As we saw in the 1st part of this article, there are lots of automation tools that can make your eCommerce more efficient and customer-oriented. Furthermore, we showed you that you can save a lot of precious time and boost your sales by automating many aspects of your online store.
Now, in the second part, we will dive into the various ways to automate some processes related to your business. We will present practical examples to inspire you to adopt automation processes. Discover how to optimize your business, reduce repetitive tasks and improve your customer experience.
Remember that this article has two parts! In both, we will cover some benefits of automating your online store, including:
- In the 1st part, we looked at some automation tools to use in your online store; and
- In the 2nd part, different ways to automate your business, through case studies and practical examples.
Practical examples of automation
Let’s now look at some workflows that will help you optimize your tasks. In this context, to efficiently connect the different tools, we will use a workflow automation platform that allows us to create custom integrations and build sophisticated logic between the tools. Let’s go?!
Note: the workflows presented were created on the n8n platform. You can check all the platform’s information at: https://n8n.io/ – However, these processes are also adapted to other platforms, such as Zapier. If you have any questions, contact us. Good luck!
1) Automation of processes related to Mailchimp
Although Mailchimp is an automation tool in itself, you can improve this automation even further by integrating Mailchimp with other tools. To do this, you will need an API key. Here is the process of creating an API key in Mailchimp.
- Log in to your Mailchimp dashboard.
- Click on the user icon and select the “Account” option from the drop-down menu.
- Navigate to the “Extras” tab and select “API Keys” from the drop-down menu.
- Click the “Create a Key” button.
And, that’s it! You have successfully generated an API key! Now it’s time to use it during the integration processes.
As an example, imagine that you want to connect Airtable, Google Sheets, or other software, to automate your marketing and sales process.
Example 1: Suppose you want to add a new member to Mailchimp from Airtable. Simply use the following workflow (depicted in the image), add credentials and run. The workflow will look like this:
Example 2: Additionally, you can also create members in Mailchimp from Google Sheets. In that case, you can use the following workflow, from Google Sheets to Mailchimp:
These are just two practical examples of possible integrations of different platforms with Mailchimp. From here on, imagination is the limit!
2) Automating processes related to Asana
Asana is a complete project management tool. It is mainly used to organize and manage projects from a single platform. By integrating Asana with your online store, you can automate tasks related to customer orders or, for example, orders from suppliers. To automate Asana tasks, you must first have an Access Token. Here are the steps to create it:
- Sign in or create your Asana account.
- Click on “My Profile Settings” from the user icon located in the top right corner.
- Navigate to the “Applications” tab.
- Click on the Manage Developer Applications option.
- If you are a new user, click on the “New Access Token” button.
- For existing users, click the “Create New Token” button.
- Enter the token name and accept the API terms and conditions.
- Click on the “Create Token” button.
Attention: immediately copy and save the token number you just generated, as you will not be able to access it after closing the tab. Here is the visual representation of these steps:
From now on, you can create workflows to automatically create a task in Asana. To configure the connection, take the following parameters into account:
- Authentication Type
- Credentials for the Asana API
- Resource
- Operation
- Workspace name or ID
- Name
You can then add some additional fields, such as the name of the person responsible, the due date, the project ID, or other data that you find interesting. Here is a representation of the workflow:
This is a simple process to automate through Asana. However, in addition to this, there are other ways to automate tasks. For example, if you want to create a ticket in Asana from your online store, you can do so using a flow similar to this:
3) Automation of processes related to Customer.io
Customer.io is an advanced messaging platform. Among its features, we can highlight sending SMS, notifications and emails.
In the case of eCommerce, and as an example, it is possible to create a bot to automate various communication tasks. To use customer.io-related workflows, an API key is required. Here is the process to generate your key:
- Log in to the customer.io dashboard.
- Select Account Settings by clicking the user icon in the top right corner.
- Click API Credentials.
- Click the Create Tracking API Key button.
- Enter the API name and choose a workspace.
- Click the Create Tracking API Key button.
- Navigate to the next tab, Application API Key.
- Click the Create Application API Key button.
- Enter the API key name and choose a workspace.
- Click the Create Application API Key button next to the workspace.
Note: Immediately copies the application’s API key after creating it. You will not be able to access it later.
Now it’s time to use these credentials when creating workflows. Here is an example of one of these flows:
In this example, we created an automation to automatically create a customer, as well as its respective segmentation, on customer.io. Here is the process:
- Double-click the Customer.io node.
- Click on the Customer.io API Credential option.
- Choose -Create New- from the drop-down menu.
- Enter the Tracking API Key, Tracking Site ID, and Application API Key.
- Click the Save button in the top right corner.
- Choose the appropriate Resource, Operation, ID and other additional fields (if necessary).
- Runs the node.
- Double-click the Customer.io node.
- Choose the previously generated Credential.
- Choose the appropriate Resource, Operation, Segment ID and Customer IDs.
- Runs the node.
You can then run the complete automation workflow by clicking the “Run Workflow” button, or add another “trigger”, originating, for example, from actions performed in your online store.
In conclusion, automation is a great choice to boost your business in many ways. From automating marketing and customer support to efficiently managing contacts and leads, there are many tools that make operations more efficient, save time and, most importantly, contribute to customer satisfaction.
Consider your goals and budget when choosing the tool that best suits your business, and start reaping the benefits of a more efficient, customer-oriented approach to ecommerce. Oh, and don’t miss the 1st part of this content, where I show you some additional automation tools to use in your online store.