How to Create & Manage Automated Email Flows

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Overview

For personalized and automated communications to your customers and subscribers, create Automated Flows within AdRoll. Flows help you nurture relationships with your subscribers over the course of their lifecycle by connecting with people when it matters most.   

You can trigger a message, or series of messages, based on when someone joins an event-based list. This can include actions such as clicking on an email, viewing a product, adding a product to the cart, or completing a purchase. Any data syncing to your AdRoll account can be used to create event-based audiences that trigger automated email flows. 

Before reading this article, we recommend learning more about:

In this article, you'll learn about the vital automated email flows to launch first and how to create and manage them within AdRoll, so you can increase conversions and ultimately grow your business.

Flows to Set Up First

There are several flows we recommend setting up first because they’re proven to increase sales and build brand loyalty. 

  • Welcome
    As you collect new emails on your website, send those new subscribers a thank you and introduction to your brand, so they know what to expect next. 
  • Browse Abandonment
    Target curious subscribers who have browsed your products. Give them a subtle reminder about the products they're interested in so they can start to populate their cart.
  • Abandoned Cart
    Don’t let potential purchasers slip away. Increase sales by targeting subscribers who add an item to their cart but don’t complete their purchase.
  • Loyalty
    Turn one-time purchasers into loyal, repeat customers that keep coming back for more.

Shoppers influenced by both Ads and Email are 2x likely to convert. To set up these Recipes across multiple marketing channels, navigate to the Recipes tab within your AdRoll Dashboard

How to Create an Automated Email Flow

All of your Automated Email flows can be managed under the Emails tab within your AdRoll Dashboard.

To create a new campaign:

  1. Click the Create Campaign button and select Automated Email from the dropdown menu.
    Emails-CreateAutomatedEmails.png
  2. Select to create your automation using a Pre-Built Recipe or Custom Trigger
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  3. Once you Create your Campaign, you’ll see a guided setup process. You’ll be prompted to give the flow a name, set up your trigger, confirm your sending identity, and define the emails within your sequence.

Set Up Your Flow Trigger

Every flow must have a trigger that controls when recipients enter your sequence. 

In Step 1, select a Dynamic Audience. Emails will be scheduled for recipients as they enter your selected audience. To prevent recipients from entering your flow, simply select an exclusion audience.

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Confirm your Sender's Information

In Step 2, you’ll be asked to confirm your Sender Details and Business Information. This will default to what you have populated in your Email Settings but, you can also populate new details.

  1. Your Sender Details include the From Name and Email Address. This will display once the emails in your automation land in a recipient's inbox. It allows recipients to see who emails are coming from.

    If you haven’t set up Email Authentication (verified your domain), you’ll need to confirm any new sender email addresses. This is done by triggering an email to that address which you then validate is real. If you have set up email authentication, all your sender email addresses should have the same domain that you already verified.

  2. The Business Details are what will display in the 'Footer' of all your emails. This is required by law to be able to send email.
    Emails-SenderInfo.png

Add Email Messages 

After you create an automated email flow, select your trigger and confirm your sender information, you’re ready to add emails to your sequence. All email messages within a flow are scheduled by time delays that are added before that individual step. 

To add emails to your flow:

  1. Edit the sequence  
  2. Click the Plus (+) sign within the canvas 
  3. You’ll see a new email with a time delay added to the flow that you can start to configure.  

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Configure Email Messages

To configure each email message within your flow:

      1. Set your Time Delay
        Each time delay creates a waiting period between one step and the next. This could be the initial trigger or an email.
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      2. Populate the content of your message
        Select an email template from your Template Library and customize it based on the goal of your campaign. Save your changes.
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Note: To ensure the latest version of your email is sent to recipients when you launch your campaign, you must Save the email.
    1. Set your Subject Line and Preheader.
      This will display in a recipient's inbox and can be populated within the Email Editor.
    2. Turn emails On.
      Once you have all your messages ready and saved, turn any emails you’d like to be scheduled to the On status. Once you launch your campaign, they will be scheduled to recipients. If you have email messages that you are still working on, you can leave them in the Off status and they will not be scheduled to send.
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    3. Add UTM Parameters.
      Lastly, if you'd like to apply the same UTM parameters to all the links within the campaign, you can use the AdRoll UTM builder. Here, you can customize tracking for Source, Medium, and Campaign.
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Launch a Flow

Once you’ve completed Steps 1, 2, and 3 noted above, you’re ready to launch your automated flow! Before you launch, double-check that your trigger, sender information, and email messages are set up correctly. We recommend especially thorough testing if you have personalization or dynamic content within your email messages.

To launch your campaign simply click the Launch button in the upper right corner. Messages will be scheduled according to the first Time Delay within your campaign.

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Flow Analytics

Email analytics are key metrics that show you how your recipients are engaging with the emails that you send them. These should tie into your short and long-term goals to grow your business.

To understand how an active automated flow is performing:

  1. Navigate to the Emails tab in your AdRoll Dashboard.
    Email-campaigns-page.png

  2. Find the automated flow you would like to analyze. You can filter your Email campaigns in the table by selecting the ‘Automated Emails’ type from the Message type filter. 
    Emails-MessageType-Automated.png

  3. You can review the performance of this automated flow and compare it with other flows running at the same date range. You can also customize the KPIs and export the data in a spreadsheet.
    Emails-Table-Automated.png
  4. If you click on the campaign name, you’ll be directed to a reporting page associated with that specific campaign. On the reporting page, you can see an aggregated view of all emails of the flow within the campaign or a breakdown of how each email in the campaign is performing. Control the timeframe or customize the metrics you would like to analyze. You can also review the Engagement of the flow (performance by device and by country) and top links clicked.
    Emails-AutomatedEmailpage.png

When you click Customize, you can select more key email performance metrics. This is the list of the metrics available:

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