Automation Example: Start Automation Only When a Certain Email Is Sent

Details

If you'd like to automatically send users a series of emails or SMS messages over time - but only once a particular message has been sent, you can create an advanced automation to do so.

Some example use cases could be:

• Send a series of timed engagement emails to students, but only after an initial welcome email has been sent (which could occur after a bulk upload of new student details, for example)
• Send a series of timed onboarding emails, but only once a 'Thanks for upgrading' email has been sent.

What This Example Will Cover

In this automation example, we'll be building a workflow that emails a different eBook to our recipe club members - but only once the 'Welcome to the Club' email (shown below) has been sent. In our example, we have three eBook emails to send all up.

How-to Guide

Build The Automation

Before you begin, you'll need to have your various email or SMS messages created (the initial one, as well as the ongoing / timed ones as part of the series).

1. Select Automation from the sidebar.
2. Select the Advanced Automation tab.
3. Optional: Create a new folder to save your automation into.
4. Click New Workflow.
5. Give your workflow a Name (eg. 'Recipe club series').
6. Click Save.
7. Click New Step.
8. In the first section, set the action to be The following message being sent, then select the message that should trigger the automation to begin. In the case of our example, it's the 'Welcome to the Club' email. Also in this section, select the list to monitor for the send of the selected email.
   
9. In the second section, select the trigger as Not Bounced. This will ensure the remaining emails in the series aren't sent to those contacts who didn't receive the initial message due to a bounce of some kind.
   
10. In the third section, select the folder and corresponding message you'd like to send. In our case, it will be the first Recipe Club eBook email.
    
11. In the fourth section, set the timing for the send of our first email. In our case, we want to send an email each week (starting a week after the 'Welcome to the Club' email was sent) - so we'll set this to 1 week later.
    
12. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.
13. Click the copy icon next to the automation step you just created, then click Yes, copy.
14. Scroll down to locate your duplicated automation step and click the pencil (edit) icon to the right hand side.
15. Leave the first few sections as-is. In the third section, select the folder and corresponding message you'd like to send. In our case, it will be the second Recipe Club eBook email.
16. In the fourth section, set the timing for the send of our second email. For our example, we'll set this to 2 weeks later.
17. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.
18. Let's now setup the automation step for the third and final eBook in the series. Click the copy icon next to the automation step you just created, then click Yes, copy.
19. Scroll down to locate your duplicated automation step and click the pencil (edit) icon to the right hand side.
20. As per before, leave the first few sections as-is. In the third section, select the folder and corresponding message you'd like to send. In our case, it will be the third and final Recipe Club eBook email.
21. In the fourth section, set the timing for the send of our third email. For our example, we'll set this to 3 weeks later.
22. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation. You may wish to rename the automation steps, if required.
    
23. Click Save.

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.