Automations

An automation is a journey you set up once and that then runs by itself, separately for every person who starts it. When someone joins my newsletter list, send a welcome, wait a day, send a getting-started email, wait three days, send one more.

A campaign goes to everyone at the moment you press send. A journey goes to each person on their own clock: someone who joined this morning gets the welcome this morning, and someone who joins next Tuesday gets it next Tuesday. You build it once.

The moment it starts

Every journey begins with one moment, chosen from Start when…:

• Joined a list or Left a list — from a sign-up form, an import, or by you.
• Got a tag or Lost a tag.
• Their details change — for example when their plan becomes "Pro".
• A date comes round — a birthday, a renewal date or an appointment saved on the contact, on the day or a few days before or after.
• Matches a segment — someone newly fits a segment you built. Checked every hour.
• Clicked a link in any email you sent.
• Replied to an email — a real reply; out-of-office messages do not count.
• An email bounced.
• Unsubscribed — for tidying up, never for emailing them.
• Something happens in your app — your website or app tells Mailyte, for example "checkout started". This one needs your developer: see Something happens in your app, below.

Any start can be narrowed to some people only, with Only for people who…. Leave it empty to include everyone.

The steps

After the start come the steps, top to bottom. A step marked in amber is still waiting on a choice from you, and the journey cannot go live until none are.

Do something

• Send an email — from a verified sender, using one of your email templates or a short message written right there.
• Add a tag / Remove a tag, Add to a list / Remove from a list.
• Change their details — for example mark them as a customer.
• Notify a teammate — email the people on your account, for example when a promising lead appears.
• Note something happened — a note on their record that another journey can start from.
• Unsubscribe them — for "we have not heard from you in a long time" journeys.
• Send to another system — pass their details to another tool you use. Needs your developer.

Wait or decide

• Wait — a set number of minutes, hours, days or weeks.
• Wait until a time of day — in each person's own timezone, so nothing lands at 3am.
• Wait until a date — a date saved on the contact, or a few days either side of it.
• Wait for them to do something — like buy, with a time limit. People who do it take one path; people who run out of time take the "Time ran out" path.
• Check something — a yes path and a no path, depending on their details or what they did.
• Choose a path — several paths; each person takes the first one that fits them.
• Split at random — send a share of people down each path.
• A/B test — try two or more versions of what follows and see which does better.
• Goal reached — what success means for this journey. When it happens, they leave and it is counted.
• End the journey — they leave here.

Leaving early

Under Settings, People leave the journey early when… lists what takes someone out before the end: unsubscribing, replying to one of the journey's emails, something happening in your app (they bought, so stop the reminders), or starting to match a segment. This is checked the moment it happens and again before every step, so a person who buys in the middle of a two-day wait does not receive the next reminder.

How often can someone go through this? is also under Settings: Once only (the usual choice), Every time it starts for them (right for abandoned carts, where each one is new), or Again after a while.

Rules every journey follows

Some things are true of every journey, whatever you build:

• Only subscribed contacts receive email. Unsubscribed, bounced and complained contacts are skipped, and so is anyone on your suppression list. The journey carries on for them; the email is simply not sent.
• Your marketing approval applies. Journeys send only once your organization is approved for marketing — see Marketing overview — and every email written in a journey needs an unsubscribe line. A template with one built in already has it.
• Service emails — under Settings, What kind of emails are these? can mark a whole journey as receipts and reminders people asked for. Those do not count towards how much marketing one person may receive. Use it only when every email in the journey is genuinely one of those.
• Three journeys can be live at once for now. Pause or archive one to set another live.

And the Sending rules, set once for all journeys from the button of that name on the Automations page:

• How much marketing one person may receive — a daily and a weekly limit, counted across every journey and every campaign, in the person's own day. Unless you change it, that is 2 a day and 6 a week. When someone has had enough, the email is skipped, or held until tomorrow if the step says so under Sending options.
• Quiet hours — emails due overnight are held until morning in the person's own time, never dropped. Unless you change it, 9pm to 8am.
• Days automated mail may go out.
• The timezone used for people who have none saved.

Something happens in your app

The "Something happens in your app" start, and the same choice inside Wait for them to do something, Goal reached and People leave the journey early when…, depend on your website or app telling Mailyte what happened. Your developer sends these; point them at Sending contact events.

