their examples are below:
- Onboarding – Welcoming and familiarizing the new users with the product.
Example: Welcome emails, first purchase emails. - Nurturing – Educating the customers about the product.
Example: Newsletters, emails with “How to” guides. - Sales/Promotional – Promoting sales, discounts, or coupons.
Example: Offer emails, product launch emails. - Transactional – Communicating about the orders and purchasing process.
Example: Order confirmation emails, order tracking emails. - Behavioral – Sending emails based on user action with the website.
Example: Cart abandonment emails, feedback emails.
Types of Default WooCommerce Transactional Emails
WooCommerce comes with a number of default email templates that you can customize to match your branding and personalize the emails to an extent.
Most of the emails are transactional emails that are sent after the customer has made an action in the sore.
Here are the default WooCommerce transactional emails:
- New Order – Notifies the store admin that a new order has been placed on the website.
- Cancelled Order – Notifies the store admin of an order that has been canceled.
- Failed Order – Notifies the store admin of a failed order.
- Order On-Hold – Sent to the customer when the order status is changed to “On-Hold”.
- Order Processing – Sent to the customer when the order status is changed to “Order Processing”.
- Order Completed – Sent to the customer when the order status is changed to “Order Complete”.
- Order Refunded – Sent to the customer when the payment of the order is refunded.
- Customer Invoice – Sent to the customer and contains order information and payment links.
- Customer Note – Sent to a customer when a store owner adds a note to the order.
- Password Reset – Sent to a customer when they request a new password on the store.
- New Account – Sent to a customer when they create a new account on the store.
- Back-in-stock notification – Sent to a customer when a product they searched for is back in stock.
You can see that every email in WooCommerce is sent when an action triggers it. Therefore, you will need to make sure you enable the emails in the list.
Why is customizing WooCommerce emails important?
If you own a WooCommerce store, sending customized WooCommerce order emails is the most effective way to shape the customer experience, engage customers, and increase sales.
Nobody likes a boring, typical template. Even if your email gets opened, it won’t inspire the recipient to take action. Customizing WooCommerce email templates to have a unique style, color palette, tone, and brand messaging will impress the customer and prompt them to take the desired action.
Customizing WooCommerce email templates allows you to craft specific messages for different segments of your customers. You can send personalized offers, recommendations, or reminders based on customers’ preferences, behavior, or life-cycle stage.
How to Customize WooCommerce Emails?
WooCommerce has global settings that allow you to customize some elements of your WooCommerce emails like – the sender name, email address, and subject line.
Let’s see how to customize WooCommerce emails using Default Settings – without a plugin.
Step 1: Enable the transactional emails in WooCommerce
To customize WooCommerce emails without a plugin, go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails.
You will see a list of default WooCommerce order emails under the Emails section.
You can see that every email in WooCommerce is sent when an action triggers it. Therefore, you will need to make sure you enable the emails in the list.
Step 2: Customize WooCommerce email template branding
If you scroll below the list of email templates in Settings → Emails, you’ll see more customization options. Changes you make here will be updated to all of your WooCommerce order email templates at once.
The image below is an example of how you can edit WooCommerce order confirmation email template branding.
You can change the header image, footer text, base color, background color, body background color, and body text color.
Step 3: Edit WooCommerce email template elements
To customize WooCommerce email content, click the ‘Manage’ button beside the type of WooCommerce order notification email you want to edit.
Let’s learn about every field in detail:
- Enable/Disable checkbox lets you enable or disable this specific email notification.
- Subject: Use this section to change the subject line in WooCommerce email. You can also add placeholders in this field, like
- {site_title}
- {site_address}
- {site_url}
- {order_date}
- {order_number}
- Email heading – You have to specify the heading of the email.
- Additional content – The text you add here will be visible in the body of the email. You can use the placeholders here as well.
- Email type – You can specify the format of the email, like
- Plain text – Emails sent with no formatting and no graphics.
- HTML – Emails sent with simple graphics.
- Multipart – Both formats are sent.
To include the custom field in the WooCommerce email, you can edit the code in the theme’s functions.php file or use a WooCommerce email customizer plugin to customize with zero complexity.
Editing WooCommerce email templates using HTML code:
i) Using WooCommerce email hooks:
WooCommerce email hooks let you dynamically insert or modify WooCommerce email content at specific points – like adding an order summary, tracking info, or custom messages.
WooCommerce Email Hooks
- woocommerce_email_order_details – Customize the order summary details in WooCommerce emails.
- woocommerce_email_order_meta – To add custom fields to the WooCommerce order emails.
- woocommerce_email_customer_details – Modify the customer information section in the email.
- woocommerce_email_before_order_table – Add content (e.g., a note) before the order table in the email.
- woocommerce_email_after_order_table – Add content (e.g., order tracking links) after the order table in the WooCommerce email.
