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Birthday Email Automation

Learn How to Automate Birthday Emails in Omnisend

Ira avatar
Written by Ira
Updated over a month ago

If you collect information about your clients' and subscribers' dates of birth, you can wish them a Happy Birthday with Omnisend's Birthday Email. It automatically sends a message on their special day, perfect for developing customer relationships and making sales.

Show that you care about your clients and subscribers. These emails are fully automated, so you don't have to worry about delivery—Omnisend handles it for you.

Before You Begin

How to Collect Birthday Dates?

Birthday Emails will only be sent to those subscribers whose birthday data is available to us. It can be imported from your store, or you can collect it with the help of our Signup Forms. Add an additional input field for the birth date; all new subscribers will have to enter this info.

As for your existing subscribers, you can create a Landing Page with the additional birthday field and send the link via a Campaign. Also, you can use the preference management page to ask your customers to provide birth dates.

Automation Setup

To create the Birthday workflow, proceed to the Automations tab → click on the Create workflow button and pick one of the suggestions for the Birthday automation.

Automation Trigger Settings

To trigger this automation, you must add a birthday date to your customers' profiles. Any date field added to the system should have the following format: YYYY-MM-DD; however, if you add your customers' birthday dates as a custom property, you won't be able to use it for the Birthday trigger. The only solution is to export your contacts list and upload it with proper mapping.

The automation's default trigger is set to your customer's birthday date. However, you may also trigger this automation before or after the actual date.

Audience Filter

You may also target your automation based on your customers' Profile data (Country, Gender, Tag, etc.) and their belonging to a specific Segment. Birthday email is very personal, and you may make it even more engaging by tailoring its content based on your customer profile data or his interests.

You can learn more about the Audience filter.

Exit conditions

Birthday automation doesn't have the default exit condition, meaning that the customer exits after getting all messages from the sequence. Nevertheless, you may also cancel the workflow under certain conditions.

You can learn more about Exit conditions.

Frequency

If you choose to avoid triggering the workflow for contacts who have already been in this automation, the same customer will only be able to trigger this sequence within a specific time. It makes sense if you want to send a different email for every birthday.

Conditional Split

Even though you can target your emails with the Audience filter, it might be better to design one Birthday email with different email message variants based on your customer's profile data, purchase behavior, and engagement with your emails.

Delay

The default automation has the delay block set to a specific time of day. Disturbing your customers too early in the morning is not a good decision.

Email Content

In the Birthday automation, you may add messages, including Email, SMS, and Push notifications. For example, you could send an Email message one day before your customer birthday and an SMS reminder on that day.

Regarding the content of the Email message, it is perfect timing for some interactive blocks, such as the Discount Content block.

Testing Birthday Automation

When testing Birthday automation, you should add a date at least two days before the one when the message should be delivered because the message is triggered one day before the actual date.

For example, the email message for the subscriber whose birthday is 10.05.2020 should be triggered on 9.05.2020 at 0:00. If you provide the date 12.05.2020, the email will be triggered on 11.05.2020 at 0:00.

Use Case: Birthdate Collection and Greetings

This use case explains how to effectively collect birthdates from your customers and set up birthday greetings without impacting your sign-up rates.

Step 1: Create a Segment for Birthdate Collection

Log in to Omnisend and navigate to Audience → Segments → Create Segment.

  • Create a segment specifically for customers whose birthdates you want to collect.

  • Set the condition to "Birthdate exists"

  • Example: Name the segment "Birthdate exists"

Step 2: Create a Birthdate Collection Form

  • Create a dedicated landing page where customers can submit their birthdates.

  • The form should be simple and user-friendly.

  • Only ask for the birthdate and customer’s email to avoid friction.

  • Once the form is created, save the link to your landing page; you’ll need it later for the email.

Step 3: Set Up Birthdate Collection Automation

  • Set up automation (Automation → Create workflow → Create from scratch) that triggers the birthdate collection email after a specific transactional message.

  • Example: Trigger the email immediately after the shipping confirmation is sent.

Step 4: Add a Split in Automation for Subscribers (Optional)

  • Add a split condition that skips contacts who have opted out of promotional messages (for this step, you need to create the segment of subscribers first)

  • This ensures you’re only contacting engaged customers.

Step 5: Create a Conditional Split for Birthdate Existence

  • Add Another Split Condition for the YES path (previous conditional split). Ask whether the subscriber has a birthdate on file. Use the segment created in Step 1.

  • Path Options

    Yes Path: If the birthdate exists, skip the contact (do nothing).

    No Path: If no birthdate exists, proceed to send the collection email.

Step 6: Craft the Birthdate Collection Email

  • Add an email to your workflow. Click Edit Content to change the email content.

  • Encourage customers to share their birthdays by highlighting benefits (e.g., special discounts, personalized greetings).

  • Keep the tone friendly and engaging.

  • Add a clear call-to-action with a link to the birthdate collection landing page you created earlier.

Step 7: Set Up Birthday Greetings

  • There’s no need to create a new greeting setup if you already have one in place.

  • Ensure that the birthday greeting aligns with what you promised in the collection email (e.g., a 15% discount a week before their birthday).

  • Schedule the birthday message to be sent on the birthday or the week prior to maximize engagement.

FAQ

Why do I have a lot of exits if no emails were sent and I don't have exit conditions? Contacts enter the workflow if they are subscribed to at least one of the channels (Email, SMS, Push notifications). That's why if you have only emails in the workflow, the contact subscribed to the SMS channel will only enter the workflow. However, as there are no SMS messages in your automation, customers will skip the first step and exit the workflow.

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