4 Ways Email Automation Will Reshape Customer Journeys in 2026

In 2026, businesses that want to succeed can no longer send ‘one-size-fits-all’ email campaigns to their entire contact list or segment consumers by simple demographics such as gender, age, or location. In fact, data shows that 71% of consumers expect businesses to deliver personalized interactions.

Innovative email automation tools, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), can segment consumers based on their actions and inactions, such as clicking a link, searching for a product, leaving a website, or walking into a store. This ensures that your prospects receive personalized email campaigns that align with their interests, buyer behaviours, and preferences.

Common automated email campaigns include personalized welcome emails that greet new subscribers by name, order confirmations, shipping notifications that keep customers updated, abandoned cart reminders that drive sales recovery, and re-engagement emails to reconnect with inactive subscribers.

Not only does email automation free up time for more valuable business tasks, like customer service, but it’s also a strategy that can reshape a customer’s buying journey. 

This article will dive into customer journeys and how they are being reshaped by email automation. 

What Is The Customer Journey And Why Is It Important?

All the experiences a person has with a business, from the initial awareness stage to post-purchase advocacy, are part of the customer journey. Not every customer journey is linear or follows the same order, but there are five generic stages to the customer journey, including:

• Awareness: This is the initial stage when a prospect becomes passively or proactively aware of your business. Customers become passively aware by seeing an advertisement or sponsored social media post, or become proactively aware by conducting a search that brings your website to the top of their search engine results pages (SERPs). 
• Consideration: During this stage, the prospect would consider why they should buy your products or services rather than your competitors’. This may involve checking online reviews, browsing your social media, or asking trusted friends or colleagues what they know about your business. 
• Decision: In this stage, the individual goes from being a potential customer to a customer. They decided to make a purchase based on the information they have and deemed your business to meet their needs. Depending on the perceived importance and value of the purchase, it can take a long time to reach this phase.
• Retention: The retention stage focuses on keeping your customers happy and engaged after they receive their purchase, through excellent customer service and relevant email campaigns. Your interactions in this stage will convince customers to make repeat purchases, increasing loyalty.
• Advocacy: In the final stage, you want your customers to become advocates for your business (and free marketing material). If you have exceeded their expectations in the early stages of their customer journey, they will voluntarily talk about your business to their colleagues, family, and friends. Not all customers will reach this stage, but loyalty programs and referral schemes can ensure many of them become loyal advocates for your business.

Mapping a customer’s journey is important because it helps businesses understand where a customer is in their buying journey and target them accordingly. For example, when a prospect is in the consideration stage, you should send them email campaigns that show why they should choose your products or services over competitors’.

Email campaigns that appeal to the current interests and needs of prospects or customers, and track relevant sales KPIs, are more likely to keep them engaged, which in turn drives conversions and fosters loyalty.

4 Ways Email Automation Will Reshape The Customer Journey In 2026

1. Automated lead nurturing 

Nurturing your leads is a great way to reshape the customer journey, shooting a prospect straight from the awareness stage (after signing up for your newsletter) to the retention stage (buying from you time and time again). 

However, depending on the industry you are in, there are many different ways to nurture your leads. For example, eCommerce and retail businesses may send automated emails to promote their products, offer discounts, or remind customers about abandoned carts. This can take a prospect from the awareness stage of their journey straight to the decision stage. In addition, continued post-purchase nurturing can increase loyalty and advocacy.

Meanwhile, Business-to-Business (B2B) and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers can use automation to send a welcome email to any new clients or leads who have filled in the contact form on their website. This welcome email might ask them if they want to schedule a follow-up call or watch a video explaining how to use the service, which will nurture the relationship from the get-go and later boost brand loyalty and advocacy. 

A good example of an email marketing platform that can help you segment and nurture your leads in Hostinger Reach. Its AI-powered engine helps you segment your contacts, build emails in seconds, and set up effective automations. 

2. Emails received at the right time 

Sending an email at the right time is critical for reshaping a customer’s journey with your business. Luckily, email automation tools take responsibility for analyzing your email metrics, such as open rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate, and scheduling your campaigns. 

For example, if metrics show your open rate is at its highest between 10 am and 11 am, then your chosen email automation tool can schedule your personalized campaigns to send during this time. You don’t need to be near your computer or even at work.

3. Scalable and adaptable 

As technology advances and email inboxes become more competitive, businesses must be able to offer all prospects (leads) and customers a personalized experience, regardless of how large their email list grows. You can’t help customers take the next step in their buying journey if you have forgotten about them. 

With smart email automation tools, businesses can send personalized emails to millions of customers without needing a large marketing department. This makes it easy to scale and adapt your email marketing campaign as the business expands and your customer base grows.

4. No-over sending 

One of the main reasons people unsubscribe from an email list is that they receive emails too frequently. Even subscribers who express a genuine interest in your business will unsubscribe if they perceive your email frequency is overwhelming or annoying. 

Consider using the welcome email to thank the subscriber for joining and let them know how often they’ll hear from you via email. In addition, focus on the quality and personalization of your email campaigns rather than the quantity.

Smart email automation tools use data and analytics to understand how much is too much for each subscriber. Sending each subscriber a set of emails at their preferred frequency ensures they can continue their customer journey without becoming annoyed by your campaigns and unsubscribing.

The Future Of Email Automation

Research shows that over 80% of businesses now rely on email marketing automation. We can expect this number to grow as new technologies, changing customer habits, and stricter privacy rules shape email automation. Here are some key points to consider about the future of email automation:

• The most successful email campaigns aren’t text-heavy, and we are likely to see more interactive email formats emerge, allowing consumers to play short games, complete surveys or quizzes, and shop for products without leaving their inbox.
• AI algorithms are likely to get faster and smarter at predicting user behaviours and optimizing send times. 
• As third-party cookies phase out, email automation tools will leverage zero-party data (information users willingly share) and first-party data (behavioral data from owned platforms) to gain consumer information. 

For many years, email marketing has helped businesses engage their prospects and customers. With the rise of AI and automation, it’s a no-brainer that businesses will welcome an email automation strategy that maintains consistent and personalized communication, reduces manual work, and reshapes the customer journey.

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Milena Baghdasaryan

Content Specialist at PowerDMARC

Milena is a skilled writer and content creator with 7+ years of experience in crafting engaging content on IT, cybersecurity, virtual events, and more. She has a proven track record of delivering high-quality work for international magazines and is a graduate of prestigious institutions such as New York University Abu Dhabi, UWC China, and the College of Europe.

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