Marketing Automation

Beyond a Single Mailing

Email Marketing sends one mailing to one list. Marketing Automation instead defines a workflow of several chained steps that runs individually for every record entering it, branching based on how each person actually responds — "wait 3 days, then if they didn't open the first email, send a different follow-up; if they clicked, send the upsell instead."

Core Concepts

What It Can Target

A campaign isn't limited to Contacts — target any model with an email field (CRM Leads, Sales Orders, Event Registrations) so the same branching-workflow engine drives onboarding sequences, post-purchase nurture, or lead-warming, not just newsletters.

From Target Audience to Chained Activities

Go to Marketing Automation → Create.

Campaign Setup

1. Target Model – which type of record this campaign runs against (e.g. Contacts, Leads).
2. Filter – a domain deciding which records are eligible to enter (e.g. only contacts tagged "Newsletter" who haven't purchased yet).
3. Unicity – optionally restrict so the same contact can't enter the same campaign twice.

Adding Activities

Each activity is either a Mailing (send an email template) or a Server Action (any automated backend action — e.g. add a tag, create an activity for a salesperson). Every activity after the first has:

• Trigger – what causes this step to fire: beginning of workflow, a fixed time after another activity, or a response to a previous mailing (opened / not opened / clicked / not clicked / replied / not replied / bounced).
• Send After – the delay (hours/days/weeks/months) after the trigger condition is met.

This is what creates branching: two activities can both be children of the same mailing, one triggered on "Mail: opened" and the other on "Mail: not opened" — each participant only proceeds down the branch matching what they actually did.

Example Workflow

1. Activity 1 (trigger: beginning of workflow) – Welcome email, sent immediately.
2. Activity 2 (trigger: Mail opened on Activity 1, after 2 days) – Product highlight email.
3. Activity 3 (trigger: Mail not opened on Activity 1, after 3 days) – A re-send with a different subject line.
4. Activity 4 (trigger: Mail clicked on Activity 2, after 1 day) – Notify the salesperson via server action — this lead is engaged.

Validity Duration

Set how long an activity's trigger condition stays "open" for evaluation (e.g. "not opened after 3 days" needs a window to actually wait those 3 days before deciding not-opened is true) — this is handled automatically per activity, but is worth understanding when a workflow seems to be waiting longer than expected.

Before You Go Live

Test Mode

Run a campaign against a specific test record before activating it broadly — this lets you walk an activity chain forward manually and confirm the emails/actions look right without waiting for real trigger timing or affecting real contacts.

Starting the Campaign

1. Click Start once satisfied with the workflow — the campaign moves to Running.
2. A scheduled action periodically checks for new records matching the filter and enrolls them as participants, then processes any activities whose trigger/delay has come due.

Note: once a campaign is running, changing an activity's timing (Send After) is restricted, since participants may already be mid-flow relying on the original schedule — stop the campaign first if a structural change is needed.

Participants View

Open the campaign's Participants to see every record that has entered, which activity they're currently on, and their full trace history — useful for answering "why hasn't this specific contact received the follow-up yet."

Pausing & Stopping

Pause a campaign to stop new participants entering and new activities firing without losing the configuration, or stop it entirely once it's no longer needed (e.g. a seasonal promotion campaign after the season ends).