When a new customer subscribes to your marketing, it’s the perfect opportunity to welcome them to your store and encourage their first purchase.
Omnisend offers a Welcome Automation preset that automatically detects new subscribers and sends them a personalized welcome message. This workflow helps you introduce your brand, share special offers, or simply start building a relationship with your new audience.
About the Automation Trigger
This Subscribed to Marketing trigger will fire whenever a contact subscribes to receive marketing messages, regardless of the subscription method (signup form, checkout page, manual import, etc).
With this trigger, you can welcome customers who subscribe to any of your channels (email, SMS, push notifications, etc.).
You can apply trigger filters to target specific subscription cases. For example, you can choose to target based on the subscription method, such as a signup form or SMS text-to-join. This allows you to personalize the welcome experience depending on how each subscriber joined your list.
Setup Process
To create the Welcome Automation, proceed to the Automations tab → click on the Create workflow button and pick one of the suggestions for the Welcome automation.
There are different presets you can choose from, depending on how many messages or channels you’d like to include in your flow.
Trigger Filters
Trigger filters allow you to focus on a specific group of contacts by filtering out only a portion of them. They work by analyzing the data from the event that triggers the flow, effectively narrowing down the target audience.
When you create an automation from a preset, you’ll see the list of trigger filters automatically applied to that preset. By default, the automation includes two filters:
Subscription method is a signup form – customers subscribed using a signup form (Omnisend or a third-party form).
First subscription is true – customers are subscribing for the first time.
With these filters in place, contacts who don’t meet the conditions will not enter the automation. For example, if a customer subscribed through the checkout page, they won’t be included in an automation with the filter subscription method is a signup form.
⚠️ Note! You can edit or remove default trigger filters at any time. For instance, you can delete the filter subscription method is a signup form if you’d like to include all subscription methods.
You can also apply different sets of trigger filters based on your preference. For example, you may want to target customers who subscribe to email only. In this case, you can use the filter channel subscribed to is Email.
Below, you will find a list of available trigger filters and their meanings.
Trigger filter | Available values | Explanation |
Core filters ⤵️ |
|
|
Channel subscribed to |
| Indicates the channel to which the contact subscribed. |
First subscription |
| Indicates that this is the first subscription event for this contact through this channel. |
Language |
| The browser language of the contact. |
Origin |
| Origin of the subscription event is either the Omnisend form or contacts passed via API (including 3rd party apps). |
Previous subscription status |
| Indicates the previous channel subscription status the contact had before subscribing. |
Previous subscription status date |
| Date when the previous channel subscription status was assigned. |
Subscription method |
| Indicates how the contact subscribed.
|
Subscription method details |
| Any additional information related to the subscription method, like import ID and file name, Order ID, SMS keyword, etc. |
Phone number country |
| For SMS subscriptions, the subscriber’s country or area is identified by the country code in their phone number. |
Form filters ⤵️ |
|
|
Discount |
| The discount code that was displayed for the subscriber in the signup form.
|
Form Name |
| Omnisend form name that a contact submitted to subscribe. |
Form Settings | Possible form settings:
| Identified blocks that were added to the Omnisend form, through which the subscription happened. |
Form Type |
| Omnisend form type, which the subscriber used. |
Note! If you see an empty value option in your automation, it means a subscription event hasn’t occurred yet. The automation needs at least one subscription event after being enabled in order to start gathering data.
For example, if you turn on the automation and then subscribe using one of your forms, you’ll begin to see options like Language, Form type, and other trigger filters appear in the list once that subscription event has taken place.
💬 You can use the 'Origin is API' filter to target subscribers added via third-party integrations or API calls.
This is particularly useful if you collect contacts through multiple platforms (e.g., Omnisend forms and third-party apps) and want to apply different welcome logic for different subscriber groups.
Trigger Filter vs Trigger Filter Groups
Trigger Filters
Trigger filters are individual criteria used to determine when a specific action should be initiated. They are the basic building blocks for creating targeted marketing campaigns. They can be connected with either 'AND' or 'OR' logic; different logics cannot be combined within a list of varying trigger filters.
The following example shows how selecting one operator will be applied to all three trigger filters. This means that if you apply 'AND' logic, the setup will trigger only when every condition is fulfilled, whereas with 'OR' logic, the automation kicks in if any of the specified criteria are met.
Trigger Filter Groups
Trigger Filter Groups expand on the concept of individual trigger filters by allowing multiple filters to be combined into groups. These groups can be connected using either 'AND' or 'OR' logic, providing greater flexibility and precision in targeting subscribers.
'AND' Logic: All conditions within the group must be met for the trigger to activate.
'OR' Logic: Any condition within the group can activate the trigger.
Example of Trigger Filter Groups
Imagine you want to create a targeted marketing workflow with the following criteria:
Subscribers must have signed up for the email channel.
It must be their first subscription.
They must either be added through an API (3rd party app) or have used a sign-up form.
Group 1 (AND Logic)
Channel subscribed is Email
The first subscription is true
Both conditions must be met in this group for the trigger to fire. This means that only subscribers who have signed up via email and for whom it is their first subscription will be targeted.
When combining two groups with 'AND' logic, the trigger must fire if all conditions across both groups are met.
Group 2 (OR Logic):
Origin is API
The subscription method is a signup form
If either condition is met in this group, the trigger will fire. This means that subscribers added through an API (3rd party apps) or those who used a sign-up form will be targeted.
With the setup above, the trigger will fire only if all these conditions are met. With this setup, you can simultaneously target new email subscribers from the Omnisend form and any new subscribers added through third-party integrations or APIs.
💡 If you're new to Omnisend and need details on how to set up automation and explore other features, please read more about automation settings.
Troubleshooting
When setting up your welcome email workflows, it's essential to ensure that your subscribers receive a relevant experience based on their channel preferences. Below are guidelines for troubleshooting common scenarios related to sending welcome emails:
Understanding Subscription Settings:
When you start a workflow with the 'Subscribed to marketing' trigger and do not add any specific trigger filters, the system defaults to sending welcome emails whenever a contact subscribes to any channel: Email, SMS, or push notifications, and through any method: signup form, checkout page, manual import, etc.
Rule of Thumb for Single Message Types:
To avoid this issue, it’s crucial to use trigger filters in your workflow. If your workflow consists solely of welcome emails, make sure to configure the trigger filter to specify the channel through which the contact subscribed.
Example: If your workflow contains only email messages, set the trigger filter to
Channel subscribed to = Email. This ensures that the welcome email is sent only when a subscriber opts in through the email channel.
💡 Check our troubleshooting guide for further guidelines.
Still have questions? Feel free to chat with our support team in-app or send us an email at [email protected].