What is marketing automation and what is marketing automation?
Tips
20 June 2025
Marketing automation, i.e. the automation of a company's promotional activities, is currently gaining popularity. This is not surprising, as such activities benefit both the online shop and its customers. What is marketing automation and why will it also work for your company?
Marketing automation - what is it?
Online marketing automation is a series of processes aimed at building sales and after-sales service with as little human input as possible. In other words, many activities that could be performed by a human are taken over by special marketing automation tools. These include personalised emails, advertisements and visible content on the website. The effectiveness of all of these depends on three types of customer data - declarative, transactional and behavioural.
The implementation of marketing automation starts with basic, declarative information. As the name suggests, this is data provided by the customers themselves, when filling in the contact form. This includes, for example, the place of residence. Sometimes the person buying a particular product selects it from specific categories allowing the user's gender and age to be determined with high probability.
The automation of e-commerce processes further relies on the use of transactional data. Based on how much a person has paid or regularly pays, the system determines their level of affluence and, ultimately, which products they may be interested in. For retailers, this gives them the chance to better match the customer with the products on offer. Transactional data complements behavioural data. For shop operators and marketers, it provides information on which products from the range were browsed by the internet user, how many of these were put into the virtual shopping basket, and why and at what stage, if any, he or she abandoned the purchase. 
How does marketing automation work in practice?
Marketing automation activities include both monitoring the customer's behaviour on the e-commerce website and on the mobile app. Their activity on the company's social media profiles is also relevant. Based on the data collected from all these platforms, advertising campaigns can be automated for individual audiences. Importantly, it is important to remember that the automation of marketing processes is based precisely on personalisation. A mass, repetitive message in no way translates into customer retention, let alone new customer acquisition.
One example is email campaigns used in marketing automation. What does such promotion consist of? It has two objectives - to build brand awareness as being interested in the customer's opinion and to increase sales through lead nurturing, i.e. providing information about new offers. The first action is usually to send a message with a short survey in which the customer can answer questions about how they rate the purchase and delivery process. The second element of the strategy consists of proposing further products from the catalogue. Their selection according to customer preferences is handled by software that processes data on consumer purchasing preferences.
Marketing automation in e-commerce is increasingly complemented by messages in the mobile app. As in e-mails, they can present your offer and offer loyalty programmes and discounts. The messages sent by the programme work well for both regular and occasional customers. The first group can be rewarded in this way for existing regular purchases. In this way, e-commerce has the opportunity to sustain consumer engagement. On the other hand, those who have bought a product once or buy infrequently are thus encouraged to be more active shoppers.
Segmentation, i.e. the division of customers according to declarative, transactional and behavioural criteria, also works on websites. The first battleground for customers is your own website. To increase sales conversions, it is best if the content on the website changes dynamically. In other words, the banners displayed on the website should be tailored to a person's existing purchasing preferences. Such marketing automation furthermore works well on external sites. Thanks to dynamic adverts, not only a regular customer, but also a person who may have already forgotten about the existence of the e-store, can be encouraged to make repeat purchases.
What features does marketing automation have?
The primary function of automated marketing is to analyse customer behaviour. This allows e-commerce to classify them based on selected criteria. This segmentation makes it possible to tailor the offer to their needs and encourage further purchases using communication channels such as email, mobile app notifications and contextual advertising. This type of action significantly helps to stand out in a market full of online shops with the same business profile.
Another function of automated online marketing is to monitor the purchasing process and check the customer's response to the advertising material sent. In the first case, the software checks what individuals are buying and how many of them bring the purchasing process to a conclusion. The second function of the marketing automation tools allows you to check how many of the e-mails sent are opened, how many are rejected, how often notifications from the app are met with a response in the form of clicking on a link with an offer, etc. 
What are the advantages of using marketing automation?
The advantages of marketing automation are appreciated by businesses of all sizes, and one of the reasons for this is the possibility of optimising the expenditure needed for promotion. Precise selection of offers according to the interests and expectations of customers gives a much better chance of acquiring the best sales leads, i.e. those most determined to make a purchase in the e-shop. This action is much more effective than starting with a promotional message to an undefined group of people. In this case, you never know how many of them are actually interested in the offer of a given company.
By automating marketing, it is also possible to learn about customers' tastes. This, in turn, paves the way for tailoring the entire offer to their needs. For it cannot be ruled out that they would like to buy products that were not previously in the range and that no one in the webshop knew had sales potential. However, it must be remembered that even the best offer may not be enough if the purchasing process itself is not as convenient as possible for the buyer. This is where another advantage of automated marketing comes to light, i.e. the opportunity to find out users' opinions about possible shortcomings in the purchasing process, i.e. missing payment or delivery options.
Ultimately, the winners of implementing a marketing automation strategy are everyone. Customers receive promotional offers that really interest them, not spam. Thanks to their feedback, the online shop can learn what changes to the offer or the shopping experience it should implement. The implementation of improvements contributes to even greater consumer satisfaction. As a result, there is a high probability that they will shop there more often. Satisfaction with the service is likely to encourage them to tell others about the e-shop and thus make even more money.
Marketing automation - what benefits does it offer?
Marketing automation also brings benefits that are not visible to customers. For online shop owners, it allows, among other things, the cooperation between the sales and advertising departments to be improved. This is of considerable importance to the company's sales representatives, who are thus able to create more favourable sales plans. In other words, equipped with knowledge of the customers' expectations, they can negotiate prices for the wholesale purchase of products taking into account both the distributor's and the e-shop's profits, all to the benefit of the customers.
The implementation of automated marketing tools also facilitates the work of the customer service department. Knowing shoppers' expectations reduces the number of possible complaints and claims related to, for example, a misrepresented offer. An online shop that is aware of consumer expectations can, for example, specify delivery times that are important to shoppers and thus avoid calls from people asking when the order will arrive.
How long does it take to fully implement marketing automation and what does it depend on?
The implementation and use of marketing automation tools can take anywhere from a few days to several months depending on the size of the online shop. This is influenced by the number of assortments and customers, as well as the size of the part of the company's staff that has been assigned the task of introducing a new promotional strategy. All of this affects the time it takes to implement the tool and analyse the first results, and then to create a promotional campaign based on it.
It is possible that this time will increase when an audit of existing activities reveals the absence of any of the customer communication channels. An example would be the absence of contextual advertising on the website. In this case, it will be necessary to initiate changes and re-measure the results of the marketing action.
Marketing automation makes the job of those responsible for promoting a company easier, while helping to increase its profits. It also benefits customers, who are thus able to see the product and service offerings that really interest them. There are no losers in the implementation of marketing automation, which makes it worth investing in programmes to manage it.
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