Here's All the Ways You Can Automate Things in Simplero
We get a lot of questions of the nature "I want to do this (long explanation follows), can you think of a way that I can accomplish that with Simplero?".
However much we'd like to, we simply don't have the resources to help out with this. It's a huge project just to understand what's the desired, and then to creatively think up ways that that might be accomplished, it's just too much. Sorry.
What we can do instead is give you an overview of all of the ways that you can automate things in Simplero, in one location, and then it's your and your team's jobs 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?
Here goes:
Triggers
Triggers let you take certain actions when something happens. To see what the possible actions are, go to a List, go to Content, click Add trigger, and see what the options are. We frequently add new ones. Examples of actions you can take are: Add to a list, add a tag, start an automation, send an email or a text message, etc.
Triggers currently exist on:
Lists: subscribe/unsubscribe
Products: activate/deactivate both for billing contact AND for the participant
Auto-Response: sent. This was a "poor-man's workaround" for when we didn't have automations
Link: clicked (for links in broadcasts, auto-responses, and library emails)
If it's not listed here, we don't have a trigger on it.
Automations
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 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 conditionals or anything like that yet. They're simply sequential.
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. This means if you are edit a wait time step people who are currently waiting will not be affected by the edit. Or if you add a step people who are already passed the addition will not have that step actioned to them.
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.
Here again we can't filter based on attributes like name, email, region, date subscribed, last click or open or anything like that. Sorry. We'd like to, but we don't have that feature yet.
What can you do with segments? 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 says "Whenever someone new is a match to this segment, do this". Sorry.
The other thing you can do with them is send broadcasts. The become a recipient just like lists or products or tags.
Tags
Tags are pretty dumb. 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. That's about it, I think.
Auto-Responses
These are emails that are sent to subscribers on a list, or participants (not billing contact) on a purchase. 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.
When making changes to your auto-responder sequence while people are already receiving them, make sure you know what you're doing, because the results might surprise you.
Zapier
We also integrate with Zapier, which 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. To see what your options are here, check it out on Zapier.
Simplero API
Simplero has a quite limited API. We definitely want to add more capabilities to our API down the line, but only when we gauge sufficient interest to make it worth not just the effort to develop it, but also the on-going maintenance cost. Once you commit to an API, it makes it much more costly to keep iterating the application itself.
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 we have, and the payloads are what they are, but if they work for what you're trying to do, that's awesome!
Expiring Links
One trick is that you can change the destination URL of the links you insert into your emails on the fly, so the place that people will ultimately get to after clicking the link is changing. You can use this to quickly correct a link in an email you've already sent, but you can also use it to let links automatically expire after a certain period.
That's it!
These are the tools that we have. Now go create something amazing using these tools!
If you need help with this, try in our Facebook group where you might find both people who can brainstorm with you, and you might find people you can hire to help you figure this out and set it up so it works.
Most of all, though: Have fun and play with it!
And 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 is the name of the game.
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.