Automating your email marketing means you can automatically send emails based on individual customer behavior. It is a marketing funnel to convert your leads into customers and customers into brand advocates.
Related article: Automated email marketing explained.
Before you start, you will need to have or create any lists and/or tags you are planning to use.
Email marketing automation includes five major elements. These are:
- Triggers: Triggers are essential for initiating email marketing automation. They can be behavior-based, or time-based. Learn more about Triggers.
- Action Blocks: The actions which will be done throughout the funnel for example sending an email, adding the user into a list, etc. Learn about Action Blocks.
- Goals: Tracks the behavior of the users for example whether they purchased a product, clicked into a link, etc. Learn about Goal Blocks. COMING SOON
- Conditionals: Conditionals will let you set multiple paths based on if/else conditions. Learn more about Conditionals.
- Emails: This is how contacts will receive your content and offers. Learn how to create an email.
What we will create
In this automation, we are going to send our new subscribers a welcome email with a link to a special membership offer they can purchase. The next step will be determined by whether the link was clicked. We will be adding Action, Goal, and Conditional blocks, and updating our customer tags as we go.
The following image shows what we are going to create.
Creating the Automation
In the menu on the left side of your website dashboard, hover over CRM and then click on Automation. Then click Create New Automation in the top right area of the screen.
In the pop-up window, give your Funnel a name (New Customer First Membership Offer) and select the Automation Trigger type (Tag Applied) you want to kick off the automation for your individual customers.
Click Continue. Depending on what you chose as your triggers, the next screen will let you specify which tags or lists you want to use (Membership First). You can also haver multiple tags and lists, and decide whether you want them to only run if one tag or list matches or if all tags and lists match. You can also set the condition to restart the automation multiple times for a contact for this event. Click Save Settings
On the next screen, you will see the start of your automation layout. In the top middle of the screen is a block with your automation name and the lists or tags you are using to start this automation. To make changes to lists or tags, click the block to go back to the configuration screen.
Add Action Blocks
To add to your funnel, click the + in the flow where you want to add the Action Block. When you start a flow, there is only one +, just below the Trigger Block. Click the + to open the Add Action/Goals/Conditions window.
NOTE: Keep the Status to Draft. If you change to published, it will start running immediately, even if your funnel is incomplete.
Click Wait for X Day/Hours. Adjust the wait time and the Wait Time Unit. Click Save Setting.
Now the funnel dashboard will look like the screenshot below. A 1-minute delay has been added to the automation.
After 1 minute, we will send an email. Click + to open the Add Action/Goals/Conditions window. Choose Send Custom Email Action Block. This opens the standard email editor. Give the email a name. It makes the funnel easier to work with later. You can add all the content immediately or click Save Settings at the bottom to save the empty email. An empty email will appear in the automation flow as a placeholder, and you can add and edit any content later. Your email needs to have a button for the next step to work, even if there is no other content yet.
Adding a Goal
We want to know if the subscriber purchased the membership or not. To do that, we will add a Link Click from the Goals. Click the + to add the block.
In the Link Click window, give it a label (Membership Offer). In the Redirect To section, add the URL you want the contact to go when they click the button. In this example, we are adding the link to our membership product.
Copy the link in the Copy This Link field. Click Save Settings.
Adding the Link Click to the button
From the funnel overview, re-open the Custom Email Block.
Click on the Button and then the link icon. Paste in the link you copied from the Link Click window.
Save settings.
Adding a Conditional Block
Now we will include a conditional that separates the people that purchase from the people that don’t. Click + under the bottom block and choose WebStore Conditions from the Conditionals menu.
Configure the conditions. In this example, we want to know if they purchase a specific product – the membership.
IF – Purchased Products
Condition – Match all Of
Match Value – Membership
You will see a Yes and No coming out of the Conditional. If a person has purchased, it follows the Yes path. Otherwise, it follows No.
In this example, we will start with the Yes path. Since the person has purchased, we want to remove the Membership Lead Tag, add the contact to the members list, and stop the funnel. From the actions, choose Remove From Tag, and select the tag you want to remove. Then add End This Funnel Here Action Block. You have any actions take place before the End This Funnel Here action block.
For the No path, we want to remove the Membership First Tag, and add the Membership Second tag. We are done with this part of the automation. You can place an End This Funnel Here Action Block. But the contact hasn’t made a purchase and we want to use the new Tag (Membership Second) as our trigger for the next automation block to create another short flow.
TIPS:
Automations can get complex and complicated. Name each automation and block so you can immediately and easily identify them. Keep each automation short. We recommend you start with a tag or list, and end with a different tag or list. Use the new tag or list to initiate another automation at a later date or time. You will have smaller flows that will be much easier to manage and adjust.
Not having the End This Funnel Here Action Block at the end of the NO path, instantly shows there are future automations for this contact in regards to purchasing a membership. We recommend using the End This Funnel Here Action Block then a particular funnel journey is finished for a particular contact. In this case, we ended it when they purchased the membership.
Because we applied a list at the end, we can use that to take them on a different marketing communication stream or into another funnel.