This article contains the following topics (click on them to jump to the corresponding place):
- What is a sequence?
- Element: Send email
- Element: Timer
- Element: Date timer
- Subsequent changes to the date timer
What is a sequence?
Sequences are action elements which allow for the time-controlled sending of emails - the heart of every campaign, so to speak. They are the autoresponder with which you manage your scheduled emails. A sequence always starts with a start event element - that's why the element is preset by default.
In the following example, several emails are sent at varying times. The first email is sent as soon as the user enters the sequence. The second email is sent after 1 day and the third email is sent after 3 days. As usual, you can drag & drop the elements into the workspace.
Note: Sequences have goals
Sequences should have measurable goals, such as selling a product or visiting a website. If a sequence is linked to a target event, the sequence stops as soon as the goal is accomplished.
An example:
You want a customer to buy your product. You have 5 emails in your sequence, all containing a link to your product.
After the customer has received the second email, they decide to buy. So they click on the link and buy your product. This means that they do NOT receive the 3 other emails from the sequence, since the goal has already been reached. Your customer jumps out of this sequence onto the next element (e.g. they get a tag with "Product bought" etc...).
However, if you want the reader to receive further emails from the sequence even after the goal has been reached, you can configure this in the settings of the event item.
Element: Send email
The action element "Send email" sends an email to the user. Depending on which editor you have activated (classic editor or drag & drop editor), different design options are available.
Note: There will be no more updates for the classic editor!
You can create e-mail templates and load existing ones. We recommend that you save an e-mail as a template. This template can contain the personal salutation with associated variables as well as the imprint, etc.
Email settings
Scroll down in your mail so that you land under the editor. Here you will find the settings.
Here you can determine whether your links should be trackable (this enables an evaluation as well as the function of the event element "Link clicked"). If you use URLs in plain text in your e-mail, you must deactivate the function so that you can save your e-mail.
The check mark for "Generate text version automatically" should always remain activated.
Under "Unsubscribe text" you can determine whether the text should be used in German or in English.
Under "Send carbon copy (Cc)" you can add Cc or Bcc recipients.
Testing Email
Here you can have the designed e-mail sent to you for testing.
Tip: Insert placeholders for personalization
You can insert placeholders in your e-mail messages, e.g. to personalize the salutation. To do this, click [T] (Add placeholder) in the classic editor and select the placeholder of your custom field. In the drag-and-drop editor, click on "Add placeholder".
The prerequisite is that the greetings were already defined in your CSV file with the contacts or that the information was entered in the form.
View sent emails
If you have already sent the email, there are two options to view it again:
1. e-mail overview
Click on the menu item "E-mails" to go directly to the e-mail overview. Here you can view all the e-mails you have ever sent and, if you wish, sort them according to campaign e-mails, newsletters and planned newsletters.
You can also see when you created the email and sent it last, how many contacts it was sent to and how many openings and link clicks there were. Click on "Details" to get a small statistical evaluation of the e-mail in question.
2. contact history
Would you like to see which e-mails a particular contact has received? Then go to your contact overview and click on the pencil symbol on the right of the relevant contact. Click on "History" to view the contact history (from Basic tariff). You can now see in detail when the contact carried out which action: When did he receive an email, when did he open it, when did he click which link, which tag did he receive, etc.? You can view the e-mails by clicking on "View" - exactly as the contact saw them (i.e. including filled-in placeholders).
Element: Timer
The timer allows you to automatically send emails. You set a time period ranging from a few minutes to days or months. Depending on the context, you can even set the days of the week and the time. If desired, you can also select or exclude months, e.g. if you are going on holiday and cannot respond to emails in a timely manner.
Element: Date timer
With the date timer, you can determine on which date and at what time your emails should be sent. You can choose whether you want to react to a fixed date, to a date transferred from a contact field, or to a birthday.
Fixed date
Would you like to send an email on a certain day (e.g. certain celebration dates, an anniversary, Christmas...) and at a certain time? Then choose the fixed date.
An example:
In a Christmas campaign, all contacts that come into the sequence during the year can wait for the timer with the setting 24.12/ 12:00. The email will be sent exactly at this time to all contacts who up till that point are on the list.
What to do when the date expires:
Of course you can also specify what to do with the contacts after the date expires:
If you set "Stop", no more emails will be sent to new contacts after the limit has been exceeded. This makes sense if you're sending event-related emails when the event is over and people still end up in the campaign.
If you set "Next", new contacts will also move to the next element once the date expires.
Date from a contact field
You can also respond to data from contact fields. Let's say the contact has registered for a webinar. In the contact field, the date and time are transferred to Quentn. You can now set an email reminder, for example, to appear one hour before the webinar begins.
If you only have a specific date but no time in the contact field, Quentn assumes that the time is set for 00:00.
Date of birth
You can now also react to birthdays, provided the date has been stored. The contact has indicated their birthday and you want to congratulate them. If this is the case, please checkmark the box "Ignore year" (the contact's year of birth is in the past, but you may wish to congratulate them this year).
What to do when the date expires:
If the specified date has already passed, contacts are either stopped or forwarded directly.
What to do with an empty field:
If the contact field is empty, contacts are either stopped or forwarded directly.
Subsequent changes to the date timer
If you make changes to a date timer after publishing the campaign, you can apply the change to all contacts already on the timer.
Publish the campaign again. A pop-up will appear where you can click on "Apply new settings". As soon as the campaign is published again, the changes also apply to the contacts who are already on the item.