Set up automations to send after a visitor subscribes to your mailing list or purchases a product.

Automated campaigns, or automations, are targeted emails you can send to people after they perform a specific action on your site. They're sometimes called "triggered sends."

There are two main types of automations:

• Subscriber activity automations - Sent after someone subscribes to a mailing list through a newsletter subscribe form on your site
• Customer activity automations - Sent after someone purchases a store product or digital product on your site

For example, you could send subscriber activity automations thanking people for subscribing to your list, or customer activity automations suggesting they share the item on social media.

Automations are available on all current Email Campaigns plans, but they may be unsupported on some legacy plans. If you're subscribed to a legacy plan without automations, change your billing plan to a current one.

Before you begin

• Automations count toward your monthly send limit.
• Some situations prevent automations from sending.
• Depending on where they enter their email address, new subscribers may need to confirm their mailing list subscriptions before they can receive automations.
• To send a campaign to a specific mailing list at a specific time, schedule blast emails in advance.
• Customer activity automations are different from the order emails customers receive by default. To learn more, visit Customer email notifications.

Types of automations

There are two main types of automations, subscriber activity emails and customer activity emails. When you create an automation, Squarespace provides preset options for both.

It's not possible to change a subscriber activity automation to a customer activity automation or vice versa, but the preset options are otherwise fully customizable.

Subscriber activity automations

Preset subscriber activity automations include:

• Welcome new subscribers - Triggered shortly after a visitor subscribers.
• Offer a discount to new subscribers - Triggered after a visitor subscribes if they haven't made a purchase yet.
• Engage new subscribers - Triggered an extended time after a visitor subscribes.

You can connect subscriber automations to one or more mailing lists, which are connected to forms on your site, or to all subscribers. You can also connect them to your Potential Customers, which includes subscribers who haven't purchased a product.

Subscriber activity automations are triggered when a subscriber signs up for the mailing list. They can send immediately or after a set amount of days.

Customer activity automations

Preset customer activity automations include:

• Thank first-time customers - Triggered after a customer buys a product.
• Reward repeat customers - Triggered after a customer makes two orders.
• Reward VIP customers - Triggered after a customer spends a certain amount.
• Re-engage customers - Triggered after a certain number of days have passed since a customer's last purchase.
• Recommend products or services - Triggered after a customer buys a product.
• Onboard members - Triggered after a customer makes a digital product purchase.

Customer activity automations connect to store products or digital products on your site. You can set automations to send after customers purchase any product, purchase a specific product, spend a certain amount of money, or place a certain number of orders. Keep in mind, point of sale purchases don't trigger customer activity automations.

Sending a customer activity automation doesn't sign the recipient up for your mailing list. You can encourage them to subscribe by adding a newsletter subscribe option to checkout.

Other automations

Depending on your website billing plan, there are specialized automations with fixed presets you can use:

• Recover abandoned carts - Sends after a customer leaves their cart during the checkout process. To learn more, visit Abandoned cart recovery.
• Request customer reviews - A special type of customer activity automation, this sends 14 days after the purchase of any store product. To learn more, visit Customer reviews.

Unlike the other pre-built automations, these automations don't count toward your monthly sends, and it's not possible to edit their triggers or time delay settings. The email that visitors receive is still fully customizable.

Create a draft

To create a draft:

1. Open your automations dashboard and click Create Automation.
2. Select a pre-built automation. This displays a preview of the automations trigger, time delay, and action. When you've found one you like, click Next.
3. Select a template, then click Create Automation.
4. Click Create Automation.

Keep in mind, the pre-built automation settings and templates are only starting points. After you create the draft, you can edit, style, and customize it to meet your needs.

Reuse a template

You can create drafts reusing a template from a previous automation. To reuse a template:

1. Open your automations dashboard.
2. Click the Reuse template icon on the automation with the template you want to use and select your automation type. This generates a new automation with the same template.

You can also create new automations using templates of sent, drafted, or scheduled blast campaigns by clicking the Reuse template icon in your Email Campaigns dashboard.

