Automations

We get a lot of questions of nature "I want to do this (long explanation follows), can you think of a way that I can accomplish that with Simplero?". At Simplero support we can give you the most simpler solution we can think of to accomplish your goals. If what you are trying to achieve is not supported in Simplero, it's your’s and your team's job to figure out how you might combine them to do something sort of like what you're looking to do. We give you the math, you solve the equations. Deal? Below, we give you an overview of all of the ways that you can automate things in Simplero, in one location. We will only summarize the way each one works and you can then check the full manuals to learn more details about each one. In this guide, we cover: Triggers Automations Segments Tags Auto-Responses Countdowns and Expiring Links Third-Party Integrations Triggers Triggers let you take certain actions when something happens. In other words, they are If-then rules that trigger actions based on specified events. They exist in many places inside Simplero and there are heaps of different actions they can execute. Have a look at our Triggers Overview manual to learn where they are and how to use them. There are many different combinations of trigger + action that you can create. Some commonly used cases: When a customer purchases a product —> Add them to a list When a list has a new subscriber —> Add a tag to that contact When a customer clicks a link on an email —> Add a tag When a course lesson has been completed —> Send an email When a worksheet response is submitted —> Notify the administrator Triggers are designed to help you automate various tasks and streamline your online business operations saving you many hours of manual work! Learn More about Triggers GDPR notice for those doing business in the EU: Please keep in mind when using triggers based on actions of your customers that you are in compliance with GDPR, actions such as these may violate rules in regards to consent and profiling. This message does not constitute legal advice should you have a question about compliance please consult a lawyer.  Automations (only available in some plans) Automations are simple straight-forward sequences of actions. The actions are essentially the same as for triggers. Each step in an automation is either an action or a Wait period. You can wait for pretty much any amount of time, from a minute, up to years, and you can further restrict it to be a specific day of the week, weekday, or weekend, or a specific time of day, in either your account time zone or the customer's time zone. We don't do branches or anything like that yet. They're simply sequential. However, you can add conditions to each step so they only apply to some of your contacts. Learn More about Automations Segments Segments let you create groups of contacts. You can collect people based on lists, products, affiliate programs, emails received, opened, clicked, or not opened, and things like that. You can also exclude people using the same criteria. To see exactly what your options are, play around with the drop-downs. You can also add additional conditions to the segments. Segments are very useful for identifying a specific group of customers in your contacts that are not on a single list or in a single product. For example, you may want to find out who is on a specific list but has not purchased your product. Or maybe you want to see the group of people in your newsletter who have shown interest by clicking on the sales link that you sent in a series of emails. What can you do after creating the segment? You can do any action that you can do with triggers or automations. It's a one-time thing, like a broadcast. So you can say "start this automation now for everyone who's currently a member of this segment". You can't do triggers that say "Whenever someone new is a match to this segment, do this". Sorry. The other thing you can do with them is send broadcasts. They become a recipient just like lists or products or tags. Learn More about Segments Tags Tags are pretty amazing. You can add them to contacts, and you can remove them. You can do this using actions on triggers, automations, or segments, or you can do it manually. What can you do with tags? You can see them on the contact. You can create a segment based on them. You can send broadcasts to them. Tags are vital to using conditionals on triggers and autoresponders. Which run off the if/then statements. If this tag exists, or if this tag does not exist, then do this (trigger/automation). Learn More about Tags Auto-Responses Autoresponders are simple emails that are automatically sent based on a specific number of days after someone joins a list or purchases a product (Note: For products, they are sent to the product participant, not the billing contact). Each email can be sent x days after the original opt-in or purchase. Not a half day. Not 30 minutes. Just in increments of a whole day. Learn More about Auto-Responders Countdowns and Expiring Links As a business owner you probably already know that one of the biggest ways to strum up sales is to create a sense of urgency. In Simplero broadcasts you can create a sense of urgency in two ways: Countdown timers Expiring links (a certain period after the email is sent) You can add them to your emails (broadcast, auto-responses, and library emails). Learn More about Countdowns and Expiring Links Transferring information in and out of Simplero Do you use other apps that you would like to connect to Simplero? There are also ways to automate this! Zapier Zapier is a service that connects the web apps you use to easily move your data and automate tedious tasks. They have 300+ popular apps on their roster; think Gmail, Salesforce, Basecamp, etc. Zapier operates on an "if this happens, then do this" principle. Technically, we call them triggers and actions. This lets you automate things in Simplero in response to outside events, as well as cause things to happen in other systems in response to events in Simplero. Learn More about Zapier Simplero API An API key is like a login/password that other software applications can use to interact with your Simplero account on your behalf using our API. Be careful who you give them to, as they're just like giving people admin rights to your account. If you or your developer wants to access our API directly, please see our documentation on GitHub. Learn More about Simplero API Webhooks One of the actions that you can take in triggers, automations, and segments, is to post to a Webhook. This is a super nerdy option, but it can be super helpful if you have a nerd handy and need to do something in some other system in response to what's happening in Simplero. Again, we have the triggers and automations and the payloads are what they are, but if they work for what you're trying to do, that's awesome! Learn More about Webhook Triggers That's it! Now go create something amazing using these tools! Most of all, have fun and play with it! You don't need to figure everything out from the get-go, and you don't need to get everything exactly the way you envision it. Baby steps and flexibility are the aim of the game. If you need help with this, have a look at all the ways you can get help in Simplero.

