Broadcast with a Twist: Introducing Scheduled Automations for Existing Lists

Imagine if you could, that it was possible to get all the benefits of broadcasts, and combine it with all the benefits of fine-tuned automated journeys. Sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? Well, imagine no more because our engineers just figured out how to do this.

What does this mean for you?

If you’ve ever used the Emercury Journey Builder, you’re probably in love with how you can define the exact logic about the journey or sequence that the subscriber goes through. (If) they have this kind of tag, (then) send this email, (alternatively), send this other email. (If) they open this email, (then) send this email next, (alternatively) send a reminder email. 

You can define as much logic and get as granular as you want. However, until now there was just one limitation. It was only possible to enroll someone into a journey once they met certain criteria. For example if they receive a certain tag or are added to a certain list.

If you’re familiar with the power of Broadcasts, you probably love how you can target a big number of people at once, and make a special offer, resulting in good, immediate results and sales. 

However, until now, broadcasting meant that you had to fiddle with the logic manually. Sure, you can have very elaborate conditions and define a segment to decide who gets which broadcast. But what about the second email in the campaign series? Well, either everyone in the campaign gets the same email at the same time, or you have to manually define new segments and broadcasts so that you can “simulate” logic. 

What if you could instead simply use the convenience of the journey builder and visually map out the logic of the campaign sequence? But still send it out as a broadcast? This is where our new feature comes into play. Enter the “Existing List” trigger. The plain name hides the absolutely absurd power you gain from utilizing this new way of doing email marketing.

How to use this feature

Go under Campaign > Automations > Create New Automation. This is where you typically access the Journey Builder. Under triggers you will see a brand new option called “Existing List”. It is now the second option.

Step 1: Set the trigger

You can then choose the list to enroll in this journey, the condition, as well as whether you want us to spread (drip) this out. This just means that we won’t start everyone on the sequence at the exact same time, but distribute the starting times across the day.

After this is done, building the sequence (automation) is exactly the same as any journey you would build. All your favorite modules and options are available to you, and you can come with any fancy and advanced logic that you can think of.

Step 2 – Schedule the campaign

This is the other part where it works just like with traditional broadcasts. After you build and save your automation, you need to schedule the campaign. If you’re using broadcasts, you’ll be quite familiar with the scheduling functionality. You will notice the familiar clock icon appear next to the automation you’ve just created.

The functionality works exactly like it does on the broadcasts panel, only that you will now get to use it on automations that use this new trigger type. Note that this icon will only appear on automations that use this new, special type of trigger. You will not see scheduling on the other regular types of automation.

If you want to learn more about how the feature works, check out this dedicated help article in the Knowledge Base.