Automation in a simple campaign is a rule that watches what a recipient did with your email and takes an action on its own: it sends them another email or adds a label. You set it up in the campaign on the Automation page with the Add trigger button. The most common use is a second wave, that is resending the email to people who did not open it or a reminder to people who did not click.

Which events automation reacts to

In the Run, when part you choose from five events:

  • The recipient opened the email
  • The recipient did not open the email
  • Recipient clicked on the link: tracks a click on a specific link you choose.
  • The recipient did not click on the link: tracks who did not click the chosen link.
  • Email not delivered: you can react to this event only by adding a label.

The Set action part has two actions:

  • Add label: the contact gets the chosen label, so you can easily filter it later.
  • Send email: Quanda sends the chosen activated transactional email. You have to prepare it in advance.

Quanda recognizes automatic and robotic opens, for example from Apple Mail Privacy Protection, and leaves more than 80% of them out of the automation triggers too. The trigger The recipient did not open the email therefore also reaches Apple Mail users who really did not open the email.

How to set up automation

  1. If the automation should send an email, create and activate it first in the Transactional emails menu.
  2. In the simple campaign, go to Automation in the left menu and click Add trigger.
  3. Type a name you will recognize in the overview into the Name field.
  4. In the Run, when part, choose an event. For events with a link, choose the tracked link.
  5. In the Set action part, choose Send email and pick an activated transactional email, or choose Add label and pick a label.
  6. In the Schedule part, fill in Wait: a number and the unit Minute, Hour or Day.
  7. Click Save.
The new automation window of a simple campaign in Quanda named Second wave for unopened: the Run, when part has the event The recipient did not open the email selected, the Set action part has Send email and the Schedule part is set to Wait 3 Day.
An automation that sends the email to people who did not open it after 3 days.

You will see the automations you set up in the Trigger setting overview table with the columns Run, when, Take action and Last run. When you are done, continue with the Done → Sending settings button. The easiest way is to set up automations before you send the campaign.

When the waiting time starts

  • Opens and clicks: the time starts at the moment the recipient opened the email or clicked. If you set 2 hours and someone clicks at 8 a.m., they get the next email at 10 a.m. Someone who clicks at 2 p.m. gets it at 4 p.m.
  • Non-opens and no clicks: these events have no moment, because nothing happened. The time therefore counts from sending the campaign. If you set 3 days, the follow-up email goes out to everyone at once exactly 3 days after the campaign was sent.

You can attach several triggers with different actions and times to one event. The number of automations is not limited and Quanda evaluates them one by one according to the set time.

Three scenarios worth using

  1. Resend to people who did not open: the event The recipient did not open the email, a wait of 3 days, the action Send email with a transactional email that has the same content and a new subject line. In one of our own campaigns this raised the click-through rate from 5.1% to 6.2%.
  2. A special offer after a click: the event Recipient clicked on the link with a link to a specific product, a wait of 30 minutes, the action Send email with a discounted offer for that product.
  3. A reminder to people who did not click: the event The recipient did not click on the link with the registration link, a wait of 4 days, the action Send email with a last chance to sign up. In one of our own campaigns the reminder raised the click-through rate from 15.7% to 28.7%.

The reminder also reaches people who never opened the first email. Keep it short, with one prominent link, and make it work without the first email:

The numbers of both campaigns, timing and common mistakes are covered in the article Second wave email: how to lift click-through rate by up to 83%. More scenarios are in the article Email automation: 8 scenarios that work for you. Automation in email campaigns is included in the Professional and Enterprise plans.

Do you have questions? We will be happy to answer them. Just contact our customer support at +420 605 163 892, e-mail: support@onquanda.com.

Frequently asked questions

It watches what a recipient did with the email and takes an action on its own. It reacts to an open, a non-open, a click on a link, no click on a link and an undelivered email. The action is sending a transactional email or adding a label.

Prepare and activate a transactional email with the same content and a new subject line. Then, on the campaign's Automation page, add the trigger The recipient did not open the email, the action Send email and a wait of, say, 3 days. Only people who did not open the first email get it.

For opens and clicks, from the moment the recipient opened the email or clicked, so everyone gets the follow-up email at a different time. Non-opens and no clicks have no such moment, so the time counts from sending the campaign and the follow-up email goes out to everyone at once.

No. Quanda recognizes automatic and robotic opens and leaves more than 80% of them out of both the statistics and the automation triggers. The trigger The recipient did not open the email therefore also reaches Apple Mail users who really did not open the email.

There is no limit. You can attach several triggers with different actions and times to one event, and Quanda evaluates them one by one. Do not send the same people several follow-up emails in a row, though, as unsubscribes go up.

Automation in email campaigns is included in the Professional and Enterprise plans. The pricing page calculates the exact price for your number of contacts.