You can create autoresponder campaigns that send email to contacts on your list automatically in response to a trigger that you choose. For example, you can create an autoresponder that sends contacts an email on their birthday. Or you can create an autoresponder that sends a "welcome" email to new subscribers.
To create an autoresponder:
- Navigate to the Autoresponders tab
- Click the New Autoresponder button or click + in the toolbar and choose New Autoresponder
- Give the autoresponder a name (not visible to recipients; for your reference only)
- Configure the autoresponder as described below
Configure an Autoresponder
You have several options when setting up your autoresponder.
Message
Choose the message that you want to be sent when this autoresponder is triggered. If you want to edit or change the message after the autoresponder has been start, you will need to pause the autoresponder, make your changes, and then restart the autoresponder.
Trigger
Choose what kind of event should trigger this autoresponder to send. This help article explains each kind of trigger. Each trigger has its own configuration options.
The trigger cannot be changed after the autoresponder is started for the first time.
Recipients
If desired, you can further limit which recipients are sent the campaign by configuring a list of rules that the recipient must match.
These options can be changed even after the autoresponder is started.
Schedule
By default, autoresponders are sent as soon as they are triggered. If desired, you can configure a delay of several hours, days, weeks or months.
By default, autoresponders are sent each day of the week. If desired, you can limit your autoresponder to only send on certain days of the week. If an autoresponder is triggered on an "off" day, it will be held and sent on the next "on" day.
These options can be changed even after the autoresponder is started.
Tracking
You can enable open and click tracking, as well as Google Analytics tagging. These options cannot be changed after the autoresponder is started for the first time.
Start and Stop an Autoresponder
Please see this help article for information on starting and stopping autoresponders.
Campaign Reports
Just like regular campaigns, autoresponder campaigns generate a campaign report. To view the report:
- Navigate to the Reports tab
- Select the report
…or…
- Navigate to the Autoresponders tab
- Select an autoresponder
- Click Show Report in the toolbar
Because autoresponder campaigns are typically long-running, the campaign report interface shows some extra options when viewing an autoresponder report:
- The Summary section includes a date control at the top that lets you chose which time period to view.
- All Time: This is the default
- Last 30 Days: View the most recent 24 hours. Click and hold on this button to show other options.
- Other: Enter any two start and end dates
- The Message and Links sections include a popup menu at the top that allows you to choose which version of the message you want to view. This is only applicable to campaigns that have changed the message content over time.