Customize your automation

After you've created a new draft:

1. Click Trigger to set what prompts your subscriber activity automation or customer activity automation to send.
2. Click Time Delay to schedule how long, in days, the automation sends after the activity triggers it. You can select No Delay or a preset number of days after, or click Custom to set a custom delay up to 730 days after.
3. Click Action, then click Edit Email to build the email.
4. When your automation is ready, click Start Automation to activate it. It will appear with an Active status in your dashboard.

Your draft saves automatically as you build the automation. While you edit, the automation is paused.

Set triggers

Your trigger options vary depending on your automation type. Keep in mind, it's not possible to change a subscriber activity trigger to a customer activity trigger, or vice versa.

Subscriber activity trigger

Subscriber activity automations are triggered by a visitor subscribing to a mailing list. When you click Trigger on your automation, you can set the automation to send to one of the following:

• All subscribers - Automation sends to all subscribers regardless of the mailing list they subscribe to.
• Select mailing lists - Automation sends to one or more mailing lists you select.
• Potential Customers - Automation sends to subscribers who haven't made a purchase on your site.

Customer activity trigger

Customer activity automations are triggered by a visitor purchasing a product from your site. To set the trigger:

1. After clicking Trigger on your automation, click Customer Orders.
2. To send the automation when customers purchase from your online store, click Store Products. To send it when customers purchase digital products like member areas or course lessons, click Digital Products.
3. Click one or more product to trigger the automation when purchases, or set the automation to send after any product purchase.
4. If the automation is set to send after any product purchase, you can add more conditions to target specific customers.

Send customer activity automations after any product purchase

If you want an automation to send after any store purchase, switch the Any Store Product toggle on under Store Products.

If you want an automation to send after any digital product purchase, switch the Any Digital Product toggle on under Digital Products.

Send customer activity automations for total order count or total amount spent

If you set the automation to send after any product purchase, you can click Condition to further customize when the automation sends. Choose from:

• None - No additional conditions need to be met for the automation to send.
• Total Order Count - Set the number of separate orders a customer needs to make before the automation sends.
• Total Amount Spent - Set the amount of money a customer needs to spend before the automation sends.

When a specific condition is set, the automation sends when a customer reaches that order count or amount spent, regardless of what type of product they're purchasing.

This is a great way to entice first-time customers with a specific discount or reward repeat customers. Keep in mind, it's not possible to set these conditions for individual products, and the Total Order Count or Total Amount Spent can't be 0.

Build the email

Click Action, then click Edit Email to customize the email visitors receive when they trigger the automation.

To learn how to add, edit, and arrange your content, visit Adding content to email campaigns. To learn how to customize the email's fonts, colors, and other style settings, visit Styling email campaigns.

In the Email tab of your draft:

• Add a subject and preview text. Review our tips for help.
• Connect sender details to choose the email address and name that your campaigns are sent from.
• Click Legal Address to add a valid physical postal address to the footer. If this is your first campaign, the address from your site's business information settings displays by default, or you can add an address manually. If you aren't sure which address to use, visit our tips.
• Click Send Test to send a test email to your personal address. This is optional, but we recommend it. Review these tips for a checklist of things to look out for.

Changes to timing of active automations

If you activate an automation and later change the timing of when it sends, the new send time will only affect subscribers or customers who trigger the automation after the change.

For example, if you schedule an automation to send three days after a subscriber signs up, then later change it to send four days after, any subscriber who signs up before you make the change will still receive it three days after they subscribe, while subscribers who sign up after the change will receive it after four days.

This is particularly important to keep in mind when setting up drip campaigns.

Pause automations

There are two ways to pause an automation:

• In the automations dashboard, click ... on the automation, then click Pause.
• Automations automatically pause if you edit them. This ensures your subscribers don't receive an unfinished draft.

To unpause an automation, click ... on the automation, then click Start.

If a subscriber signs up or a customer makes a purchase when an automation is paused, the automation won't send to them, even after it's made active again.

For existing subscribers and customers, if an automation is paused when it's time to send them an email, our system waits four hours, then tries to send it again. If it's still paused during this second attempt, the automation won't send to them.

