How to create a subscription confirmation workflow with an incentive for new subscribers
Beginner’s Guide to Automations
Automations are automated workflows that allow you to assign tags and send emails to contacts under the conditions of your choice.
For example, you can create an email marketing automation for subscribers who've joined your list, joined a specific segment, or clicked through a link in one of your emails.
Automations are made up of 3 elements:
Each automation has a trigger and consists of actions that can happen for all contacts within the automation or only for those who’ve met certain conditions.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the types of triggers, actions, and conditions available in Getsitecontrol. Feel free to skip sections using the shortcut menu on the right.
Triggers
A trigger is an event that launches the automation. In Getsitecontrol, there are 8 types of triggers:
- Form submission
- Email link click
- Webhook
- Segment
- Workflow
Form submission
Automations with this trigger are launched when contacts submit their email address via one of your Getsitecontrol forms.
In the automation settings, you can specify which form(s) will trigger the automation.
💡 You can use this type of automation to send a subscription confirmation email or deliver a promised incentive (a discount code, a free shipping code, a free ebook, etc.).
Email link click
Automations with this trigger are launched when contacts click through an email you’ve sent via Getsitecontrol. You can specify which email links should trigger the automation:
💡 You can use this type of automation to tag contacts based on the interests they’ve expressed and send them personalized product recommendations. You can also use this automation to segment those who haven’t clicked through your emails for a while and send them a re-engagement campaign.
Webhook request
Automations with this trigger type are launched when a contact’s data is sent to the Getsitecontrol database via a webhook request.
If the contact is not in the database at the moment of the request, a new entry will be generated. If the contact already exists, it will be updated.
To send contacts’ data to Getsitecontrol via a webhook, you need to send a request to a specific URL, which is unique for each automation. You can find the URL in the automation settings along with the correct request format.
This trigger allows you to launch automations based on custom events happening on your website.
💡 For example, you can send a webhook request and trigger an automation when a customer makes a purchase on your store, or when they subscribe via a form on your website (not a Getsitecontrol form). All of this is to be set up on your website's side, not within Getsitecontrol.
Segment
Automations with this type of trigger are launched when contacts join a specific segment:
❗ Please note that this type of automation is only triggered for contacts who join the segment after the automation has been configured. If you want to target customers who already belong to the segment, use a Workflow automation instead.
💡 You can use this trigger to target a segment of your audience with relevant emails. Contacts can join segments via automations, by interacting with emails and widgets — or you can add them to selected segments manually.
Workflow
This automation type can be launched manually or within other automations.
You can launch a workflow when importing contacts in bulk into your Getsitecontrol database.
You can select contacts from your database and manually launch a workflow for them.
Or you can launch a workflow via an action within another automation ( Run workflow).
💡 You can use workflows for welcome email sequences, re-engagement campaigns, or product recommendations.
New subscriber
❗ This trigger is only available for our Shopify app users.
Automations with this type of trigger are launched when you get a new subscriber in your Shopify Customer list. This can happen when someone makes a purchase and signs up for marketing emails at checkout, when someone signs up via a form on your store, or when contacts are imported from third-party services.
New subscribers are then sent from Shopify to your Getsitecontrol database, activating the automation.
💡 You can use this type of automation to easily send your customers a welcome email sequence.
Order
❗ This trigger is only available for our Shopify app users.
Automations with this type of trigger are launched after customers place an order.
You can add conditions to the automation so that it’s only triggered when customers purchase a specific product or variant, when they spend a certain amount of money, or when they purchase a certain number of items.
If you don’t set any conditions, the automation will be triggered after any purchase on your store. More information on conditions in the dedicated paragraph.
💡 You can use this automation to send your customers care instructions for your product, related product recommendations, or a discount code for their next purchase.
Checkout abandonment
❗ This trigger is only available for our Shopify app users.
Automations with this trigger are launched when customers leave the checkout process before completing it.
In this scenario, you can set conditions to target customers who were about to purchase a particular product or variant, were about to spend a certain amount of money, or nearly completed the purchase of a certain number of items before abandoning the checkout process.
❗ The Checkout abandonment automation is triggered 20 minutes after the customer initiates the checkout process (clicks the checkout button), provided that they meet your specified conditions, if there are any.
💡 You can use this type of automation to send your customers an incentive to finalize the purchase, like a discount or free shipping, or simply remind them about the suspended purchase.
That concludes the list of triggers. Let’s now move on to the building blocks of automated workflows: actions.
Actions
There are five types of actions in Getsitecontrol automations:
Send email
This action sends an email to your contacts. Once you select it, you’ll need to choose one of three methods to create your email: start from scratch (A), use a premade email template (B), or reuse previously created emails (C):
📌 To learn more about how to craft emails in Getsitecontrol, read our guides on the email editor or watch our YouTube tutorial.
Add tag
This action tags contacts under conditions of your choice.
You can tag all contacts in the automation — for example, if you want to tag the contacts who have joined your list via a specific subscription form.
Alternatively, you can tag some contacts under conditions of your choosing: contacts who have clicked on a link, contacts from a certain location, contacts who have already received a specific email, etc.
We’ll discuss conditions more in detail in the next section.
Remove tag
This action allows you to remove a previously assigned tag.
For example, if you tagged a contact and sent them recommendations based on that tag, but they didn’t click on a single one of them, then you remove the tag.
Wait
This action allows you to set a delay between actions.
You can set the delay in minutes, hours, or days.
Run workflow
This action allows you to launch a previously created workflow within your automation.
Conditions
You can set conditions your contacts need to meet to be included in the automation or a certain action.
The different sets of conditions allow you to target your contacts based on their characteristics:
Or based on the contacts’ interaction with your emails:
Additionally, you can target your contacts based on the specific email link(s) they have clicked, or based on the subject of the emails they’ve opened ( Email link click trigger only).
Order and Checkout abandonment triggers (Shopify only) allow you to target customers based on the orders they placed:
Lastly, automations with a Form Submission trigger allow you to filter contacts by additional data collected from their browser by the widget they interacted with. For example, the contact’s location, the device they used, etc.
That concludes our beginner’s guide to automations.
If you face any issues while setting up an automation, do not hesitate to reach out to us, our Tech Support team will be happy to help you.