Email automations

An automation sends emails by itself. The simplest one is a welcome email: someone confirms through your signup form, and a minute later they get it. A longer one is a series, for example a welcome today, your class schedule in two days and an offer after a week.

Automations are part of email, so they show up under Email, Automations once a workspace has email switched on. They send only after Postfjord has switched sending on for your workspace, the same as campaigns. You can write them before that.

Make a welcome email for a form

1. Go to Email, Campaigns, press Email settings at the top, and open a signup form.
2. Under Welcome email, press Write a welcome email. It opens in the email editor, in your brand colours.
3. Write it and press Continue.
4. Press Start on the automation, or Switch on under the form.

If the form has a Thank-you gift, for example a discount code, it shows on the page right after someone confirms. It never shows before they confirm. The gift text is also put into the welcome email when you write it, so you can place it where you like.

Start from a ready-made automation

Automations in the menu holds your DM and email automations on one page. Press New automation to open the gallery of ready-made ones, grouped by what you want to happen, like Welcome new people, Deliver a free guide or After a purchase. It asks where first: pick Email. Then it asks what you want to happen and shows the automations that fit. Each one has a small picture of the fjord, at the time of day of what it does.

Each email automation comes with its emails written. It opens as a draft, and nothing goes out until you press Start.

Press an email card to see the whole automation first: what starts it, how long it waits, and each email with its subject line. Press Use this template to make it, or Back to look at another one.

1. Open Automations in the menu, press New automation and pick Email.
2. Press a card:

- Welcome series: someone signs up through any form. A welcome email right away, and three tips three days later. - Welcome from a DM: someone gives you their email in a DM and confirms it. The same welcome, by email. - Free guide by email: someone signs up through a form for your guide. The first email has the button to download it, and two short follow ups come 2 and 6 days later. Put the link to your guide on the button. - Product launch: four emails around one launch day, for up to 200 people on your list. See Send around a launch day below. - After a purchase: someone buys through your Stripe. A thank you right away, a tip two days later and an offer a week after the purchase. See Start on a purchase below. - Where to find us: a day after someone signs up, an email with your Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and five days later a nudge to share you with a friend. - Free email course: five short lessons, one a day, starting when someone signs up. The last lesson tells them how to go further with you. - Our best writing: your three most read pieces, one a week, for every new subscriber. Put each link on its button. - Waitlist: a confirmation right away and a first look a week later. Use it with a signup form for something that is not out yet. - Ask for a review by email: two weeks after a purchase, a short ask with a button to your review page, and one reminder five days later. - Offer after a purchase: ten days after a purchase, your next product with a customer offer, and a last chance three days later. - Do you want to stay?: people who have been quiet for 180 days get one email with a Keep me on the list button. See Ask quiet people if they want to stay below. - Birthday email: a happy birthday and a small gift at 09:00 on the day, every year. - Before an event: one email a week before a date on the contact, and a reminder the day before. It needs a contact field of the type Date, for example the day a course starts. Make one under Settings, Inbox, Contact fields first. - After the first visit: a thank you the day after a tag is added, and a nudge to book again four days later. Pick the tag you add after someone's first visit under What starts it.

1. Open each email with Edit email. Change the words, and fill in everything in [brackets], like a date or a gift. Postfjord will not start the automation while [brackets] are left.
2. Change the waits or the trigger if you like, press Save changes, then Start.

The emails are written in your brand's language when it is English or Swedish, and in English for other languages. They use your brand colours.

A DM card, like Comment to email, opens the DM automation wizard instead. See Automation.

Make a series

1. Open Automations in the menu and press New automation, then Blank email automation at the bottom of the gallery.
2. Under What starts it, pick one:

- Someone confirms through a signup form: any form, or one. - Someone confirms an email they gave in a DM: an address your chat automation asked for. - A tag is added to a contact. - A contact joins a segment. - Someone clicks a link in an email. See Start with a click below. - A date, like a birthday or a launch day. See the next part. - A contact has been quiet for a long time. See Ask quiet people if they want to stay below. - Someone buys through your Stripe. See Start on a purchase below.

1. Under Emails, set how long to wait before each one. The first wait counts from when they join, every other wait from the email before.
2. Press Edit email to write each one, and Add an email for more. An automation has at most 10.
3. Under When emails go out, pick Only at these times if you want emails only on some hours and days. The times follow your workspace time zone. A To before From runs over midnight, for example 20:00 to 06:00. An email that is due outside them waits for the next open hour.
4. Under Stop when the contact gets this tag, you can pick a tag, for example one you add when someone books. They get no more emails from the automation.
5. Press Save changes, then Start.

