Introduction to ActiveTrail Marketing Automation System

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We promised you great news and here it is!
ActiveTrail launches a marketing automation system that will help you manage your marketing strategy intelligently, precisely and in a way that is most relevant to your customers.
If email marketing has worked well for you so far, from now on it will work even better thanks to the automation of your marketing.

Automation FR

What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is a system based on triggers and segmentation.

Triggers are what will allow you to trigger your email at the exact moment you want. Whether it’s right after the customer has taken an action like signing up for a website, webinar or other event, or after a long period of time where the customer hasn’t taken an action like if the customer hasn’t opened your email in the last three months, or before a certain date like a week before the customer’s birthday.

But instead of building an email that you send to the customer that activates the trigger, you build a marketing sequence (play) based on that first trigger that includes a series of emails and text messages (SMS) that are supposed to trigger at a time you decide, based on the customers' actions.

Segmentation , on the other hand, is what allows you to divide your customers into groups based on their interests that they have previously indicated on the registration form of your site for example, or based on their own greece telegram data characteristics, such as age, place of residence or gender. So, for example, you can define the scenarios according to the groups to which your contacts belong. If, for example, you have content that is intended only for women, you can define a scenario just for women – for example an email with this content that will only be sent to your female customers.

You build your automation based on scenarios in the same way that you would a computer game that you create for your customers – a game that they will continue to play until they have gone through all the steps that you have built for them. You can define steps that are only for those who have opened or not opened an email, clicked or not clicked on a link that you sent them, made or not made a purchase on the site, etc. You can trigger steps based on customer actions with specific time frames, in minutes, hours, days, or even months.

Here's an example of how this all looks in the ActiveTrail platform:
automation example FR

So that you fully understand what it means to automate marketing, here is a brief explanation of the steps you have set up on your customer journey that a customer will go through:

Let's say you have a store and you sell clothes and you also have an online store
Mail #1 – Welcome! Get a mega discount [valid for 48 hours]
A customer saw your campaign on Facebook, went to your website, liked what she saw, and naturally signed up for your email list. Her name is Amanda. Amanda then receives an email from you to confirm that her email address has been added to your contact list.

Amanda opened your “thank you” thank you email and confirmed her subscription by clicking on the link placed in the email. Now she has been added to the “new customers” group and this is when she begins her journey into the wonderful world of automation that you have carefully prepared for your new customers.

An hour after confirming registration, she receives an email with a 20% discount coupon or other offer that will make her want to make a purchase on your online store, valid only for 48 hours. Here's what Aerie from American Eagle did:

aerie

Mail #2 – Receive a 10% discount for life!
If 48 hours have passed and Amanda has not opened your email with your super discount, she will then receive an additional email from you – this time it will be an email with a 10% discount but this time with no time limit, valid for any first purchase in your online store.

An example of such an email from the clothing company Diva:
DIVA



Mail #3 – Text message for those who did not open the previous email
If, 24 hours later, Amanda still hasn't opened this email, she will instead receive the same 10% discount but this time via text message to her mobile phone, with no expiration date.

Mail #4- What is your favorite color?
Whether or not they opened those emails and the SMS, all of your contacts who go through this automation, including Amanda, will receive an additional email a few days after they sign up.

This time, the email will contain information about your emails, about your store, and maybe even an opportunity for Amanda to indicate her email marketing preferences, including frequency, email schedule, and areas of interest. Depending on the preferences Amanda indicates, you can add her to contact groups related to these items, so your emails will be more specific and personalized.

For example, here's a clever way ModCloth uses to ask their contacts for their preferences: