Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing platform built primarily for ecommerce — it connects to Shopify and WooCommerce, fires automated messages based on purchase behavior, and handles cart abandonment sequences, post-purchase flows, and promotional campaigns in one place.
If your business runs on WordPress with WooCommerce, connecting Omnisend is straightforward and unlocks significant automation capability. But there’s a gap that most integrations don’t address: knowing which marketing brought in the subscriber or customer in the first place.
This post covers how to connect Omnisend to WordPress, how the WooCommerce integration works, and how to add lead source tracking so you know which channels are driving the subscribers — and customers — that Omnisend then engages.
Connecting Omnisend to WordPress and WooCommerce
Omnisend maintains an official WooCommerce plugin that handles the core integration. Installation is straightforward:
- Install and activate the Omnisend Email Marketing & SMS plugin from the WordPress plugin repository (search “Omnisend” in Plugins > Add New).
- Connect the plugin to your Omnisend account using your API key (found in Omnisend under Account > API Keys).
- The plugin automatically syncs your existing WooCommerce customers and contact data to Omnisend.
- Going forward, new customers and subscribers are synced in real time.
Once connected, Omnisend receives:
- New contact/subscriber events from WordPress opt-in forms connected to Omnisend
- WooCommerce order events (placed order, fulfilled, refunded, cancelled)
- Cart abandonment events (Omnisend’s tracking script detects abandoned carts)
- Product browse and category view events (for browse abandonment automations)
This event stream is what powers Omnisend’s automations. The plugin fires these events automatically once connected — you don’t need to write custom code for the standard WooCommerce events.
Omnisend Sign-Up Forms on WordPress
Omnisend includes a form builder for creating opt-in forms (popups, embedded forms, landing pages) that capture subscribers directly into your Omnisend audience. These forms are separate from your WordPress theme or any page builder you use, and they sync subscribers to Omnisend automatically.
If you prefer to use a WordPress-native form solution (Gravity Forms, WPForms, Elementor forms, Contact Form 7), you can connect those to Omnisend through Zapier or a direct integration plugin. Zapier’s WordPress trigger (new form submission) can pass the subscriber’s email and any custom fields directly to Omnisend as a new contact.
The advantage of Omnisend’s native forms: built-in exit-intent detection, scroll-based triggers, and display rules. The advantage of WordPress-native forms: they blend into your theme and allow full design control. Both approaches work; the choice depends on how much you want the form experience to match your site design.
Core Automations to Set Up First
With the WooCommerce connection live, the highest-ROI automations to configure immediately:
Welcome Series
Triggered when a new subscriber opts in (not necessarily after a purchase). A 2-3 email welcome series introduces your brand, establishes what subscribers can expect from your emails, and typically includes a first-purchase discount to convert subscribers who haven’t yet bought. Welcome series consistently show the highest open and click rates of any email type.
Abandoned Cart Recovery
Triggered when a known contact (subscriber or previous customer) adds items to the WooCommerce cart but doesn’t complete checkout. A sequence of 2-3 emails — immediate reminder, 24-hour follow-up with social proof, final follow-up with an incentive — recovers a meaningful percentage of carts that would otherwise be lost. Omnisend tracks WooCommerce cart state automatically once the plugin is installed; no additional configuration is needed beyond building the automation.
Post-Purchase Sequence
Triggered by a completed WooCommerce order. Common structure: immediate order confirmation (transactional), shipment notification (if applicable), product review request 7-14 days after delivery, and a repeat purchase prompt 30+ days later offering a complementary product or replenishment reminder. Post-purchase sequences build customer lifetime value by keeping buyers engaged after the initial purchase.
Win-Back for Lapsed Customers
Triggered when a customer has not purchased in a defined window (typically 90-180 days). A 2-part sequence: a re-engagement offer, followed by a final “we’ll miss you” with a stronger incentive. Customers who respond to win-back campaigns have already demonstrated purchase intent — they’re lower cost to convert than cold prospects.
The Attribution Gap: Knowing What Brought Your Subscribers In
Omnisend tells you what happens after someone is in your list: how they engage with emails, whether they click through to purchase, what their lifetime value looks like. What Omnisend does not tell you natively is what marketing channel brought that subscriber to your WordPress site in the first place.