When you press Start, Postfjord checks every email, the same checks as a campaign. An email with something to fix stops the start, and the error tells you which one.

Start with a click

A click on a link can start an automation. Put a button like Tell me about the retreat in your newsletter, and everyone who clicks it gets a short series about the retreat. Nobody else does.

1. Write the email with the link first. It can be a campaign, or an email in another automation.
2. Open Automations in the menu and press New automation, then Blank email automation.
3. Under What starts it, pick Someone clicks a link in an email.
4. Under Which email, pick the email. Under Which link, pick the link.
5. Write the emails and press Start.
6. Send the campaign, or start the other automation, after that.

A few things to know:

• Only clicks in emails sent after you press Start count. An email that went out before has no way to tell who clicked.
• Some mail filters at work open every link in an email as soon as it arrives. A click in the first minute after the email went out does not start anything. Link checkers that name themselves are left out too.
• Only people who confirmed their email get the automation. Someone who unsubscribed, or whose contact has the stop tag, gets nothing.
• Each person joins once. A second click does nothing, unless you tick Let people go through it again.
• The link knows who clicked it, and Postfjord uses that only to start the automation. Nobody sees a list of who clicked. Other links count clicks, not people, except in an email that a yes or no email checks. See the next part.
• If you fix the link after sending, clicks on it still count.

Send a yes or a no email

An email can go only to some people. For example: email 1 invites people to a retreat. Three days later, people who clicked the link get the details, and people who did not click get a friendly reminder.

1. Open the automation and find the email that should go only to some people. The first email always goes to everyone.
2. Under Who gets it, pick one:

- People who clicked a link in, then an email that comes before it. - People who did not click a link in, then an email that comes before it. - People with the tag, then a tag. - People without the tag, then a tag.

1. To make the other half, press Add a no branch. It adds a new email right after, for everyone else, with the same wait. Write it with Edit email.
2. Press Save changes.

How it works:

• Postfjord checks who gets the email when it is due, not before. Someone who clicks on day 2 counts on day 3.
• Someone it does not fit skips that email. Nothing is sent to them, and they go on to the next email.
• A skipped email adds no wait. The next email waits from the last email the person got. So both halves of a pair go out at the same time.
• A click counts if it comes at least a minute after the email went out, the same as for Start with a click. Any link in the email counts, except the links at the bottom, like unsubscribe.
• Postfjord only knows about clicks in emails sent after you save the condition. Someone who got that email before skips both the yes and the no email.
• An email can only look back at emails before it. To remove an email that a later email looks at, change who gets the later email first.
• Each email shows how many people skipped it, next to how many got it.

The links in an email that a later email checks know who clicked them. Postfjord uses that only to pick the next email. Nobody sees a list of who clicked.

Send on a date, like a birthday

An automation can start on a date that is saved on the contact. Use it for a birthday email, a note three days before a class pass runs out, or a thank you one year after someone joined.

1. Under What starts it, pick A date, like a birthday or a launch day.
2. Under Whose date, keep A date on each contact, like a birthday. Under Which date, pick Birthday, or a contact field of your own that holds dates. You make those under Settings, Inbox, Contact fields, with the type Date or Date and time.
3. Pick when: a number of days before, On the day, or a number of days after. Then pick the time of day. The time follows your workspace time zone.
4. Under Who gets it, keep Everyone on your list, or pick a tag. With a tag, only people who have it get the email. For example, your members get one birthday gift and people from a Flow get another.
5. Pick Every year, like a birthday, or Once, like the day a pass ends.
6. Write the emails and press Start.

Postfjord looks at the dates once a day. Everyone whose day has come joins, and the first email goes out at the time you picked. The wait before the first email counts from that time, so leave it at 0 to send right then.

A few things to know:

• A birthday can be written in many ways, for example 14 March, 14/3 or 1990-03-14. The year is not needed.
• Once needs a date with a year. A date that changes, for example when someone renews and gets a new end date, counts as a new date.
• Each person gets the automation once for each date, even if Postfjord looks twice. With Every year, they get it again next year.
• Someone born on 29 February gets it on 28 February in other years.
• A paused automation takes nobody in. If the first email cannot go out within a day of its time, for example because you paused, it is skipped for that date. A birthday email is never sent days late.
• Postfjord only looks at dates while sending is on for your workspace. A date whose time has already passed when you press Start is sent the next time it comes around.

