March 4, 2025
Automation. The trigger word that defines email lifecycle. Automation is your set and forget space in your email system that instantly creates revenue. Automation is the one area where everyone goes to talk about how much email costs - $0 once it’s set up - and continuity in return.
To run an email automation program correctly, you want to think strategically. There are playbooks that are defined by how large you are as a company, what vertical you are in and the type of messaging you want to send out to others. Building out and layering your automation also supports stronger revenue results.
Automation is the email formula that sends communication to someone based on their behavior or profile. If someone does something that can be identified (browsing site, putting items in cart), then the automation recognizes the behavior and sends an email response. Automation is also used with specific segments and profile affinities that create responses based on someone’s expected interests.
The power of automation is it creates a “right on time” message to your audience. It’s like your user is in your store and you see them looking at those expensive red shoes. You know they are close to a purchase and so you initiate a conversation to push the final sale. Automations are your power house to create a personal, branded message that drives results.
Automations can be used with evergreen style material that you always want your audience to know. If your channel is larger, then you can also use it as a substitute for broadcasts / campaigns so you don’t start oversending with frequency to specific groups. Using a combination of both for better communication assists with in the minute need to knows as well as brand trust and loyalty.
Triggers are the starting point of an automation. When you decide to set up your emails, you can’t pass go unless you know who or what behavior you are targeting. This becomes a metric every time a profile performs a specific action and allows your emails to start sending.
This is a plug and play that connects from your store and to your ESP. Visits site, visits products, abandon checkout, abandon cart, and purchased are the most common types of triggers.
If you’re working in a technically based business, you have the advantage of noting all behaviors that are online. Whether it’s online bookings, SaaS, education online, or online communities, you can track events based on your platform. Creating events based on behaviors inside the technical software is the basis to sending users communication.
Because services don’t have as much digital behavior as eComm or technically based platforms, your automations take place with funnels. You can create these by offering free or low price items and then develop full funnels to trigger specific responses.
Not all email systems are structured on the website activities alone. Depending on your business model, it is possible to customize one or all events related to behaviors that you can track either online or as a point of sale (POS). Customized events are created through tracking behaviors and pushing them to a data warehouse and / or CDP then transferring this to your email system. Most data scientists will tell you that customization is a fast solve as long as you have the tracked behaviors in the front end of your site.
If you aren’t building cohorts of audiences, then you’re missing out on opportunities for automations to personalize messages that are worth sending. Automations can also be developed with segments. Try some of these on for size:
* High Intent to Purchase: Someone who has visited site, been active on site, clicked emails in the last 14 days but still hasn’t purchased.
* Repurchase 1-2 xs: Someone who has purchased 45 days ago, has revisited the site but has not completed another purchase.
* Winback: Someone who has been inactive by 90 days.
* Affinity based: Someone who has shown product interest in xyz but still hasn’t purchased.
* Locality: Someone who lives in a specific locality or hits a demographic.
The sky is the limit with segment based automations. To make this work, measure cohorts of audience members to identify who would be the most likely to respond. The measurement should include past behaviors, current activity, recency of the behaviors, frequency of receiving information or being active, affinity based cohorts of audiences, and / or monetization value. Measure first, identify impact, and let your segmentation automations build new frontiers for personalized communication.
Start your set up to automations by identifying specific, foundational automations that guide your audience through the customer journey. There are several different foundational approaches you can use to build momentum and revenue on your channel.
Any product or service you offer needs a welcome automation. When someone signs up, logs in, and gives you permission to email them, respond with a thank you.
This is the stage to introduce the audience member to your brand. Who are you, what do you offer, and why should someone decide to buy your services or products. Onboarding to a new product or workflow is another way to make sure you are building the awareness you need.
If your audience is returning, aware of your brand, or further along the funnel to purchase, then send them a different set of emails. In the eComm world, this is the abandonment series, defined by what someone does right before a purchase. Other types of engagement range from platform activity to follow-up engagement and contact. Define as many of these points as possible to get the results you need.
