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Automation Wizard Walk Through

Before setting up your first automation, it's good to know how automations work. In this section we will cover how to setup automations. Please also read about Editing and Pausing Automations and Tracking Automations.

The Automation Setup process is 4 easy steps. You can click back or next between any step of the automation setup:

Step 1: Settings

Automations settings are described in more detail on the how automations work help document. If you are familiar with these settings already, read on!

General information

Name

Use a name that is easy to understand the purpose of the automation and audience segment (eg - Intro package is about to expire - SMS)

Category (optional)

Categorizing your automations will help you keep your automation list organized by grouping automations by similar campaigns or objectives (example: Welcome, Newsletters, Win-back, Intro Offer)

Description (optional)

Add a short description to help yourself (and staff) understand the purpose of this automation. This will also help LoopSpark Support debug your automation if you ask for help.

Action

Select the action you wish to be completed with this automation, you have 4 options:

  1. Send an email - Send an email to all clients in your chosen segment using the email address in the client's profile (from your booking platform).
  2. Send an SMS - Send an SMS text message to all clients in your chosen segment using the phone number in their client profile. More Information on Texting
  3. Add a To-Do - Add a to-do /task list item for all the clients in your chosen segment. Learn more about to-do / tasks
  4. Tag - Automatically add or remove tags from client profiles. To learn more about using tags in client profiles, please read the following help documents: Client Profile - Tags and Filters - Client Tags

Automation Type

Select whether or not this automation should apply ONLY to users currently in attached audience segment, or continue to add customers as their client data matches the filters in your audience segment. You have 2 options:

  1. Continuous - Example: Send this communication to any client after their first visit
  2. One Time Only - Example: Send email to everyone who lives within 10 miles with a promotion running this week only.

Delivery Window

Set additional scheduling parameters to define what time of the day your communications will be delivered. You have 2 options:

  1. Send Anytime - Use this scheduling for urgent messages that need to be delivered immediately, such as canceled class notifications.
  2. Set Delivery Window - Set a time frame for when you want communications delivered (ie 6:00am - 8:00pm local time).

Start Time

Set a start time for your automation to go live. One Time Only automations will become active after this time, Continuous automations will begin at this time and continue as new users enter the audience segment, until the automation is paused. You have 2 options:

  1. After date/time - Automated tasks will become active after selected date and time.
  2. Off - Automation will be disabled / paused until manually enabled.

Step 2: Audience

Who will receive this message, or who will become items on your to-do list? Audiences are all based on your audience segments, so if you are not comfortable with audience segments, read up before setting up automations!

Audience Name

Audience name seems a bit redundant if you have already created a segment you wish to use, but audiences and segments, although similar, are saved differently in LoopSpark. Segments can be edited from the main Clients List Page. Editing segments that are used for an automation will NOT impact the automation. If you wish to change the filters connected to an automation, you must edit the automation.

Make sure to name your audience something easy to understand, example: 100th class attended.

Define Audience

You have two options. You can either:

  1. Create New Audience - Apply filters to create your automation audience, as you would create any audience segment, or
  2. Import Rules from Existing Segment - We recommend creating a segment on the Clients List Page and copying the segment filters by clicking Import from Existing Segment View the video below to see how this works:

A list of clients that match your selected segment will populate in the window to show you who is currently eligible to enter your audience.

Important

Take a look at the clients listed in your current audience. If anyone looks out of place, click on their client profile to see what variables cause them to incorrectly enter your segment, and adjust your segment filters accordingly.

Step 3: Message

Design your message, or define your to-do list task.

Message Merge tags

You will have the option to use merge tags to conduct mail merges, which will dynamically input the variable of your choice.

To learn more about each merge tag available, please read Merge Tags

Preview the Message

For emails, once you have entered a Subject and entered content in the body, you will be able to preview the email before moving on to the next step. You can also preview emails and texts once they are saved. We recommend previewing the message before moving on to the final step.

Step 4: Review and Save

Review the list of clients that are currently eligible to enter your automation. Before clicking Save or Run Now it's best to make sure everything looks squared away.