How to Trigger an Automation for Imported Contacts

Importing contacts is a great way to migrate your audience into Sendlane, but since imports don't trigger automations, here's how to do just that!

Before Getting Started

If you have not yet imported your contacts, please review our import guide here. 

You will also want to be familiar with how to create an automation as well as how to create a campaign. 

Triggering an Automation for Imported Contacts

1. Create a campaign to send to your newly imported contacts - this could be a friendly greeting, a newsletter, or any other content you'd like to share

   Please Note

   Do not send the message immediately, instead  schedule the campaign to send at a later time so you can complete the rest of the process and create your automation.

2. Once you've scheduled your campaign, head over to Automations → New Automation and select the Start from scratch option
3. Next, click to add a trigger, choose Email Campaign Opened and select the campaign you just created

   

4. From here, you will be able to build out the rest of your automation as desired, adding any actions, communications or goals you'd like to use
5. Once you've completed your automation be sure to set the funnel from Inactive to Active

   

6. From here, you can either allow your campaign to send out at the originally scheduled time, or update the schedule to Send Immediately

Once the campaign has sent, any imported contacts that open your message will trigger the automation and begin flowing through your funnel automatically! 

Troubleshooting

• If you cannot select the campaign you created, is the campaign in Draft? It will need to be scheduled in order to select that campaign as a trigger.
• Check to make sure the automation is Active once it is complete.
• Select the correct list to send the initial campaign to. 

TL;DR

Campaigns → New Campaign → create your email → schedule campaign (do not send immediately) → Automations → New Automation → Start from scratch → Add trigger Email Campaign Opened → choose campaign for imported contacts → finish building automation → Activate → allow campaign to send as scheduled, or update to Send Immediately