Automation – Offer related products after purchase

This automation targets customers who recently bought a specific product, items from a certain category, or products from a particular manufacturer, and automatically offers them related products that may be more relevant or provides help using the product or service they purchased from you.

Automation goal

Remarketing automation aims to offer customers related products after they purchase a certain type of item in your store, and to keep the attention of actively spending customers not only through personalization and targeting specific related products, but also through discounts.

This could include offers of after-sales services, such as extended warranties or insurance, but you can also send customers information related to their purchase — for example, video tutorials or usage instructions, messages encouraging them to join your product or service user community, or other relevant information.

The automation contains one or more incentive emails. Recipients who successfully complete the automation and make a purchase can optionally be flagged and included in a group with a specific activity level for later use.

Prerequisites

To create an automation, you’ll need:

• Activated E-mailing plan in the Boldem account.
• An online store or other type of website integrated with a Boldem account.
• Fully verified sending domain.
• Transactional templates — messages you want to send to recipients.
• Promo codes (optional) – if you choose to offer them to customers as part of automation, you need to add them first.

Find details for each step in the sections below.

Integration of website/online store with Boldem account

In order for data from your website (e-shop or another system) to load correctly into the Boldem app and for you to effectively use all features, such as automations or subscription forms, you must first integrate your website with your Boldem account. You have these integration options:

• General integration that allows you to display a form on your website to collect data.
• Instant integration of your online store on the Shoptet or Upgates platform that enables seamless syncing of contacts, cart data, and orders.
• Advanced integration of any website or online store on any platform that, in addition to displaying the form, can also sync contacts or order and cart data. However, this integration requires developer intervention to create a custom integration for you.

Below are instructions for integrating various platforms with your Boldem account:

• Shoptet store integration with your Boldem account.
• Integration of an Upgates store with a Boldem account.
• Integration of the Rocketoo store with a Boldem account.
• Integration of any website with the Boldem app.

Transactional template

In automations, only transactional templates can be used. Any smart template can be set as a transactional template. A fully verified sending domain is required for a transactional template to work properly. You can manage your sending domain in Settings/Domains.

To create a new transactional template, follow these steps. You can update an existing smart template the same way; in that case, open the template and continue with step 4:

1. Log in to the Boldem app and go to the Templates section.
2. Click Create new template and select Create smart template.
3. Choose whether to edit a predefined template from the gallery, use a sample template, or start from scratch with an empty template.
4. Click the gear icon. The Information tab will appear.

5. On the Information tab, enter the template name, subject, and preheader (subject preview).

6. Enable transactional features with the toggle switch Template for transactional emails (Automation and API). Additional fields for the transactional template will appear.
7. Fill in Sender Email, Sender Name, and select Domain Router from the dropdown list.

8. In the top-right corner, click Done and select Save and Exit.

Adding products to a template

Products can be added to a template not only manually but also directly from your online store’s data source. You’ll have access to it after the integration of your online store with your Boldem account, or you can add any other data source at any time in Settings/Data sources.

In the template you can then add products using the Product block. If you didn’t choose one of the ready-made templates from the gallery, first drag the Product block into the template body. The steps are as follows:

1. Open the template you want to edit, or create a new one.
2. Click the grid button ᎒᎒᎒ to view content blocks.
3. Drag the Product block from the blocks menu into the template on the right.
4. Click the block on the right to view its properties.
5. Click the Product Import tab to view the contents of the product data source.
6. Select the product you want to add, or enter a keyword to search. You can also search using additional criteria by enabling the advanced filter.
7. Go through the other tabs and modify the block settings to your liking.

Promo codes

If you decide to motivate your customers with a discount, it’s practical to use a separate promo code for each customer. Before using promo codes in a template, you need to add them to the system — either manually or by importing from a file:

1. Go to Settings/Promo codes.
2. Click All groups and select Add group.
3. Enter a group name, choose its color, and confirm by clicking the Add button.
4. Click on New promo code.
5. In the drop-down menu Expiry date settings, select the type of validity for the promo codes. It should match the validity set in the online store from which you generate the promo codes.
   • No time limit – all imported promo codes can be used without expiration.
   • Common – all imported promo codes share a single expiration date and time. Once selected, a field will appear to enter the common expiration date.
   • Individual – each imported promo code has a defined expiration date and time. In this case you must have two custom fields in the imported file: one for promo codes and the other for the expiration date (or date and time).
6. If you have a file of promo codes to import, click Select file and confirm your choice by clicking Create.

7. You can also import a small number of promo codes manually by entering them into the Promo codes field. In that case, enter one promo code per row. To add an expiry date to manually entered promo codes, select Expiry date settings → Individual in the drop-down menu and append a semicolon or vertical bar to the promo code name, followed by the date and time in the format set in your account (see note above), e.g.:

CouponCode11;29.3.2028 11:38

CouponCode12|29.3.2028 12:00

8. Confirm the dialog by clicking Create.

Using a promo code in a template

You can organize promo codes into groups that can be assigned different colors and names. Each group has a unique identifier, e.g. {{coupons.group_794}}. Copy it and paste it into the templates you plan to use in campaigns or automations.