The general consensus after someone purchases is to say thanks! Verification of what the purchase is rebuilds trust and loyalty. To build further, move toward a repurchase and building LTV with those that are in the email channel. Post purchase will move into segmentation as a first stage more than pre-purchase with opportunities such as a crosssell.
Separating transactional messages from marketing materials is a foundational, key ingredient to letting users know they can trust your brand and are considered important. Verifications for signing up, shipping, completion of an item, or other activities that require verification belong in this category.
There’s what makes an automation work and what makes an automation tick. Best practices for your foundational build out makes a difference in the results you get. Leave no measures behind when it comes to getting the most out of your automation.
1. Cadencing. There are recommended best practices to follow with cadencing as well as an understanding of your audience before sending. If you have a more aggressive approach, then sending an email every day for the duration of the automation is best practice. However, building trust and nurturing the audience means breaking out the cadence to a send every 2-3 days. If you have a longer lifecycle, consider one message per week to make the communication last.
2. Filter Rules. While there are triggers at the top of your automation that are essential, filters also are integral to an automation that performs well. Re-enrollment after the same behavior is one experience to look at. You also want to filter out audience members that are in another flow or that meet criteria within the flow. For example, if the abandon cart is meant to support a purchase, then set a rule that they are removed once they complete the action.
3. Measuring Results. When you measure an automation, look both vertically and horizontally. Top line results are measured by an increase in revenue with the flow. This is attributed to the total amount of revenue from all other automations and the % that each contributes to your email lifecycle program. For instance, the welcome flow should have 20% of the revenue of all flows while the abandon cart should have 30% of attributed revenue.
The top level results then break with message to message. Each message you send is expected to have a decrease in revenue by an average of 10 - 20% of attributed CVR. If it is lower than this, then it’s important to optimize your messages. If you are launching a welcome flow with a % off or have other perks, expect those numbers to drop more.
The vertical measurements you take from email to email break further with expected email industry standards. The best rule of thumb is to measure up to a 40% open rate, 1-2% CTR, and 1% CVR. When you combine measurements that are incremental from email to email and combine this with independent statistics, you have a winning formula to optimizing your automations.
Even at a foundational level, personalization plays into your automation and what you decide to build out.
Speaking technically first - under each trigger event that comes from your website is nested data, or a payload. In this payload set up, it lets you know what information is dynamic. That means it can pull into your email and showcase a specific piece of information about the profile that has performed the event.
If you’ve ever received an email that says “Hey Joe” then it is using personalization. Joe is the dynamic piece of data that is pulling in and letting you know that they are having a 1 - 1 conversation with you on top of thousands of other people.
Nested information is dependent on the structure of events in your website and can also be created by behaviors you track as a custom set up. The most common you will see are with abandonment automations, focusing on the product someone may have abandoned. Other automations may include order or purchase information and data you ask for from your audience in the site.
If you decide to personalize your automations, don’t forget the fallback. It’s very easy for some of the nested information to not feed into the trigger that you’re setting off. If that’s the case, have an option that speaks to the group of people. Instead of Hey Joe, it becomes Hey Buddy! This keeps your information congruent and let’s your emails jump to the next level.
A direct measure of automation is to have 5-8 foundational flows with 3 emails each. At this point, you want to measure the responsiveness to see what is possible to build out next.
Growth stages with automation let you feed into your system with more emails. Making your sequences longer, adding in segmentation, and building out best or worst performers will help to identify areas of growth.
To truly optimize your automations, test and personalize. These two, simple magical words elevate the automation you have and support growth. Here are some of the ways to level up:
* Split experiences inside the automations to personalize
* Add in automations that are “in between,” focusing on segments and inactivity
* Split test emails to increase CVR over time
Testing isn’t an after thought that should happen in your email program. It’s a part of the foundational tactics you always want to work with. The more you refine your user journeys, the more you will drive incremental revenue and a build up of revenue over time.
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