Email automation involves using tools that, once set up, can autonomously carry out certain email sending actions.
Requiring little to no supervision.
A classic example would be follow-up emails after subscribing.
A contact subscribes and automatically receives a welcome email, or a series of emails, essentially a funnel.
In general, automations allow you to:
- Spend more time on other tasks
- Avoid mistakes
- Scale your business without needing to dedicate more time or resources
And therefore, they are a highly useful tool in a business’s email marketing arsenal.
Especially if, as in the case of Mailrelay, they are easy to set up, helping you save time without complications.
But to truly appreciate the value of this feature, let’s first look at the advantages.
Advantages of email automation for your business
Some of the advantages are obvious, but let’s review them to better specify the benefits of automating certain processes and ensure we don’t miss anything.
· Time and effort savings:
This is clear.
By automating certain actions, you no longer have to do them manually, thus saving time.
Furthermore, certain actions, like sending welcome emails, would be impossible to do manually once your subscriber list started to grow.
Sending a couple of welcome emails is tedious; sending hundreds is truly impossible.
You not only save time, but you also make certain actions viable that otherwise wouldn’t be, allowing your business to grow or use strategies that it otherwise couldn’t.
· Personalization at scale:
Is it possible to automate and personalize at the same time?
Of course it is.
We already discussed this topic in a previous article that I leave here.
Mailrelay’s automation tools allow you to, as we will see:
- Automate
- Personalize
- Segment
All of this will help make the sent messages more effective, and if your copy is well-crafted, they will be more human even if they were sent automatically.
· Higher engagement and conversions:
On one hand, it’s clear that automation “dehumanizes” communication.
No matter how well it’s done, this is normal.
You can almost always tell when an email is automated; human perception can detect it.
But, on the other hand, a lack of communication is much worse.
That is, if a contact subscribes to your list and doesn’t receive any emails from you in weeks, it’s worse than receiving an automated email.
Regular, frequent, and useful communication is best.
And for that, it will be necessary to automate certain processes.
· Seamless scalability:
We mentioned this earlier, and it’s one of the most obvious aspects.
There are actions that, due to their sheer volume or nature, simply can’t be performed manually and need to be automated.
Other times, it’s simply for convenience and to be able to increase the volume of other actions.
If your business needs to sell, and they all do, automating a sales funnel, for example, can be highly useful to you.
Examples of automations with Mailrelay
Mailrelay has multiple automations. It’s difficult to review all the options, but let’s look at some of the most interesting ones, though keep in mind that many of them can be combined.
Automations are included in the free account, so you can test them without any issues.
· Welcome for new subscribers:
This is one of the most common automations in email marketing tools.
Someone subscribes to your list and automatically receives a welcome email.
In Mailrelay’s case, it’s very easy to implement.
In this email, you can introduce yourself, link to important pages on your website, provide a discount or another lead magnet you’ve used, etc.
And whenever a contact is added to the group, whether from an import, a form, or added manually, the automation will trigger.
· Drip campaigns (drip campaigns):
We could see it as an extension of the previous automation.
It would be a series of emails sent over time.
For example, you can send the welcome email, set a one-day pause, send the next email, set another pause, etc.
It serves to create sales funnels.
Let’s look at an example:
You could, of course, continue expanding this automation with more days.
In fact, you could create a small sales funnel with a series of consecutive emails, nurturing the contacts’ interest while addressing the most common questions and objections.
This is one of the most frequent uses of this type of automation.
· Reactivation of inactive users:
This is possible because Mailrelay establishes a “reputation” or contact rating system based on their activity.
That is, if they react to the emails you send them, if they open them, if they click.
Mailrelay gives good scores to contacts who open and click when they receive your emails, and poor scores to those who don’t.
It’s not immediate, of course.
It’s a process that takes time, so if a contact has a poor score, you know they are a contact who hasn’t reacted to your emails in a while.
You could, for example, create this segmentation (in the Subscribers – Segmentation menu):
These conditions (which must all be met) will select contacts whose reputation is 1 or 2, meaning highly inactive contacts.
How could you trigger a flow focused on this segmentation?
You could create an automation like the previous one, where the entry point is something like this:
This would be the entry point, and then we could continue:
This automation checks for contacts who have received a specific email, waits a day, and sends another, continuing the flow.
What triggers the automation is the receipt of that first email, which you would send to the inactive contacts segment we saw earlier.
Could it start at another time other than upon receipt?
Yes, of course:
- When the email is opened
- Or when a click is made
Among other options.
But this would fall more into the next section.
· Automations based on specific actions:
We can return to the previous case and assume that once we have sent the email to inactive contacts, we want to distinguish those who opened it from those who didn’t, to send them different content.
