Automations

An automation is a flow that runs on its own: when something happens, Gadura sends emails, adds tags, starts an email series, or calls another tool.

Creating one

1. Go to Audience → Automations and choose New Automation. Start from a template such as Welcome Series, Onboarding or Cart Recovery, or from blank.
2. Choose the Trigger: what starts it.
3. Add steps: Send Email, Wait, Branch on a condition, an Action such as Add Tag or Add to Series, a Goal, or Exit.
4. Activate.

Example: a welcome flow

Trigger: form submitted. Send the welcome email. Wait two days. Send a follow-up. Wait three days. Introduce your offer. Add the tag "welcome-complete".

Watching it

The automations list shows each flow's status and how many people are in it and have completed it.

A trigger is the event that puts a contact into an automation.

Available triggers

• New Signup: someone joins your list.
• Form Submitted: any form, a specific website page form, or a specific funnel form.
• Tag Added and Tag Removed.
• Purchase Made: any product, or a specific one.
• Cart Abandoned: a checkout was started and not completed.
• Joins Your Community: any Sphere, or a specific one.
• Visits a Page: an identified contact opens a page you choose.
• Email Opened, Email Clicked and Link Clicked.
• Entered Segment and Left Segment.
• Manual Enrollment: you add the contact yourself.

Choosing

Name the automation after its trigger, test it with your own address, and use tags to stop someone entering the same flow twice.

Adding an email step

Add a step and choose Send Email. Either pick an email template or write my own with a subject and body.

Personalisation

Use {{first_name}}, {{last_name}}, {{email}}, {{company_name}} and {{creator_name}}. The unsubscribe link is added for you.

Sender

Emails go out with the sender name and reply-to address from Settings → Email.

Tips

One purpose per email, a conversational tone, and a test to yourself before activating.

A wait pauses the flow before the next step. Set it in minutes, hours, days or weeks.

Typical spacing

Welcome flows: two to three days between emails. Sales flows: one to two days. Nurture flows: four to seven days.

Example

Deliver the download immediately, wait two days, send a tip, wait three days, make the offer.

A Branch splits the flow into a yes path and a no path based on a check.

What you can check

• Has Tag.
• Has Purchased: any product, or a specific one.
• Custom Field values.
• Whether an earlier email was opened or clicked, through the email triggers and conditions.

Example

After a webinar tag is added, wait a day, then branch on Has Purchased. Yes: thank them and add an onboarding tag. No: send the offer, wait three days, check again, and send a last reminder.

Keep it simple

One or two levels of branching, and both paths should end somewhere deliberate, with a Goal or an Exit.

Tags record where a contact is in your journey and can start other automations.

The steps

Add an Action step and choose Add Tag or Remove Tag, then pick the tag.

Patterns

• Add "in-welcome" at the start and swap it for "welcome-complete" at the end.
• Remove "prospect" when someone buys; add "customer".
• Add an interest tag when a link is clicked, then branch on it later.

Naming

Short, consistent names: source-, interest-, status-, completed-.

An Email Series is a scheduled set of emails in Email Studio. Automations can put people into one and take them out.

Adding

Add an Action step, choose Add to Sequence, and pick the series. The contact starts receiving it on its schedule.

Removing

Remove from Sequence stops it, for example when someone buys.

Which to use

Use a series when everyone gets the same emails in the same order. Use an automation when the path depends on what people do, and let it route them into the right series.

Activating

Choose Activate. Gadura checks that every email step has content, every action has its selection, and every wait has a duration.

Statuses

• Draft: not running.
• Active: accepting new contacts and processing everyone in it.
• Paused: no new contacts enter; people already inside continue.
• Archived: retired.

Editing a live automation

Changes apply to contacts who enter after the change. People already inside continue on the steps they started with. Pause first if you are making large changes.

Watching

The list shows how many people are in each automation and how many have completed it.

• Start with the goal, then map the steps that lead to it.
• Three to five emails beat twenty. Add more when the first ones work.
• Space emails two to three days apart for welcomes, daily at most for sales pushes, weekly for nurture.
• One clear call to action per email.
• Send every email to yourself first, on a phone as well.
• Watch opens, clicks and unsubscribes after activating, and adjust.
• Use tags to stop people entering the same flow twice.

It will not activate

An email step is missing its subject or body, an action has no tag or series selected, or a wait has no duration.

Nobody is entering

Check it is Active, not Draft or Paused; that the trigger is the right one, with the right form, tag or product selected; and that the contact is not suppressed or unsubscribed.

Emails are not sending

The contact must have a healthy email address, and Settings → Email must hold your sender name and reply-to.

The wrong branch ran

Check the condition and that the tag or purchase existed before the branch was reached.

Someone got the same email twice

They entered through more than one trigger, or through two automations. Add a tag at the start and branch on it.

Still stuck

Message us from the Help launcher with the automation's name and what you expected.