In the template, paste the copied promo codes group identifier where you want unique promo codes to appear to recipients after the campaign is dispatched or after starting an automation and sending transactional emails.

Personalized greeting in the template

When creating a template you’ll send to customers, always consider how its opening, the salutation, will come across to your recipients.

Automatic declension of first names

Boldem can automatically inflect first names into the 5th case. To generate salutations, use the vokativ variable. Use this variable by inserting the following string into the template:

{{ vokativ contact.name }}

This string will be replaced after the message is dispatched with the recipient’s first name in the correct vocative form. For example, if the recipient’s first name is Jana, the template will show Jano. To address the recipient informally as Ahoj Jano, use the following string in the template:

Hi {{ vokativ contact.name }},

If you’d like to thank someone for registering, use the following string:

Thank you for registering, {{ vokativ contact.name }}!

Automatic surname declension accounting for gender

In many cases of personalized salutations, you need to correctly inflect not only the recipient’s first or last name but also adjust the salutation itself based on the recipient’s gender. Since Boldem lets you record a recipient’s gender, using the resulting string is a breeze.

If gender is set for recipients, you can use the following string in the template instead of a specific salutation:

Thank you for registering{{ if contact.sex != null }}{{ if contact.sex == 1 }}, Mr. {{ end }}{{ if contact.sex == 0 }}, Ms. {{ end }}{{ vokativ contact.surname }}!{{ else }}!{{ end }}

This string is actually scripting code that checks whether a given recipient has their gender set correctly and uses the appropriate salutation:

• If gender is set to Male and the recipient’s last name is Novák, the salutation used is: Thank you for registering, Mr. Novák!
• If gender is set to Female and the recipient’s last name is Svobodová, the salutation used is: Thank you for registering, Ms. Svobodová!
• If gender is not set, a gender-neutral salutation without a last name will be used: Thank you for registering!

You can, of course, customize the salutation text (shown in bold in the example) to suit your needs. We recommend always thoroughly testing the salutation on a small sample of test recipients with all variants (i.e., both genders and a recipient with no gender specified).

You can similarly distinguish the salutations “Dear Sir”, “Dear Madam”, or “Hello” when the recipient’s gender isn’t specified. In that case, use the following code in the template:

{{ if contact.sex != null }}{{ if contact.sex == 1 }}Dear Mr. {{ end }}{{ if contact.sex == 0 }}Dear Ms. {{ end }}{{ vokativ contact.surname }},{{ else }}Hello,{{ end }}

The result is personalized salutations based on the specified gender:

Automation Scenarios

Before creating an automation scenario, clarify what you want to achieve with the automation—after how long you’ll consider a customer to have made a purchase, which category or specific product they bought, how many emails you want to send, whether to include a discount and in what amount, and so on. You can create the automation exactly as you wish.

Below we’ve selected an example automation scenario you can create in Boldem for remarketing and offering related products. This example is by no means the only one — you can assemble the automation blocks to suit your needs:

• Offer related products to customers who purchased in the last 30 days.

Automation scenario – offer related products 30 days after purchase

This automatic remarketing campaign will help you offer related products and an optional discount to customers who completed a purchase of items from a specific category within the last 30 days.

Create automation

1. Log in to your Boldem account and go to the Automation section.
2. Click Create new automation.
3. Enter an automation name and a description. Both are for your reference and can be changed later on the Settings tab in the automation details.
4. Confirm your submission by clicking Create automation.

The automation diagram opens, with an overview of blocks you can use in an automation on the left and a canvas on the right where you’ll place them. Adding is done by dragging and dropping individual blocks (drag and drop).

Automation trigger

First, we need to add a trigger block that tells the automation how and how often a recipient will enter it. For remarketing automation, we’ll use the A website event occurs block.

1. On the left, select the Triggers tab, drag the Website event occurs block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. In the drop-down menu Select website, choose the previously integrated online store. If you don’t see your store in the list, the integration wasn’t set up correctly. Check the status in Settings/Integrations or add your online store.
3. In the drop-down menu Select an action, choose User completed an order.
4. In the How many hours after the event should this trigger start? field, enter when the trigger should activate. In other words, enter the number of hours that must pass from the moment the customer completed the order. We’ll keep the default and minimum value (2 hours), because we’ll evaluate the other time condition separately in the following blocks.
5. Optionally turn on the toggle switch Start automation repeatedly. This ensures the system will regularly track completed orders for all recipients. Before turning it on, make sure that repeatedly offering related products to the same recipients makes sense for your specific online store.
6. In the field After how many days can the recipient re-enter the automation? Enter 60 days.
7. Click Save.

Insert first delay

For remarketing automation, we must insert a delay after a completed purchase before dispatching any messages. In our case, we use a value of 30 days.

How to insert a delay:

1. On the left, select the Operators tab, drag the Wait block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. From the drop-down menu, select After a certain time and choose a delay of 30 days.
3. Click Save.

