An automation sends emails on its own when a contact does something, such as subscribing to a list, registering on your site or placing an order. Use it to welcome subscribers, follow up after a purchase or send reminders.
Building an automation from scratch, adding steps and using most pre-made workflows require MailerPress Pro. Without MailerPress Pro, you can use the two free pre-made workflows, Welcome New Subscribers and New User Welcome. Each has one trigger and one Send Email step.
Each automation (or workflow) has a trigger, the event that starts it, followed by steps run in order for each contact: wait, send an email, add a tag, check a condition, etc.
Before you start
Start simple: one goal (for example welcoming new subscribers), a simple trigger and only the steps you need. Keep the automation as a draft until you have tested it with a sample contact.
Automations are in MailerPress > Automations, with three sections: Performance Dashboard, All automations and Pre-made workflows.
Start from a pre-made workflow
- Go to MailerPress > Automations > Pre-made workflows, or click New automation and choose Choose a pre-made workflow.
- Filter the list by category, or use the Type filter to show Free or Pro workflows.
- Click Use template. MailerPress creates the automation as a draft and opens it in the editor.
- Open each Send Email step and create its email. Pre-made workflows provide the email names and subjects, but not the email content.
Version 2.1.3 includes 31 pre-made workflows. The WooCommerce category only appears when WooCommerce is active. All of them, except the two free ones, require MailerPress Pro.
| Category | Pre-made workflows |
|---|---|
| Onboarding | Welcome New Subscribers (free), New User Welcome (free) |
| Nurturing | Email Sequence, Nurture Until Purchase, Re-engagement Sequence, Birthday Campaign, Newsletter Engagement Campaign, Win-Back Campaign |
| Goals | Lead Magnet: Wait for the Click, Activation: Wait for a Tag, Measure Engagement (Optional Goals), Re-engagement with an Entry Goal, Double Opt-in Confirmation, Profile Completion, Win Back Dormant Members, Upgrade to a Premium List, Chain Two Sequences, Custom Event Goal |
| WooCommerce | Nurture Until Order (WooCommerce), Second Order Goal (WooCommerce), Post-Purchase Follow-up, Customer First Order Journey, Abandoned Cart Recovery, Product Review Request, VIP Customer Program |
| Organization | Tag & Email |
| A/B Testing | A/B Test Email Subject, A/B Test Email Content, A/B Test Welcome Email Optimization, A/B Test Promotional Campaign, A/B Test Re-engagement Sequence |
For WooCommerce recipes, see Recover abandoned carts with a WooCommerce automation and Win back inactive WooCommerce customers.
Build an automation from scratch
This example welcomes new subscribers three days after they sign up. It requires MailerPress Pro.
Create the automation
- Go to MailerPress > Automations, click New automation, then Start from scratch.
- Enter an Automation name you will recognize later and click Create. The automation editor opens.
Choose and configure the trigger
- In the center of the canvas, under Start your workflow, click Choose a Trigger.
- Select Contact Subscribed in the MailerPress group, or find it with the search field.
- Click the trigger on the canvas. Its settings open in the Step tab of the right sidebar: Subscription Status, Lists and Tags. Leave a setting empty to accept any value.
- If you use double opt-in (new contacts confirm their subscription by clicking a link in an email), set Subscription Status to Subscribed. Contacts then enter the automation after confirming.
Add a waiting time
- Click Add Step below the trigger. The Add a step window lists the steps by category.
- Choose Wait in the Timing category.
- Click the step and set Duration to 3 and Unit to Days.
Add and design the email
- Click Add Step below the wait, then choose Send Email in the Communication category.
- Fill in Email Name * (an internal name, shown in conditions, goals and reports) and Subject *, for example “Welcome!”. Leave Recipient Email empty to send to the contact.
- Click Create New Email. In the Create your email window, click Start from scratch or choose one of your templates.
- Design your email in the email editor (see How to use the MailerPress Editor), then click Back to Automation.
Add other steps the same way: conditions, tags and lists, goals, Wait Until Date, Load Post Data and more. The automation reference describes every trigger and step. With an AI provider configured, you can also generate automations or steps with AI.
Prevent contacts from entering twice
In the Automation tab of the right sidebar, under Automation Settings, turn on Run once per subscriber. A contact then goes through this automation only once. Even with this option off, a contact who is still in the automation is not added a second time.
Activate the automation
- Click Save in the top toolbar.
- Click Activate. The automation now reacts to its trigger.
MailerPress won’t activate the automation if a Send Email step has no email or an empty email, or if an essential goal has no step after it (see Goals and benchmarks in automations). The message lists the steps to fix.
Click Deactivate to pause the automation. To change several automations at once, select them in All automations and use Change status (Set as Draft or Set as Enabled).
Follow results and troubleshoot
A job is one contact’s run through the automation.
- Statistics: once the automation is active, the Automation tab of the editor shows Jobs Overview (Total Jobs, Active Jobs, Completed, Failed), goal conversions, Unique Users and Last Execution. After fixing a problem, click the retry button below the counters (for example Retry 2 failed job(s)) to run the failed jobs again.
- Logs: in All automations, click View logs under an automation. Each line shows the date, the contact email, the step event, its status and details (email sent, condition met or not, error message). Filter by Completed or Failed.
- Performance Dashboard: an overview of all automations over a chosen period, with executions, success rate, activity, performance by workflow and failed jobs.
Test before going live
Trigger the automation as a regular visitor, with a contact whose inbox you can check. Make sure the steps run in the right order and the emails arrive as expected, then review the logs.
To rename, duplicate, export or delete automations, see Automation management: import, export, renaming and deletion.