Order confirmation emails are essential in e-commerce. They allow you to thank customers for their purchase, provide a receipt, and serve as timely notifications that customers highly anticipate. When sent at the right moment, these emails help reinforce the trust customers have in your business.

Introduction to the order confirmation automation

An order confirmation automation sends an email, or a series of emails, to contacts who complete a purchase on your website.

Before you start

• Make sure you have installed the Brevo tracker on your website and set up our three purchase events (cart_updated, cart_deleted, order_completed). To learn more, check our dedicated article What is the Brevo tracker and how to install it?.
• If you use the Brevo plugin for WooCommerce and want to send your order confirmation emails directly through WooCommerce (and not through an automation), check our dedicated article WooCommerce plugin - Create an order confirmation email to send through WooCommerce.

Select the order confirmation automation

Brevo offers a pre-configured order confirmation automation. To select it:

1. Go to Automations.
2. Click Create an automation.
3. Select the pre-configured automation named Product purchase.
4. Click Create automation.

You will now be automatically guided through a series of three steps to create your order confirmation automation.

Step 1/3: Let contacts enter the automation when they complete a purchase

The trigger for the order confirmation automation is called "Order created". This trigger allows contacts to enter the automation as soon as they complete a purchase.

1. (Optional) Refine the "Order created" trigger by applying Event filters. For example, if you want to send your order confirmation emails in multiple languages, you could choose to start the automation only for contacts in a specific country. To learn more, check our dedicated article Send automated emails in multiple languages.

   1. Next to Event filters, check Add filter.
      

   2. Click Add filters and choose the conditions you want to apply to refine the trigger. For this example, we selected the condition Checkout session country > is exactly > France.

   3. Click Add filters.
      

2. (Optional) Restrict your automation to contacts who meet specific criteria by applying Contact filters. This gives you more control over which contacts can enter the automation. For example, you could create a dedicated automation for first-time orders to thank new customers.

   1. Next to Contact filters, check Add filter.
      

   2. Click Add filters and choose the conditions you want to apply to control which contacts can enter the automation. For this example, we selected the condition Ecommerce > Placed an order > exactly 1 time > Over all time.

   3. Click Add filters.
      
3. Click Next.

Step 2/3: Add a delay before sending the order confirmation email

After a contact enters the automation, they will go through a brief waiting period before receiving the order confirmation email. We recommend setting a short delay of 1 to 2 minutes.

1. Select the delay period you want contacts to wait between completing their purchase and when the order confirmation email is sent.
   
2. Click Next.

Step 3/3: Send the order confirmation email

You'll now set up the order confirmation email that you'll send to your customers:

Edit the default email template

The default order confirmation email template includes all the essential elements to help you list all the products purchased by customres. To view what the default email template looks like, expand the following accordion:

🛒 Default order confirmation email template

Logo Personalized "thank you" with the contact's first name Text area Customizable space to add your own messaging. Dynamic order summary link A button that redirects to the order summary on your website. Dynamic order number Dynamic content block A block that displays details about the products purchased, such as product names, images, and prices. ➡️ To learn more, check our dedicated section Configure the Dynamic content block. Dynamic total amount Dynamic shipping and billing information Footer

To edit the default email template:

1. Under the email preview, click Edit.
   
2. Customize the email template to suit your needs. We recommend you update the text area with your own content and make sure the footer displays your company information. You can also add any additional content or blocks you want to include in your email layout.

(Optional) Personalize the Dynamic content block

The default order confirmation email template includes a Dynamic content block that personalizes each email with a list of items purchased by the recipient. This block contains variables that are dynamically replaced when the email is sent to display the following details about each item:

➡️ To learn how to modify the data source or update the default variables in the Dynamic content block, check our dedicated article Display a personalized list of items in automated emails (Abandoned cart, Order confirmation).

Preview and test the abandoned cart email template

After customizing your email template, you can preview and test it using JSON data or information from a previous abandoned cart event. This ensures that the purchased products left in the cart are displayed correctly and allows you to review the overall email design."

1. 1. Click Preview & test.
   2. Select which option you want to use to preview your email:
      
      Preview as recipient [Advanced] Preview event

      1. Select Preview as recipient.
      2. Select a contact.
      3. Activate the Add transactional JSON data.
      4. Enter the JSON data to test the email template. This data will replace the variables, allowing you to preview the template with the products left in the cart.
      5. Once you're done testing the email template, close the window.

