How to build an automation

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An automation, also known as an automated journey, is a chain of events triggered by a specific action.

Within an automation you can easily route contacts onto different paths containing different chains of events based on their behavior. This way you can create relevant and personal communication without hours of manual work.

Triggers and entry criteria—the starting point

The trigger, together with the selected entry criteria, is the starting point for your automation. The trigger is the event performed by the contacts and the entry criteria regulate which contacts that'll enter the automation, and how often. If you skip the entry criteria and only use a trigger, e.g., Product purchase, contacts will be triggered into the automation every time they make any type of purchase.

Some triggers require that you edit the entry criteria, and the entry criteria box will be marked by a red line if no additional settings have been made. If you still try to Activate the automation you’ll get an error message.

Read more about entry criteria here.

Next step: Add an event

An automation is a set of events connected to a flow. It can be an activity, a time delay, a conditional split, a randomized split, or a trigger—more on this below.

• To add an activity or split, click on the plus sign and select which type you want to add.
• To edit an activity or split, hover over it and click the pencil icon. This will open an editing panel. When you are done, click OK.
• To move an activity or split, click on the menu of it and select Move.
• To delete an activity or split, hover over it and click on the trash icon.

Time delay

A time delay is a way to pause before the next event in your automation occurs. The delay can be as short or as long as you would like, and you can configure the delay down to specific times on specific weekdays. Read more about time delays here.

Activities

An activity is an action that is to be performed at the appointed time in your automation. It can be an email or SMS send-out, label allocation or removal, a mobile swipe send-out, multichannel offer assignment, or an external service lookup. Read more about activities here.

Conditional splits

A conditional split is used to create different branches in your flow based on the criteria you select. The criteria are often based on:

• How contacts have responded to your previous activities (opened an email, redeemed a promotion, purchased a specific product etc.)
• The information you have about your contacts (gender, age, country, city, channel status, if they have children etc.)
• What you have learned about your contacts (customer category, RFM -scores, preferred channel, buying strength etc.)

Read more about conditional splits here.

Randomized splits

A randomized split is used to split contacts into randomized groups within an automation. Each group will be routed into its own branch in the automation, and you can build separate chains of events for each group. A randomized split can, for example, be used to perform an A/B test or to send out an NPS question to every fifth customer. Read more about randomized splits here.

Triggers

A trigger within an automated journey is used to route contacts onto a new branch when an event occurs, e.g., if a contact makes a purchase or redeems a specific promotion. Read more about different triggers here.

Value splits

Value splits are used to assign different actions based on a range of values in an automation, which means that you can merge similar workflows into a single automation. This helps to reduce the number of active automations you need to achieve the same results, giving you a better overview of your activities. Read more about value splits here.

Good to consider before activating an automation

When adding activities in your workflows without finishing the set-up of the activity, e.g., adding a specific email or a specific time delay, the activity box will be marked with a red line to indicate that there are settings to be applied.

How to assign tags to an automation

You can create and assign tags to your automations in order to clarify the purpose of each journey and/or group them. Use the tags filter in the automation list view to get a clearer overview. Create new tags by typing or go to Administration and select Tags.

Compact view

If you're working on a large automation, you can toggle Compact view on and off using the toggle button in the top right hand of the page. Compact view removes text and allows you to get a better overview of your automation by including more steps on the page.