16+ eCommerce Automation Tools to Boost Online Sales and Profits

Which parts of eCommerce can you automate? All of them!

eCommerce automation can be applied to every aspect of your DTC brand, from sales and marketing to customer service and logistics. And when used strategically, it can not only boost sales but streamline your business while cutting costs. Or, more simply put, automation can increase profitability.

With the increase in online competition, it’s becoming more and more important for stores to manage and optimize every aspect of their business in real-time. But thanks to the rise of AI machine learning technology, this doesn’t have to be as tricky as it sounds. Using the right stack of automation tools will ensure you not only compete but dominate your niche.

In this post, we look at the top eCommerce automation tools to test in 2022, including:

1.  Traffic Booster
2. Omnisend
3. Klaviyo
4. Customer.io
5. HubSpot
6. Drip
7. Hootsuite
8. Divvy
9. Zendesk
10. Referral Rock
11. ReturnLogic
12. RingCentral
13. QuickBooks Commerce
14. ShipStation
15. Trello
16. CoSchedule

To make it easier to choose the right tool for your store, we have divided them into marketing, customer service, inventory and logistics, and backend eCommerce business automation tools.

But first, let’s quickly break down what eCommerce automation is and the key benefits of using the right combination of automation tools for your retail brand.

(Feel free to click ahead to the tool list here.) 

What Is eCommerce Automation?

eCommerce automation uses machine learning and other AI technologies to automate tasks, gather data, and adapt to that data in real-time to optimize the task. Ideally, automation goes beyond just saving time.

Yes, it frees up time for backend teams as it takes over labor-intensive admin. But it also helps with real-time optimizations and tweaks, which is impossible to do manually as an eCommerce business grows.

Benefits of Using eCommerce Automation Tools

Using the right combination of automation tools for your eCommerce brand has three benefits:

1. Quicker Business Growth: When the right automation is used for various online retail aspects such as fulfillment, marketing, and customer support, your brand can seamlessly deal with increases and changes, which helps you grow more quickly. This is because automation categorizes essential data and then streamlines processes in real-time.
2. Drastically Improved Marketing KPIs: eCommerce automation tools such as PPC management software or chatbots enable online retailer marketing teams to personalize and optimize customer service and engagement, product promotions, and email marketing, to name just a few. They improve the shopping experience and increase revenue while ensuring brands can effectively meet key marketing objectives.
3. Reduced Time-Spend and Cost: Time is limited and costly. Without automation, real-time optimization will require valuable time that could be better used elsewhere, and become expensive. In fact, according to BigCommerce, eCommerce automated tools have enabled merchants to save as much as 30%. eCommerce automation allows for a lot of time-consuming tasks to be performed on auto-pilot. Additionally, it also eliminates costly mistakes as machine learning is more accurate.

So, what’s the best automation software for eCommerce? We’ve got the answers with these top eCommerce automation solutions.

Let’s jump in.

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Marketing Automation Tools for eCommerce

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eCommerce marketing automation tools are designed to streamline important marketing functions for your online store. This includes automating lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer loyalty building. Here are the top marketing automation tools to do just that.

1. Traffic Booster’s PPC Management Software

Ready to automate all your eCommerce ads? Traffic Booster is the leading PPC management software designed specifically for online retail brands. Setup takes as little as 60 seconds, after which a combination of Traffic Boosters PPC experts and leading AI will do everything for you, from creating personalized campaigns to optimizing bids and keywords in real-time to drive marketing ROAS in a big way.

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Traffic Booster Top Features

• Created by experienced eCommerce marketers, they offer a marketing automation tool specifically designed for online retailers
• Takes over complete management of eCommerce PPC advertising
• Automates and optimizes all your eCommerce Google to peak performance
• Manages, optimizes, and tweaks Facebook ads for eCommerce
• Includes automatic bid optimizer and keyword adjuster
• Includes Pinterest and eCommerce TikTok ads in the Enterprise plan

Traffic Booster Pricing

Unlike other marketing automation tools, Traffic Booster doesn’t charge an additional fee over and above your fixed advertising budget. There are three advertising budget options:

1. Basic Plan: Your total advertising budget is $180 per month. This is best suited for brand new online stores.
2. Standard Plan: Your full advertising budget is $500 per month. This is best suited for newer, growing online stores.
3. Pro Plan: Your full advertising budget is $1500 per month. This is best suited for established eCommerce stores looking to dominate their niche with Google and Facebook ads.