      1. Select Preview event.
      2. Select Ecommerce Events > cart_updated.
      3. Select the previous event you want to use to test the email template. The data from this event will replace the variables, allowing you to preview the template with the provided information.
         
      4. Once you're done testing the email template, close the window.

Configure the settings of your email template

Next, you'll configure the sender details, subject line, and other settings for your order confirmation email template. These settings will be reused every time the email is sent.

1. In the top bar of the email editor, click Use this design in automation to save your email template and return to the automation editor.
2. Under the What event data to display? section, we've already selected the latest instance of the "Order created" event. This ensures that the most recent data from this event will be used to personalize the order confirmation email, showing the products purchased by the contact.
   
3. Under the Subject section, configure your subject line and preview text:
   1. In the Subject line field, update the default subject line of your email. 
      
      ❗️ Important

      To include fallback text when a contact's first name is unknown, update the variable {{contact.FIRSTNAME | default: ''}} with a default value, such as {{contact.FIRSTNAME | default: 'there'}}. This ensures the subject line displays "there" instead of leaving an empty space.
   2. In the Preview text field, enter the preview text of your email.
      
4. Under the Sender section, configure your sender details. Make sure your recipients can easily recognize your business by using a sender email address and name associated with your business.
   1. From the Email address dropdown, select a sender from your existing ones or create a new one.
   2. By default, the sender name in the Sender's name field is the one linked to the sender email address you selected above. You can override it by entering another name in the Sender's name field.
      
5. Under the Additional settings section, click Edit settings to configure additional settings for your email template. Expand the following accordions to view the available settings:
   🛑 Frequency cap

   ❗️ Important

   The frequency cap feature is only available on an Enterprise plan. For more information, check our website or get in touch with our Sales team.

   We do not recommend including your order confirmation emails in your frequency cap, as they are essential communications expected by customers. ➡️ To learn more, check our dedicated article Limit your marketing pressure with sending cadence (Frequency cap and Email overload prevention).

   ⏲️ Email sending time

   We do not recommend activating this option, as order confirmation emails should be sent promptly after a contact completes a purchase.

    

   📫 Email copy

   Activate this option to send a copy of your email to a designated recipient each time a contact receives it.

   Both CC (Carbon Copy) and BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) options allow you to send a copy of your order confirmation email. The main difference is that CC recipients are visible to others, while BCC recipients are not.

   📨 Sending and tracking

   Use a different Reply-to address

   By default, the Reply-to address is the same as the sender’s. Activate this option to override it by entering another email address in the field.

   Activate Google Analytics tracking

   Activate this option to track your email in Google Analytics.

   You can specify a custom UTM name, such as the name of your automation, or use the name of your email template by default. You can also track the ID of your email. ➡️ To learn more, check our dedicated article Integrate Google Analytics with your Brevo account.

   Add a tag

   You can use descriptive tags to find your email more easily. For example, you could tag your email with the "ecommerce_automation" tag.

   Add an attachment

   Activate this option to add an attachment to your email. You can add one file with a limit of 5MB.

   💡 Good to know

   Your file name should only contain alphanumeric characters.

   📄 Subscription

   Use an update profile form

   Activate this option to select an existing update profile form to add to the footer of your email or create a new one. ➡️ To learn more, check our dedicated article Update your contacts details and preferences (Update Profile form).

Activate the automation

Once everything is set up, you can activate the order confirmation automation:

1. In the top bar of the editor, click Activate automation.

2. The Re-entry after exit settings is already configured for the automation. It allows contacts to re-enter the automation if they exit it once and complete a purchase again.
   

3. Click Activate automation.

Test the order confirmation automation

To ensure that your automation works well and that the email sent includes the personalized list of purchased items, it is recommended that you test it yourself. For the order confirmation automation, here is a real test scenario you can perform:

1. Create or log in to an account on your website.
2. Complete a purchase.
3. Wait for the delay you set at Step 2/3: Add a delay before sending the order confirmation email.

This should trigger the automation and give you an accurate sense of its functionality.

Troubleshooting issues with your order confirmation automation

Expand the following accordions to learn how to troubleshoot issues with your order confirmation automation: 

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.

If you’re looking for help with a project using Brevo, we can match you with the right certified Brevo expert partner.