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

Five automations come ready to use, with their emails written. Each one is a draft. Nothing goes out until you press Start.

1. Go to Email, then Automations, and press New automation.
2. Pick one and press Use this:

- Welcome series: someone signs up through any form. A welcome email right away, and three tips 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.

Make a series

1. Go to Email, then Automations, and press New automation, then Use this under Start from scratch.
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 on the contact, like a birthday. See the next part. - A contact has been quiet for a long time. See Ask quiet people if they want to stay 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. Go to Email, then Automations, and press New automation, then Use this under Start from scratch.
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 on the contact, like a birthday.
2. 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. Pick Every year, like a birthday, or Once, like the day a pass ends.
5. 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.

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. Go to Email, then Automations, 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. 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.

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.

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