2. Omnisend All-in-One Marketing Automation Tool

Omnisend is a marketing automation tool for email, SMS, and onsite web push notifications, gamified promotions, etc. It offers one-click Shopify integration, easy data migration, and a host of pre-built omnichannel automations designed for eCommerce.

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Omnisend Top Features

• Automated email marketing
• Campaign, automation, and form performance reports
• Free SMS included on any plan
• Drag-and-drop email builder
• Customizable popups, signup bars, landing pages, and wheel of fortune

Omnisend Pricing

Omnisend is free to test and use for up to 250 contacts and up to 60 international SMS. Paid plans include:

1. Standard Plan: With the standard plan, you can reach up to 500 email contacts and access the pre-built automations and workflows from the free version, plus 24/7 support. It costs $16 per month.
2. Pro Plan: The pro plan is $59 per month and includes unlimited emails, free international SMS/MMS, and advanced reporting.

3. Klaviyo Email Marketing and SMS Automation

Klaviyo is one of the fastest-growing email marketing and SMS automation tools that integrates with all leading eCommerce platforms. This tool helps brands create customer profiles, then uses this highly segmented data to personalize email and SMS marketing. Offering quick, one-click integration, Klaviyo automation has 200+ data integrations that will work seamlessly with other automation tools.

Klaviyo Top Features

• Automated personalized communications with its unique email and SMS suite
• Built-in email marketing design templates
• A wide variety of customizable, built-in automations  
• Powerful customer segmentation
• Pre-built reports to give real-time insights into marketing performance

Klaviyo Pricing

Klaviyo is free to test for up to 250 email contacts or 50 SMS contacts. It has three main paid plan options for online retailers, depending on whether they need email, SMS, or email and SMS marketing automation. They also include a free option to test. Here’s their pricing breakdown:

1. Email Automation: Pricing plans start at $20 per month.
2. SMS Automation: Pricing plans start at $5 per month.
3. Email and SMS Automation: Pricing plans start at $25 per month. 

You can work out the cost for your specific email and SMS marketing needs here.

4. Customer.io Automated Message Platform

If you’re running an online subscription store or are looking to add subscription boxes to your eCommerce catalog, you may need an on-site automation tool such as Customer.io. Customer.io is explicitly built for subscription-based online stores and describes itself as an “automated messaging platform for tech-savvy marketers.”

Customer.io Top Features

• Flexible data integrations
• Ability to build and test messaging flows
• Third-party integration
• Segmentation engine built for speed and flexibility
• Multichannel newsletters

Customer.io Pricing

Customer.io has scaled pricing specific to your specific retail needs. It generally falls into two plans:

1. Basic Plan: This plan starts at $150 per month and includes unlimited email sends, SMS, push, and webhooks.

1. Premium Plan: For bigger businesses, the premium plan includes a dedicated success manager and managed deliverability. The price starts at $995 per month.

5. HubSpot Inbound and Content Marketing Automation

HubSpot is an inbound marketing system that enables online store managers and marketers to automate various marketing activities. This includes social media, email, and content marketing management.

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Hubspot Top Features

• Workflows to automate ongoing marketing back-end manual actions
• Triggered automated emails
• Abandoned cart email nurturing
• Revenue attribution reporting to track ROI
• Ability to monitor and prioritize conversations, and publish to social networks 

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot is free to install and test. It has various pricing options that start at $45/month to remove HubSpot’s branding. However, for full marketing automation, brands will need the professional package, which starts from $800 per month and doesn’t include additional platform advertising costs.

