How to Review, Audit, and Plan Your Holiday Automations in Five Steps

Somewhere in your email platform or chat system right now, a workflow you set up months ago is still running. It includes messaging, hours of operation, or a coupon code. And I bet no one has checked on it since the first week it went live. These messages have been quietly greeting your customers ever since, but can you honestly say these workflows are 100% accurate?

That is what automation does. It runs. The challenge is that most retailers only think about automation when they add new parts, so each year the system grows larger. Often, automations aren’t reviewed, updated, analyzed, or retired. By the time your busiest selling season arrives, you have more workflows, but you don’t often have clarity on their intended goals.

‘Tis the season for automation review, planning, and documentation. Currently, you have approximately ten to twelve weeks before holiday traffic peaks, which is the ideal window for making fixes that are still affordable and low-stress. To help you stay focused and motivated, here is a five-step process to organize your automations. 

Step 1: Review. Make the List.

You can’t identify a duplicate until both entries are staring you in the face (that is, on the same page).

Open every platform in your business that can send a message on its own and write down what is running. That includes your email platform, your eCommerce system, your SMS tool, your website chat, your customer service software, and any advertising platform with automated triggers.

Build a quick spreadsheet with the following headings, and populate it with every automation set up on your systems: 

Platform | Automation Purpose | Trigger 

(Note: We’ll be adding to this in Step 2) 

This step seems almost too straightforward, yet it often yields the most immediate surprises. We frequently see retailers find that cart recovery is set up in two different places, or that a welcome series they believed was retired is still running alongside its replacement, with conflicting messages or outdated offer codes. 

Step 2: Audit. Ask Five Questions of Each One.

Now go line by line and interrogate each workflow:

1. Is the information still accurate? Check dates, coupon codes, shipping cutoffs, store hours, and policy or promises language. Don’t forget to check these against your brand’s personality and overall messaging.
2. Is anything else doing this same job? Cart recovery is the most common overlap, but back-in-stock alerts and review requests are frequently duplicated, especially across email and chat.
3. How did it perform last year? Look at revenue attributed to the flow if available to you, or at open and click rates and unsubscribe rates.
4. Who owns it? Every automation needs a name next to it. This is an ideal time to build out a proper naming convention. Anything without a name gets assigned or paused.
5. Should it exist at all? Low engagement plus high unsubscribe rates are a signal to retire, not to rewrite.

Here’s the sheet you created in Step 1: Platform | Automation Purpose | Trigger 

Now add: Current Setup Review Notes | Retire/Remove | Update/Repair 

Each column should include your learnings and the reasoning behind the decision. You should now have 6 columns, which will help with future knowledge sharing and internal documentation (Step 5).

Next, run the field test that turns this from a spreadsheet exercise into something you can feel. Place a real order on your own site. Separately, load a cart and abandon it at checkout. Then watch your inbox and your phone for the next 48 hours.

Count every message that arrives. Note which platform sent it and how many hours apart they landed. Every automation in that sequence might work correctly on its own, but the combined experience can still be too much for your recipients.

For jewelry retailers, pay particular attention to repair status updates, custom order communication, and appointment reminders, since these often live in a different system than your marketing emails and are rarely audited together. For food and CPG brands, focus on back-in-stock alerts and any flow that features a limited seasonal SKU.

Step 3: Plan. Fill the Gaps, Not the Calendar.

Let’s add a new column to that spreadsheet: journey stage. Review your customer’s holiday journey through four stages: first visit, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase. Note on your spreadsheet which stages are currently being nurtured and which lack automation support.

Most retailers find their gap in the same two places. The first is the stretch between browsing and buying, where a browse abandonment or a gift guide message could help a shopper decide. The second is after delivery or purchase, where the relationship usually goes quiet at exactly the moment a new customer is most receptive.

Resist the pull to add a workflow simply because your platform offers it; be strategic. A handful of coordinated automations will outperform dozens of disconnected ones every season.

Step 4: Set Your Metrics and Your Check-In Rhythm.

Choose three to five numbers you will look at each week, and write in advance what result will make you act. The trigger matters more than the metric.

Here are a few ideas, but you’ll want to create a list that works for you:

• Revenue per automated flow. Which workflows are seeing returns.
• Cart recovery rate. Your clearest signal that checkout messaging is landing.
• Unsubscribe rate. If it climbs above your normal range, pull back the frequency.
• Chat escalation or handoff rate. A rise usually means your chat is missing content, not that customers are difficult.
• Failed or bounced transactional sends. Order confirmations and pickup notices are the messages customers depend on, and it’s possible for team members or customers to mistype email addresses or cell numbers.

📅 Put a 15-minute block on your calendar every week through the season and keep it. The goal during peak weeks is small adjustments, not major changes. 

Step 5: Document What You Built and What Happened.

This is the step everyone overlooks, and it’s the most important for quality assurance and improvement. 

Now use the sheet we created when we started and make a new sheet in the workbook. Include the columns that are needed for moving forward. I’d recommend listing every automation:

Automation Name | Platform | Trigger | Setup Details | Journey | Expectations | Notes | Start Date | Last Edit Date

During or post-holiday, spend time writing down what worked, what broke, and where customers got stuck. Do it while the details are still fresh.

Two things happen when you document. Next year’s review begins with a file rather than memory, turning a full day of archaeology into an hour of updates. And your automations endure staff changes, because a workflow nobody understands eventually becomes a workflow nobody is willing to touch.

Need a Second Pair of Eyes Before the Rush?

Technology Therapy Group can help you uncover outdated workflows, eliminate overlaps, and organize your systems before peak season begins.

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