Automations

An automation reacts to one contact at a time. Something happens — a tag is added, someone joins a list, a WordPress user signs up — and that contact starts down a flow of steps you drew: send an email, wait three days, check whether they clicked, tag them, and so on. Each contact moves through it on their own clock.

Every automation has three parts:

• One trigger — what starts it. See Triggers.
• Steps — actions, waits, goals and paths, drawn top to bottom on a canvas. See Actions, waits and paths.
• Settings — what happens if someone triggers it again, and what takes them out early.

You build all three in the builder.

Start a new automation

Go to Automations and click New automation. The New automation page asks How do you want to start?

Start from scratch

Click Start from scratch and choose a trigger in What starts this automation? The picker opens on CRM triggers; use the rail on the left to see All, WordPress, or any integration that adds its own triggers, or search with Search triggers….

The automation is created as a draft, named after the trigger and today’s date, and the builder opens with the trigger selected so you can set it up. Click the title at the top to rename it.

Start from a recipe

Under Or start from a recipe, pick a ready-made flow. Each card shows its trigger and how many steps it has. The recipe is created as a draft with its emails already written, and the builder opens on it. Anything only you can decide — which list, which tag — is left empty and shows up in the builder’s checklist as something to fix.

Recipe	Group	What it does
Welcome series	Onboarding	Three emails over a week for everyone who joins a list. Trigger: Added to a list. Email, wait 2 days, email, wait 4 days, email.
Thanks for confirming	Onboarding	A welcome the moment someone confirms their subscription. Trigger: Confirms their subscription.
New member onboarding	Onboarding	Tag new WordPress users and welcome them to their account. Trigger: New user signs up.
Follow up on a tag	Nurture	Two emails a few days apart when a contact gets a tag. Trigger: Tag is added. Email, wait 3 days, email.
Follow up on a click	Nurture	Tag contacts who click a link in an email, and follow up a day later. Trigger: Clicks a link in an email.
Birthday greeting	Engagement	An email on each contact’s birthday. Trigger: A date on the contact, at 09:00.

A recipe only appears when everything it uses is available on your site. Follow up on a click needs click tracking on, for example — turn on Track clicks under Settings → Email defaults if you don’t see it.

Check the email kind on sign-up recipes

Recipe emails are Marketing emails, which only reach subscribed contacts. In New member onboarding, new users join as Transactional by default, so the welcome email would reach none of them. The checklist warns you; change the email to Account if it is about their account.

Birthday greetings run once by default

A new automation lets each contact through once. For a birthday greeting that should go out every year, open Settings in the builder and set If someone triggers it again to Let them go through it again once they finish.

Draft, Active and Paused

An automation is always in one of three states. You change it from the state menu beside the title in the builder, or from the Automations list.

State	What it means
Draft	Still being built. Nobody starts it.
Active	Contacts start it when the trigger fires.
Paused	Nobody starts it; anyone inside waits where they are.

Only an Active automation moves contacts along. If you pause one, or set it back to draft, the people already inside stay on the step they reached and carry on when you turn it on again. Turning an automation on always goes through a check first — see Going live and editing.

The Automations list

Automations lists every automation with its trigger under its name. Click a row to open it: a draft opens in the builder, anything else opens its report.

• Status pills — All, Draft, Active and Paused, each with a count.
• Search automations… searches by name.
• Tags and Lists filters find the automations that use a tag or list anywhere — in the trigger, a step, a goal, or a rule.
• Columns — Name, Status, In progress, Completed and Last entry are shown by default. Entered, Opened, Clicked and Updated can be turned on from the column picker.

Row actions

The menu at the end of each row has Edit, View report (not for drafts), Duplicate, Activate or Pause, and Delete.

• Duplicate makes a draft copy named “… (copy)” with the same trigger, steps and settings, and opens it in the builder.
• Activate runs the same check the builder does. If something is unfinished, you see a message naming it — for example Finish setting these up before turning it on: Add a tag.
• Delete removes the steps and report. Anyone part-way through stops where they are and never receives the rest. This cannot be undone.

Bulk actions

Tick several rows to Activate, Pause or delete them together. When activating, any automation that is not ready is left as it was, and the message says how many could not be activated and why.

Where to go next

• The builder — the canvas, the panels and the keyboard shortcuts.
• Triggers — every trigger, Only if rules, and re-entry.
• Actions, waits and paths — every step you can add, and Stop early.
• Going live and editing — the review, publishing changes to a live automation, and what happens to contacts already inside.
• Reports and runs — the numbers, each contact’s history, and adding contacts by hand.