1. Starter Plan: Pricing starts at $45 per month and includes email marketing, landing page reporting, and HubSpot branding removal.
2. Professional Plan: Pricing starts at $800 per month and includes additional features such as custom reporting, SEO optimization, and blog automation.
3. Enterprise Plan: Pricing starts at $3,200 per month and includes additional features such as adaptive testing, email frequency caps, and predictive lead scoring.

6. Drip Email and SMS Marketing Automation

Another automated marketing tool on the list is Drip. Better suited for growing brands, Drip offers built-in workflow automation for email and SMS. What makes this tool slightly different from the previous email automation apps is that it includes pre-built playbooks for welcome series, abandoned carts, post-purchase campaigns, etc.

Drip Top Features 

• Built-in email and SMS workflows
• Ability to personalize at scale
• Social media syncing
• Analytics dashboard
• Forms and popups

Drip Pricing

Drip’s pricing depends on your number of contacts and whether you want to include eCommerce SMS marketing. Paid plans start at $19 per month for up to 500 contacts.

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Content Marketing Automation Tools

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The next area of your eCommerce business worth automating is your content marketing. Here are some top content marketing automation tools to test for your brand.

7. Hootsuite Social Media Automation

Hootsuite is a social media marketing and management dashboard. It enables retailers to automatically schedule social content and review posts in an easy-to-use calendar view while monitoring conversations, trends, and brand mentions in real-time.

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Hootsuite Top Features

• Unlimited post scheduling 
• 250+ apps and integrations 
• Actionable recommendations
• One social analytics dashboard
• Team collaborations

Hootsuite Pricing

All plans come with a 30-day free trial. Choosing between Hootsuite plans will depend on the size of your business and your team. Also, it’s important to note that plans don’t include digital marketing ad spend.

1. Professional Plan: This plan is $49 per month for one user and up to 10 social accounts. 
2. Team Plan: This plan is $129 per month for three users and up to 20 social accounts. 
3. Business Plan: This plan is $739 per month for five users and up to 35 social accounts. 
4. Enterprise Plan: This plan is for much larger retailers and customized specifically for their needs.

8. Divvy Content Marketing Software

Divvy is a content marketing software that enables brands and teams to manage all content requests, schedules, initiatives, and campaigns from one central hub. It was designed for growing eCommerce brands and online retailer content and/or marketing teams, and includes custom content workflows and real-time analytics.

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Divvy Top Features

• Custom content workflows
• Unlimited, shared content calendars
• Fully customizable content strategy fields
• Real-time dashboard
• Ability to collaboratively plan and produce content assets in real-time

Divvy Pricing

All Divvy plans include a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require credit card information. Its prices are determined by the number of users needed, as well as features. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Starter Plan: This plan starts at $39 per user per month and enables easy scheduling and content creation.
2. Pro Plan: This plan starts at $99 per user per month and includes advanced features such as automated task management and social publishing.
3. Enterprise Plan: This plan is customized for specific brands and is best suited for larger retailers with more extensive marketing or content teams.

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Customer Experience and Management Automation Tools for eCommerce

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One of the most time-consuming aspects of online eCommerce is customer service and management. It’s also the most important.

Why?

Improving customer services increases the chances of sales while also building long-term loyalty, both of which drive sales and revenue. In other words: they improve your overall customer experience. This is why automation tools can be hugely beneficial. Here are some software tools for customer management automation to consider.

9. Zendesk Omnichannel Customer Service with Built-In Automation

When it comes to customer service, Zendesk is a household name in help desk technology. It enables support teams to manage all customer engagement from one central spot, build an integrated help center and community forum, and harness automation and AI-powered bots to personalize the experience.

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Zendesk Top Features

• Create and manage automation for time-based events
• Trigger conditions and actions reference
• Send automated ticket reminders to customers
• Access relevant customer data in real-time to quickly solve customer service tickets
• Set up a store chat with AI-powered bots in one click

Zendesk Pricing

Zendesk is free to install and test. Paid plans start at $49 and come with a free trial.