Adding an Automation Select Automations from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automation tab, click the + Create new automation button in the upper right corner Give your new automation a name and choose what it will be based on or leave it flexible if you are not sure or if it will be a combination of them. Select the + Add trigger button for your automation. This will determine what will make the automation start. Complete all appropriate fields and click the Create trigger button Add steps to the automation using the blue plus button: Types of steps When adding a new step, you will have 2 different types to choose from: Automation Control Steps Action Steps Automation Control Steps Wait steps After selecting ‘Wait’, you will see several options for Wait steps: A while - general wait time such as a number of days or minutes. You can also choose to wait for a day of the week and at least a specific time. A specific time - Waits for a specific date and time in your Simplero account time zone (if the date is in the past, new contacts will continue the automation) A specific time in the contact’s time zone - Waits for a specific time in the contact’s time zone. For example, if you set up to wait until Sunday at 7 pm, your European contacts will receive the email first (at their 7 pm), and a few hours later the email will be sent to contacts located in America. A custom field value - The date will be based on a custom field that you set up for your contacts, for example, a customer’s Birthday. To use this option you will have to first set up your fields. Learn how to do it in this manual. *Product start date - This option is only available when it’s connected to a product, and a start date has been added on the Configure tab > Options within the product. *Subscription renews/ expires - This option can be used when an automation is in conjunction with a subscription purchase.  *Event start - Based on an event date (learn how to create events in this manual) *Event end - Based on an event date (learn how to create events in this manual) Important: Editing an automation wait step affects those already waiting in that step. For example, John enters the wait step 7: wait 1 day. If you change step 7 to wait 1 week, John would now wait 1 week in that step, not 1 day. We do not recommend making changes to steps where there are currently active contacts. Go to steps Goes directly to another step in the automation. This might be useful when adding conditions. For example, if you want your customers with a certain tag to move directly from step 10 to step 20 instead of going through every single step. It can also be useful when you want to start directly on a specific step. See how to do that in this guide. 4. Stop Stops the automation for that contact. Once stopped they won’t be able to get back to the step where they were. If you want them to simply pause for a while and then continue, you can pause the automation instead. Action Action steps perform an action to the contact or an object related to the contact (a purchase, a tag). For example, if you choose to subscribe a contact to a list, it will ask you which list and give you the option to skip the welcome email and auto-responses: Sending Emails through an automation One of the most common actions to perform in automation is sending emails. To do that: + Add a Step Choose the Action ‘Send email’: You have two options now: Option One: Create a unique email for this automation step >> Add a Subject and the email Body >> then Save changes. You can then save a copy of this email in your email library so you can use it in other Steps or Automations.  Option 2: Reuse an existing Email from the Email library: Then you will be able to choose from the dropdown from your email library: Learn more about the Email Library

