Marketing automation by scenarios

What is an automation scenario

Scenario is one of the most useful marketing automation tools. It is a chain of conditions and a sequence of operations that will follow.

This scenario allows you not only to automate interaction with your subscribers but also to visualize a Customer Journey Map. With its help, you can track a customer journey from the moment they are introduced to your brand to the moment they perform a target action, for instance, a purchase.

Create scenarios of any complexity. Start with automating simple processes. Give the user a promo code as soon as they download your mobile app. You can also add them to a certain segment if they show interest in some product category and follow the link in your email. Step by step, you will learn how to create more complex chains and implement mechanisms such as cross-selling or notifications about an abandoned calculator.

Classic marketing scenarios

• Welcome email series
• First purchase
• Abandoned cart
• Customer loyalty management
• Reactivation of sleeping customers
• Payment reminder

How to create an automation scenario

Before you start setting up the scenario, you need to prepare the platform objects that you are going to use. Create and set up databases, resources, segments, templates, campaigns, promo codes, etc.

To create an automation scenario, open the «Scenarios» section in the main menu and then click «Create» in the upper panel.

Step 1. General settings

Enter the name and a brief description of your scenario. Add custom tags for instant search and set access groups. Activate the scenario by clicking a toggle switch in the upper right corner:

Now you need to decide what you will do if the same customer gets into the scenario several times.

Step 2. Select a condition to run the scenario

The scenario can be activated in two ways:

1. The trigger condition is fulfilled. Trigger is suitable when you need to automate the journey of one customer within a business process. For example, you can send a welcome email series to a new customer of your online store or remind your customer about an abandoned cart.
2. On the selected date and time. Use a schedule, if you need to perform the same sequence repeatedly for a certain group of customers. For example, to remind customers that their subscription is about to expire.

Running the scenario when the trigger is activated

This scenario tracks customers in the specified database and captures only those who meet certain conditions. You can read about these conditions in our piece «Trigger events».

Select the subscriber database and the capture condition:

Running the scenario for segment by schedule

If you want the platform to automatically perform a sequence of actions for a certain group of audience, select the database and click «For segment by schedule»:

Now you need to segment the audience, i.e. select a group of customers that meets certain conditions. You can group your customers by their demographics (country, city, gender, age), by their activity in newsletters (whether they open and read emails, follow the links), or by other criteria. Make up a segmentation request to group your audience.

A segment of customers will be dynamically calculated at each start. Optionally, you can set a percentage limit on the resulting sample.

Using such scenarios, you can organize a communication sequence for customers whose terms for the provision of services are about to expire. For example, the scenario below selects only those customers whose terms expire in two weeks:

Step 3. Build a workflow

Visualize a customer journey by adding steps to the scenario. You can use the following elements:

• Pause — add a time period before the next step in the scenario.
• Message — send an email to your customer.
• Placement — run the placement campaign.
• Condition — segment your audience by adding a condition check.
• API content filter — transfer data via the API and use it to insert into your messages, return it to Action Hook, or set conditions.
• Import into database — add customer data to the database.
• Static segments — add a profile to the segment or delete it from there.
• Update profile — update customer data in your database.
• Subscriptions — your customer has a new subscription to some resource.
• API call — call an external service and transfer data there.
• Goal registration — make a record when your customer performs some target action.
• Allocation — divide your audience into several groups, the profile will get into one of them.
• Promo code — give a promo code to your customer.
• Suppression list — you can add customers' email addresses there or delete them from there.

Click on the icon + to add a step to the scenario:

Adding a «Pause» node to the scenario

So, let's assume that the customer registered on the website and thus got into the scenario. The first step is a welcome email. Your customer receives it and proceeds to the next step — audience segmentation. The scenario checks whether the user has confirmed the subscription.

If the condition is fulfilled, this user gets a promo code for new customers. If the condition is not met (the user ignored the link), another action is triggered — an email reminder to confirm the subscription.

Depending on the further customer’s actions, the scenario can send another reminder to the user, but this time through the SMS channel. Thus, each customer who will be captured by your scenario will go through it step by step.

Welcome scenario

Step 4. Analyze your scenario

You can analyze the effectiveness of your scenarios in the scenario editing form. As for detailed statistics on the campaigns that are involved in the scenario, you can find it in a summary report.

Statistics on the customer journey through your scenario

For a certain period, you can find the scenario data in the upper panel. There you can find the following information:

• the total number of profiles in the scenario
• the number of profiles that completed the scenario
• the number of profiles processed by the scenario
• a list of errors that occurred during operation

In the scenario, above each element, you can see the number of customers who are currently at this stage and how many of them have already moved on to the next one:

Campaign analytics in the scenario

Use a summary report to see the effectiveness of your campaigns that were launched by the scenario. Go to «Analytics» → «Summary». In the field «Report source» select the object «Scenario», and in the field «Specify source» select the scenario you need.

Checklist

1. Prepare email templates.
2. Go to the «Scenarios» section and create a new scenario.
3. Select what to do with those users who repeatedly get into the scenario.
4. Specify the database whose profiles will be included in the scenario.
5. Set up the trigger: when it is activated, the profile will get into the scenario.
6. Add nodes to the workflow.
7. Save the scenario and run it.
8. Evaluate its effectiveness using a summary report or a conversion funnel.

Conclusion

Once you set up an automation scenario, you will no longer have to waste your time on the same routine activities. It takes a few minutes to automate your campaigns, segment the target audience and give promo codes to customers. scenarios will allow you to manage customer loyalty, motivate them to perform target actions, and even add gamification to your marketing.