Send around a launch day

A launch has one date for everyone: the day a course, a product or a new class opens. The Product launch card sends four emails around it: 3 days before, the day before, on the day, and 2 days after, when the launch offer ends. Use the same date as the countdown on your landing page.

1. Press New automation and pick Product launch.
2. Open What starts it. Under Whose date, One date for everyone, like a launch is picked. Set The date to your launch day. It starts two weeks ahead.
3. Under Who gets it, keep Everyone on your list, or pick a tag, for example the tag your launch page's signup form adds. A launch goes to at most 200 people, so every email can go out on its own day.
4. The first email goes out 3 days before the date, at 09:00 in your workspace time zone. Change the days or the time if you like. The other emails follow with their waits: 2 days, 1 day and 2 days.
5. Write the emails, fill in the [brackets] and press Start.

A few things to know:

• Postfjord reads your list once, about a day before the first email. If you press Start later than that, it reads the list right then. Everyone who confirmed their email by then gets the launch emails, or only the people with the tag. People who join after that are not added. To reach them, send a campaign on launch day.
• A launch goes to at most 200 people, so every email can go out on its own day. Start tells you when more people would get it: pick a tag with fewer people, or send the launch as campaigns. If your list grows past 200 before Postfjord reads it, the automation pauses and you get an email. Pick a smaller tag and press Resume.
• Each email keeps its own day. Campaigns and other automations share the same daily limit, so keep big campaigns off your launch days. An email that cannot go out within 12 hours of its time, for example because the day's limit is used up, is skipped. Nobody gets "see you tomorrow" on the day itself.
• Start refuses a date whose first email would go out on a day that has passed. Pick a later date.
• You can turn any date automation into one date for everyone, under Whose date.

Start on a purchase

When your own Stripe account is connected under Settings, Apps, a sale can start an automation. The After a purchase card is one: a thank you, a tip and an offer.

1. Press New automation and pick After a purchase, or pick Someone buys through your Stripe under What starts it.
2. Under Which purchases, keep Any purchase, or pick Only one payment link. Paste the link's ID from Stripe: open Payment Links, open the link and copy its ID. It starts with plink_. Once someone buys through a link, it also shows in a list you can pick from. Until the ID is right, no purchase starts the automation, and Start tells you so.
3. Write the emails and press Start.

How it works:

• It starts when Postfjord counts a paid sale, for the buyer's email address. Only buyers who confirmed their email get it. A buyer who never joined your list gets nothing.
• Each purchase starts it once. Stripe sometimes sends the same sale twice, and it still starts once. A second purchase starts it again from the first email. If an email from the first purchase is going out at that very moment, the second one starts a few minutes later.
• A refund never starts it. A full refund stops the emails for that purchase. A partial refund does not.
• Test purchases with Stripe's test cards start nothing.
• A suspended workspace, or one with email switched off, starts nothing. The emails count toward your daily limit and monthly volume like every other email.

Thank people who bring a friend

With Share with a friend on, every subscriber has a link to share. An automation can start when someone's friends reach a number, for example 3. Pick Friends join through their link under What starts it and type the number. Each person gets it once. The easiest way is Write the reward email under a reward in Settings, Email, which makes the automation for you.

Ask quiet people if they want to stay

People who never react to your emails hurt your sending: mail services see that nobody wants them and start putting all your emails in spam. This automation cleans your list in a kind way. It asks quiet people once if they still want your emails, and pauses the ones who do not answer.

1. Open Automations in the menu and press New automation. Pick Do you want to stay? from the ready-made ones, or Start from scratch.
2. Under What starts it, pick A contact has been quiet for a long time.
3. Under Days without a sign of life, pick how long. It is 180 days to start with, and at least 60.
4. Press Save changes. Postfjord adds a line and a Keep me on the list button to the first email. Write the rest of it around them, and add more emails if you like, for example a last reminder a week later.
5. Press Start.