Automation Settings Select Automations from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automation tab, select the automation name you want to add conditionals to Navigate to the Settings on the top right corner. Object Type When you create an automation, you get to pick an object type for it. Think of it as a context where the automation will be used. If the automation starts when someone subscribes to a list, the object type would be ‘List subscriber’, but if it starts when someone purchases a Product, then it will belong to the object type ‘Purchase’.  If in doubt, choose Flexible. This should work for most scenarios.  If you create an automation using an object type, and then choose a start trigger that doesn’t belong to it, we will let you know through the warning below: So what if you are using the automation in multiple contexts or objects? You can simply pick the object type ‘Flexible’ and that will allow any sort of trigger to start the automation. Note! Only Flexible type will allow you to manually add contacts to the automation. Conditions Scroll down the Conditions section where you will have 2 options... Toggle Off: Always run means that every time a contact enters the automation they will be allowed to go through it assuming of course that you have the settings set to allow him/her to enter it more than once.  Toggle On: Set up a condition so that only contacts who comply with the condition will enter the automation. Advanced Options You can also set up more Advanced conditions in the section below. Only allow a given contact to run this automation once - If On, we will prevent a contact from entering the automation if they have been in it before. Allow contacts to be in this automation multiple times at the same time -If Off, we will prevent contacts from starting the automation if they are currently in it. Force automation flows to always be on the contact - If On, we will associate the flow with the contact, instead of the subscription, or purchase… that started it for them. Customize confirmation pages for 1-click action links - You can customize the start/stop/pause/resume confirmation page for 1-click links. This is useful when you are adding, for example, a link to start an automation on an email. Advanced Automation Step Settings Internal Note You can add a note to any automation step. These are internal notes for your reference. This is a great way to help you remember down the line why you set up a condition on a step, or maybe you run a seasonal course and need to remember to update certain action steps each round.  Add Conditions If you toggle this option on, you could exclude some contacts to run the steps only under certain conditions (ie. if the contact has a tag, or, if is subscribed to a list, has purchased a product…). This option is helpful to exclude contacts to run specific steps on the automation. You can create several conditions for the same step using And and Or connection: Skip Step if wait step exceeded If you have a waiting step set to a specific date, let’s say wait until May 5th, to then give access to a course lesson and send an email. If a contact starts the automation on May 6th, you may want to skip sending the email but allow getting access to the lesson. In that case, Step#2 would be set to skip if the last wait step was exceeded (do not fire this step if we are past May 5th).

Editing an Automation From time to time you may want to update an automation. Maybe you want to add a step, remove a step, make a change to an email that is being sent or rearrange the steps of your automation. This is not a problem, follow the steps below to edit the automation. But please NOTE...when you edit an automation the change will only affect the people who have not yet reached the step where the change is made.  What does this mean? If you are editing a wait step - People currently in that wait step will be affected. They receive the new wait rule.  If you are adding a step - Only people who are in the steps prior to it will receive the additional step. If you add a step to the end of the broadcast - People who have finished the automation will not be affected. If you make a change to the broadcast - Only people who have not yet received the broadcast will see the new version. Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Locate and select the step you want to edit and hover over it to see hidden options Select the Pencil icon on the far right side within the step box and make the edits Note: If you make changes on the fly to an automation that's already running, note that the change will only affect the people who have not yet reached the step where you made the change. Changing an automation wait step affects those already waiting in that step.  For example, John enters the wait step 7: wait 1 day. If you change step 7 to wait 1 week, John would now wait 1 week in that step, not 1 day. We do not recommend making changes to steps where there are currently active contacts. Rearranging Steps of an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Hover and hold the Double dotted lines to the left of the automation step and drag it to the desired location within the automation We don't recommend rearranging steps where there are currently active contacts. Removing a Step in an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Locate and select the step you want to remove and hover over to show hidden options Select the Trashcan icon in the far right side within the step box Click OK to confirm your removal of the step We don't recommend deleting steps where there are currently active contacts on. Adding a Step in an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Select the + Add a step button above or below your current steps Complete all appropriate fields and click the Save changes button Duplicating a Step in an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Locate and select the step you want to duplicate and hover over it to show hidden options Select the Paper icon in the far right side within the step box You will now see a duplicate step within your automation Select the Pencil icon in the far right to update the name of your automation  Click the Save changes button Duplicate ‘Send email’ steps When the Send email action is sending an email saved in the library, then there will be 2 duplicate options: Duplicate (reuse email): Any changes made on the email will apply to both steps since it’s the same email linked to each of them. Duplicate (duplicate email): Simplero will create a new copy of the email and link it to the duplicated step. Any changes made on this new copy will only apply to the new step. Editing an email that is part of an automation On the automation Steps tab, locate the step with the email you’d like to edit, then click on the edit icon at the far right: If the email is unique to that step, you will be able to edit the subject and email body on that same screen. And Save the changes. Disable steps You can turn off an automation step, for example, if you don’t need it to run temporarily. Hover over the step, then turn off the ‘Live’ toggle. Disable the Automation You can disable the automation by turning off the live toggle in the top right corner. This will stop new flows but will not pause flows that area already in the automation.

