FunnelKit Automations Review: Marketing Automation for WooCommerce

What Is FunnelKit Automations (Autonami)?

FunnelKit Automations — originally known as Autonami and built by the WooFunnels team — is a WordPress-based marketing automation plugin. You'll see products like this labeled as "CRMs," but that's a bit misleading. True CRMs are about manually tracking prospects through a sales pipeline. FunnelKit Automations is really about marketing automation: taking you out of the equation so technology handles the repetitive work of nurturing leads and driving sales.

It sits alongside competitors like FluentCRM and Groundhogg in the self-hosted WordPress email space, but FunnelKit Automations has a very specific focus: WooCommerce. If you're not running WooCommerce, this probably isn't for you. But if you are — especially if you're also using FunnelKit's Funnel Builder — you unlock a seriously powerful combination of sales funnel data and marketing automation all living on the same WordPress installation.

That WooCommerce focus isn't a limitation so much as a deliberate design choice. It means the plugin can tap directly into order data, cart activity, and customer behavior without needing to shuttle information between third-party services. Everything stays on your server, which has real implications for both privacy and cost.

Why Self-Host Your Email Marketing?

The biggest draw of self-hosting your email marketing is cost savings. To put it in perspective, ActiveCampaign's Professional plan runs about $279 per month for 10,000 contacts — and that's whether you send emails that month or not. With a self-hosted setup using Amazon SES as your sending provider, you're paying pennies per email with zero monthly subscription for the contacts themselves.

There's also the data privacy angle. All of your subscriber data, behavioral tracking, and purchase history stays on your own server rather than sitting in a third-party database. You're a much smaller target for hackers than a major SaaS platform with millions of users' data. That said, this means you need to take responsibility for your own server security and backups.

The tradeoff is infrastructure overhead. Running email marketing on the same WordPress installation that handles your WooCommerce store means your server needs enough resources to handle both. You'll likely want a VPS with at least 4-8 GB of RAM if you're doing any meaningful volume. The good news is that modern cloud hosting from providers like Vultr, AWS, or DigitalOcean lets you scale up on demand — and even with higher hosting costs, you're still saving significantly compared to SaaS email marketing platforms.

Top 3 Features That Stand Out

The first feature that really sets FunnelKit Automations apart is abandoned cart tracking with personalized coupon codes. When someone leaves items in their WooCommerce cart, the plugin can trigger a sequence of recovery emails — and each email can include a unique, auto-generated coupon code with a custom expiration time and restrictions tied to that specific customer's email address. This prevents coupon abuse while still giving you a powerful tool to recover lost revenue.

Second is the deep WooCommerce order tracking and segmentation. You can build dynamic segments based on purchase history: how many times a customer has ordered, their average order value, what specific products they've bought. Want to create a VIP segment of your highest-spending customers and send them exclusive offers? That's straightforward here. This is the kind of granular e-commerce segmentation that Shopify users get with Klaviyo, but it hasn't been readily available in the WordPress ecosystem until now.

Third is A/B testing for broadcast emails, and the implementation is excellent. You set a sample size — say 10% of your list — and FunnelKit sends both variants to that sample. After a configurable waiting period (say 3-8 hours), it automatically sends the winning subject line to the remaining 90%. No manual intervention required. You can test up to three variants, which is the practical limit for meaningful A/B testing anyway.

Setting Up Email Sending with Amazon SES

Before FunnelKit Automations can send anything, your WordPress site needs a transactional email provider configured. This is a requirement for every WordPress site in 2021 and beyond — relying on your host's default mail handling simply isn't reliable enough. The recommended approach is the free FluentSMTP plugin paired with Amazon SES.

The setup involves creating an IAM user in your AWS account with SES full access permissions, then copying the access key and secret key into FluentSMTP's settings. You'll need to select the correct AWS region (matching wherever your SES account is set up) and save the connection. For production sites, it's worth putting those credentials in your wp-config.php file rather than storing them in the database, though the plugin gives you instructions for that.

One important detail: if you've never used Amazon SES before, your account starts in sandbox mode, which restricts who you can send to. You'll need to request production access from AWS before you can send to anyone. Once you're out of sandbox, check your sending statistics in the SES console — you'll see your maximum sending rate (emails per second) and daily quota. These numbers need to be configured in FunnelKit Automations' settings so the plugin doesn't try to exceed your SES limits.

Configuring Bounce Management with SNS

Bounce handling is critical for maintaining your sender reputation. When emails bounce or recipients mark them as spam, you need those contacts removed from circulation immediately. FunnelKit Automations handles this through Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service), which acts as a webhook bridge between SES and your WordPress site.

