Wondering what types of use cases are served with SendGrid's Automation beta? This guide offers a few starter ideas for how you can use SendGrid Automation to create engaging, automated experiences for your recipients—all in the time it takes to create your usual 1-to-many emails.
For each of the three idea starters provided here, imagine you’re the marketing guru at a fitness company. You offer an application that users download to power their home workouts as well as special in-person events across the country.
We’ll orient you in the business goal, who to send to, and ideas for message content.
Business goal: Ensure new, hard-earned, signups stick by providing a warm welcome and tips to get started.
Send to: New contacts or subscribers
Message ideas:
• Do you have a compelling sender profile that makes sense for this automation?
• If a user wants to opt out of this type of content, do you have an Unsubscribe Group that will let them tailor their preferences?
• Do you have the right categories in place for tracking this automation?
App Signup Welcome Flow
Set your entry criteria to “The first time a contact” “Is added to a list” and create a new list called “New App Signups”.
For now, leave this step as is: recipients who enter the automation will receive all emails in your series. You’ll want recipients to receive each welcoming email in the series!
Create a new Unsubscribe Group for “App Signup Welcome Flow” so your recipients can choose to opt-out of this particular automation.
Add a category for “App Signup Welcome Flow” and any other categories that will help you track the performance of this automation.
Craft three messages (Tip: we recommend no more than three emails in a welcome series):
Decide when to send each message in your series:
Towards the end of each day, export a list of new users from your database.
The next morning, add your batch of new users to your “New App Signups” Automation list.
Business Goal: Drive attendance to an upcoming live yoga event in Chicago
Send to: Chicago contacts who love yoga
Message ideas:
Chicago Fall Yoga Event
Set your entry criteria to “The first time a contact” “Is added to a list” and create a new list called “Chicago Fall Yoga Event”
For now, leave this step as is: recipients who enter the automation will receive all emails in your series.
Create a new Unsubscribe Group for “Chicago Fall Yoga Event” so your recipients can choose to opt-out of this particular automation.
Add a category for “Chicago Fall Yoga Event” and any other categories that will help you track the performance of this automation.
Craft four messages:
Decide when to send each message in your series:
After that, you can export your segment as a CSV file to be imported as an Automation contact list.
Export a list of all of your Chicago app users and contacts who are yogis.
When you’re ready for your automation to begin sending, add your contacts to your “Chicago Fall Yoga Event” list.
Business Goal: Follow-up with contacts who have recently shown interest in your content and convert them to paid application users
Send to: Contacts who recently downloaded a free hotel-friendly travel workout plan.
Message(s):
Travel Workout Download
Set your entry criteria to “The first time a contact” “Is added to a list” and create a new list called “Travel Workout Download”
For now, leave this step as is: recipients who enter the automation will receive all emails in your series.
Create a new Unsubscribe Group for “Travel Workout Download” so your recipients can choose to opt-out of this particular automation.
Add a category for “Travel Workout Download” and any other categories that will help you track the performance of this automation.
Craft three messages:
Decide when to send each message in your series:
Of course, after you set your automation live, you’ll be eager to measure its performance!
With SendGrid Automation, you’ll enjoy real-time metrics that show you the aggregate performance of your automation as well as the stats for each individual email in your series. All in an easily scannable layout.
See an email that’s out performing—or underperforming—compared to others in the series? You can take those learnings and make content or subject line changes to optimize.
With these examples in hand, you’re ready to create your own compelling, automated email experiences for your contacts!
SendGrid helps you focus on your business without the cost and complexity of owning and maintaining an email infrastructure. And with a full-featured marketing email service that offers a flexible workflow, powerful list segmentation, and actionable analytics, all of your email needs are met in one simple platform.