How to Start an Automation Automations don't start by themselves. Some other systems will have a "trigger" event as the first step of the automation. We don't. In Simplero, the first step in the automation is no different than any other step. So unless you start the automation for some contacts, the automation just sits there, doing nothing. Okay, so how do you start it? There are 4 ways: Using the Automation Picker Set up a trigger on a list, a product, an affiliate program, or something else, and have the trigger start the automation when the event happens Create a segment and run an action for that segment that starts the automation Manually by going to a contact page and clicking Start automation With the "Start automation" and "Stop automation" special links that you can include in an email from Simplero. You find these in the top right Links button on the header. Unless you do one or more of these, the automation just sits there, bored to tears. Don't let that happen to your automation. Give it purpose. Add some people to it :) Automation Picker You can set multiple automations to start/stop automatically using the Automation picker. You can find this function under the content tab for Surveys, Lists, and Products; and under settings for Affiliate programs, Tags, Lessons, Worksheets.. Just select the automation from the dropdown menu, and click on Save changes button Set up a trigger on a list, a product, an affiliate program, or something else Locate the list, product, or program where you will be adding the trigger In the Trigger section, add a trigger, select the action to Start Automation, choose the automation you want to activate and click the Save changes button. Note that if you are adding the trigger to a list, the trigger will only be activated the first time subscribes and not active subscribers resubscribing unless you have set the trigger to be "Subscription: Asked to subscribed (whether already subscribed or not)" Create a segment, and run an action for that segment that starts the automation Create a Segment of the people you want to perform the action to Select the Perform action... button at the top of the segment Select the action to Start Automation, choose the automation you want to activate and click Got it! to save Simplero will now perform that action in the background.  Manually by going to a contact page and clicking Start automation Select Lists & Contacts in your Simplero Dashboard Select the Contacts tab Search and select the contact In the Contact screen, scroll down to the Automations box  Select the Start automation hyperlink in the upper right corner of that box Select the Automation you want to start and click the Start automation button to save 1-Click Automations With the "Start automation" and "Stop automation" special links that you can include in an email from Simplero. Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard. In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation. In Automation header, under the Links button in the top right corner. Select the Clipboard button next to the one you want to use and paste it in a broadcast. Note: These links only work when used in a Simplero broadcast as they are coded to read the contacts email address and if they were outside of Simplero they are unable to pull the necessary information.  FAQ If starting an automation manually or via a Segment > Perform action, contacts fail to start the automation, check that the object type is set to FLEXIBLE. Starting automations manually is only available when the object type is set to Flexible.

Duplicating an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Select the three dots button on the top right-hand corner You will now be able to choose Duplicate & reuse emails or Duplicate&copy emails in the automation. Select the Settings button on the tab bar Update the name of your automation Click the Save Changes button Update or add steps as needed to the automation Warning! If you duplicate an automation, any Library emails linked to the original will be reused in the new automation. Deleting an Automation Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Select the Three dots button  You can now click Delete Click OK to confirm your deletion The automation will now be removed from your Simplero account. Any emails that were created within will still exist in your email library. 