This is also very easy to do. Below is an example of a conditional block:
This block checks whether or not the contact has opened the received email.
And what do we do with this check?
Generate two paths: one in case they opened it, and another in case they didn’t:
This allows you to have one email flow if they open, and another if they don’t, allowing you to have different emails for each case.
You can also check if they have clicked on a specific link:
Inside the block, you can set the exact link that should be checked.
Important! You must create a wait block at the beginning to give contacts time to perform the action; otherwise, it will always return a negative result because they won’t have had time.
· Birthday greetings:
This is another way to start an automation process, if we have the contact’s birthday (you can import this if you have it):
From this entry point, which triggers the automation, we can continue with a flow just like in the previous cases.
· Abandoned cart recovery:
As of this article’s date, only available for WooCommerce.
If a cart is abandoned, Mailrelay can start an automation flow after the time you set.
· Group change automation:
Within the automation flows, you can perform other actions with contacts, such as adding them to a new group, for example:
Or removing them from a group.
This allows you, for example, after a reactivation campaign, to move the contacts who reacted into an active contacts group, and those who didn’t into an inactive group.
You also have other options available:
- Sending SMS
- Webhooks
- Etc.
The best thing is to create your free account and take a look at all the available options.
You can create everything from simple automations that only send one email, to complex automated flows with various conditions and actions.
All easily.
How to start setting up automations in Mailrelay
As you can see, creating and working with automations is very simple.
Basically:
- You choose an entry point: that is, the action that will trigger the automation.
- Click on add: to add new conditions, actions, etc.
This way you build whatever you need.
Just by clicking add and placing more elements.
The process is simple, so what should you keep in mind?
· Define your goals:
The first thing is to be clear about what type of automation you are going to run and how you’re going to use it.
Why?
Because if they are going to be “single-use” actions, you might be able to perform them more easily with segmentation than with automation.
Each tool has its use.
· Select a trigger and design the sequence:
We have seen some examples, like when a contact is added to the group or receives an email.
These are the most common, and from here you easily build the entire sequence as we saw in the other points, adding the elements you want.
· Set up the logic and conditions:
As we have seen, it’s possible to create conditions that split the flow, whether they are met or not.
· Activate and test:
Once you have created the automation, don’t forget to activate it and run a test.
Important!
If you activate the automation, and contacts begin to enter it, the changes you make to the automation won’t apply to contacts who are already “halfway” through, only to new ones entering after you make the changes.
Keep this in mind.
Mailrelay: leading free email marketing plan
Everything we’ve seen in this article you can do on the free Mailrelay account without any issues; there are no restricted features.
Plus, you can send up to 80,000 free emails every month to up to 20,000 contacts.
What else will you find in the free account?
· Segmentation tools:
Mailrelay allows you to precisely segment your contact list.
You can even add custom fields and use them for these segmentations.
As you can see in the example below:
This way, both your mass mailings and your automations can focus on highly specific segments.
· Conditionals and business logic:
It’s also possible to add segmentation options to the automation conditionals we’ve seen.
So, in a condition, besides whether they’ve opened or clicked, you could also check a specific value of a custom field.
Mailrelay includes an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
Additionally, it features artificial intelligence capabilities so you can create an email in minutes.
Below you can see the panel where you can request the AI-generated template:
Just ask for what you want and the AI will do it for you.
· A/B testing:
You can test two subject line or sender variants for the same campaign.
The most effective version is automatically sent to the rest if you want, or manually if you prefer to wait and see the data.
This way you can send the best version and get the best results.
· Multichannel automation:
In addition to emails, you can send SMS messages in automations, allowing you to reach your contacts through different channels.
· Real-time analytics (statistics):
Real-time statistics will give you precise information on the results of your sends.
We discuss in detail how to make the best use of this feature here.
Take a look, as it’s possible to greatly improve your mailings through a proper review of statistics.
You will have information on:
- Opens
- Clicks
- Bounces
- Spam complaints
- Unsubscribes
- Heat maps
- Information about contact location
- Devices used
- Etc.
· Integrations with other platforms:
The ability to connect with other platforms and applications allows your company to expand if needed.
Mailrelay offers multiple integration options:
- Forms and landing pages
- API
- SMTP
- Platforms like Make.com
Automate your emails easily, without complications
On one hand, it’s true that there are automation-oriented platforms with more powerful automations.
But on the other hand, Mailrelay’s automation system is designed to be useful for the majority of businesses.
It has the most important features we discussed above, but it’s also very easy to use.
And if you have any questions, you can count on our support team.
What are you waiting for to try Mailrelay’s automation?