How to Customize WooCommerce Email Templates – Steps + Examples

Do your WooCommerce emails look typical and lifeless? If yes, you need to start customizing your WooCommerce email templates to make your emails 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 their  WooCommerce email templates and witness plummeting conversion rates as a result. 

In this blog, we will learn about how to customize WooCommerce email templates using the default editor and a plugin. Then, we will see some real-life examples and why they stand out. 

What are WooCommerce emails?

WooCommerce emails are transactional emails that are sent to customers and store administrators to keep them updated on the status of orders, payments, and other events in your online store. 

WooCommerce comes with a number of default email templates that you can customize to match your branding and personalize the emails to an extent. 

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. 

Why is customizing WooCommerce emails important?

If you are a WooCommerce store owner, sending customized WooCommerce emails is the most effective way to shape the customer experience, build a large audience, 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 that have a unique style, color palette, tone, and brand messaging will impress the customer and prompt them to take the desired action. 

Customizing WooCommerce emails allows you to craft specific messages for different segments of your audience. You can send personalized offers, recommendations, or reminders based on customers’ preferences, behavior, or lifecycle stage.

How to customize WooCommerce Email Templates?

You can customize WooCommerce email templates in two ways:

• Using the default WooCommerce email template customization feature.
• Using any WooCommerce customizer plugins. 

First, let’s see how you can customize email templates using WooCommerce’s default feature. 

Customizing WooCommerce email templates using the default editor

Step 1: In your WooCommerce dashboard, go to Settings and click on ‘Emails’, among other tabs. You will see a list of WooCommerce email templates you can send on various occasions. 

Default WooCommerce Emails

Here’s a complete list of the transactional emails sent by WooCommerce: 

• 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.

Step 2: Click the ‘Manage’ button to edit the content in the WooCommerce transactional email templates, like the subject line, heading, and body.

Below image is an example of how you can edit WooCommerce order confirmation email template.

Let’s learn about every field in detail: 

• Enable/Disable checkbox lets you enable or disable this specific email notification.
• Subject is where you enter the subject line. 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 email body. 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. 

Step 3: 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 email templates at once.

You can change the header image, footer text, base color, background color, body background color, and body text color. 

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. 

To customize and produce a highly personalized email, you can use a WooCommerce email customizer plugin.

Here is how you can customize your WooCommerce transactional email templates using a multi-purpose email marketing platform with a built-in drag-and-drop email editor and pre-designed templates – Retainful. 

Customizing WooCommerce email templates using the Retainful plugin

Step 1 – Installing the Retainful Plugin.

First, go to your WordPress dashboard → Plugins → Add new. Search for the ‘Retainful’ plugin. Click “Install Now” to install and activate it. 

Step 2 – Connecting your store with Retainful API. 

After installation, connect your WooCommerce store with Retainful to create custom email templates in WooCommerce. 

To connect your store, you have to get the API Keys from the Retainful Dashboard. Go to Settings -> General. Copy your App ID and secret key. 

With the App ID and secret key in your hand, go to WordPress Dashboard →  Retainful. Under the Connection tab, enter the keys in the respective field and click “Connect.” You’ll see a successful connection message once the connection is established.

Step 3: Choosing the type of email campaign

Retainful allows the launching of various WooCommerce transactional emails like order confirmation emails, abandoned cart recovery, welcome emails, win-back emails, Thank you emails, and more. 

To see the options, go to Retainful Dashboard -> Automation. 

Let’s take a WooCommerce order confirmation email as an example and see how you can customize that email template. 

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 4: Customizing the subject line and preview text. 

You will see an automation workflow containing triggers, wait time, and email. 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 5: Customizing the structure of email. 

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 ‘Section’ option, you can include sections in terms of columns. 

In the “Element” section, you can add and change elements of the WooCommerce order confirmation 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 WooCommerce email templates should have. 

Step 6: Choosing the email template.

Click on “Change template” to explore various email templates in Retainful’s template library or the custom email templates you have created and saved before. 

You can select a template you like and edit WooCommerce email template elements, color, logo, and email content as you like. 

Step 7: Customizing the email content.

To edit the WooCommerce order confirmation email 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. 