 Excluding people from an Automation based on a condition Is one of your opt-ins linked to a sales funnel automation for a specific product? If so it is likely you don't want people who have already purchased that product to go through that sales funnel. It's a bit redundant since they already bought it and it could possibly frustrate them. So how do we remedy this? Below you will find the steps for how to exclude someone from entering an automation.  Select Products from your Simplero Dashboard In the Products tab, select the product are selling through the sales funnel Select the Content tab of that product Scroll to the Triggers section and you will add a trigger that adds a tag to the contact upon purchasing Locate or create your sales funnel automation  Go to the Settings of your Automation Scroll down to the Condition section and select the condition "Doesn´t have this tag" and select the tag you added in step 4 Want to exclude multiple groups of people? Are you using your automation as a sales funnel where you are selling more than one product? If so you likely want to exclude people from any of the products being sold so that they aren't being resold a product they already have bought. The conditional option above only allows you to exclude people based on a single Tag. So you could add that same tag to anyone in any of the products being sold. However, If you have used different tags for the different products then you will need to do a bit of extra work. Below are the steps you would need to follow for each of the tags you want to exclude from an automation not covered via the conditionals in settings.  Select Products from your Simplero Dashboard In the Products tab, select the product are selling through the sales funnel Select the Content tab of that product Scroll to the Triggers section and you will add a trigger that adds a tag to the contact upon purchasing For example, I have 2 products I am going to sell in my sales Funnel, Product A, Product B. Product A will be tagged A, Product B will be tagged B  Create your sales funnel automation with all your wait steps and sales emails as you would for someone who has never purchased anything from you. Go to Tags Select Lists & Contacts from your Simplero Dashboard Select the Tags tab Locate and select Tag A, the once you've added in step 4 Add a Trigger to Tag A that says when {When Tag is removed, Stop Automation, select the sales funnel automation from the above step 5} Repeat steps 3 and 4 for Tag B Open up the sales funnel automation you created in step 5 Add an action step to remove the Tag A and move it to just before you sell Product A Repeat step 8 for Tag B  Now when a participant goes through the automation If they have purchased one of those two products they will be removed from the automation and never go through any of the steps that occur after their tag has been removed. 

Pausing or Removing a single contact from an automation Sometimes its necessary to temporarily pause an automation or stop/remove a contact from automation altogether. Here's what you need to do:  Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Locate the Step where the contact is in and click on the contacts You will see the list of contacts and their place in the automation Click on the Pause or Stop icon to the far right side of the contact name The contact will now be paused or removed completely from the automation depending on which you choose To reactive a pause for a contact continue on... To resume a Paused for a contact repeat steps 1-4 above Click on the Play icon to the far right side of the contact name to Resume the automation   Stopping an Automation via an Action step You can now Stop an automation via a stop step. This step, like other action steps, can be based on conditions. Just add a new step, choose the "Stop" option, and click the Save changes button. Stopping an automation removes the contact from the automation altogether.  Contacts Pausing, Removing, Resuming Themselves Another option is to have a contact pause, resume, or resume themselves from an automation. This can be done through links in a broadcast. For example, at the bottom of the emails for the automation, you could include a line that says Not interested in this topic but still wants to hear from me on other products and services, stop these emails here, and then you would hyperlink the "Here" to stop automation URL.  Where do you find the Stop/Pause/Resume URLs? Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation In the top right of the Automation header, you will see a Links button: Select the Clipboard button next to the one you want to use and paste it in a broadcast. Note: These links only work when used in a Simplero broadcast as they are coded to read the contacts email address and if they were outside of Simplero they are unable to pull the necessary information.  Pausing, Removing, or Stopping for a Large Group all at once If you know you want to pause, resume, or stop a group of people that are in an automation you can do so in one swoop rather than individually.  Create a Segment of the people you want to perform the action to Select the Perform action... button at the top of the segment Select the action to Stop Automation, choose the automation you want to activate and click Got it! to save Simplero will now perform that action in the background.  Pausing, Removing, or Stopping for a Specific Product/List If you are using an automation as a sales funnel you will likely want to stop the automation when people purchase that product. Or if a specific product is purchased or contact is added to a list you may want to temporarily suspend an automation while they are participating in that product or that lists autoresponders. Both cases can be done automatically in Simplero.  To temporarily pause an automation: Locate the Product or List that the contact will be participating in place of the automation Add a trigger under content within the List/Product. The trigger will be an Action trigger that once Participant is Activated, Pause an automation and select the automation you want to Pause Click the Save changes button Then create a 2 step automation called Resume Automation for automation name Add step 1 which is a Wait step for however long you want them to be paused for Add step 2 that will be an action step to Resume the paused automation Now add the second trigger: Locate the Product or List that the contact will be participating in place of the automation Add a second trigger under content within the List/Product where you were in step 2 This second trigger will be an Action trigger that once Participant is Activated, Start an automation and select the second automation you created Click the Save changes button To stop/remove them from an automation after a purchase or joining a list Locate the Product or List that the contact will be participating in place of the automation Add a trigger under content within the List/Product. The trigger will be an Action trigger that once Participant is Activated, Stop an automation and select the automation you want to Stop Click the Save changes button Note: If you use the 1-Click link to allow a customer to pause the automation themselves you will want to also provide them with a link to resume the automation themselves and let them know to save that email with the link for future access. You could do this a few ways: You could include that link in the same email where they pause their automation. You can add a trigger to the link in the broadcast that starts a minimum of a 2 step automation. Step 1: Wait X amount of time Step 2: Send an email with the resume link If you do this you may want to add a third step that moves them back to the Start of the automation so that it keeps reminding them. If you do that remember to add a trigger to Stop the automation to the Resume link (refer to the instructions above). Start an Automation at a Specific Step  One workaround for restarting an automation at a specific step is the following -  Add a new step 1 - Skip to step X Restart the automation for the group Delete step 1 after group as gone through it That group would now be in Step X of the automation. 