- woocommerce_email_order_items_table – Customize the order items table.
ii) To include an order summary in WooCommerce emails using the default editor:
function custom_order_summary_in_email( $order, $sent_to_admin, $plain_text, $email ) {
?>
<h2>Order Summary</h2>
<table style=”width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid #ddd; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;”>
<thead>
<tr style=”background-color: #F4F4F4; text-align: left;”>
<th style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>Product</th>
<th style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>Quantity</th>
<th style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>Price</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<!– Loop through order items –>
<?php foreach ($order->get_items() as $item_id => $item) : ?>
<tr>
<td style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>
<?php echo esc_html($item->get_name()); ?>
</td>
<td style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>
<?php echo esc_html($item->get_quantity()); ?>
</td>
<td style=”padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #ddd;”>
<?php echo wp_kses_post(wc_price($item->get_total())); ?>
</td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</tbody>
</table> }
Step 4: Preview the email template and test
You can click on the preview to see how your custom WooCommerce email template looks.
You can see that the options available are very minimal in the default WooCommerce email template customization option.
How to Customize WooCommerce Email Templates with a Plugin?
To add custom email notifications to WooCommerce and send highly branded WooCommerce emails, you should use a WooCommerce email customizer plugin.
Retainful is an all-in-one WooCommerce email marketing plugin that simplifies how you customize WooCommerce emails with:
- Pre-designed template library
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Easy-to-setup email automation
Here is how you can customize WooCommerce email templates using a WooCommerce email customizer plugin – Retainful.
Step 1: Install the Retainful Plugin
To customize WooCommerce email templates with a plugin, go to your WordPress dashboard → Plugins → Add new. Search for the ‘Retainful’ plugin.
Click “Install Now” to install and activate it. After installation, connect your WooCommerce store with Retainful to create custom email templates in WooCommerce.
WooCommerce stores using Retainful are recovering an average of 30% of abandoned carts. Yours could be next.
Step 2: Choose the order follow-up email automation
Retainful allows you to send many WooCommerce order follow-up emails like order confirmation, order cancellation, order pending, abandoned cart recovery emails , welcome emails, thank you emails, and more.
To customize WooCommerce email templates, go to Retainful Dashboard -> Automation and select a type of automated WooCommerce email.
Let’s take a WooCommerce order confirmation email as an example and see how you can customize it.
Select “Order Follow-up Emails,” and you will be asked to enter the name of the campaign. Enter the name and click “Create Flow”.
Step 3: Change subject line and preview text in WooCommerce emails
You will see an automation workflow containing triggers, wait time, and email blocks. Click the ‘Order summary and Upsell” and a tab will appear on the right side.
You can edit WooCommerce email template elements like email title, subject line, and preview text of your choice in the respective fields.
Step 4: Customize the layout of the WooCommerce email template
You have to create your custom email templates for WooCommerce with the structure of your emails in mind, like the location of images, text blocks, CTAs, and their size.
Click on “Edit Email Content” on the same tab to edit the structure. You will be taken to an email editor like the image below.
This is where you can explore options to customize every element of your WooCommerce email templates.
In the “Element” section, you can add and change elements of the WooCommerce email template, like text, buttons, images, social media icons, and more.
In the below image, you can see the various types of buttons you can add as your Call-To-Actions.
Click on “Store Element” to add discount coupons, unsubscribe option, address, and summary. These are some of the staple elements your custom email templates in WooCommerce should have.
You can also change the WooCommerce email template by clicking ‘Change template’ and choose a suitable one from Retainful’s ready-made template library.
Step 5: Change the WooCommerce email content
To edit the WooCommerce email template content, click on the blocks you want to edit. You will see a tab appearing on the right where you can set the dimensions and other settings related to the content.
For example, for the logo block, you can change the dimensions, background color, and border style.
For the images, you can edit dimensions, background color, border style, and more.
You can add a custom field to my WooCommerce email, like the Upsell block here, and edit the padding, border styles, dimensions, and background color.
After the editing of the email content, you can save it as a template for future use.
Step 6: Preview and send test email
As a final step, preview and test the customized WooCommerce email templates, and you are good to go.
How to Send WooCommerce Custom Emails Per Product?
WooCommerce doesn’t have any default option to send custom emails per product. You have to use a WooCommerce email marketing plugin like Retainful to send personalized custom WooCommerce emails per product.
In just 4 steps, your WooCommerce custom emails per product will be ready to send
To send WooCommerce custom emails per product:
- Step 1: Choose the automation workflow
- Step 2: Select the product in the trigger rule
- Step 3: Customize the email template
- Step 4: Send the test email and go live
Let’s see these steps in detail.
Step 1: Choose the automation workflow
To send WooCommerce custom emails per product, install Retainful, and connect your WooCommerce store. Go to Retainful dashboard -> Automation -> Choose product-specific follow-up emails.
Step 2: Select the product in the trigger rule
In the pre-built workflows, set the trigger to send product-specific WooCommerce emails when a customer purchases a specific product.
Add the name of the product and update the rule.
Step 3: Customize the email template
Click on the Email block in the workflow and select ‘Edit email content’.
