Post-Purchase Follow-Up Automation in AcelleMail — Thank, Review, Cross-Sell

The bridge between your store and AcelleMail is where most "post-purchase doesn't fire" bugs hide. Here are concrete patterns for the three most common platforms.

Shopify → AcelleMail:

# 1. In Shopify admin: Settings → Notifications → Webhooks → Create webhook
#    Event: Order creation
#    Format: JSON
#    URL: https://your-bridge.example.com/shopify-to-acelle

# 2. Your bridge service (Cloudflare Worker example):
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  event.respondWith(handle(event.request))
})

async function handle(req) {
  if (req.method !== 'POST') return new Response('', { status: 405 })

  // Verify Shopify HMAC signature
  const body = await req.text()
  const sig = req.headers.get('x-shopify-hmac-sha256')
  const expected = await hmacSha256(body, env.SHOPIFY_WEBHOOK_SECRET)
  if (sig !== expected) return new Response('Bad signature', { status: 401 })

  const order = JSON.parse(body)

  // Push to AcelleMail
  await fetch('https://acellemail.com/api/v1/events', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + env.ACELLE_TOKEN,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      subscriber_email: order.email,
      event: 'purchase_completed',
      data: {
        order_total: order.total_price,
        currency: order.currency,
        products: order.line_items.map(l => l.sku),
      }
    })
  })

  return new Response('ok')
}

The verify HMAC step is critical — without it anyone can spoof a Shopify webhook and trigger your automation.

WooCommerce → AcelleMail (via WordPress action hook):

add_action('woocommerce_order_status_completed', function($order_id) {
    $order = wc_get_order($order_id);
    $email = $order->get_billing_email();
    $total = $order->get_total();

    wp_remote_post('https://acellemail.com/api/v1/events', [
        'headers' => [
            'Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . ACELLE_TOKEN,
            'Content-Type' => 'application/json',
        ],
        'body' => json_encode([
            'subscriber_email' => $email,
            'event' => 'purchase_completed',
            'data' => [
                'order_total' => $total,
                'products' => array_map(fn($i) => $i->get_product()->get_sku(), $order->get_items()),
            ]
        ]),
    ]);
});

Add to your theme's functions.php or a custom plugin.

Stripe Subscriptions → AcelleMail:

# Stripe sends 'customer.subscription.created' / 'customer.subscription.updated' / 'invoice.paid'
# Forward via Stripe webhook → your endpoint:

# Express.js example
app.post('/stripe-to-acelle', express.raw({type: 'application/json'}), async (req, res) => {
  const sig = req.headers['stripe-signature'];
  let event;
  try {
    event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(req.body, sig, STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET);
  } catch (err) { return res.status(400).send('webhook error'); }

  if (event.type === 'invoice.paid') {
    const invoice = event.data.object;
    await fetch('https://acellemail.com/api/v1/events', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: {
        'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + ACELLE_TOKEN,
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({
        subscriber_email: invoice.customer_email,
        event: 'subscription_renewed',
        data: { amount: invoice.amount_paid / 100, currency: invoice.currency },
      }),
    });
  }

  res.json({received: true});
});

Reverse-direction sync (AcelleMail → CRM):

When the post-purchase flow's "review request" comes back with a 1-star NPS, you want a sales / customer-success ticket to open in your CRM. Use AcelleMail's automation Send webhook action:

[Form submission: NPS feedback]
  Condition: score <= 6
    [Send webhook: POST https://your-crm.example.com/tickets
       body: { customer_email: '{{ subscriber.email }}', issue: 'low_nps', score: '{{ form.nps_score }}' }]

Your CRM receives, opens a ticket, assigns to a CSM. The whole loop closes without anyone manually copy-pasting.

Replenishment timing — when to nudge the next purchase:

Most products have a "natural reorder cycle" — coffee at 4 weeks, supplements at 30 days, razors at 6 weeks. Set the cross-sell Wait step to ~80% of the typical cycle so the email arrives before they think about reordering, not after they've already gone to a competitor. For unknown products, default to 30 days and measure CTR by Wait-duration A/B test (split the audience: 21d vs 30d vs 45d, compare conversion).

Test the full flow before launching:

In AcelleMail, the automation Test button (or Preview run) lets you simulate a subscriber going through the entire flow with shortened wait times — useful before launching for real.

# Manual test from API:
curl -X POST "https://acellemail.com/api/v1/events" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACELLE_TEST_TOKEN" \
  -d '{
    "subscriber_email": "[email protected]",
    "event": "purchase_completed",
    "data": {"order_total": 87.50}
  }'

Then watch the automation logs to verify each step ran + when.