Reentering an Automation From time to time you may want to have a contact go through an automation a second time. There are two ways we can do this, via a trigger or manually.  First option: If they are purchasing the same or a second product or joining a second list that goes through the same automation and you want them to go through a second time then you don't need to do anything special just check the Settings of your Automation and make sure the box is unchecked that reads Only allow a given contact to run this automation once. Then as long as the product/list has the trigger to add the contact to the automation when activated (not "first time activated") then they will be entered into the automation and go through the flow again.  Second option: You can manually re-enter a contact into an automation. Select Automation in your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation In the right sidebar of the Automation, you will see stats of the contacts in that automation. Select the hyperlinked number under the Contacts to see the Flow  You will be directed to the Flows with the list of contacts Locate the contact name you want to Reenter by clicking the Reenter icon in the far right side Alternatively... Select Lists & Contacts in your Simplero Dashboard Select the Contacts tab Search and select the contact name In the Contact screen, scroll down to the Automations box  Locate the Automation you wish to reenter and click the Reenter button in the far right Note If the automation is started by a trigger in a list, an active subscriber to that list cannot renter the automation by subscribing again with the same contact information unless you have chosen the option "Subscription: Asked to subscribed (whether already subscribed or not)" in the "When this happens" field of the trigger.  Starting Mid Automation Would you like to start someone into an automation but want to skip the first few steps of it? There are two options in which you could do this.  Option 1: Manually starting the automation If you are manually starting them in the automation while at the computer, and no one else is going to join the automation in those 5-10 minutes then follow the steps here.... Add a step at the top of the automation. Use the "Go to" step and select the step you want the contact to skip to Go to the participant screen and manually start them in an automation Select Lists & Contacts in your Simplero Dashboard Select the Contacts tab Search and select the contact In the Contact screen, scroll down to the Automations box  Select the Start automation hyperlink in the upper right corner of that box Select the Automation you want to start Click the Start automation button to save Go back to the Automation and verify that they are in the step you desire Remove the action step you added to the automation  Option 2: Triggered start to automation If they are going to purchase a product and start in the automation at the time of purchase follow these steps... Duplicate your automation Remove any steps in the copy that you don't want them to experience Create their price in the product (if this is for an individual and the price will be available to no one else then create them a secret price. If you are allowing people to continually sign up after a program has started and just don't want them to get past emails that were maybe date specific such as call reminders then you can use the regular product price). Add a trigger to the price to start the new automation Verify that the original automation is no longer triggered by the product so that the participant won't be in two automatons. 

