In this article, we will explain how to create an order confirmation workflow to automatically send an email when customers place an order on your website.

Before you start

• Make sure you have installed the Brevo tracker on your website, added the Identify function to the script, and created the abandoned cart track events.
  
• Before building your workflow, make sure you check out Part 1: Create an order confirmation email template to create your order confirmation email template. This will ensure that you are using the right placeholders to customize your email.

🧐 How does the order confirmation workflow work?

After installing the Brevo tracker, adding the Identify function to the script, and creating the track events on your website, you will be able to track and add identified contacts who purchase a product on your website to your order confirmation workflow.

Here's an example of what a basic order confirmation workflow looks like:

But you can also add additional steps for a more advanced workflow:

🖱️ Step 1: Create the Order Confirmation workflow

To create the order confirmation workflow:

1. Go to Automation > Workflows.
2. Click Create a workflow.
3. Click Create a custom workflow.
   
   
4. Give your workflow a name and a description (optional).
5. Enable the Allow your contacts to enter the workflow more than once to be able to send an order confirmation emails every time a contact purchases a product on your website.
6. Click Start automating.
   
   

💰 Step 2: Contact purchases a product (entry point)

The entry point for the order confirmation workflow is An event happens. Events are alerts that Brevo can receive from your website when certain key activities occur, such as when a product is added to a cart. Since we want to send an order confirmation email, the trigger of this entry point will be when a shopper purchases a product.

To add your entry point:

1. Click Add an entry point.
2. Select An event happens.
   
3. In the Custom Event (Track Event) field, enter the name of the track event that indicates when a product is purchased.
   Note: If you are using a Brevo plugin, the default track event for product purchase is order_completed. If you are using your own custom events, please use your own event name.
4. If you want to apply a specific condition to the event:
   1. Select Add conditions to the selected JS event.
   2. Create your condition by selecting data in the drop-down lists and fields.
      
5. Click NEXT.

Now, as soon as a contact purchases a product on your website, they will enter the workflow.

To learn more about track events and properties, read our technical documentation.

⏳ Step 3: Add a delay before the sending of the email

Once the customer has purchased a product on your website, you can add a delay of a few minutes before the sending of your order confirmation email:

1. Click the + sign below your entry point.
2. Select Add a delay.
   
   
3. In the first field, enter the delay you want your contact to wait for.
4. In the drop-down, select the time units you want to use.
   
5. Click NEXT.

✉️ Step 4: Send an order confirmation email

The next step in your workflow is to send an email. You will have to choose the email template you want to send as your order confirmation email.

1. Click the + sign below your entry point.
2. Select Send an email.
   
   
3. Select your order confirmation email template.
   Note: If you haven't created your order confirmation email template yet, refer to Part 1: Create an order confirmation email template to learn how to create and personalize an order confirmation email template.
   

4. To customize your email with the values generated by the event you added as your entry point, select Use my event data and The event data which triggered the workflow.
   Note: You must select this option in order to pull data from the event that triggered the workflow, otherwise the values in the email sent will be empty.
   

5. If necessary, select the following options:

   • I want to send a hidden copy of this email: select this option if you want to receive a copy of the abandoned cart email every time a contact receives it. You can send a hidden copy of the email to specific recipients separated by commas or to contacts that contain a certain contact attribute.
     

   • I want to choose when to send this email:
     • Send at best time: select this option to maximize the open rate by delivering your emails at the optimal time for each recipient over a 24-hour period.
     • Choose a specific time frame: select this option to choose when you want to send the email, for example any day of the week at 8 am.
       
6. Click NEXT.

Your personalized email template will receive and insert the product details for each contact who purchases a product.

➕ Step 5: Add more steps to your workflow (optional)

Now that the main steps of your order confirmation workflow are done, you can go ahead and build an even more advanced workflow by adding more steps to it.

Here are some examples of steps you can add to your workflow:

• Update contact attribute: update a contact's attribute after their purchase (e.g., PAYER_CLIENT > Yes)
• Send an email: send an additional email after X days (e.g., cross-sell or bundle email)
• Perform a CRM action: assign the new paying customer to a user or create a follow-up task
• Add to a list: move the paying customer to a new list (e.g., move them from your Visitors list to your Paying Customers list)
• …

Learn more about the steps available in a workflow in our dedicated article What are the actions in Marketing Automation?.

✅ Step 6: Activate your workflow

Once you are done setting up the workflow, you can activate it to allow contacts to enter it and receive your order confirmation email.

To activate your workflow, click Status: Inactive and select Active.

🔨 Step 7: Test your workflow [highly recommended]

To make sure your workflow works well and that the email sent populates with the event data, you can test it yourself. For the order confirmation workflow, we recommend testing the workflow with a real test scenario:

1. Create an account on your website.
2. Purchase a product.
3. If you have added additional steps, check that they are also working (e.g., check if your contact attribute in Brevo is updated, if you've been assigned a user in CRM, etc.).

This should trigger the workflow and provide you with a true sense of how it is functioning.

🚫 Step 8: Disable order confirmation emails created outside Brevo [highly recommended]

To make sure your customers don't receive double order confirmation emails, we recommend you disable order confirmation emails created outside Brevo.

⏩ What's next?

• WordPress plugin - Installation and setup

🤔 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.