Automations are multi-step email sequences triggered by an event. Unlike campaigns (one-time sends), automations run forever — every new contact that hits the trigger enters the sequence and walks through the steps over time.
When to Use an Automation
Welcome series — a new subscriber gets a 3-email introduction over 7 days
Lead nurture — a prospect who downloaded a guide gets education emails before a sales pitch
Anniversary / birthday — automatic message on a date-based trigger
Post-trip follow-up — N days after the contact's trip ends, send a review request
Re-engagement — contacts who haven't opened in 90 days get a "we miss you" sequence
Triggers
Every automation starts with one trigger. The trigger determines when a contact enters the sequence:
Audience added — contact added to a specific audience
Tag applied — a specific tag is applied to the contact
Form submitted — a specific form was submitted
Date matched — based on a contact custom-field date (anniversary, birthday)
Webhook — external event from another system (Trips, Books, etc.)
Steps
After the trigger, you build the sequence as a chain of steps. Each step is one of:
Send email — send a specific email to the contact
Wait — pause for N hours/days/weeks before the next step
Condition — branch the sequence based on contact data ("if tag = vip → go to step A, else → step B")
Apply tag / add to audience — modify the contact mid-flow
End — exit the sequence (optional; sequences end automatically after the last step)
Re-enrollment
By default, a contact enters an automation once. If you want a contact to re-enter (e.g. they unsubscribed, re-subscribed, and should get the welcome series again), enable Allow re-enrollment in the automation settings. Without it, contacts who already entered the sequence are skipped on subsequent triggers.
Testing an Automation Before You Activate
Build the entire sequence and save as draft.
On the automation summary screen, click Preview as contact and pick yourself.
Marketing shows the full path through the sequence — every email, every wait, every condition branch — based on your contact data.
When satisfied, click Activate to start enrolling matching contacts.
Pausing & Editing Active Automations
You can pause an active automation any time — new contacts stop entering, but contacts already in the sequence continue through their remaining steps (they don't get stuck). Resume the automation to re-enable enrollment.
Editing an automation while active is supported, but with caveats:
Changes to email content apply to anyone who hasn't yet received that step
Changes to wait durations apply only to new entries (contacts already waiting use the old duration)
Removing a step shifts everyone past that point forward in the queue
Adding a step in the middle means contacts past that point will skip the new step