Quickly create and activate an email send (either Newsletter or Transactional type) with Connectif using a Workflows Express, without needing to access the Workflow Editor.
In this article, you'll learn how to design and send an email to your contacts quickly and easily through the Workflows Express functionality.
Implementation time: 15 min.
Difficulty: Easy.
When to use it?: To quickly create email campaigns with Connectif, without needing to access different editors.
In this video, you can see how to create an express email workflow to quickly learn how to do it. If you prefer, in this article you’ll find the step-by-step instructions on how to do it.
STEP 1: Creating the Express Workflow
1. Go to Workflows and click on Create workflow.
2. Select the Create express workflow option, choose the Email channel, and click Go to editor.
STEP 2: Defining Workflow Details
3. Click the Workflow Details dropdown to define the information used to identify this workflow in your Store.
4. Assign a Name to your workflow for identification. If desired, you can also add a Description and/or assign Tags to differentiate it.
5. Click Save to store your workflow in your Connectif Store.
STEP 3: Sender Configuration
6. Click the Sender dropdown to define Who sends the campaign. The sections to configure in this area are:
- Sender name: the name that will appear in the "From" field of your emails.
- Sender email (from): the email address from which your emails will be sent.
- Reply-to email: the email address to which recipients can reply.
STEP 4: Selecting the Recipient
7. Click the Recipient dropdown to define Who receives the campaign. The sections to configure in this area are:
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Email type:
- Newsletter: promotional marketing email, such as an abandoned cart email or a product recommendation email. Sent to contacts with the "Email status" field set to "Active" and the "Newsletter subscription status" field set to "Subscribed".
- Transactional: automated email in response to a specific user action, such as a purchase confirmation email. Sent to contacts with "Email status" set to "Active", even if they are not subscribed to the newsletter.
- Audience: to select the Segment of contacts to whom this email will be sent.
If you need more information about what Segments are in Connectif, how they are used, and the different types, check this article.
- Ignore maximum email limit: to send the email only to contacts who have not reached the maximum number of received emails.
You can configure the maximum number of emails to send to your contacts through the Email channel settings.
STEP 5: Writing the Subject
8. Click the Subject dropdown to define What is the subject of this email, i.e., the line of text that appears below the sender name in the inbox of contacts who receive this email.
Pro tip: you can use Copilot to help you write your email subject lines.
9. (Optional). Click the Add Variable button to include a variable in the email subject, to personalize it with the information Connectif has gathered about your contacts.
If you need more information about what Variables are and how they work in Connectif, check this article.
10. In the pop-up window, Define a custom variable, configure the variable:
- Assign an ID (identifier) to the variable to distinguish it.
- In Default value, add the value that you want the variable to take when there is no data stored in the corresponding field.
- Once these values are set, click Save.
STEP 6: Designing the Content
11. Click the Content dropdown to add the email that will be sent through this workflow. To do so, click the Add Content button.
12. Next, you can create a new email by clicking New email, or select an existing one from your Store using the Your emails area. Whether you create a new email or select an existing one, you will access the Email Editor to design (or review) your content.
13. Inside the Email Editor, add the necessary elements to your content and edit its layout and message so it fits your campaign. If you need more information about email design in Connectif, check our documentation on the Email Editor.
In this example, we’ve added the elements Image, View in Browser, Text, Products, and Footer.
14. Once you’ve made all changes to your email design, click Save and Exit.
15. (Optional). If you added a Products element to your email, as in our example, click Configure.
16. In the pop-up window, configure step-by-step which products from your Connectif catalog will be shown in this email:
- In step 1, Use Case, choose which products will appear in your email. These will be selected based on one of the available use cases. If you need more information about product selection for each case, hover over them to see their details.
In this example, we selected the Best Sellers use case.
- In step 2, Configuration, specify the filtering characteristics for this use case:
- In the Product source is dropdown, indicate whether to search products from All products, to browse the entire catalog, or A product segment, to filter among products from an existing segment.
In this example, we selected All products as the source, so Connectif extracts the best-selling products from the entire catalog.
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- In the Product timeframe is dropdown, you can filter by the date range in which the products should be among the best sellers.
In this example, we selected Best sellers from the last month, so Connectif extracts the best-selling products from the past month (and from the entire catalog, as indicated earlier).
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- (Optional). Click Add condition to introduce additional conditions or filters on the products to be retrieved for the use case.
In this example, we selected products whose Unit price is less than 100.
- In step 3, Additional Settings, you can activate two options:
- Randomly reorder the retrieved products, allows the products to be displayed in a non-default order. In our example, if enabled, the most frequently purchased products in the last month would be shown first.
- Fill in with other relevant products if the set product count is not reached, ensures that the set number of products is always shown in the content, even if that number isn't retrieved in the use case. In our example, enabling this would always display 3 products, even if there aren't 3 "most purchased" products in our eCommerce for the last month.
17. Once all product block steps are configured, click Save configuration. If you've added more than one Products element, repeat the steps above to configure each.
18. (Optional). If you’ve added variables to your email or subject, you must configure them in the Custom Variables area. To do this, click Configure.
In this example, we will configure the variables created both in the subject and within the Email.
19. In the pop-up window, you'll see as many rows as variables you've created.
- For each of them, click the dropdown Select a field and choose which field from the Contact Sheet in Connectif the variable should pull its value from.
In this example, both variables will take the value stored in the Name field of the Contact Sheet.
20. Click Save configuration.
STEP 7: Additional Configuration (Optional)
21. Click the Additional Configuration dropdown to enable tracking with Google Analytics by toggling Enable Google Analytics. This will add UTM parameters to links for traffic and conversion analysis. You may edit these parameters.
22. By default, the Enable UTM Content switch is enabled, which adds a url_content parameter to all URLs in the email to provide more insight into which specific element triggered the click (e.g., which product or button).
STEP 8: Review Sending and/or Errors
23. Review the right-hand sidebar for the progress of your Workflow Express configuration and any potential errors that could affect activation. Once all steps are completed, a confirmation message will appear indicating your email is ready to send.
24. In this same panel, you can check the number of Emails sent, the Estimated Reach , and the size of the selected Segment.
25. Lastly, you can preview the email to be sent.
STEP 9: Sending the Workflow Express Email
26. Once all previous sections are configured, errors resolved, and the final version of your email previewed, you can activate the email send by clicking Send or schedule.
27. Choose between Send now to immediately activate the send, or Schedule to set a specific date and time for activation.
28. Based on your choice, click Send now or Schedule send to confirm and activate your workflow (or schedule its activation).
If your workflow express is scheduled, you can edit it before it sends by canceling the schedule (which must be reactivated afterward). If you select Send now or do not cancel scheduling, only the Workflow Details can be edited.
Success!
Your Workflow Express email is ready.
Keep learning!
To take full advantage of your Connectif account, we recommend continuing with the following articles:
- Best practices for subscription acquisition and email sending, to learn about bounced email types and how they affect Connectif, plus tips to improve deliverability.
- Email Editor, for in-depth guidance on designing email content to be sent to your Store contacts.
- Workflow Editor, to learn how to create custom workflows for each strategy.
- How to set up an A/B/X test, to learn how to run a test with Connectif and compare multiple alternatives.