The setup requires creating a standard SNS topic (not the newer FIFO type), then adding an HTTPS subscription using the webhook URL that FunnelKit Automations provides in its settings panel. Once the subscription is confirmed, you connect it to SES by going to your verified domain's notification settings and assigning the SNS topic to both bounces and complaints. Turn off email feedback forwarding — let the software handle it automatically rather than cluttering your inbox.

With bounce tracking active, FunnelKit Automations will automatically flag bounced and complained contacts, preventing further sends to those addresses. This protects your SES sending reputation and keeps your deliverability rates healthy. It's a bit of initial setup work, but once configured, it runs entirely on autopilot.

The Email Builder Experience

FunnelKit Automations offers three email composition modes: plain text, raw HTML, and a drag-and-drop visual editor. For most e-commerce use cases, the drag-and-drop builder is where you'll spend your time, and it's genuinely impressive for a WordPress plugin.

The builder uses a row-and-column system similar to page builders like Elementor. You can drag in content blocks — headings, text, product cards, images, dividers, buttons — and arrange them within customizable rows. Each row supports background colors, padding controls (with the option to set different values per side), and borders. You can adjust the overall content width (600-650px tends to work best for email) and add spacing between rows. Building a polished, Morning Brew-style newsletter layout is actually quite achievable here, which is more than you can say for many paid SaaS email editors.

Personalization tokens (which the plugin calls "merge tags") let you insert dynamic content like first names, order details, and custom field values directly into your emails. The text editing toolbar covers all the basics: alignment, bold, underline, emojis, and linking. One nice touch is the preview text field, which lets you customize the snippet that appears in email clients alongside the subject line — a small detail that can meaningfully impact open rates.

Form Integrations and Getting Contacts In

Rather than building a half-baked form builder, the FunnelKit team made the smart decision to integrate with existing WordPress form plugins. The supported options include Elementor forms, Gravity Forms, WP Forms, Fluent Forms, and WooFunnels' own opt-in forms from Funnel Builder.

Connecting a form takes just a few clicks. Select your form plugin, choose the specific form, and FunnelKit Automations pulls in all of the form's fields for mapping. You assign which fields correspond to contact properties like name and email, then configure what tags or list assignments should be applied when someone submits the form. This tag-on-submit approach is the foundation of how segmentation works throughout the platform.

Segmentation: Tags, Lists, and Dynamic Audiences

FunnelKit Automations offers three segmentation mechanisms: tags, lists, and dynamic audiences. Honestly, you can skip lists entirely — they're a legacy concept from platforms like Mailchimp that modern tag-based systems have made obsolete. Tags and dynamic audiences give you everything you need.

Tags work as a running record of actions and attributes: "newsletter-opt-in," "purchased-course-x," "abandoned-cart," and so on. They're portable, meaning if you ever migrate to another platform, any email marketing tool will understand tag-based segmentation. Dynamic audiences (segments) are saved filters that automatically include or exclude contacts based on their tags, purchase behavior, or custom field values. Create an audience for "newsletter subscribers" filtered by the "newsletter-opt-in" tag, and anyone who gets that tag — from any form, automation, or manual assignment — is automatically included.

One minor friction point: you can't create new tags inline while building a segment. You need to go to the tags section first, create the tag, then come back to the audience builder to use it. It's a small workflow issue, but it adds unnecessary clicks to what should be a fluid process.

Contact Management and WooCommerce Insights

The contact management interface is built with React.js, which makes it noticeably faster than typical WordPress admin pages. Each contact profile gives you a consolidated view of their entire history: purchases, average order value, funnel activity, emails sent, SMS messages, and notes. If you're using Funnel Builder alongside FunnelKit Automations, this becomes especially powerful — you can see every opt-in, purchase, upsell, and bump offer from a single screen.

The contact list view supports custom columns, so you can show or hide fields like tags, lists, phone numbers, and custom fields. Speaking of custom fields, they're useful for data that doesn't fit the tag model — things like company phone numbers, subscription status, or any attribute that's more of a current state than a historical event. Each custom field automatically generates a personalization token you can use in emails.

Import and export functionality is available from the start, which is worth noting because FluentCRM launched without it and took a while to add the feature. Being able to easily move contacts in and out of the platform is essential, especially when you're evaluating whether self-hosted email marketing is the right long-term fit for your business.

Abandoned Cart Recovery That Actually Works

Cart abandonment recovery is where FunnelKit Automations really shines, thanks to the tight WooCommerce integration. Since everything lives on the same WordPress installation, the plugin can capture cart contents, track abandonment timing, and restore carts for returning customers without any external API calls or data synchronization.

