Hi @evan007 ,
Have you had a look at this article? https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208849249-Brevo-plugin-for-WordPress-Connect-your-WordPress-site-with-Brevo#h_01JGY6F3077FPSC876CBC8CKNV
It will help you better understand how to setup the installation of your wordpress plugin to sync your attributes.
About the automation: you can absolutely trigger automations based on contact attributes, see my reply here about how to do it: Let users auto segment themselves and send emails based on multiple criterias - #3 par dmartial