Taking an omni-channel approach to your marketing is so important to make sure you’re delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. With the help of automation, you can attract, engage, and grow your customer list through timely marketing messages across the channels that resonate best with your customers.
We're taking the most popular questions from our latest New & Next webinar and expanding upon them so you can better understand how to automate your marketing in a way that is impactful for both your business and your customers.
If you missed the session with our Chief Product Officer, Russ, and SVP of User Experience, Jerry, watch the full recorded webinar below.
Need some help setting up your own automation paths? Have a question left over from the webinar? Leave your questions or automated path examples on our Automation Help page so our team can help you...
New & Next, Easier Automation for Your Marketing: Questions and Answers are below!
Automation
Q: Is automation part of the Constant Contact subscription or an additional cost? How do I know if our account level includes Automated Path Builder?
A: Automation is part of each plan (Lite, Standard, Premium) with varying levels of capability. Check out our feature comparison page for specifics.
Q: I need help setting up paths with the automated path builder for my business. Do you have any examples or use cases that I can reference?
A: Visit our Community to get help with your automation! Our team is ready to help you out, and we’ve provided some helpful best practices and use cases that might inspire your work.
Q: If someone subscribed for both text and email, can you get them to receive both in an automated path?
A: Yes! You can set up an automation path to send both a text and email message.
Q: Does this Nurture chain start all at the same time for every contact OR will it be contact specific so that it starts whenever they get added to a group or list to start that trigger?
A: Automation events are contact-specific. As a contact performs an action, like joining a list, the automation would then kickoff for that contact individually.
Q: Can you set an end date for an automation (for example, set the automation end to be the date the grand opening event happens)?
A: While you can’t set an end date, you can set up time delays to ensure that your messaging starts and stops within a certain time period after a contact enters the automation. Otherwise, we recommend deactivating the automation on the desired end date.
Q: When you set a time delay on your automation, is that delay automatically applied to new subscribers?
A: The time delay will be applied to the contacts who have not passed that point in your workflow. If others join the automation further down your funnel, they will not be affected.
Q: When you create a new automation - do all of your existing customers that meet the criteria get engaged immediately?
A: Existing and new contacts will be added to the automation when they meet the trigger criteria. Let’s say that the automation trigger is "contact added to List A". When an existing or new contact is added to List A, they will enter the automation path.
Q: How can I automatically move a contact from one list (say a welcome series) to another list (like a general newsletter subscriber list) after they finish the welcome series path?
A: A contact enters an automation when they meet the trigger criteria. At this time, automation paths do not have the ability to update a contact’s list membership.
Q: I've only seen conditional branching for contact activity as click - will there be updates soon for if a contact opens an email?
A: Conditional splits evaluate for email and sms clicks, SMS subscription, and shopping activity such as number of orders placed or total amount spent to date.
Q: In the automated workflow, there was a time delay option. Does that include the option to send out emails at a specified date/time from sign-up, as opposed to hours/days after the action is taken?
A: Time delays are relative to the moment the contact enters the automation path and are not set to a specific date/time.
Events
Q: When can I access the new Events tool?
A: We’re excited to provide all of our customers with access to the latest Event marketing tool before the end of August!
Q: How does the new Events tool improve on the old one? What does the Events tool allow me to do?
A: The new events tool improves your experience for everything you need to create, manage, and promote your event. Check out this knowledge base article for more details.
Q: Does the event tool also have a way to keep track of attendance during a live event? Is there a way I can check people in?
A: Coming soon, we will offer the ability to:
- View the Registrants report under the “Reporting” tab to view all of your event’s registered guests
- Manage an individual or multiple registrants’ order status (Canceled, Registered, Checked-in)
- Check-in support using QR code scanner in the CTCT Mobile App
- Export your reports to see who registered versus who attended an event
Q: How does Constant Contact’s new Events tool compare to Eventbrite?
A: Constant Contact’s Event marketing tool is comparable to Eventbrite in the use cases we support and features that are offered that help you Create > Manage > and Promote your event. Use Constant Contact as your all-in-one marketing tool (without the need to pay for and manage multiple platforms) for collecting, managing, growing and connecting with your contact lists. Unlike Eventbrite who charges for every ticket that is purchased, our Event platform and payment processing fees are charged at an order-level, resulting in more revenue for you!
Q: What is the cost to use event payment through Constant Contact?
A: Constant Contact charges a usage/platform fee for Event marketing at a competitive 2.9% per paid order transacted using our system. We offer digital payment processing with PayPal, which has their own separate transaction fees that are charged at an order level.
Q: Does the event platform handle USD and CAD currency?
A: WePay supports USD payments while our PayPal integration offers support for 20+ currencies, including USD & CAD!
AI
Q: How careful do you need to be when using the AI tool and entering information about your organization to build out a newsletter? Are there any security/safety measures set up with the AI in Constant Contact?
A: We have security measures built into how we generate content, but it's still best practice to make sure you don’t include any information in your email content that you don’t want out in the public.
Q: Is the AI content generator available for all users? Is there an additional charge to use the AI content generator?
A: AI content Generator is available in all packages at no additional charge.
Q: Using the AI, can it create emails based on templates we have used in the past?
A: While we don’t currently offer that feature, we are exploring the best ways to improve our AI technology for email templates.
Q: Can the AI content generator obtain a tone from a previously made content?
A: At the moment, our AI content tool only offers the ability to create content using pre-defined tones.
Q: When using the AI Content creator, how can a Constant Contact user ensure a uniquely worded message?
A: While we can’t guarantee a completely unique message, the content is generated against billions of other messages so the likelihood of ever seeing a duplicate message is extremely low. Plus, you can always use the AI content generator as a starting point from which to further edit and personalize your content.
Q: I am just starting to build lists. How do I send emails asking people to subscribe without their upfront permission to be sent emails?
A: Great question! Check out our guide on the best ways to get permission to email your contacts.
Q: Does Constant Contact integrate with my CRM?
A: Check out the Integrations tab on your Constant Contact dashboard to see what software currently integrates with our platform.
