Ask Yourself the Following Three Questions:

1. What to automate? 🤔

Ease time consuming steps? Eliminate a repetitive task? Strengthen a weak link in the communication chain, where you tend to loose leads?

2. Who do you want to target? 🏆

Consider who your audience is. What kind of content is needed and with what frequency are you sending?

3. What data do you need? ✨

Use Profile data to build and automate the customer journey.

Answer the three questions and start building a flow 👇

1. Head over to the Marketing automation Tool in the left side menu. Choose Create a New Flow and get started.

For example, try setting up a welcome flow.

Greet new subscribers with a nice welcome message the moment they sign up.

In the marketing automation canvas you'll already find the Listening Node.

Choose what action should trigger the flow. Set it up so the flow starts when a new subscriber submits a form.

Regarding what data you need to make this welcome email happen is luckily also quite easy to answer. You need a specific action or behavior to indicate that someone signed up.

2. Click on the Listen Node, choose Events -> Form & Page interactions -> Form.

Finally, choose the Submit event for the form you want to use.

When using the Form tool the Submit event is automatically stored on the Profile. This piece of information is what the Listening Node will listen for and trigger the flow.

3. Add Email Node for the welcome message. Drag and drop into the canvas and connect to the Listen Node.

4. Click on the Email Node to create the welcome message in the Email Editor.

5. Once the Email is ready, return to the Marketing Automation Canvas. Continue building the flow with more nodes or end it here, nice and simply.

6. Remember to add the End flow Node.

Before activating the flow visit the Flow Settings.

7. First decide how many times a Profile should be able to enter the flow. For the Welcome Flow 1 time makes sense.

If setting Entry Limit to more than one time, make sure to avoid sending too many emails.

With Entry Limit set to more than one, the same Profile can enter the flow again before it's able to leave the flow from their first journey.

If you'd like to avoid sending too many emails or having duplicate Profiles in your flow, you may use a Check Profile Node to see if they've entered your Marketing Automation flow in a period of time.

Also use a Termination tag to remove Profiles from the flow. Add a Termination flow by selecting it under Terminate in the flow settings.

Within the Settings go to Subscriptions and choose the Subscription(s) a Profile must be subscribed to to be able to enter the flow. You can change your choice here.

8. Now you are ready to activate the flow. Click Activate in the right bottom corner.

9. Once activated you always have the option to pause or stop the flow completely.

Pause flow: Profiles will continue to enter the flow but will stay in the Listen node.

Stop flow: Profiles will stop where they are and no new Profiles will enter the flow.

We always recommend testing the flow before going live. Learn how in the guide below.

Here's a few tips on how to test a flow before setting it live.

No matter what kind of trigger you are using to start the flow you can add a segment directly in the Listen Node, so make sure you or your team mates are the only ones who can enter the flow.

1. Head over to the Segment Builder to create the test segment. You can build a test segment by using the email address of a Profile and choosing equal to and then entering the email address.

You can choose any property and value you like just make sure it unique to the Profile you are capturing in the segment so only you or your team mates is in the segment. If you want to include more than one Profile remember to use the OR logic.

2. To make sure you are capturing the Profile intended use the Calculate Profiles button and check the result.

3. Finally remember to save the Segment.

If you are using a Form Tool form to trigger the flow and you want to be able to sign up with the same Profile more than once, set the Profile Check to Allow Profile Overwriting.

4. Change the setting to the one you find fitting when you set it live.

Here's how to create a form.

5. If you want to test the form before adding it on your website or anywhere else use the Sharable Link option.

6. Copy the link and add it in a browser to see and use the form. Remember to click Finish for the form to work.

Profile Data in Marketing Automation

Navigate the Marketing Automation Canvas