As a marketer, you’re typically juggling several jobs and wearing multiple hats. You’re a project manager some days and a business analyst others.

Most importantly, marketers must be innovative in order to balance their obligations. Email automation is one approach to simplify your daily responsibilities, and once set up, a triggered email campaign will operate on its own to guarantee your customers get marketing materials that are relevant to them.

Is there a distinction between automated and triggered emails?

Automated and triggered emails are often used interchangeably, leaving some new marketers confused about the distinction. The fact is that automatic and triggered emails are often interchangeable.

Unlike one-time efforts like email newsletters, triggered email campaigns are set up once and then sent to people when a specified trigger is met. The phrase “email automation” refers to this automated operation.

Consider the various components of this Sephora email, which are delivered based on different types of data. One is provided automatically to VIP members.

Triggers may take many forms, but some of the most prevalent are:

• Welcome emails are sent to new newsletter sign-ups.
• Sign up for VIP status
• Reactivation of dormant members
• Account creation/onboarding

User information such as their birthdate, geographical region, and even gender may be used to construct triggers.

Why do triggered emails help marketers save time and resources?

When questioned, 59% of individuals say the lack of relevant or engaging information in their inbox is the main reason they unsubscribe from an email list. In 2017, there were over 269 billion emails sent and received every day, according to Statista. This figure is predicted to climb to approximately 320 billion daily emails by 2022.

With these numbers continuously increasing, it’s no surprise that customers are becoming bored of receiving useless information in their inbox on a daily basis. Because most triggers are defined by user data, triggered emails are one technique to fight the problem of sending irrelevant email. This allows you to distribute relevant information as well as customised content.

Consider this: it would take hours, if not days or weeks, to tailor content and deliver it to each subscriber on your email list. You just do not have the time, which is where email automation comes in.

Automating your triggered emails can not only save you time, but also valuable resources. Once the process is created and the triggers are specified, the automated process will handle the rest.

While putting up an automated email campaign might be a one-and-done operation, it’s vital to remember that you must still assess your campaign to ensure it’s operating as expected.

Configuring a triggered email campaign

Setting up a triggered email campaign might be complicated, depending on how many emails you want to include in the campaign and what triggers you want to include. You’ll start by constructing an automated route when generating a triggered email campaign using Campaign Monitor.

After you’ve begun designing your automation path, you’ll choose a trigger type. This will need a decision between choices such as:

• A subscriber joins a mailing list.
• Triggers based on segments
• Triggers based on dates

Once you’ve defined the trigger, you’ll start building and personalizing the journey, which will look something like this.

Journeys that are automated to get you started

Knowing where to begin with automated triggered emails might be challenging. That’s why we’ve compiled a brief list of automated routes and the triggers that go with them.

Welcome email

A welcome email may be sent automatically when a new subscriber is added. These events occur when a new member joins your email newsletter list or another subscriber-related list. A new member has chosen to receive weekly emails from BBC Online in this example.

This email not only confirms the member’s membership, but it also details what the new subscriber may anticipate from them and each newsletter.

Reactivation/retention

Customer retention and reactivation are critical when it comes to keeping subscribers active and engaged with your company. These emails may be configured and triggered depending on specified segment or date information.

In this case, American Airlines intended to remind the customer that they have unused flight miles and what they could do with them before they expired.

Birthdays and anniversaries

Sending personalized anniversary and birthday emails to your email subscribers is a terrific way to become personal with them. These automatic campaigns are usually initiated by a certain date, such as the user’s joining date or birthday.

This BarkBox example is amazing because it becomes really personal by addressing the product’s actual user: the dog.

Conclusion

Customers get information that is actually tailored to their interests and requirements when they receive triggered emails. But triggered emails also do something else. They make your marketing team’s everyday tasks easier.

Once your triggers have been created based on either news subscribers, particular date-related information, or segment-based information, your team may proceed with building up and testing different automated campaigns.

While automation is sometimes thought of as a one-and-done effort, it is critical to remember that after you’ve set up your automated programs, you must assess them on a regular basis. What good is it if your team doesn’t take the time to analyze each campaign for overall effectiveness?