This is a guide for Automated Journey email. Make sure you've read our introduction to Automated Journeys first.
Ready to map out a customer journey? In your dashboard, click on "Automation", hit "Create an automation", and choose "Custom journey".
You'll be asked to name your journey, select a subscriber list to attach the journey to, and then select a trigger.
After that, you're all set to add steps that customise and define the journey's path.
Step One: Choosing a starting point
To get started - you'll need to select your type of automation from the following options:
We recommend using a 'Custom Journey' - this gives you the most control over your journey. More on that in step two.
Step Two: Choosing a journey trigger
Your journey can start from any of these six triggers:
Quick reference guide to each trigger
*Yellow means this is a popular trigger type 🏆
TRIGGER | USED FOR | HELPFUL HINTS |
A subscriber joins a list | Send one or more emails to welcome new subscribers when they sign up | If you have additional subscriber lists, such as a Newsletter or lead acuisition list - this is perfect for welcoming new subscribers and sending them a series of emails after that.
Important: Do not use this trigger for welcoming new patients - for that you must use 'Subscriber enters a segment' or a Transactional email. This is because we need to be more specific about what constitutes a 'New' patient. Someone being added to your patient list isn't necessarily na new patient. |
Subscriber enters a segment | Trigger this journey when a subscriber is added to the segment for the first time | Segment-based triggering is our favourite part of the journey builder 😍
You can create all manner of complex segments, then use these segments to trigger journeys - for example, if a subscriber enters the '10 total appointments' segment you could send a big thank you.
You'll need to create your desired segments first. Learn more here. |
Subscriber exits a segment | Trigger this journey when a subscriber no longer meets the rules of this segment | Similar to the above - but triggers when someone exits a segment. |
A date | Trigger this journey based on a subscriber's date field | If you store static dates for subscribers, you can use this date as a trigger date for a journey.
|
An anniversary of a date | Trigger this journey based on the anniversary of a subscriber's date field | Peptalkr stores a number of dates for client's, however, the most common use-case for this trigger is to say happy birthday 🎂
Important: If you want to automate emails based on the date of an appointment, you should use Transactional. |
An action in your Shopify store | Buying products, first-time customers, repeat customers and more. | To integrate Peptalkr with your Shopify store please reach out to customer support for next steps. |
Step Three: Choosing a journey trigger
Add your steps and emails.
Settings
Delays
Emails
Conditions
Add a delay
Add delays between your journey steps to drip your emails over a period of time. Your first email might send 1 hour after joining a section, with the second one set to go 7 days later, and the third to go 3 weeks later.
⏱️ Note on timing:
When a journey is set up to check for someone entering or exiting a segment, segment membership is checked every 10 minutes. Emails are sent when a change is detected. Therefore there may be a delay of up to 10 minutes before the email is sent to a subscriber.
By default, journeys using a date-based (such as anniversary of a date) the email is sent at midnight in your account timezone. In most cases this is not a practical time for recipients to receive emails, so you can adjust it by adding a delay step. For example, add a delay of seven hours to send the email at 7am, or 13 hours for 1pm.
Add an email
A journey needs an email added - and you can have just one email if you like.
Be sure to:
Add a step name for the email (e.g Send welcome message)
Add a subject line
Add a 'From' name and email address
Add a segment condition if you want to ensure only subscribers in a specific segment receive this email. For example, if a subscriber has booked an appointment you might choose to skip sending this email to them by select a segment for 'No upcoming appointment' as the only recipients of this email step.
Press 'Add email content' to go to the email builder and start designing.
Add Conditions
Add conditions to fork your journey into two separate paths if you need to. Similar to the segment condition detailed in the list above - but allows you to fork off the journey into two separate paths - for example, one for women and one for men, or one for Physio clients and one for Chiro clients.
Step Four: Time to turn it on
Once you've added all of your steps - you'll see a 'Turn on journey' button in green light up in the corner.
If you have not completed something, you'll see a message like this:
Click the orange step incomplete text to see what you've not done.
Completed everything but still can't turn it on?
New accounts occasionally require approval before journeys can be enabled. This is part of our internal system to minimise sneaky spam accounts from taking advantage of the Peptalkr system. Just send us a message using the chat bubble if you encounter this.
Segments
Segments are a critical component of automated journeys - learn about them here: