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Contact Enters/Exits a Segment Automation
Contact Enters/Exits a Segment Automation

Discover how to set up automation based on subscriber behavior, specifically when they enter or exit segments

Ira avatar
Written by Ira
Updated over a week ago

Segment entry and exit-based automation is a flexible and powerful feature that allows you to create targeted and personalized workflows for your subscribers.

By utilizing segments in your automations, you can reach out to customers who are newly added, re-added, or have recently dropped out of a segment. This helps you stay connected with your audience and provide tailored content and offers that meet their needs and interests.

Before You Begin

Starting March 12, 2024, we will discontinue the retrigger workflow feature (see image below). This change will impact how workflows are triggered:

For users who kept the re-trigger workflow toggle on:

  • No changes will occur. Workflows will still be triggered every time a contact enters the segment, regardless of whether it is the first or subsequent times. This will remain the same unless the Frequency settings are enabled.

For users who kept the re-trigger workflow toggle off:

  • We will enable the Frequency settings with the option "At any time." This means that the workflow behavior will not change and will be triggered only once.

Automation Setup

To set up automation based on the customer entry or exit of a particular segment, you will need to:

  • create a segment with the rules you prefer;

  • setup automation with the entry/exit-based trigger.

You may set up this type of automation by going to Automations → Create Workflow → pick Create from Scratch option or change the trigger for any preset automation.

Automation Trigger Settings

You can trigger the automation for customers based on the fact that they enter or exit the segment of your choice. Here are a few essential facts about this trigger.

  • This automation won't be triggered for the customers that were added to the workflow before you enabled it. But you may remove and push them back to the Segment; find the instructions here.

  • To trigger the workflow for contacts that are re-added to the segment, you need to turn off the Frequency settings. Frequency settings define when customers who have already been in this automation can trigger the automation again.

  • Only customers who enter the Segment organically enter the sequence automatically. Jump to the manual import impact on automations with the segment rules section for more details.

Exit Conditions

It is totally up to you whether you want to add the Exit conditions to the automation flow, but we want to emphasize that you can use both Customer enter/Customer exit sequence rules there.

Adding an exit condition, "contact exits the segment," is recommended when you want to prevent customers from going through the workflow if they are no longer in the segment.

In this case, the exit condition is necessary because only with this exit condition the customer who is not in the segment anymore will immediately exit the automation while going through the sequence.

You can find more information on the Exit conditions set up in the corresponding article.

Frequency

By changing the Frequency setting, you may choose whether to trigger the sequence when the customer is re-added or removed from the segment. If you leave Frequency disabled, the same contact can retrigger the workflow multiple times; otherwise, it will skip the contacts who have already been in the automation.

Let's simplify and say we have a segment based on the customer's city. One of our customers is from London. We then create a segment with the rule that the city is set to be in London. This customer qualifies with the rule - he enters the segment, and the automation gets triggered.

After some time, the customer updates the city to New York (exits the segment) and, after some time, changes it back to London (re-enters the segment). This is where your Frequency settings click in and define whether the automation should be sent repeatedly.

Editing Segment Used In Automation

Whenever you make any changes to the rules of a segment that is used by automated workflows (entry or exit-based), you will be prompted to question whether we should continue sending the automated emails based on the new rules.

Once the rules of the segment are changed, there are two options:

  • No - this means that the automation will not send messages to contacts who instantly populate due to the update in the Segment setting.

  • Yes - this means that the automation will send messages to contacts who instantly populate due to the update in the Segment setting.

If any customers were in the middle of the flow (e.g., received 2/5 messages) and stayed in the new segment, they would continue to receive the rest of the messages.

If they left the segment due to the new rules, they would not receive the left messages (the rest 3/5).

Manual Import & Automation Trigger

Automation workflows that contain segment entry or exit rules can be affected by the manual import of customers in case those newly added customers appear on the segments in use.

However, you have total control over whether you want to use them in automation. Every time you import your contacts manually, you are prompted to ask what should be done with these newly added contacts.

There are two options you can go with:

  • No - this means that newly added contacts will be added to your list and appear on the needed segments but will not receive the automations that said segments would trigger. You can choose this option if you want to add contacts but not trigger any automations.

  • Yes - this means these contacts will be added to the list of needed segments and will receive the automations that said segments would trigger. You can choose this option if you want to add contacts and trigger automations for them.

When it comes to automatically imported contacts (from your store) and contacts added after filling a form, those are considered organically added to a segment, and automation for them is sent automatically.

Retriggering Automation

Suppose you wish to retrigger the automation for the customers added to the Segment already. In that case, look through the instructions below.

1. Disable the Frequency setting in the Automation workflow

When disabled, it allows a retrigger of the automation for the customers who have entered the sequence already.

2. Remove contacts from the segment

Before we can push your contacts to re-enter the segment and retrigger the workflow, we need to remove them from the segment. We suggest adding a fake rule that none of them follow to remove contacts.

For example, you may add a date parameter set to the date when your store isn't connected to Omnisend. Since your contacts will not meet this rule, they will be removed from the segment. Or add a different rule that you know your contacts will match like Last Name is X.

Once you apply the rule, you need to click on the Update button → Switch the toggle to send automated messages → Update.

3. Re-add contacts to the Segment

To re-add contacts to the Segment, you only need to remove the fake rule we added in the previous stage. However, at this point, we also need to let this change affect your automation performance.

Have any questions? Please email us at [email protected].

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