Here is what happens then:

1. Once a day Postfjord finds people who have not written you a DM, bought something, booked, clicked a link in a DM, pressed the button or signed up in that many days. Opens do not count, since some mail apps open every email by themselves.
2. Only people who got at least one email from you on Postfjord are asked. Each person is asked once, ever, even if you have more than one such automation.
3. The first people asked are a small test group. Nobody else is asked until their emails have gone well: few bounces and nobody marking them as spam. If they go badly, Postfjord pauses the automation and looks at it with you. After that, at most 500 people are asked a day.
4. A person who presses Keep me on the list sees a page with one more button, and presses it to say yes. That second press is on purpose: some mail filters open every link in an email, and they must not say yes for someone. After the yes, the person stays on your list and gets no more emails from this automation.
5. A person who writes you a DM, buys, books or signs up again after being asked counts as a yes too.
6. A person who has not said yes 30 days after the first email, once the automation is over for them, is paused. They are still on your list, and they did not unsubscribe, but no campaign and no automation reaches them. Contacts shows them as Paused, did not answer.

A pause ends when the person presses the button in the email after all, confirms their email again, or signs up again through a form or a DM. Signing up again sends them a new email to confirm, and the pause ends when they confirm. You cannot end a pause for someone yourself.

The Keep me on the list button only works in this kind of automation. You can also add it to an email yourself: select a button in the email editor and tick Keep me on the list button. In a campaign or any other email the button is left out. Everyone has to be able to press it, so in the first email the button, and the columns it sits in, stay on Show to: Everyone.

Who gets the emails

Only people who confirmed their email address get them. Contacts you imported wait until Postfjord has cleared the import and the first campaign to them went well. At most 500 imported contacts a day start an automation through a tag, a segment or a date; the rest start the next day. Each email goes to a person at most once. Someone who joins twice is not sent anything twice, unless you tick Let people go through it again. Then someone who finished can join again, at most once every 30 days.

A person leaves the automation when they unsubscribe, when their address stops working, when they mark an email as spam, when their contact gets the stop tag, or when you delete their contact. A ready-made customer email (like Thank a new customer) also stops when its tag comes off the contact. Before each email Postfjord checks again, so nothing goes to someone who left.

An automation email can have blocks only some people see and a survey, the same as a campaign. Postfjord looks at the person's tags and segments when each email goes out. Someone who would see no block in an email skips that email and goes on to the next one, and nothing counts toward your month. A survey answer tag can also start another automation.

A tag added before someone confirms still counts: the automation starts when they confirm. Someone who is already confirmed and fills in a signup form again starts nothing, and the form adds no tags to them. A contact that matches a segment only because time passed, for example a birthday month, is noticed the next time the contact changes.

Change the subject and preview text

Each email in an automation has its own subject line and preview text. The preview text is the short line people see after the subject in their inbox.

1. Open the email with Edit email.
2. Press Subject in the line over the email.
3. Change the subject and the preview text. Press the sparkle in a field to get ideas from Claude, and press one to use it.
4. Press Save.

It is saved with the rest of the email, also while the automation is on or paused. The next person who gets the email gets the new subject.

Put an automation email on the web

An automation email can have a web version too, the same as a campaign (Your email on the web). It is off at first, since most automation emails are meant for one person at a time, like a welcome email.

1. Open the email from its automation.
2. Under Web version, press Turn on.

The page goes up when the next person gets the email, and the email gets a View in browser link. If you change the email later, the page changes the next time someone gets it. If you remove the email from the automation, or archive the automation, the page goes offline.

The same limits as campaigns

Automations and campaigns share one daily limit per workspace and your monthly email volume. When the day is full, the rest goes out the next day. When the month is used up, the emails wait. The automation says why it waits, and nothing is lost.

If too many addresses bounce, or too many people mark an email as spam, Postfjord pauses the automation and writes to you, the same as for a campaign. Nobody gets its emails until Postfjord has looked at it.

See every step

Press See every step on an automation to read it from start to end: what starts it, then each email with its subject, when it goes out and who gets it. The send hours, the stop tag and whether people can go through it again are under the first step. Each email shows how many it was sent to and delivered to, and how many skipped it when it has a condition.

An email with no subject, a missing email, or a tag that was deleted is marked in red with what to fix. Press Edit to open the automation, or Close to go back. The view changes nothing.

Change an automation that is on

• New people get the automation as it is when they join.
• People already in it get each next email as it is when it goes out. A change to the text reaches them.
• A longer wait counts for everyone who has not had that email. A shorter wait counts for people who reach that email after the change.
• An email you remove is skipped. An email you add, anywhere in the list, reaches people who are still in it and have not had it. People who finished do not get it.
• A change to Who gets it counts for everyone who reaches that email after the change.

Pause stops the emails and keeps everyone in it. New people still join and wait. Resume sends what is due. Archive ends it for good: nobody new joins and nobody gets more emails.

FAQ