1. Suite Team: This plan is $49 per agent per month and includes up to 50 AI-powered automated answers.  
2. Suite Growth: This plan is $79 per agent per month and includes easy-to-set-up automation and workflows.
3. Suite Professional: This plan is $99 per agent per month and includes AI-powered knowledge management and up to 500 AI-powered automated answers.

10. Referral Rock Brand Awareness and Referral Software

Referral Rock is a referral program software designed to increase referrals and brand awareness from existing customers. It positions itself as being “not just a referral widget,” and includes multiple ways to promote referral programs and offer coupons, gift cards, custom rewards, cash, etc. It’s ideally suited for more established online retailers.

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Referral Rock Top Features

• Full end-to-end sharing experience
• Unlimited referrals
• Two-sided, tiered, and time-based reward structure
• Runs through widgets and a branded portal
• Ability to communicate through email campaigns, promotions, notifications (one-click share), etc.

Referral Rock Pricing

Unlike some marketing automation tools, Referral Rock doesn’t charge per user. Instead, plans are based on business and referral groups’ size and advanced needs. These include:

• Starter Plans: This plan costs $200 per month and includes everything a retailer would need to set up and start a high-performing referral program.
• Growth Plans: This plan costs $400 per month and enables brands to grow multiple programs with automation and advanced features.
• Established Business Plans: This plan costs $800 per month and offers more established brands more control, branding, and integrations to run programs at scale.

11. ReturnLogic Automated eCommerce Returns Management

Returns are a critical post-sale operation, determining the overall customer experience of your shoppers. ReturnLogic is a Shopify automation tool explicitly designed to automate the returns process.

ReturnLogic Top Features

• Real-time return status tracking 
• Barcode scanner functionality
• Multiple users and permissions
• 3PL & ERP integrations
• Actionable insights

ReturnLogic Pricing

ReturnLogic is customized to your specific Shopify needs, with pricing starting at $300 per month.

12. RingCentral Customer Relationship Management and Task Automation

Need to incorporate sales calls for high-end products? RingCentral enables larger retailers to manage customer relationships from anywhere. Created to streamline operations and deliver a positive customer experience, RingCentral simplifies communication with suppliers and customers. This tool is particularly worth investigating for online retailers looking for advanced B2B automation tools.

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RingCentral Top Features

• Pre-built integrations with CRM, calendar, and other account-based platforms, or build your own with APIs
• Automated workflows and tasks management software for teams
• Smart collaborations
• SMS, IVR, and chatbots for secure and verified client interactions

RingCentral Pricing

RingCentral pricing starts at $29 per month, with the final price dependent on the number of users you have in your retail support team and the features you news. Here’s a breakdown.

1. Essentials Plan: $29 per month per user, and includes unlimited calls within the US/Canada and enhanced business SMS.
2. Standard Plan: From $37.99 per month per user and includes unlimited users, video meetings with up to 100 participants, and Google integration.
3. Premium Plan: From $44.99 per month per user and includes real-time analytics, developer platform and custom integrations, and advanced call handling.
4. Ultimate Plan: $59.99 per month per user, and includes device status reports, alerts, and unlimited storage.

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Inventory and Order Management Automation Tools for eCommerce

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Inventory optimization and management is the next area where AI ad automation is becoming more vital. The more you can automate your inventory front and backend procedures, the better. This can include demand forecasting and inventory planning to automatic shipping label processing.

13. QuickBooks Commerce Automated Account and Inventory Management

QuickBooks Commerce has been specifically designed for eCommerce retailers and combines QuickBook accounts with fulfillment tracking automation. With this automation tool, online retailers can stay on top of orders, streamline inventory, and automate and sync accounting, all from one platform. However, to get the most out of the tool, you will need to opt for pro plans.

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QuickBooks Commerce Top Features

• Automated accounting
• Inventory integrations
• Order management and inventory tracking
• Instant insights and custom reporting

QuickBooks Commerce Pricing

QuickBooks Commerce offers online retailers a variety of pricing plans to suit a wide range of business sizes. They include:

1. Simple Start Plan: This starts at $25 per month and includes basic accounting features.
2. Essentials Plan: This starts at $50 per month and includes basic accounting features, billing management, and time tracking.
3. Plus Plan: This starts at $80 per month for up to five users and includes inventory tracking. 
4. Advanced Plan: This starts at $180 per month and includes a whole host of additional features, including workflow automation, customized access, and advanced analytics and insights.

