Automations basics

An automation sends emails for you, automatically, when something happens. Set it up once and it runs in the background forever. A classic example: a welcome email that goes out the moment someone joins your list.

How an automation works

Every automation has two parts:

1. A trigger: the thing that starts it.
2. Steps: what happens next.

When a subscriber does the trigger, they “enter” the automation and move through the steps one by one.

The triggers you can use

• Tag added: starts when a subscriber gets a specific tag (great for “tag = customer → send onboarding”).
• Field updated: starts when one of their details changes.
• Link clicked: starts when they click a link in one of your emails.

The steps you can add

• Send an email: design it right inside the automation.
• Wait: pause for a set time (minutes, hours, or days) before the next step.

By mixing emails and waits, you can build a sequence like:

Tag added “new-customer” → send welcome email → wait 3 days → send tips email → wait 5 days → send “here’s a discount” email.

Building one

1. Go to Automations → New automation.
2. Pick your trigger.
3. Add your steps (emails and waits) in order.
4. Click Activate when you’re ready to go live.

You can leave it as a draft while you build, and pause it anytime.

Good to know

• People only enter an automation when they newly match the trigger, not retroactively (unless you choose to enrol existing people during an import).
• Editing a step while people are waiting on it will stop those people on that step, so finish your edits before going live when you can.
• Watch the counts (queued, succeeded, failed) on the automation to see how it’s doing.

Start with a simple two-email welcome series. It’s the highest-impact automation you can build.