Drip campaigns

A drip campaign is a series of emails. For example, if someone signs up for the mailing list on your fitness website, you could send a short set of emails with tips to help them get started exercising.

To create an automated drip campaign:

1. Create multiple subscriber activity or customer activity automations.
2. Connect each automation's trigger to the same mailing list, store product, or digital product.
3. Set a different time delay for each one. For example, for a customer activity drip campaign, you could set one to send immediately after purchase, one to send 14 days later, and one to send 30 days later.

Only visitors who sign up for a newsletter or make a purchase after you create the automated drip campaign will receive these emails, even if some of the drip campaigns are scheduled further in the future. For example, if someone purchases a product, and the next day you schedule a drip campaign to send a week after a purchase, that customer won't receive the email, but new customers will.

Ensure you have enough monthly sends for all automations in your drip campaign. If you reach your monthly send limit, the automations are paused, and you'll need to reactivate them in the next usage period or after you upgrade your plan. Subscribers and customers who were meant to receive emails while the automations are paused won't receive them, even after the automations are reactivated.

Rename an automation

To rename an automation:

1. Open the automations dashboard, then click ... on the automation.
2. Click Rename.
3. Enter a new name, then click Save.

Delete automations

To delete an automation:

1. Open the automations dashboard, then click ... on the automation.
2. Click Delete, then click Delete again to confirm.

Automations and unsubscribes

For subscriber activity automations:

• If someone subscribes and then unsubscribes before a subscriber activity automation is sent, they won't receive the subscriber activity automation.

For customer activity automations:

• If someone unsubscribes from a customer activity automation, they're unsubscribed from all customer activity automations for your site.
• Unsubscribing from a customer activity automation doesn't unsubscribe them from any mailing lists they're on.

For drip campaigns:

• If someone unsubscribes from one automation, they won't receive any others.

To learn more about unsubscribes, visit Email campaign unsubscribes.

Track your progress

Click any active automation and scroll down to review how many people received, opened, and clicked a link in the automation, and to track unsubscribes.

To learn more, visit Tracking email campaign analytics.

Tip: On Business and Commerce plans, traffic sources analytics shows more information such as revenue generated by each campaign.

Why aren't my automations sending?

Automations won't send to certain recipients under certain conditions. This is to limit inbox spam, protect subscriber privacy, and ensure automations are only sending in the intended scenarios.

Review the table below to learn more.

Intended recipient	Solution
People you added to your mailing list manually or imported, or people who've unsubscribed.	None. To protect subscribers, automations won't send to these recipients.
People already on the mailing list before the automation is created, including people added while on a plan without automations.	Create the automation with a new mailing list and encourage existing subscribers to sign up for it.
People who subscribe or make a purchase when an automation is paused.	Unpause the automation. Keep in mind, this won't send the automation to subscribers who signed up or customers who purchased during the pause, but it ensures new subscribers and customers receive it.
Subscription product customers when subscriptions renew. Automations only send on the initial purchase.	None. To limit inbox spam, automations only send on the initial purchase.
Drip campaign subscribers when additional drip campaign emails are created after they've subscribed.	Create the new drip campaign with a new mailing list and encourage existing subscribers to sign up for it. Subscribers only receive drip campaign emails created and active at the time of signup.
Customers who haven't made a purchase in a certain number of days when the Re-engage customers automation was created after their purchase.	Re-engage customers automations only send to visitors who make a purchase after the automation is active. To send an email to customers who made purchases before the automation was activated and haven't made a purchase since, save a segment in the Contacts panel, then send a blast campaign to that segment.
Any subscriber if you're over your monthly amount of sends.	Wait until the next usage period begins, or upgrade your plan. Keep in mind, this won't send the automation to subscribers who signed up or customers who purchased during the pause, but it ensures new subscribers and customers receive it.

To further limit inbox spam, automations are only sent to subscribers once in any 30 day period. For example:

• If someone unsubscribes from a mailing list and resubscribes within 30 days, they won’t receive the automated message again.
• If someone triggers the same automation twice within 30 days, they won't receive the automated message again. For example, if they purchase a product connected to an automation twice, they'll only receive the automation after the first purchase.