The cart settings let you configure key parameters: how long to wait before marking a cart as abandoned (the default 15 minutes feels too aggressive — an hour or two is more reasonable), a cool-off period to exclude recent buyers from recovery emails, and when to classify a cart as permanently lost. You can optionally start tracking at the "add to cart" stage rather than checkout, though this only works for logged-in users since you need an email address to send recovery emails.

The recovery workflow itself is built as an automation: cart abandoned triggers the sequence, then you configure delays and emails with optional coupon generation. Each auto-generated coupon can have a custom expiration (say 72 hours), be restricted to the specific customer's email address to prevent sharing, and be based on an existing coupon template. The system tracks three statuses — recoverable, recovered, and lost — giving you clear visibility into how effective your recovery campaigns are.

Automation Workflows and Drip Sequences

The automation builder uses a visual workflow editor where you chain together triggers, delays, actions, and conditional branches. For e-commerce, the cart abandonment trigger is the star, but you can build automations around other WooCommerce events as well.

Conditional logic adds real sophistication. For example, you could branch your abandoned cart sequence based on cart value: customers with carts over $1,000 get a personalized coupon code, while smaller carts just get a reminder email. The delay blocks are surprisingly flexible — you can set fixed delays (24 hours, 2 days), schedule for specific times of day (all recovery emails go out at 9 AM), or restrict sending to certain days of the week (skip weekends, for instance).

The automation builder isn't quite at the level of dedicated platforms like ActiveCampaign when it comes to conditional complexity. Notably, you can't currently branch based on whether someone opened a previous email in the sequence — a fairly standard automation trigger elsewhere. Everything conditional is tied to WooCommerce data rather than email engagement data. That said, the foundation is solid, and the WooCommerce-specific conditions (cart total, order count, product purchased) are exactly what e-commerce stores need most.

Metrics, Analytics, and Engagement Insights

Each automation in FunnelKit Automations comes with detailed per-email metrics: sends, opens, click rates, unsubscribes, conversions, and — most importantly — revenue attributed to each email. You can drill down into the actual WooCommerce orders associated with a specific broadcast or automation email, giving you a clear picture of ROI that most self-hosted solutions simply can't provide.

The analytics dashboard breaks down performance across abandoned cart sequences, individual contacts, email campaigns, and SMS messages. But the real gem is the engagement heatmap, which shows you when your audience opens emails by time of day and day of the week. This data alone can significantly improve your email marketing results — if you know your audience opens emails primarily on Tuesday mornings, that's when you should be scheduling your broadcasts.

One tracking limitation to be aware of: FunnelKit Automations only tracks behavior at the cart and email level. Unlike Mautic or ActiveCampaign, there's no site-wide tracking pixel that follows visitors across your entire website. You won't see which product pages someone browsed before opting in. If that kind of behavioral data is important to your marketing strategy, you'll need to supplement with another tool.

SMS Messaging with Twilio Integration

FunnelKit Automations supports SMS messaging through Twilio integration, and the setup is about as simple as it gets. Connect your Twilio account by copying your SID, auth token, and phone number from the Twilio dashboard into FunnelKit's connector settings.

Once connected, SMS becomes available everywhere emails are: you can add text messages to automation workflows (perfect for cart recovery — a quick SMS alongside the email sequence), send SMS broadcasts to segments, and even run A/B tests on your text messages. Personalization tokens work in SMS just like they do in emails, so you can include customer names, coupon codes, or order details.

The key settings to configure are the unsubscribe handling — recipients need to be able to text "STOP" to opt out, and you want that working correctly from day one to stay compliant. You'll also need to collect phone numbers, which is most natural during the WooCommerce checkout process rather than on a standard opt-in form.

Final Verdict: Who Should Use FunnelKit Automations?

FunnelKit Automations is a strong product for a specific audience: WooCommerce store owners who want to bring their email marketing in-house. The combination of deep WooCommerce integration, abandoned cart recovery with personalized coupons, solid A/B testing, and a genuinely good email builder makes it a compelling alternative to paying $200-300+ per month for ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo.

The ideal setup is a single WordPress installation running WooCommerce and FunnelKit's Funnel Builder, all on a capable VPS. If that describes your stack, this is a no-brainer to evaluate. The plugin works best when everything lives on one WordPress install — if you're running separate sites for your LMS, forum, and store with single sign-on between them, the complexity of connecting everything may outweigh the benefits.

Where you might look elsewhere: if you don't use WooCommerce at all, if you need site-wide behavioral tracking beyond cart activity, or if you need advanced automation conditions based on email engagement (like re-sending to non-openers). The conditional automation builder has room to grow, but the WooCommerce-specific conditions it does offer are exactly what online stores need. Tag everything from day one — it keeps your data portable and makes any future migration painless.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.