How To Automate Emails Using Automation Studio

In the current world of digital marketing, effective and timely communication is crucial for engaging customers. Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides strong tools that enable marketers to send the appropriate message to the right audience at the right moment. It enables the marketers to simplify complex and repetitive tasks, such as importing data and sending emails without requiring manual effort. When you wish to run the campaigns on regular basis and then the Automation studio is the best choice. 

After going through this blog, you will able to understand how to create an email automation using Automation Studio. From selecting your target audience to scheduling email sends. Also, you'll learn how to set up an end-to-end automated marketing flow that increases efficiency and drives better results.

Are you ready to dive into the pool of Email Automation? Let's go. 

How the Automation Studio Works in Email Marketing?

The external data (CSV) are included to the system through the inbuilt Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).  After the CSV upload the data extensions will store data from the external source in rows and columns.

Then, the automation comes into play. In the automation, we can filter the contacts and target audiences which will be moved to next step of that is Messaging. Once automation is done, we can track the activities of the audiences, and which will be stored inside the data extension moved to the analytics builder. After the analytics, we will be able to summarize the audiences' activities. One part of the messaging is also tracked and analyzed through the reporting system and moved to the external data.

Let's take a deep look to understand the steps that involved to build an automation in the marketing cloud.

Steps to be followed for creating an Email Automation

Have you heard about the term Automation, which means the process you are setting up will run independently/automatically without any intervention, right...? Let's see how to send a simple welcome email through Automation Studio. There are a few steps mentioned below. Please follow these steps to create your own automation process.

Step 1: Creating a Data Extension for including the Audiences in the Automation:

For storing prospect data, we need to create a data extension. Go to Email Studio and click on the subscriber object. In the dropdown, select the extensions. Create the data extension and data retention policy based on the requirement.

(Note: Send Relationship should be EmailAddress (field created in the data extension) which relates to the subscriber Key of the subscriber). For this trial, l have checked both the sendable and testable check boxes in the properties.

For trial, I have turned off the data retention. Also, I have created the fields to map whenever the prospect records are updated via import (CSV file) as shown in the image and click on save.

Step 2: Import the CSV file to map fields with Data Extension

We need to import the CSV file which contains prospect information for which we need to send the email. In the uploaded CSV file, there is an email address, name and sign-up date. Make sure the columns in the CSV file match with the Data Extension Fields (FirstName, SignUpDate and EmailAddress). Use map by header row if the file has the column header. Click on next and then import.

To open the data extension, we need to configure mapping, review and import all the items you have created into Data-Extension.

Step 3: Create an Email Content in the Content Builder

Go to Content Builder and create a custom email message. You can use the HTML email or template based as per the requirement. Save and name the email. It is now ready to be used in the Automation Studio.

Step 4: Create and Run an Automation

Go to automation studio and create an automation. For this instance, please drag and drop the send email to the canvas. Choose the email template which has been created earlier. Choose the data extension for sending to the audiences stored in that. Now audiences are all set and email is ready to send from the activities which we have created. Save and activate the automation, click run once, anytime. We can also change the audiences by importing new CSV files into the Data Extension. We can also schedule the email.

Step 5: Monitor the Automation:

After the email is sent, go to the sends in tracking of the email studio. You will see the send automation. You can see the sends, Opens, Clicks, Bounces and Unsubscribes. 

Conclusion

Hope this blog gives a clear idea about automating emails using Automation Studio for client engagements with simple steps. By triggering audiences with emails, clients can improve and grow their marketing exponentially, while post-send data helps analyze customer engagement. Follow our upcoming blogs to learn more about Automation Studio.