Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, otherwise simply known as SMTP, is used by many email servers to send and receive emails. It is a great alternative if you don’t want to use the PHP mail function or any other WordPress mail plugin.

With v8.15.0 of the Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce plugin, you can now easily use a Custom SMTP service to send emails to recover abandoned carts from your WooCommerce site. 

The Basics

To make this integration happen, you will need the following:

1. WooCommerce plugin
2. Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce plugin
3. a valid account with an SMTP server.

1. Sendinblue
2. Mailgun
3. SendGrid
4. Amazon SES
5. SMTP Email Relay Services, etc.

Please note that this integration is not merely restricted to the ones mentioned in the above list. You can connect the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin using several other SMTP servers.

For the purpose of this guide, we will connect using a Gmail account.

Gmail Settings

If you wish to integrate using Gmail, then you will have to configure an extra setting which is enabling ‘Less secure apps access’.

To do this, first, you will have to go to your Gmail Account and find the ‘Manage your Google Account’ setting as shown below:

Following this, go to ‘Security’ and find the ‘Less secure app access’ setting. By default, it will be turned off as shown here:

Click on the ‘Turn on access’ option which will redirect you here:

Enable the setting by switching it on as shown in the above image. Once you go back, you’ll see that the ‘Less secure app access’ is switched on as shown here:

Please note: You may not have to configure this additional setting in other mail services. For other mail services, you will simply require credentials such as SMTP host, port, etc. The additional steps, i.e, the ones that were covered above will vary from provider to provider.

WooCommerce Admin Settings

Now, we will move on to our WooCommerce store and configure the settings from the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin admin section. Go to WooCommerce > Abandoned Carts > Settings > Connectors. Find the ‘Custom SMTP’ option and click on the ‘Connect’ button:

Here, you will have to enter all the relevant SMTP settings such as SMTP Host, SMTP Port, SMTP Encryption (None, SSL or TLS), SMTP AutoTLS (only if SMTP encryption is not TLS), SMTP authentication (use the toggle switch to enable), SMTP Username (visible if SMTP authentication is on) and SMTP Password (visible if SMTP authentication is on) as shown here: 

After entering your Gmail details where SMTP username will be your Gmail address and SMTP Password will be your Gmail password, you will enter the email address where you would like to send a test email. This will be entered under ‘Send a test email to’ field.

After the email has been sent, you will see the words ‘Email sent.’ 

Check if you have received an email. It would look like this:

Once you receive the above mail, you can click on the ‘Save’ button and your Custom SMTP server connection will be established for you.

You can even view the connection here:

It will also be visible in the ‘Active’ tab as shown here:

In this way, you have successfully integrated the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin with a Custom SMTP server- in our case, Gmail.

Let’s have a look at an example. With the help of our plugin’s ATC Popup feature, you have captured the email address of a guest user as shown below:

Whether it’s a guest user or a logged-in user who has abandoned their cart, the reminder emails that would be sent to them from now on (i.e after integrating with your Custom SMTP server) will be from [email protected] (i.e your Gmail server). Here’s what the reminder email will look like:

As you can see, the email from your WooCommerce store has been sent by using the Custom SMTP settings.

Please Note: After activating your Custom SMTP server, all emails from the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin will be sent from it, thus, overriding any other setting in the site. As long as the connector is active, you will receive all emails from the site from your custom SMTP server, i.e, Gmail in this case!