Automation actions explained

Actions are a series of processes that a contact proceeds through once they enter your automation. As a contact encounters each action in their automation path, the action is executed. Actions can be external. For example, you can use actions to communicate with your contacts via email, SMS, or web push. They can also be internal. For example, you can use actions to update a team member or send a webhook, verify phone number, or add/remove a tag to the contact.

In this article, we’ll explain each automation action and share examples of how you can use them.

 

Messages

You can use actions in this category to send messages.

“Send email”

This action will send an email to the contact who goes through this step of the automation. You are able to design the email. You are able to time the email by placing a wait condition before it.

“Send an SMS”

When a contact reaches this action in your automation, a text message will be sent to them.

“Send web push”

This action lets you send web push notification to an opted-in contact. You may want to use this to display information about a new offering or a coupon code for a product to get your contact to complete a purchase.

In order to use this feature, you must have site tracking & web push installed and enabled on your site.

“Send inside company mail”

This action sends a notification email. It could notify someone within your company.

 

Delay

The delay action pauses the automation for the contact at this step. You are able to specify how long they wait before proceeding to the next action in their automation path.

There are two types of wait actions that you can create:

Time Delay

Contacts will wait in this action for a period of time you specify, then proceed to the next action in the automation.

Action delay

Contacts will wait in this action until certain conditions are met, for example, until they perform a certain behavior or until you collect certain information about them.

 

Conditions

“Smart Filter”

A “Smart Filter” condition creates a fork in your automation. There are two paths in this fork: A “Yes” path and a “No” path. The “Yes” path is for contacts who match the conditions you define and then “No” path is for contacts who do not match the conditions. “Smart Filter” conditions are created with the segment builder. This action is useful for treating contacts differently depending on a variety of factors. You are able to create conditions based on any condition that you can create a segment with: actions, tags, custom fields, Site & Event Tracking data, and other contact data.

“Check email status”

The “Check email status” condition allows you to check contact’s behavior on a specific email. For example, you can check whether or not a contact has opened an email before sending a higher offer to encourage him to complete a sale.

“Check SMS status”

The “Check SMS status” condition allows you to check contact’s behavior on a specific SMS message. For example, you can check whether or not a contact has clicked on a link on the SMS, if not, it’s a good idea to send a higher offer to encourage him to complete a sale.

“Check Field”

This condition checks a value of a custom deal field. You can use this action to automatically match a between data from other systems to the data in Optinize. For example, you can check if a contact made an offline purchased that was updated directly in your CRM.

“Check Page view”

The “Check Page view” condition allows you to check if a contact has visited your website or a specific page. For example, if a contact visited your “help center”, it’s a good idea to reach out with an automated email offering some useful information.

“Has submitted a form”

This action checks if a contact submitted a specific form. If he didn’t, you should consider adding an email action to send a short reminder that the form wasn’t submitted yet.

“A/B Split”

The “Split” action allows you to create split test automations.

A traditional A/B split test that determines a winning path. There are two paths in this fork, set the percentage of which the contacts will split on the different paths.

 

Actions

This category of actions gives you a variety of actions related to managing contacts.

“Subscribe to a list”

The “Subscribe” action adds a contact to a list.

“Unsubscribe from a list”

The “Unsubscribe from a list” action removes the contact from a list. For instance, when a new customer makes an order, you could remove them from your “prospect” list and, using the “Subscribe” action, add them to your “customer” list.

“Update a field”

This action updates the value of a custom deal field. You can use this action to automatically enter a new value or clear the value for the custom deal field.

“Tag Editor”

Inside the tag editor you have two options:

“Add tag” action will apply a tag to a contact when they reach this step.

“Remove tag” action will remove a tag from a contact when they reach this step.

“Send to Webhook”

The “Webhook” action can send a webhook to another app allowing you to automate actions with apps outside of Optinize. For instance, you could send a webhook to have a support account created with your helpdesk software when a new order comes in.

To use webhook you’ll need to set it up first. Go to settingsà custom integrations and add the integration as you please.

“End automation”

The “End automation” action is an indication that the automation ends at this point. Even without the “End automation” action, your automation would still end when your contact reaches the last step of the automation. This action is more a “note” that there are no more steps for the contact to take in your automation.