Customer.io Use Cases: Onboarding, Cart Abandonment & More
Customer.io works best when you message users based on their behavior. Here are the most effective automations and how to build them.
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Customer.io delivers the most value to companies that have users in their product and want to talk to them at the right moment, not send the same newsletter to everyone. We’ve collected the use cases where behavior-based messages work best, along with how to build them.
For how to send people and events to Customer.io and build your first automation, see our Customer.io tutorial.
Where to Start with Customer.io
Don’t build five automations at once. Start with one: a welcome series, because it applies to every new user and shows results fastest. You only need two things: identification at signup and one event marking that the user did something important. Once your welcome series is running and you know how to measure it, add re-engagement for inactive users, then the rest.
For every new automation, ask yourself: when should someone exit it? An automation without exit conditions is a recipe for annoying messages.
Onboarding New Users
The most common and most profitable use case. A new person signs up and doesn’t know where to start. A welcome series reacts to what the user has already done: those who configured their account get tips for the next step, those who got stuck get a reminder with an example. Customer.io documentation lists these series as a typical use case for attribute and segment-based triggers.
Re-engaging Inactive Users
A user stops logging in. A segment “no login for 14 days” triggers an automation with a reminder about what’s new in the product, or a question about what’s missing. When the person returns, they exit the automation and don’t receive further messages.
Abandoned Cart Recovery
A store sends add-to-cart and purchase events to Customer.io. The automation triggers after adding to cart, waits an hour, checks whether a purchase happened, and if not, sends a reminder. A second message the next day, exit after purchase.
Surveys and Feedback at the Right Time
A request for feedback sent a week after purchase or after the tenth use of a feature has a better chance of response than a survey to your entire list. Recurring satisfaction surveys are one of the examples the documentation gives for attribute-based triggers.
Announcements for Specific Segments
A new feature for business plan users, a pricing change for people with annual plans. A one-time send to a segment ensures everyone only gets information that applies to them, which reduces unsubscribes.
Multiple Channels in One Journey
Email, SMS, push notification, and in-app message in one automation. Example: email reminder, and if that doesn’t work, a push notification two days later. An automation can also send a message to your company Slack when an important customer stops using the product, so their account manager can call.
Transactional Messages
Confirmations, password resets, and notifications sent in response to user actions can also go through Customer.io. All customer communication is then in one place, with a history of what everyone received.
Example: Language Learning App
An app sends lesson completion events. Three automations: a welcome series for new users with an exit after the first lesson, a reminder after three days without a lesson with a short exercise in the email body, and congratulations after the tenth lesson with a request to rate the app in the app store. Each message relates to what the user just did or stopped doing, so it doesn’t look like a mass send.
In this example, each automation has its own exit condition, and that’s their most important feature. A person who returned to learning stops receiving reminders, and one who rated the app doesn’t get the request a second time. Without these conditions, the same person could receive a reminder, congratulations, and a rating request all in one week. When designing a new automation, it’s always worth checking whether it overlaps with existing ones.
What to Watch Out For
- Marketing consent: promotional messages require consent, transactional ones don’t.
- Frequency: several automations at once can bury one person in messages.
- Data quality: without well-named events, segments stop working.
How to Tell If It’s Worth It
Every automation should have one number it’s meant to improve. Welcome series: percentage of people who completed a key action. Re-engagement: percentage of people who returned. Abandoned cart: recovered orders. You compare that number before launch and after a month of running. If the improvement is clear and the plan cost is less than the value of recovered customers, the math is simple.
It’s also worth checking unsubscribe numbers periodically. A rising unsubscribe count is a signal that messages are coming too often or don’t apply to recipients.
With all these use cases, remember one thing: a behavior-based message is only effective when the data is current. If a purchase event arrives with a delay, the customer will get a cart reminder for a cart they already paid for. So before launching any new automation, test with a few test users to make sure events arrive on time.
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