14. ShipStation Shipping and Order Management Software

ShipStation is a popular automation tool for retailers to organize and streamline their order fulfillment process. The shipping software includes scan-based workflows and automation processes to help online retailers optimize order management across all their channels.

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ShipStation Top Features

• Connects to top carriers and includes discounted shipping rates 
• Provides automatic order retrieval
• Includes one-platform order management 
• Automates most shipping tasks 
• Offers branded delivery experience 

ShipStation Pricing

Choosing a ShipStation price plan will depend on how many orders your store generates per month. Its four plan options are: 

1. Starter Plan: This plan starts from $9 per month for up to 50 shipments and basic shipping tasks.
2. Bronze Plan: This plan starts from $29 per month for up to 500 shipments and additional features such as live chat, email, and community forum support.
3. Gold Plan: This plan starts from $69 per month for up to 3,000 shipments and up to three users.
4. Enterprise Plan: This plan starts from $159 per month for up to 10,000 shipments and up to ten users.

If you’re in the US, you can also try similar services such as ShipBob and ShipMonk.

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Backend Business Management Automation Tools for eCommerce 

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Workflow automation is vital to streamline processes, saving time and cutting down on administrative costs. With the right backend business management or admin tools, eCommerce stores are able to build better workflow automation beyond what is included in their eCommerce platform. Let’s look at some administrative automation tools for eCommerce to consider.

15. Trello Task Automation

Trello is a collaboration platform designed for backend project management and workflow automation. From Trello, various teams can stay on top of eCommerce tasks and admin, set reminders and automations, and communicate regardless of where in the world the team members are. Trello integrates with Slack, Google Sheets, Asana, and email.

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Trello Top Features

• Easy task and workflow automation 
• Connects with eCommerce platforms through Zapier
• Can be used to build forms and contact customers
• Includes easy-to-use templates

Trello Pricing

With Trello, you can create a free account for basic task and workflow automation and collaboration.

1. Free Plan: The free plan includes unlimited boards and is sufficient for individuals or teams looking to organize tasks.
2. Standard Plan: For more advanced work and scale collaboration, the standard plan is $5 per month.
3. Premium Plan: This plan costs $10 per month and includes every feature in the standard plan plus unlimited workspace command runs, Trello calendar features, and much more. 
4. Enterprise Plans: These plans offer advanced automations, and the final price is determined by the number of users you need to add. They start at $17.50 per month for 25 users.

16. CoSchedule Automated Workflows and Scheduling

CoSchedule is a blend between a task management and content marketing organization tool and links to Shopify through Zapier. Its paid versions offer customizable task workflow templates and unlimited social media publishing, over and above simple task and project management. 

 CoSchedule Top Features

• Calendar and content organizer
• Project and task management
• Recurring task and event automation
• Bulk social media scheduling
• Social media automation (ReQueue)

CoSchedule Pricing

CoSchedule offers a forever-free plan for basic personal projects and task management. However, for eCommerce automation for tasks, you will need to upgrade to the pro version. Here’s a breakdown of two paid options:

1. Pro Plan: This plan costs $29 per user per month and offers a more advanced marketing calendar with limitless publishing to gain even more control.
2. Business Plan: This plan is costed to scale for your specific business needs and includes advanced premium integrations and detailed project, work, and team analytics.

Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Automation Tools for Your Store Brand

There you have it, 16+ automation tools you can use to streamline your eCommerce business while boosting sales and profits.

There is no denying that now is definitely the time to be investing in upgrading your automation stack. However, which functions should you focus on upgrading first? The answer depends on your specific brand’s needs, budgets and market. Here are some quick tips on what to evaluate when choosing eCommerce automation tools.

Still have questions? Post them in the comments section below. 

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