Insert block with first condition

After the initial delay set above (30 days in our example) has passed, we want to evaluate what the recipient purchased. We can verify the following options:

• Whether the recipient purchased a specific product (by name or product ID)
• Whether the recipient purchased items from a specific category (by category name)
• Whether the recipient purchased goods from a specific manufacturer (by manufacturer name)

The exact selection depends on your needs. In our example, we’ll choose products from a specific category. So we’ll add a condition block to the automation:

1. In the left pane, select the Operators tab, drag the Condition block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. Click Select new condition. A dialog will open to select a condition.
3. In the Source drop-down menu, select Recipients’ activity on the website.
4. In the Select website drop-down menu, select the online store you previously integrated.
5. In the Recipients’ activity on the website drop-down menu, select Purchased product from category.
6. In the drop-down menu Condition, choose how you want to evaluate the category name. In our case we want a specific category, so we select Equals.
7. Enter the exact category name from our online store into the Category field. For example, Clothing.
8. In the drop-down menu Time range, select the time period over which the condition should be evaluated. In our case we want to evaluate the last 30 days. So select Last X days and enter 30.
9. Click Save rule.
10. Click Save to save the entire block.

After the condition block, we insert additional blocks to handle its evaluation. Two branches are available — one for a negative result and one for a positive result:

Block branch with the first condition – No

If the recipient doesn’t meet our condition — that they haven’t purchased any items from the Clothing category in the last 30 days — the automation ends for them because we have nothing to offer.

Block branch with the first condition – Yes

If the recipient met the specified condition — in our example, purchased items from the Clothing category in our store within the last 30 days — we want to send them a series of related emails.

Dispatching the first email

Now we’ll add a block to dispatch an email aimed at motivating the recipient—whether to buy related products, use a discount, or get more from the purchased product (for example, with instructional videos). The specific choice depends on your needs and should match what you selected in the first condition above.

1. In the left pane, select the Actions tab, drag the Send email block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. From the Template drop-down menu, select the transactional template you want to send to the recipient.
3. Leave the remaining settings at their defaults and click Save.

Insert a second delay

Enter the parameters for the second delay—the pause between the dispatch of the first and second emails. Set the delay according to your needs and the content you send to customers. Keep in mind you should give customers time to respond, but if the two emails are connected the delay shouldn’t be so long that the customer loses interest. In our example we’ll use 7 days.

1. On the left, select the Operators tab, drag the Wait block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. From the drop-down menu select For a specific period and choose a 7-day delay.
3. Click Save.

Insert block with the second condition

After the second delay set above has elapsed (7 days in our example), we need to check whether the recipient purchased products matching our parameters — e.g., from a specific category, from a specific manufacturer, or the exact item promoted in the email. In our sample case we sent the recipient an email offering products from the Clothing accessories category. So we add a conditional block to the automation. Proceed as follows:

1. In the left pane, select the Operators tab, drag the Condition block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. Click Select new condition. A dialog will open to select a condition.
3. In the Source drop-down menu, select Recipients’ activity on the website.
4. In the Select website drop-down menu, select the online store you previously integrated.
5. In the Recipients’ activity on the website drop-down menu, select Purchased product from category.
6. In the drop-down menu Condition, choose how you want to evaluate the category name. In our case we want a specific category, so we select Equals.
7. In the Category field, enter the exact category name from our online store. For example, Clothing accessories.
8. In the Time range drop-down menu, select the time period over which the condition should be evaluated. In our case we want to evaluate the last 7 days. Select For the last X days and enter 7.
9. Click Save rule.
10. Click Save to save the entire block.

After the condition block, we insert additional blocks to account for its evaluation. Two branches are available – one for a positive result and one for a negative result:

Block branch with the second condition – Yes

If the recipient met the specified condition — in our example, purchased items from the Clothing Accessories category in our store within the last 7 days — you can leave this branch empty, since there is no reason to notify the recipient. In that case, the automation ends for that recipient.

Block branch with the second condition – No

If the recipient does not meet the condition you set — that is, in our example, does not purchase any items from the Clothing Accessories category in our store within the last 7 days — we will insert a block after this branch to dispatch the second email.

The email should in some way follow up on the previous message. For example, it can create a sense of urgency — that a sale on related products is ending soon, that only a few days remain to purchase an extended warranty, and so on.

1. In the left pane, select the Actions tab, drag the Send email block onto the automation canvas, and double-click it to open the block settings.
2. From the Template drop-down menu, select the transactional template you want to send to the recipient.
3. Leave the remaining settings at their defaults and click Save.

The automation can end here, but you can, of course, adjust the number of condition repetitions, delays, and emails sent to suit your needs. If so, repeat the previous steps as often as you need.

Test and start automation

Connect automation blocks by clicking and dragging:

You can further customize the automation to fit your needs — change the number and type of emails, adjust conditions and delays, and test what works best for your customers.

Once you’re satisfied with the settings and number of blocks, save the automation by clicking Done/Save.

Thoroughly test the automation before starting! You can find testing procedures in the article Testing Automations. We recommend not underestimating testing and starting the automation only after it has been thoroughly tested.

Once you’ve completed testing with a positive result, start the automation by clicking Start.

General information on working with automations can be found in the article How to work with automations in Boldem.