Introduction to Campaign Automations

Campaign Automations allow you to set up dynamic paths for a contact or lead to follow based on actions taken by that contact or lead. For example, if the contact fills out a form you can send them an email then wait to see if they click on Link A or Link B. If they click on Link A send them Email A, but if they click on Link B send them Email B.

Create a New Campaign Automation

Navigate to Messaging > Campaign Automation.

Choose New.

This window will open where you will need to fill in a few fields.

Name [Required]: This is the name of the record as you will see it in CRM.

Campaign: You may choose a CRM Campaign here if desired. This will associate this record to that CRM Campaign.

Description: Added in version 11.1, this field allows you to enter a text description to help identify specific automations.

Completed Instances: Number of instances of Contacts and Leads who have finished running through this Campaign Automation. This is a read only field that will automatically be filled in once the Campaign Automation has been published.

Owner [Required]: You will be the owner but you may change this if you'd like.

Status [Read Only]: This will change when the Campaign Automation is published, paused, or stopped from within the builder window. After filling out any required fields, click Save.

Then click Open Builder to open the builder in a new window. 

You can also choose to build your campaign automation in the integrated feature which allows you to create/edit/monitor Campaign Automations on the same page. 

You will now see the canvas where you will build your Campaign Automation.

On the right side there are Triggers, Actions, Timers, and Series. Click and drag these onto the canvas.

Connect them together to establish order by clicking on the green dot on the right side of the trigger and dragging to the green dot on the left side of the action, timer, or series.

You can create a Decision Node by connecting the trigger to multiple actions or series. This will allow you to choose a path based on field values of the Lead or Contact, or something in the previous trigger, such as values of form fields.

As of version 10.8, it is also possible to copy and paste existing elements on the automation canvas. If you right-click on an action/trigger, then you will get an option to 'copy'. You can then right-click again anywhere on the canvas and select 'paste' to create a new copy.

To learn more about all the pieces of the Campaign Automation builder see below.

Templates

Start creating a Campaign Automation from one of our pre-set templates.

Triggers

Use a combination of triggers to add or route your contacts/leads through your Campaign Automation.

Actions and Timers

Use actions and timers to allow your contacts/leads to receive information or other updates at specified times.

Testing your Automation

In version 10.11, we added the ability to check your automation at any time without needing to attempt to publish it. To use this option, you simply need to open your Campaign Automation builder and select the Check Automation button from the options ribbon along the top:

Pressing this button will check for issues and missing data in your actions, timers and triggers, and will highlight the problematic nodes so that they can be corrected. Selecting the highlighted nodes will allow you to see a more detailed message about the issues in that node.

Publishing your Automation

Once you have configured your triggers and actions, then you will need to click the Publish button to publish your Campaign Automation so that it can begin to accept participants.

If any required fields are missing data, then you will receive an error and the affected element will be highlighted with a red outline so that you can correct it:

Once the all of the required fields are entered and the automation is published, a success message will appear and the automation's status will go from Draft to Published. From there a new tab in the builder will appear of Statistics for you to see all the stats of Participants now in this automation.

If you have any entry point triggers based on an action occurring, then the Campaign Automation will then begin listening for those actions and adding participants. If you used a Manual Add trigger, then your automation will now appear in the list of available automations when you select Run Campaign Automation from a Contact/Lead/Account record.

Marketing Goals

Marketing goals allow you to check the number or percentage of participants that complete a certain interaction in your automation and includes additional details to help track the progress of your goal. For more information, please see our Marketing Goals article here.

Accounts

In version 11.4, we added the ability to enter account records as participants to Campaign Automations. Currently, accounts can be used with the following triggers and actions:

• Email Interaction trigger
• Add to Marketing List trigger
• Remove from Marketing List trigger
• Field Updated trigger
• Manual Add trigger
• Send Email action
• Send SMS action
• Add to List action
• Remove from List action
• Update Field action
• Workflow action