Do you work with customers across different time zones? If so you probably already utilize the feature when scheduling broadcasts to send within customers specific time zone. But did you know you could do the same thing within your automations for evergreen products, sales funnels, and even webinar or event automations that go out at a specific date and time?   To do this you will create your automation like normal, however, you will want to pay close attention as you have two options with your wait steps. See below... General Wait Time When using the general Wait step it is very easy to schedule it to be time zone specific.  Toward the bottom of the wait step screen, you will see a section titled "In which time zone" Choose the Contact option and the email or action will occur at the specified time within their time zone, not yours. Specific Time Do you want your email to go out at a specific calendar date and time and not just on a general day or time? Maybe you have a webinar that will occur on February 1st at 9 am. Then you will want to follow these steps to make sure it happens at the right time.  Select Automation in your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Click the + Add a step button Select the Wait step, mark the option for A specific point in time and choose the day before you actually want the action to occur (For example, if I want to send an email on Monday, January 1st at 9 a.m. Then I would choose "Wait for A specific point in time" "January 1st at 9 a.m.") Click the Save changes button Wait A While Select Automation in your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Click the + Add a step button Select the Wait step, mark the option for A While and fill in the fields as follow... Wait 1 minute Any day of the month Select the day of the week you want it to go out Choose the time of day For example, continuing with the example above it would be .. Wait 1 minute, Any day of the month, Monday, 8:59am and 9:01 Then under In which time zone, select the Contact and click the Save changes button Add your action step like normal

The Flows tabs give you a snapshot of all the flows of your automation. It is set to have default views of Active (people currently in an automation), Completed, Paused, Stopped, and All.  Each view tells you the name of the automation and who the contact is. The last column in each tab allows you to perform an action either to pause, stop, restart, or reenter the automation.  On the Active tab, you also have the option to Continue now icon which will move the contact to the next step in the automation.  The Flows tab is here to make it easier for you to see is in your automations and a quick way to control what is going on at the contact level without having to go to the contact directly. This is especially helpful if you have a group of contacts that you are going to be looking to perform the same automation action. To do this...  Select Automation in your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation In the right sidebar of the Automation, you will see stats of the contacts in that automation. Select the hyperlinked number under the Contacts to see the Flow  You will be directed to the Flows screen with the list of contacts Check the box on each name on any tab. At the top of the list you will see how many boxes are checked and an Action box next to it that will allow you to perform a batch action

Sometimes it becomes necessary to move a contact from one step in an automation to the next before Simplero does it. In this guide, we will show you how to... Move contacts to the next step in the automation Moving a contact a step further in the automation Moving to the next step (moving only 1 step ahead) You have two options to do this.  Option 1 -  from within the Automation: Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Click on Flows Search for the contacts that you want to move  Select the contacts Click on the Continue now icon The contact will now be advanced to the next step in the automation. Option 2 - from within their contact screen: Select Lists & Contacts in your Simplero Dashboard Select the Contacts tab Search and select the contact In the Contact screen, scroll down to the Automations box  Select the Continue now icon in the far right of that automation name Moving a contact a step further in the automation Sometimes you don't want them to go to the next step, but maybe several steps ahead. It is still possible to move them without them having to do each step in between. Select Automation from your Simplero Dashboard In the Automations tab, locate and select your automation Click on Flows Search for the contacts that you want to move Select the contacts Click on the Go to Icon Choose the step that you want them to move to. This will only move active flows. If you want flows that are completed to restart and move to that step, toggle the Restart completed flows on.  Done!

Many Simplero users run international or multi country-based businesses and we recognize that sometimes that means you have customers who don't speak the same language as you. This guide is going to teach you how to set up and direct your customers to email sales funnels in their preferred language.  Create your automation sales funnel in each of the languages you want to offer. For example, if you want to offer one in Danish and one in English you will have two identical automations with the only difference being the language you write the emails in. Go to the List or Product that will initiate them into the automation. This might be an opt-in list or the purchase of a lesser product then what you are hoping to sell them on with this funnel. In that List or Product, you are going to create a welcome email or autoresponder or locate the one you have already created thanking them for opting in or purchasing. In that email, you are going to add a line that asks them their preferred Language.  In this case, we would ask if they speak Danish or English.  Here you have two options of what to link the language to:  Option 1  Create an automation for each language you are offering with 1 action step. 1) Automation 1 will have 1 action step that will say to add a tag "English" and automation 2 will have 1 action step that will say to add a tag "Danish." 2) Then you will copy the autostart URL for each automation and link it to those words in the email from step 3.  Add a trigger to the tag to start the automations created in step 1 above. Option 2  Use the Autostart URLs from the automations in step 1 and link them to the language options in the email from step 3. If you still want them to be tagged by their language you could add an action in the automations from step 1 that assigns the same tags. 