A drag-and-drop email editor will open. You can create WooCommerce custom email per product templates in a few clicks with it.
Step 4: Send the test email and go live
Choose “Send test email” button to preview how your WooCommerce custom email per product will look in your recipients’ inboxes.
3 Best WooCommerce Email Customizer Plugins
The best WooCommerce email customizer plugins to look at are:
- Retainful
- Spark Email Editor
- MailPoet
Let’s see these best WooCommerce email customizer plugins in detail.
1. Retainful
Retainful is the best WooCommerce email customizer plugin to design on-brand emails with an intuitive drag-and-drop email editor and ready-made templates.
It has ready-made templates for every e-commerce purpose like abandoned cart, order confirmation, product recommendation, win-back, and more – both transactional emails and life-cycle stage emails.
You can skip the design work and create eye-catching WooCommerce email templates even if you are not a design pro.
Design responsive email templates that look great on all devices and preview and test side-by-side.
Pricing:
- Forever free plan is available – With drag-and-drop editor and ready-made templates
- $19/month – 20,000 emails
- $49/month – 50,000 emails
2. Spark email editor
Spark email editor is a WooCommerce email customizer plugin to customize all your WooCommerce transactional emails
You can customize every detail of your WooCommerce emails – add order details, customer address, personalize emails with short codes, change logo using intuitive editor with real-time previews.
Pricing:
- $69/year – 1 site
- $99/year – 3 sites
- $199/year – 10 sites
3. MailPoet
MailPoet WooCommerce email customizer plugin comes with a library of professionally designed email templates tailored for WooCommerce. These include templates for order confirmations, abandoned cart recovery, and customer follow-ups.
MailPoet supports dynamic content, such as customer names, order details, and product recommendations, pulled directly from your WooCommerce store.
MailPoet integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, syncing your product catalog, customer data, and store activity.
Pricing:
- Free – 1000 subscribers
- $10/month – 500 subscribers and unlimited emails
- $30/month – 500 subscribers/website
Use Retainful’s pre-designed email templates to design branded WooCommerce emails effortlessly.
Wrapping up!!
By using WooCommerce customizer plugins like Retainful and code customizations, you can customize WooCommerce emails that are both branded and personalized, ensuring they resonate with your customers.
Customizing WooCommerce email templates doesn’t just enhance the user experience – it helps reinforce your brand identity and drive more conversions. With the right tool, your WooCommerce emails can become a great marketing asset rather than an afterthought.
Read these blogs to learn more about Email Marketing in WooCommerce.
- How to use images in your email campaigns – Complete Guide
- How to Set the Perfect Abandoned Cart Email Template
- How to send WooCommerce Newsletters (+ Plugins)
First, define your objective. Then, group your WooCommerce customers based on specific criteria like purchase history or interests to tailor your email content for higher relevance and engagement.
Utilize an email marketing platform compatible with WooCommerce to design responsive emails, incorporating compelling visuals, clear CTAs, and personalized content. Track the metrics and optimize.
To customize WooCommerce email templates:
– Go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails
– Enable the emails
– Edit the WooCommerce email body content by clicking the ‘Manage’ button
– Edit each element of the template
– Preview and go live
Step 1: Install the Retainful Plugin
Step 2: Choose the order follow-up email automation
Step 3: Edit the subject line and preview text
Step 4: Edit WooCoommerce email template with drag-and-drop editor
Step 5: Preview and send test email
To add custom email notifications to WooCommerce, first, install a WooCommerce email customizer plugin like Retainful, choose a pre-designed email templates, customize the template elements and test the email.
To edit WooCommerce emails,
– Go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails
– Enable the emails
– Edit the WooCommerce email content
– Edit each element of the template
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays tend to have the highest email open rates. Many companies also see success on Sundays, especially for B2C brands.
1. 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. – Works well as most people would have settled into their day.
2. 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. – People might be checking emails during or right after their lunch break.
3. 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. – After-work hours see another spike, as people might be checking emails casually during the evening.
This can be done in four easy steps:
1. Be consistent in using the brand’s colors, fonts, and logos.
2. Ensure the template is responsive and displayed correctly across all devices.
3. Incorporate bold and distinct call-to-action buttons that guide users toward your intended action.
4. Use crisp product photos and relevant visuals to captivate and engage the customers.
To customize WooCommerce email content:
– Go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails
– Enable the emails
– Edit the WooCommerce email body content by clicking the ‘Manage’ button
– Edit each element of the template
To find WooCommerce email templates, go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails.
To show the custom field in the WooCommerce email, you can edit the code in your theme’s functions.php file or use a WooCommerce email customizer plugin to customize easily.
You can either edit the code to edit layout, styling and include custom fields. To customize WooCommerce email templates effortlessly, use a WooCommerce email customizer plugin.
To change email body text in WooCommerce, go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Emails. Click the ‘Manage’ button near the email Edit the WooCommerce email body content by
