Automation Example: Re-Engage With Contacts Who Haven't Opened Certain Emails

Details

Engagement Scoring is a great way to monitor your contacts based on email activity. The score could be set to increase based on email opens and decrease based on non-opens or email bounces.

Some examples of this could be:

• If a contact's Engagement Score drops below a certain number, send a re-engagement email. You could then optionally expand upon this by unsubscribing the contact if they don't respond to the re-engagement email either. 
• If a contact's Engagement Score increases over a certain number, notify a staff member (see: Internal Lead Notification), or send a different email, adjust a preference, change a setting etc.

Looking to Lead Score instead? We have a different Automation Example relating to Lead Scoring, which adjusts a numerical value based on link clicks in a series of emails - which may also be of interest. 

What This Example Will Cover

In this article, we'll be building an automation to help you re-engage with contacts who have not opened certain emails (such as a particular set of newsletters). This is done by 'scoring' them negatively based on a lack of opens.

In our example, every contact starts with an Engagement Score of '0' and each time the user doesn't open one of our set emails, we decrease their Engagement Score by a value of '1' (though this value can be customised on a per-email basis). Once their Engagement Score drops to '-5', we will send a re-engagement email. 

The subject line will be key to getting your contacts to re-engage with you (as the subject line generally drives the open rate of an email) - which is why, in our case, we've used a strong subject line such as: %%First_Name%%, do you still want to hear from us? (First Name is a wildcard)

Here's what the re-engagement email looks like, in the case of our example...

How-to Guide

Our automations track opens / non-opens on a per-email basis. As such, if you create new emails over time that you wish to monitor for non-opens, you'll need to add these into your engagement scoring automation.

Before you begin, you'll need to have at least one email (that you wish to monitor for non-opens) built and ready to go. As per the note above, you can always add additional emails (that you wish to monitor) to the automation over time.

Part 1: Add a New Field To Store the Engagement Score

1. Select Lists and Forms from the sidebar.
2. Your lists will be shown. Locate the list you'd like to work with, and double-click on it to open it into Forms view.
3. On the right hand side, you'll see a list of current fields. Click Add New Fields.
4. Select the Number field type and give the field a name. For example, 'Engagement score'.
5. Change the Content Type to Decimal.
6. When finished, click Save.
7. By default, the field you just created will appear on the form you were editing. To remove it from the form, click the 👁️ icon next to the field name on the right hand side, as shown.
   
8. Click Save to close the form editor.

Part 2: Setting up the Automation (To Monitor Non-Opens)

Let's configure the automation steps for tracking email non-opens...

1. Select Automation from the sidebar.
2. Select the Advanced Automation tab.
3. Click New Workflow.
4. Give the workflow a name and click Save.
5. Click New Step.
6. In the first section, set the action as The following message being sent and select the folder that contains the first email you wish to monitor. In our case, it's our first eNewsletter.
7. Also in this first section, select your folder and list.
   
8. In the second section, set the trigger as Not Opened.
   
9. In the third section, ensure all options here are unticked. However, in the Change the following value(s) in the Contact record area, click Add/Edit. A popup dialog will open.
10. In the first dropdown, select your newly-created Engagement score field.
11. In the second dropdown, select decrement by.
12. In the third field, enter the value to decrease the engagement score by. In our case, '1'.
13. Click OK.
    
14. In the fourth section, configure the timing of when to apply the score change. In most cases, you'll need to give your contacts some time to check their email! We'll set ours to A period of time after the Trigger occurs, and then set it to 1 week.
    
15. Click Save. You will now be taken back to the main screen for the automation you're building.
16. Repeat steps 5-15 for any other emails you want to monitor for non-opens.
17. Back on the main screen for the automation, you can also rename the steps if you wish.

Part 3: Setting up the Automation (To Send the Re-Engagement Email)

Next we'll configure the automation step to send the re-engagement email at a '-5' score, and then also set the Engagement Score back to 0.

1. Click New Step.
2. In the first section, set the action as A trigger against the following list and select the list you'd like to monitor for unsubscribes.
3. In the second section, select the trigger as Update Profile.
4. Under Filter your Contacts section, click Add/Edit.
5. Setup your filtering options as follows - though adjust this number accordingly to suit your desired value...
   
6. Click OK.
7. In the third option, click the option to Send the Contact the Message and select your re-engagement email.
8. Also in this third section, locate the Change the following value(s) in the Contact record section and click Add/Edit.
9. Setup the options as follows - this will set the Engagement Score back to 0...
   
10. Click OK.
11. In the fourth option, set the timing as Immediately.
12. Click Save.

Part 4: Activate Your Automation

1. Select Automation from the sidebar.
2. Select the Advanced Automation tab.
3. Finally, click … next to the automation and choose Activate.