About Marketing Automation Flows

Marketing automation flows help you build dynamic, automated marketing paths for your contacts. Create an automation flow with multiple triggers, branches, and unique actions to personalize the experience for each of your contacts.

In this article, you’ll learn about marketing automation flows.

Things to know

• Depending on your plan, you may not have access to all marketing automation flow tools. To find out what features are included in each plan, check out our pricing page.
• This article is about marketing automation flows. To learn more about other email automation tools, read About Classic Automations.
• Automation flow triggers only apply to actions or events that happen after the flow is activated.
• Automation flows with SMS Marketing functionality require an approved SMS Marketing program.

Definitions

Here are some terms you'll come across as you build your automation flow.

• Automation Flow
  An automated route that consists of different interactions a contact will trigger as they move through it, carving out their own unique path (based on what they do or don’t do along the way).
• Automation flow map
  A visual representation of all the possible paths a contact can take in an automation flow.
• Trigger
  An event or action that adds a contact to a flow.
• Step
  Any rule or action that follows a trigger in a flow. You’ll plot these on your map based on the interactions you want your contacts to have with your business.
• Rule
  A type of step that defines how and when a contact moves along a set path.
• Action
  A type of step that tells our system to perform a specific task, like send an email or SMS message or add a tag, when a contact reaches it in their flow.
• Exit condition
  An event or action that removes a contact from a flow.

How it works

An automation flow is composed of specific triggers, actions, and rules that you set based on your marketing goals. To build your flow, you’ll choose and arrange these elements on an automation flow map.

After you design and activate your flow, any contact who matches a trigger condition will begin their flow. When a contact reaches an action or rule, we automatically do the “work” for you.

For example, let's say you create a flow that includes the trigger “signs up,” the rule “delay for 1 week,” and the action “send email.” This means that any contact who signs up to your audience after you activate your flow will receive an email after 1 week.

About triggers

A trigger is an event or action that adds a contact to an automation flow. When you create a new flow map from scratch, the first thing you’ll do is choose a trigger. To learn about the different triggers, check out All the Marketing Automation Flow Triggers.

Add up to 3 triggers with a Standard plan or higher. For example, you could have one trigger that adds contacts who are added to a specific group, and another trigger that adds contacts who buy a certain product. If a contact meets either condition, they’ll be added to the flow.

Add a filter
When you add a trigger, you can configure it further with a filter. Filters let you be more specific about who will start a flow. Add up to 5 filters to add contacts that best fit your flow’s purpose.

About steps

After you choose your triggers, you’ll then add steps. These are the rules and actions that do all the “work” in your workflow. Add up to 4 steps to your flow with an Essentials plan or higher. Add up to 200 steps with a Standard plan or higher.

Here are the different types of steps.

Rules

• Conditional split
  Splits contacts down one of two branching flow paths based on up to 5 conditions you choose. This rule is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• Percentage split
  Divides contacts between two separate flow paths. This rule is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• Wait for Trigger
  Prevents contacts from continuing down the flow path until they meet a condition that you choose. You can include up to 10 wait rules in one flow.
• Time delay
  Prevents contacts from continuing down the flow path for a period of time that you choose.

Actions

• Send email
  Sends your contacts an email that you design.
• Send email with a survey
  Sends your contacts an email with a Mailchimp survey that you design.
• Send SMS
  Sends your contacts an SMS message that you create. SMS Marketing is available as an add-on with the Standard plan or higher.
• Group/Ungroup
  Adds contacts to a group or removes them from it.
• Tag/Untag
  Adds a tag to contacts or removes it.
• Unsubscribe
  Unsubscribes contacts from your email marketing.
• Update contact
  Updates or deletes data from an audience field in the contact's record.
• Archive contact
  Archives contacts from your audience's contact table.
• Webhook
  Syncs Mailchimp activity with a third-party app. This action is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• Meta Custom Audience
  Adds Mailchimp contacts to your Meta Custom Audience or removes them from it. This saction is included with the Standard plan or higher.

To add a step, click and drag rules and actions from the side panel onto your flow. Or, use the plus icon (+) on the map, then select the rule or action you want to add.

View and manage automation flows

The Automation flows page is where you’ll create, view, and manage your automation flows. To access this page, click Automations. We’ll show you some of your recent flows, and some of our flow templates.

To look at all of your flows, click View my flows. The All flows page displays all of your flows in the Automation flows tab. Use the drop-downs to filter by Audience, Status, or Objective.

If you’ve built any single-email automations or classic automations, you’ll also see them on this page in the Classic Automations tab.

Flow status

We display a label to indicate your automation flow status so you can quickly tell whether things are working as expected. Here are the possible status conditions for a flow.

• Draft
  Your flow hasn't started.
• Active
  Your flow is live, and contacts are moving through it as they meet the conditions you’ve set. To edit your flow, you'll need to pause it first.
• Paused
  Your flow is paused. Contacts will not be added to the workflow and those already within it will not move forward until the flow is once again set to Active.

Explore flow templates

If you don’t yet have a specific plan in mind for your contacts, check out our flow templates for email and SMS. Navigate to the Automation flows page to see some of our options. Click See all flow templates to view all the available flow templates.

Our flow templates include default triggers, rules, and actions to help you get started. You can customize the template you choose to fit your marketing needs.

Get started

Now that you know how marketing automation flows work, take a look at these resources to get started with your own.

Create a Marketing Automation Flow

Use Automation Flow Templates

Edit a Marketing Automation Flow