Each one appears in the list under Things your app has told us about as soon as the first arrives. You can build the journey before that, by choosing Something else, that my developer will send… and typing the exact name your developer will use.

Two things to know. Someone Mailyte first hears about through your app is added as unconfirmed, and receives no email from any journey until they subscribe — telling us someone checked out is not the same as them agreeing to marketing. And things that happened more than a week before they reach us are recorded but never start a journey, so loading your order history cannot email all your past customers at once.

1. Get approved for marketing and add a verified sender first — see Marketing overview.
2. Go to Automations and choose New automation.
3. Pick a ready-made journey — see Ready-made journeys — or A blank automation and the moment it should start. Give it a name only you will see, then Use this recipe or Create draft.
4. Fill in every step marked in amber: which list, who it comes from, which template. Click a step to change it; hover over it to copy or remove it. Everything saves as you go.
5. Open Settings and check who leaves early and how often someone can go through it.
6. Press Preview. It shows how many people would start today, where that can be counted in advance, and walks three of your real contacts through the journey. Nothing is sent.
7. For a real test, choose Test with a contact from the More actions menu and enter the address of an existing contact — add yourself as one first. The emails really send.
8. Press Set live. Nothing sends until you do.

Changing a live journey

You can edit a live journey at any time. Your changes are a draft until you press Update live version, and nothing you change moves anyone mid-way: people already in the journey finish it exactly as it was when they entered. Only people who start after you press it get the new version.

So if you fix a typo in the second email, people already past the first email may still receive the old second one. If the old version must stop for everyone, pause it, or archive it and start a new journey.

• Pause stops a live journey. Nobody new starts and nobody inside moves. Resume carries on where each person was; waits that ended while it was paused finish straight away.
• Archive stops it for good. Everyone inside leaves, it cannot be set live again, and its report stays readable.

Reading the report

Open a journey and choose Report:

• Entered — everyone who started it.
• In the journey now — waiting on a step.
• Completed — reached the end.
• Converted — reached the goal, and what share of everyone who entered that is. Needs a Goal reached step or goal to mean anything.
• Who left early, and why — how many unsubscribed, reached the goal, or left because of something you chose under People leave the journey early when….

Below that, one row per step: how many reached it, are waiting there now, were skipped, and for emails how many were sent, opened and clicked. Led to the goal counts people who reached the goal within a few days of that email when it was the last one they got, so you can see which email did the work.

Open rates are always lower than the truth, because many inboxes hide opens. Compare a journey with itself over time, and trust clicks and goals more than opens.

Experiments shows each A/B test: how each version is doing, and Pick as winner once one is clearly ahead. We only call a winner when we are at least 95% sure it is not luck and each version has reached at least 30 people. Picking one sends everyone new down the winner from then on, like updating the live version.

Who's in it lists every person, where they are now, and — when you open one — each step they passed, in plain words: what was sent, what was skipped and why.

It will not set live. A step is still marked in amber, a setting is missing, or three journeys are already live. The message names which.

Nobody is entering. Check the start. A list start only counts people added after the journey went live, not people already on the list. A narrowed start (Only for people who…) may match nobody. For an app start, your app may not be sending the name you chose — open a contact your app should have told us about and look at their Events tab.

Someone entered but got no email. Open the journey, go to Who's in it and open that person: the reason is written against the step. The usual ones are that they are not subscribed (including people added as unconfirmed by your app), they had already had their marketing emails for the day, or it is quiet hours and the email is waiting until morning.

Someone got an email after they bought. They probably bought before your app told Mailyte, or the name your app sent does not match the one under People leave the journey early when…. Check their Events tab.

I changed an email and people still get the old one. They entered before you pressed Update live version, so they finish the journey as it was. That is by design; new people get the change.

It says "Paused by Mailyte". We paused it because it suddenly sent far more than usual. Everyone stays where they are. Contact support to resume it.

Opens look very low. Many inboxes block the images that count opens. Judge a journey on clicks and goals.

• Ready-made journeys — what each one does and what it needs
• Email templates — design the emails a journey sends
• Contacts and lists — who enters, and the details a journey can use
• Campaigns — one send to a whole list, when a journey is not the right fit
• Go to Automations