Although there are some similarities, there are very important distinctions between Auto-Responders and Automations and it's worth taking the time to fully understand the differences.  So let's take a detailed look at the two features. Auto-Responders Auto-responders are always a series of emails.  They are always sent based on the number of days since a contact has signed up to your email list or purchased your product. Your first auto-responder is often a welcome email and is sent “0” days from sign-up; meaning it goes out immediately following their sign-up. With auto-responders, you can also deliver content, either by Attaching it to the email or Using the drip feature within a membership site. This allows you to drip release a course through auto-responders. And lastly, an auto-responder allows you to add a trigger to the email. This gives you the ability to create automatic actions triggered by that email being sent. For example, if you want to increase a contact’s lead score for each email in the series they receive you could add a trigger for that. So what don’t auto-responders do? The main thing you can’t do with auto-responders is to exclude contacts from an email or the trigger associated with the email. Auto-responders are all or nothing. If the auto-responder is active on the list it is active for all subscribers. But wait, Automations to the rescue! Automations are a series of action steps. These action steps can be emails or actions that are triggered; such as increasing a lead score like we talked about earlier or adding a subscriber to a new list. These action steps can be broken up by Wait steps. Wait steps will determine when the action occurs.  They can be based on the number of days since the automation began or based on the number of days since the previous action step, a specific date in time, a purchase date, a product start date, or even a custom form field value or your contact’s birthday! The action step can also be a “Go to” step which allows a contact to move from one step to another and skip the ones between. Or a Stop step, ending the automation for a contact entirely. These two steps are especially valuable when you want to exclude people from specific actions. Remember how I said you can’t exclude people from an auto-responder? Well, in an automation each step is customizable allowing you to tell the system to perform the step for each person, or only for contacts with or without a specific tag. The last big thing you need to know is that automations are not connected to a single particular list or product in your account. In order to get started into the automation, you will need to add the contact.  You can do this manually, by using the auto-subscribe link or by connecting it to a list or product via a start trigger. This gives you a lot of flexibility and allows you to the series again and again across your account (unlike auto-responders which would need to be re-created in each location). Now that you understand the difference between Auto-Responders and Automations. How do you decide which one is the right fit for you and your business? It depends!  (You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?)  Chances are that you will need both Auto-Responders and Automations, for different purposes. A course drip released over weeks or months is a pretty straightforward set-up that you are likely not going to use repeatedly, which makes auto-responders the ideal place to set up your emails. On the other hand, if you want to create a sales funnel that your leads can drop into from several different places - since the emails will be the same and you don’t want a contact to get the same email series twice - then an automation will be a much better fit. But we can do better than that.  Here are three easy questions that will quickly help you decide the right fit for you every time… Is this the only list or product I want to receive these emails? Do I want everyone on the list to get these emails? Do I want the emails to go out based on the number of days after sign-up? If you answered yes to all three of the above questions then you are looking to set up auto-responders. If you answered no to any of the questions then an automation is going to be a better fit for your goals. Ready to set yours up? Check out these guides:  Adding Auto-Responders Creating an Automation

A frequently asked question in Simplero: Why would I use automation instead of auto-responses? In this video, we explain the differences. You can also check our written guide for more details. You can also check our guides on how to create an auto-responder.

After learning the basics of creating and managing an automation you might also want to chek our mastering automations and drip-releasing content workshop. Hopefully you'll start to see the power of automations and they how they might apply to your business. 

After creating the automation you are probably wondering how you manage the contacts that are inside. In Simplero, we call that: Flows. You can perform manual actions like advancing a flow or reentering and starting mid automation. You can also check our guides on stopping, pausing and resuming automations.

One of the most common uses of automations is scheduling a series of emails. Those can be inline emails or can be stored in an email library. Check our emails for automations guide to learn more.