Automations

Automations in SendBeam let you build email workflows that fire automatically in response to contact events. Once an automation is active, it works around the clock — enrolling contacts, sending emails, waiting, evaluating conditions, and applying tags without any manual effort on your part.

What are automations?

An automation is a sequence of steps that executes for each contact individually, triggered by a specific event. Every contact moves through the automation at their own pace — a wait step pauses that contact's journey without affecting anyone else's.

Automations are made up of two building blocks:

• Triggers — the events that enrol a contact. An automation can have up to three.
• Steps — send an email, wait, branch on a condition, add or remove a tag, set a field, unsubscribe, or start another automation.

Only contacts whose status is Subscribed are enrolled, and a contact who unsubscribes, bounces or complains part-way through leaves automatically (their run is marked exited) before any further step runs. A contact who reaches the end of their path — including the end of an empty branch — is marked complete.

By default a contact goes through an automation once (an anniversary automation is the exception — it repeats yearly). Allowing them to repeat is a setting on the automation, with a cooldown, because re-entry re-sends the whole sequence. See Letting contacts repeat.

Automations vs. campaigns

Both automations and campaigns send emails through SendBeam, but they serve very different purposes:

Common use cases

Here are some of the most effective automation workflows:

• Welcome series — Greet new subscribers with a warm introduction email, followed by a brand story email two days later, and a first offer on day five.
• Onboarding drip — Guide new contacts through your product over their first two weeks with tips, tutorials, and check-in emails timed from the day they joined.
• Post-purchase follow-up — Send a thank-you email when a purchased tag is applied (by hand or via the API), then a review request three days later.
• Lead magnet delivery — Send the download the moment someone submits a signup form, then a short series of educational emails.
• Tag-driven hand-offs — End one sequence by adding a tag that starts the next, so contacts flow from onboarding into a nurture track automatically.

Automation statuses

Every automation in SendBeam has one of three statuses:

• Draft — The automation has been created but is not yet active. No contacts will be enrolled. You can freely edit all settings, steps, and the trigger.
• Active — The automation is live and enrolling contacts as the trigger fires. Contacts already enrolled continue progressing through their steps.
• Paused — The automation has been stopped. Contacts already enrolled are held at their current step and carry on when you re-activate the automation. No new contacts are enrolled while paused.