What are birthday automations?
Automations is a feature that automatically sends emails or SMS. You choose the recipients, when it should be sent, and what message to send, and then the automation will handle the rest.
Birthday automation is based on the contact's birth date. With this automation, you can send a special greeting to your contacts to boost your relationships.
To read more about automation, click here.
How-to video
Step 1: Create the automation
Go to Automations → Create automation and choose Birthday: Email or SMS automation.
Step 2: When to trigger
The automation will be sent once a day at 8:00 a.m. In this step, you choose the day on which the recipient should receive the greeting.
Before their birthday, on their birthday, or after their birthday.
Step 3: Set the communication type
Is it marketing or non-marketing communication? In the case of marketing, select one or more subscription types.
Step 4: Name your automation
Give your automation a name. This is only for internal use and will be displayed in the automation overview.
Step 5: Add filters (optional)
Once you have set the automation rules, you can choose to add additional filters. This means that you can make your automation more personalized by including or excluding recipients based on demography, orders, or behavior.
If you want to add this, click on the Add a filter block, and a new window with the Audience filter will appear.
Click here to learn more about the filter.
Remember that you can include all contacts in the automation and still make it more personal by using Display filters in your email design. That way, you can choose what content should be sent to certain recipients.
Step 6: Create your email/SMS
Email automations
Click on the Send email block followed by the Design email button to design the email. Once ready, jump out of the editor to fill in the sender, subject line, and preview text.
SMS automations
Click on the Send SMS block to choose the sender name and compose the message. This article explains more about creating an SMS.
If you have chosen Marketing communication in step 3, you will need to specify the language for the opt-out instructions. This is done when composing the SMS text.
Step 7: Test your automation
Email automations
Open the Send email block and hover over the email design to find the Preview and test button. From here, you can preview the design in desktop vs. mobile view, share a preview link with colleagues, and send test emails.
SMS automations
Open the Send SMS block, and a Send test SMS button will appear at the bottom.
You can also test any display filters (for email only) and merge tags used in your emails and SMS.
Step 8: Start your automation
When you are happy with your automation, it is time to activate it. Press Start in the upper-right corner to review the setup. Once you confirm, the automation will start to send according to the automation rules! 🎂