This matters because your marketing mix produces subscribers with very different characteristics. A subscriber who came in through a Facebook ad might be highly engaged with your email but have a lower purchase rate than a subscriber who found you through organic blog content. A subscriber from a paid influencer campaign might have a high first-purchase conversion but low repeat purchase rate. Without lead source data tied to each subscriber, you can’t see these patterns.
The standard approach for adding lead source to Omnisend subscribers:
Pass UTM Data to Omnisend as Custom Fields
When a subscriber opts in through an Omnisend form, you can capture any data that’s in their browser session at the time of opt-in — including UTM parameters stored in session storage or a cookie. Omnisend’s form builder allows custom hidden fields; you can pass UTM values (source, medium, campaign) into those fields at form submit time via JavaScript.
Once those values are passed as custom fields on the contact record, Omnisend stores them permanently. You can then segment your subscriber list by lead source — filtering contacts where “utm_source = facebook” to see how Facebook-acquired subscribers engage and convert compared to email or organic segments.
Use a First-Party Attribution Tool
A cleaner approach is to use a dedicated attribution tool like Sales Provenance that captures lead source on the visitor’s first WordPress session and writes it to every subsequent conversion event — including WooCommerce orders. When a subscriber later purchases, the order in WooCommerce carries the original lead source as order metadata. You can then cross-reference order data with Omnisend’s revenue data to see which acquisition channels are generating the highest-value customers.
The advantage over form-level UTM capture: it persists across sessions. A visitor who arrived from a Google ad, subscribed two weeks later via a direct visit, and purchased a month after that — the Google ad source is captured at the WooCommerce order level even though the subscription event happened later via direct traffic. This is the difference between session-level attribution (what brought them in for this visit) and customer-level attribution (what originally brought them in at all).
Omnisend and SMS in WooCommerce
Omnisend includes SMS alongside email — one of the reasons ecommerce brands prefer it over pure-email tools. The WooCommerce integration supports SMS in automations: cart abandonment SMS (often higher open rates than email abandonment), order confirmation SMS, shipping notification SMS.
To use SMS in Omnisend, you need to collect phone numbers from subscribers. Omnisend’s opt-in forms support phone number fields with SMS consent language. The same form that captures an email can capture a phone number with an optional SMS consent checkbox — subscribers who provide both become reachable via both channels, which Omnisend can use in split-channel automations (send email first, SMS if no click).
SMS rates for WooCommerce merchants vary by country (US, Canada, UK, Australia all have specific regulations around commercial SMS). Omnisend handles the compliance layer if you’re sending domestically; always check TCPA requirements for US SMS marketing if you’re targeting US subscribers.
Omnisend Pricing Relative to Alternatives
Omnisend’s pricing scales with contact list size. At the time of writing, plans start with a free tier (500 emails/month, 60 SMS credits) and scale to paid tiers based on contact count and channel usage. For WooCommerce stores with smaller lists, Omnisend is competitive with Klaviyo and often less expensive at the same contact tier — one reason it’s a common recommendation for growing ecommerce brands that don’t yet have the contact volume that justifies Klaviyo’s premium.
The comparison worth making: Omnisend vs. Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for a WooCommerce store. Omnisend and Klaviyo are built natively for ecommerce with deep purchase-event awareness; Mailchimp is general-purpose with WooCommerce integration added on. If ecommerce automation (cart abandonment, post-purchase flows, browse abandonment) is the priority, Omnisend or Klaviyo will be better fits than Mailchimp.
Getting Started With Omnisend on WordPress
The practical setup sequence:
- Install the official Omnisend WooCommerce plugin and connect it to your Omnisend account.
- Verify the sync by checking that existing WooCommerce customers appear as contacts in Omnisend.
- Set up your opt-in form (Omnisend native or WordPress-native via Zapier) and test a subscription to confirm the contact appears in Omnisend.
- Build and activate the welcome series, abandoned cart, and post-purchase automations.
- Add UTM capture to Omnisend form submissions (custom hidden fields) or implement a first-party attribution tool at the WooCommerce level.
- Monitor campaign performance and automation revenue in Omnisend’s reports; cross-reference with GA4 for channel-level attribution.
If you want help connecting Omnisend to your WordPress store in a way that includes full lead source attribution — so you know not just what emails are converting but what originally brought each subscriber in — Sales Provenance is built for this integration.