For other content blocks you include in your emails, like the Upsell block here, you can edit the padding, border styles, dimensions, and background color. 

For CTAs, you can edit the text, link, dimensions, typography, and background color. 

Similarly, you can edit the footer and other blocks. 

After the editing of the email content, you can save it as a template for future use.

As a final step, preview and test the WooCommerce email templates you have created, and you are good to go. 

Top 5 Essential WooCommerce Emails to Send

Crafting custom WooCommerce email templates can initially be tedious. So, we listed some well-designed email templates for you to learn and emulate on your own. 

Welcome Emails

Welcome emails create a first impression of your brand. So, customize your email template to tell your brand’s story and assure the customer they made the right choice. In our example, the line “Welcome to the bright side.” does exactly that.

What to add to your custom welcome email template: 

• Customize WooCommerce emails to tell your brand’s story – How you started? What is your mission? 
• Don’t send them with empty hands – Give them a Welcome Offer. 
• Include a compelling subject line. 
• Make them revisit your website – Add compelling Call-To-Action. 

Cart Abandonment Emails

You can’t risk avoiding Cart Abandonment Emails when your sales are tied in abandoned carts. They are the best catalysts to make the customers finish their purchase. 

The must-have element to include in your abandoned cart email template is the items abandoned. It helps to remind the customer about the products and have a second opinion. 

To top it up, customize WooCommerce email template as Peel by sending a free shipping cost reminder along with the email. 

What to add to your custom abandoned cart email template: 

• A Call-To-Action button – If the customers are convinced to buy the items, ensure they do so in one click. 
• Create urgency – “Don’t wait too long. Order today.”
• Customize WooCommerce emails to give customers the option to contact you and ask their queries. 

Promotional emails 

Promotional emails are the staple of any Email Marketing Strategy. They are the best in gaining you conversions. Customize WooCommerce email template and go beyond including offers and discounts in a typical way. 

This example is a classic limited-time promotional offer email. This type is perfect for creating urgency and FOMO. It is hard not to fall for this. So, edit WooCommerce email template to include offers in innovative ways. 

What to add to your custom promotional email template: 

• Don’t talk only about the price. Customize WooCommerce emails to tell a unique story about your brand or product.
• If it is about the offer, include the steps to redeem.
• Make the offer code loud and clear.
• Create urgency by including timers. 
• Include a strong Call-To-Action. 

Referral Emails

Take word-of-mouth to the next level with referral emails. They are a great way to acquire new customers by leveraging your existing customer base. 

A pro tip for you: Customize WooCommerce emails to include success stories or testimonials from other users who’ve benefited from the referral program. 

What to add to your custom referral email template:

• Focus on incentives – Clearly state the offers or rewards for both the referrer and the referred. 
• Easy Sharing Options – Include tools or features that make it easy for subscribers to share their referral link/code via email, social media, or messaging apps. Make it easy to find in your custom email template. 
• Strong Call-to-Action – Make it evident and straightforward, such as “Refer Now”  or “Get Invite Link.”

Win-back Emails 

Let’s admit it – Reengaging an existing customer is much easier than acquiring a new one. Because they are already familiar with the brand, it is easier to persuade them. You just have to jog their memory. 

In our example, PrintFresh made a classic move – to allure the customer with a discount. You can also customize WooCommerce emails to feature discounts and make them compelling. 

What to add to your custom win-back email template: 

• Showcase New Products/Features- Highlight what’s changed since they last visited. 
• Include a feedback option in your custom WooCommerce email template to share genuine issues they had with your product. 
• Let them know that you have noticed their absence. 
• Make them pick an option – Unsubscribe or claim the offer.

Wrapping up! 

While sending emails, increasing customer engagement should be your prime target, as only the engaged customers will take action. With a lot of options and plugins for customizing WooCommerce email templates, you can create a personalized email that achieves the best customer engagement. 

Don’t have the Retainful plugin yet. Click here to start free and increase your conversions. 

Read these blogs to learn more about WooCommerce Email templates.

1. How to use images in your email campaigns – Complete Guide
2. 10 Best Thank You Email Templates and Examples to Delight Your eCommerce Customers
3. How to Set the Perfect Abandoned Cart Email Template