How to build a Follow-up automation

A Follow-up automation is an automated workflow that allows you to assign tags and send emails to subscribers who joined your contact list via one of your forms.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to build a follow-up automation from start to finish.

Feel free to use the shortcut menu to navigate through the sections of this article.

Before getting started, log in to your Getsitecontrol account and go to the All widgets section. Click the Follow-up button at the bottom of a widget card:

The ‘Follow-up’ button at the bottom of the widget card

❗You’ll be able to set up a follow-up automation for any form that features an email-capture field, such as subscription forms, contact forms, order forms, etc.

Add Actions to your workflow

Like any other automation, follow-up automations are nothing but sequences of actions. To add your first action, click the + icon in the Actions section:

The ‘+’ icon in the Follow-up automation screen

There are five types of actions in Getsitecontrol:

  • Send email
  • Add tag
  • Remove tag
  • Run sequence
  • Wait

The Actions menu in the Follow-up automation screen

In the upcoming paragraphs, we’ll introduce each action and talk about it in detail.

Send email

This action allows you to send an email to your form respondents. There are three methods to create an email: Start from scratch, Use premade emails, or Reuse my emails:

The 3 methods to create an email: Start from scratch, Use premade emails, or Reuse my emails

Start from scratch

If you choose to start from scratch, you’ll start from a blank sheet where you’ll enter your own copy and add visual elements to the email, such as images, coupon boxes, buttons, countdown timers, etc.

The Getsitecontrol email editor with a blank email sheet

Here’s an example of an email created from scratch:

Example of email created from scratch

Use premade emails

Premade emails are customizable email templates you can use to craft your emails faster.

Getsitecontrol’s email template gallery

Reuse my emails

This option allows you to reuse an email you have previously created in Getsitecontrol.

The ‘Reuse my emails’ screen with a series of previously created emails

You can add these emails as they are or adjust them for your follow-up automation.

To learn more on how to create and edit emails in Getsitecontrol, watch our video tutorial.

Add tag

This action allows you to assign tags to your form respondents.

You can tag all contacts who have joined your list via the form or part of the contacts based on a condition of your choosing: contacts from a certain location, contacts from a specific ad campaign, etc.

Assigning a tag to form respondents

We’ll discuss conditions more in detail in a dedicated paragraph.

Remove tag

This action allows you to remove a previously assigned tag from your contacts.

For example, if you previously assigned a tag to a contact and sent them a corresponding promo, you can remove the tag to stop sending the same content to that contact.

Removing a tag from the contacts collected by the form

Run sequence

Run sequence allows you to launch a sequence of actions you have previously created in Getsitecontrol.

Running a sequence within the follow-up automation

To learn how to create sequences, read about them in our article.

Wait

The Wait action allows you to set a delay between actions.

Setting a time delay between actions

You can create the delay in minutes, hours, or days.

That concludes our overview of the types of actions within follow-up automations. Let’s move on to discussing conditions.

Set up Conditions

You can set conditions your contacts need to meet to trigger the follow-up automation or an action within it.

To add a new condition, click +Add condition:

The +Add condition buttons in the Follow-up automation screen

Follow-up automations allow you to choose from a wide range of conditions grouped into six subsets:

The six subsets of conditions in the Conditions menu

We’ll now examine each subset closely.

Contact

The Contact subset includes the following conditions:

The Contact subset of conditions

Let’s go over them one by one.

  • Tag The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact has (or doesn’t have) a specific tag.

  • Segment The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact belongs (or doesn’t belong) to a certain segment. To learn more about audience segmentation, check out this dedicated article on our blog.

  • Marketing status. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact has a specific marketing status: subscribed or unsubscribed.

  • Email address. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact’s email matches/partially matches/does not match a certain value. For example, this condition can be used to exclude your company email domain from the automation or other email domains, like gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc.

  • Phone number. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact’s phone number matches/partially matches/does not match a certain value. This condition can be used to target/exclude specific prefixes, for example.

  • First name. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact’s first name matches/partially matches/does not match a certain value.

  • Last name. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact’s last name matches/partially matches/does not match a certain value.

  • Country. The follow-up automation is triggered/the action is performed if the contact is (or is not) located in a certain country.

❗The system detects the location of the contact from their browser settings. The system has no way of detecting whether the contact is altering their location by using a VPN.

Form

The Form subset allows you to filter contacts to include in the follow-up automation by their responses to the form fields.

The Form subset of conditions

For example, you may want to send an email only to the contacts who have expressed a specific preference in your form:

Example of form with field to express preferences

❗When you set up your form, don’t forget to rename the field ID and option IDs to make it easier for you to use them in your follow-up automation conditions.

Customized field ID and option IDs in the widget editor

When setting up your condition, select the field that you want to use as a filter for your audience. Proceed to select the value that field should have for respondents to be included in the automation:

Selecting the necessary field value in the condition settings

This feature allows you to tag your new contacts based on their preferences in order to send them more personalized emails later.

Geo

The Geo subset features the following conditions:

The Geo subset of conditions

This subset allows you to include/exclude contacts based on their location.

For example, if you are running a location-based free-shipping promo, you’ll want to send an email about it only to the contacts in that location.

Example of Country condition from the Geo subset

Device

The Device subset features the following conditions:

The Device subset of conditions

The Device subset allows you to target contacts who have used devices with specific characteristics to see your form.

For example, you may want to create different language versions of your email to send viewers with corresponding language settings in their browser:

Example of Language condition from the Device subset

Visit

The Visit subset includes the following conditions:

The Visit subset of conditions

It allows you to include/exclude contacts who have visited/not visited your website or specific pages on it before.

For example, you may want to send contacts who have subscribed from a specific page on your website related content or promos, or assign a corresponding tag to them:

Example of Current page condition from the Visit subset

Developer

The Developer subset includes two conditions:

The Developer subset of conditions

It allows you to use custom API parameters and IP addresses to include/exclude contacts from your follow-up automation.

UTM

The UTM subset features a condition for each UTM tag:

The UTM subset of conditions

This subset allows you to use UTM tags to include/exclude contacts that are part of specific campaigns.

For example, you can run special promos for contacts who have arrived from a certain ad campaign:

Example of UTM Medium condition from the UTM subset

Combine conditions

It’s possible to assign more than one value to the same condition.

For example, you can use a Country condition to target contacts from a list of countries:

Targeting contacts from a list of countries

It’s also possible to combine different conditions to create a set:

Combining different conditions to create a set

When the conditions are connected via an AND operator, all conditions must be fulfilled for the action to be performed.

When the conditions are connected via an OR operator, at least one condition must be fulfilled for the action to be performed.

That concludes our overview of the follow-up automation feature. If you need help setting up your follow-up automation, do not hesitate to reach out to our Tech Support team.

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