Mailchimp Automations
An automation is a campaign that is sent when a contact matches a criterion (or, in gaming speak: unlocks a level) such as buying a product, being tagged, or clicking a link. You build an automation once, then Mailchimp sends it every time your contact’s action activates it. Automations and journeys are based on a contact’s interaction with your business, so they tend to have higher engagement than campaigns that go to groups or whole audiences.
Say you have a new contact who signs up for your monthly newsletter. You can build a campaign that welcomes them and includes a 20% off coupon. This is an automation; you don’t have to send that campaign individually to each new contact who signs up for the newsletter. As soon as the new contact is tagged, “newsletter”, MailChimp sends it for you automatically.
Examples of automations
- Welcome new contacts
- Wish your contacts a happy birthday
- Mark the anniversary of them being your customer
- Abandoned cart email
- Reach out to contacts who haven’t engaged for a while, say 3 months or 6 months
Journeys are a subset of automations
A journey is a multi-step automation: a progression of campaigns that follow each other automatically. The journey can be a simple sequence of campaigns where all contacts follow the same path, or there can be variations based on contact behavior or other factors.
A journey can be launched by a variety of conditions:
- A contact is tagged
- A contact makes a purchase
- A contact signs up for a newsletter or class
Examples of journeys
Contact starts the journey.
Journey step one: sent when registration is made.
Journey step two: sent two weeks before class starts.
Journey step three: sent one week before class starts.
Journey step four: sent the day after the class.
This email includes a survey asking their opinion of the class materials and presentation.
Journey step five: completed the day after the class.
That’s it! Your contact has traveled the whole journey.
Contact starts the journey.
Journey step one: sent when purchase is completed.
This email may include a receipt.
Journey step two: sent when package is shipped.
Journey step three: sent when package is delivered.
Journey step four: sent three days after delivery.
Journey step five: sent 2 weeks after delivery.
Journey step six: sent 2 weeks after delivery.
That’s it! Your contact has traveled the whole journey.
A journey can be programmed so a contact can follow it only once, several times, or as many times as they spark it. For example, every time a contact buys a product, they activate the Purchase Journey. This journey can happen as many times as the contact makes a purchase. However, for each class you teach, each student would only receive that class journey once.
Pre-built journey maps
Mailchimp has dozens of pre-built journey maps for standard business situations, so you don’t always have to start from scratch. These include encouraging leads, asking for online reviews, and promoting events. But if you want to start from a blank page, you can do that, too. Choose fonts, colors, graphics, and designs to match your company branding, and you’re off.
Access to tools depends on pricing plans
As with most things, you get what you pay for. See their pricing page here for details.
Vocabulary
Automation – a campaign that is sent when a contact achieves a criterion such as buying a product, being tagged, or completing another campaign. You build an automation once, then Mailchimp sends it every time your contact’s action activates it.
Campaign – a single marketing step or action such as an email, ad, or postcard.
Journey – a progression of campaigns that are sent as contacts reach specific triggers.
Journey map – a diagram of the steps contained within a journey.
Journey step – one campaign within a journey.
Social Card – a digital image that accompanies a campaign, including an image and metadata about the campaign.
Template – a pattern that is used to build stylistically-consistent campaigns.
