This article walks through every step in the Auto Send email campaign wizard. Learn more about all of Feathr's Email Marketing campaigns in this article.
Create an Auto Send campaign
1. Click '+Add Campaign' from the Campaign table or from a Flight
2. Select Auto Send campaign
3. Give the campaign a descriptive Name.
4. Choose a Design by clicking on a row from the Templates table. This will be the content of the email you are sending. The most recently edited templates appear at the top of the list. You will then have an opportunity to edit your chosen template. Click Next at the bottom of the screen when you're satisfied with your chosen design.
5. Add a verified Email Address to send the email message from. If your email address has not yet been verified, follow the prompts or refer to this article. Complete the Sender Information, which will be automatically included at the bottom of each email.
6. Add an Email Subject line. You may also choose preview text, which displays along with the subject line in many email clients. You can also choose from a list of Merge Tags to use in your email subject line. Check out this article for more information on Merge Tags.
7. Select from the Auto Send Trigger Types and define your Trigger(s). The choice of Trigger Type affects how your audience is defined.
Activity happened triggers define an audience member through the interactions a person performs with your web pages or sent emails. There are many activity triggers to choose from, but some common activity triggers are a specific URL visit or whether an audience member donated to your organization. To learn out more about accurately tracking donations, visit our article about conversion tracking here.
Field changed triggers define an audience member through a change that occurs on the Person Attribute data of a person in Feathr. These can include native Feathr fields and custom fields you've created. When attribute data points are updated on a person record in Feathr, that change can trigger the email to be sent to that audience member.
Date Triggered events define an audience member by referencing the data from a chosen Date field on a person record. These can include native Feathr fields and custom fields you've created. For example, you can set up a trigger to fire when 90 days have passed from their "Last Donation Date," so the audience member can receive a timely donation ask.
Be aware that email trigger filters work differently than Group filters. When combining triggers in an email campaign, Feathr searches only within a single breadcrumb (an individual piece of data, represented in a person record as a single grey box in the Activity Feed), rather than an entire person record (all known data about a visitor). Therefore, we recommending using the "any" logic in email triggers, since it is unlikely more than one meaningful trigger will appear in the same individual breadcrumb.
You have the additional option to send your email only the first time a prospect performs the trigger activity, or every time they perform it. If you choose Send every time, there is a required minimum "cooldown" period, or period of time where additional emails will not be sent, of one hour. This is to prevent unintentional multiple emails clogging your prospect's inbox as a result of their browsing behavior.
8. Define the campaign Exclusions, or anyone who should not receive this email after performing the trigger activity. A common example is visitors located in geographic areas with explicit email opt-in policies.
Any email address that has previously bounced or unsubscribed from Feathr emails in this project or account will be automatically excluded from the campaign. Learn more about unsubscribe options in Feathr here.
9. Chose a Goal for the campaign. Read more about goals and conversion tracking here.
10. Test that your email campaign works and looks as expected. The purpose of sending a test is to make sure the email content is appearing correctly, and this includes any Merge Fields you've used in your subject lines or email body. Any example contact you choose will not receive an email during this test. The data points for the Example Contact, such as First Name, will be used to test any Merge Fields you've used. The test email can take up to 5-10 minutes to arrive.
11. Select a Send Window date and time range. Note that the maximum length is one year, but the campaign can be renewed.
12. Verify that you are only sending emails to consenting audience members and Publish!
Emails should only be sent to those who have consented to receive them, and you must type "AGREE" to attest to this. We recommend updating your privacy policy and confirming that Auto Send campaigns are appropriate for your audience. If the hard bounce rate for any campaign is greater than 5%, your account automatically enters a review period. Learn ways to reduce your bounce rate in this article.
Publishing an Auto Send email campaign sets the campaign in motion. If you declared earlier that you want to immediately send emails to audience members that performed the triggering options prior to the campaign being published, those audience members will receive the email upon publishing. Otherwise, the campaign will begin sending emails to audience members during the send window you established.