Automations

An automation (a flow) waits for a moment, like a signup or a stalled checkout, then runs its steps for that one person.

Automations in the sidebar holds every flow on every site in one place: the site, the flow's status (Live, Draft or Paused), its trigger, how many people are in it now, what it sent and its sales in the last 30 days, and its last run. Filter by status, search by name, or pick a site; the site shows as a chip, and its x shows every site again.

Each flow belongs to one site. With more than one site, New flow and Use this on a template ask which site; with one site, they ask nothing.

Automations are on paid plans: Solo, Studio and Agency. Free shows the page with the plans.

Make a flow#

1. Open Automations in the sidebar. A new account starts on the templates.
2. Press Use this on a template, such as Welcome new signups or Abandoned checkout, or press New flow to start blank.
3. Press the trigger at the top to choose what starts the flow.
4. Press + between steps to add one. Press a step to change it in the panel on the right (on a phone it slides up from the bottom).
5. Drag a step by its handle to move it, or use the up and down arrows in the panel.
6. Press Test run, pick a person, and read what each step would do for them. Nothing is sent.
7. Press Publish. The flow is live.

Changes save as you go, as a draft. People already in a flow keep the version they started on. Publish changes makes a new version for everyone who starts after that. Pause stops new people from starting; people on the way wait until you press Resume.

Manage flows#

Each flow's ⋯ menu has Edit, Rename (type the new name in place, Enter to keep it), Open in new tab, Publish (or Pause and Resume once it is live), Duplicate and Delete. With more than one site, Copy to puts a draft copy on another site.

• Delete keeps the flow for 30 days under Deleted, where Restore brings it back, paused, so it never starts sending on its own. After 30 days it is gone for good, with its numbers. Deleting a live flow asks once: the people in it stop there.
• Undo shows for a few seconds after a delete.
• Tick flows to Pause, Delete or Move to site them together. On a computer the tick box shows when you point at a flow. A moved flow arrives paused, and the people in it stop, since people belong to a site.

Triggers#

Triggers that come from visits (goals, pages, ads, links, checkouts, coming back) need 90-day tracking, and consent where the site waits for it, because they follow one person.

Can someone go through it again? Once only, Again after some days, or Every time (one run at a time). Stop when they buy ends their run as soon as a sale comes in. Abandoned checkout flows always stop on a purchase.

Ask the assistant to "Set up an abandoned checkout flow" or "Write and schedule a welcome series" and it builds the draft for you, in your brand's voice. It never publishes without your OK.

Steps#

If / else can check: has an email, has a phone, agreed to texts, came from a source, came from an ad platform, came from a campaign, visited a page, reached or did not reach a goal (within some days, or since they entered), is in a segment, is in a stage, spent more than an amount, has a tag.

Their time zone comes from their email or text tool when it told us one, else from the first country they visited from (a guess), else your site's time zone.

Email#

Build an email from blocks: heading, text, button, image and divider. Links in text and buttons are counted when clicked.

Merge fields fill in for each person: {first_name}, {name}, {source}, {campaign}, {last_page} and {site_name}. Add a fallback after a bar for people you do not know the field for: {first_name|there}.

Press Preview to see it with a sample person, and Send a test to me to get it in your own inbox.

Every email:

• Comes from your From name. It is sent from Datacenter's sending address, until you set up email from your own domain; then it comes from your own address.
• Has its own reply address. When someone replies, the reply shows in Messages, and a copy goes to your Replies go to address (your account email when empty). Turn the copy off in Automations settings.
• Ends with your name, your postal address and an Unsubscribe link, as the US CAN-SPAM Act asks. A flow with an email cannot go live until the postal address is set in Automations settings.
• Carries one-click unsubscribe headers, so Gmail and Apple Mail show their own unsubscribe button.
• Has a plain-text version.

Emails go only to people whose email is stored: Show contact details must be on, in the settings of the site's customer profiles. Someone who unsubscribed, from a flow email or in Klaviyo or Mailchimp, is skipped.

Texts (when shipped)#

Texts go from your texting number, at 2¢ a part, billed with your plan each month. Until texts are switched on, text steps are skipped and say why. Once they are:

• Consent first. A text goes only to someone with consent to texts on record: a ticked box about texts on your website form (with form capture on; its words are kept as the record), or a yes in an imported Agreed to texts column. Everyone else is skipped.
• Quiet hours. No texts from 9 pm to 8 am in their time zone. A text due then waits until 8 am. When their time zone is a guess, a US or Canada number goes by its area code's time zone (by New York and Los Angeles both when the code is not known).
• US and Canada numbers only. Your texting number is a US one, so texts go to US and Canada numbers only.
• STOP works at once. A reply of STOP (or STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) stops all texts from that site. START turns them back on. HELP gets your brand, your Replies go to address (or "Reply here for help") and how to stop.
• Your brand first. Each text starts with your brand name, and the first text a person gets ends with "Reply STOP to opt out."
• US numbers need registration. Carriers block business texts to US numbers from unregistered senders. Get a texting number registers your brand and campaign (or a toll-free number) for you, with every fee shown first.
• The editor counts characters and message parts. A plain text fits 160 characters in one part; emoji and some letters bring that to 70.

Limits#

Set a lower daily limit in Automations settings: Settings on Automations, or on any flow of the site. A send past the day's limit waits until the next day (UTC), it is not dropped.

Numbers#

Each flow in the list shows four numbers: In it now (people waiting on a step), Sent (emails and texts, last 30 days), Sales (last 30 days) and Last run. Open a flow for the rest of the last 30 days: how many people entered and completed it, emails sent, opened and clicked, texts sent, delivered and replied, and sales. Each step shows its own counts on the canvas.

A sale counts for a flow when the buyer's last flow email or text came within the days you set in settings (5 by default): last touch. The Attribution tab shows these sales in a By automation table.

Opens are counted when the email's images load. Some mail apps load them on their own, so opens run high. Clicks are a better signal.

Webhooks#

A Send to webhook step posts JSON: the flow, the step, the site and the profile (id, label, email and name when stored, first and latest source, orders and revenue). It is signed: x-datacenter-timestamp and x-datacenter-signature: sha256= the HMAC-SHA256 of the timestamp, a dot and the body, with the key in Automations settings, under For developers. Addresses must use https.

How it runs#

Steps that are due run every 15 minutes, so a wait of 10 minutes can take up to 25. The first steps of a flow run the moment it starts. Each step is recorded before it acts, so an email or text is never sent twice, even when something is retried.