Understanding automation trigger filters

Overview

When you set up a trigger filter, contacts must meet the trigger's criteria and the filter's criteria to trigger the automation. Trigger filters help you create highly targeted automations based on data from contacts' activity.

Read on to learn how to add more qualifying criteria to your automations with trigger filters.

In this guide

• What is a trigger filter?
• Standard trigger filter options, conditions, and data origins
• Custom integration event trigger filters

What is a trigger filter?

Automations fire when a trigger's criteria is met, and trigger filters provide an optional additional layer of criteria you can use to further target your automation based on the data used to trigger the automation. You can use or/and conditions to create as many separate or nested conditions for your trigger filter as you need.

For example, automations using the order placed trigger fire when an order is placed, but maybe you want to create an order placed automation for a specific set of products. Without a filter on your trigger, all placed orders will trigger the automation.

Trigger filters use data from the action that triggers the automation to determine whether the additional criteria are met. In the order placed example, the trigger filter looks at the data from the action the user took (placing their order) to determine whether the specified products are or are not in the order.

Trigger filter examples

Below are examples of common uses for trigger filters.

This section does not list every possible use for trigger filters. Check out the trigger filter options, conditions, and data origins section below for a complete inventory of available standard filter options and get creative with your trigger filters!

Order placed automations for specific products, collections, or amounts

Use the product name or product collection option to include or exclude certain products or collections, then create an automation specific to the products or collections you've specified must be included or excluded to trigger the order placed filter. You can include information about how to use certain products, recommend similar products, or apply tags to contacts to note their interest in the products or collections you selected.

Low stock notifications

Use the product stock option with a minimum number of items to create a sense of urgency in contacts who have viewed or abandoned products with low stock levels. You can let contacts know that only a certain number of the products they interacted with are left in stock, and provide a call to action to help them complete their purchase.

Discount code tracking

Use the discount code option to create automations specifically for contacts who made a purchase with a specified code, or apply a tag to contacts who used a specified code.

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Trigger filter options, conditions, and data origins

Standard trigger filters are available on triggers for Shopify, BigCommerce, and custom integration stores. 

If you use a custom store as your eCommerce solution, you must ensure that the data needed by each trigger filter (described in the data origin column) is sent to Sendlane via its corresponding event.

Review the table below for all available standard trigger filter options. Not all options are available for all triggers.

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Custom integration event trigger filters

If you use a custom store as your eCommerce solution or to connect to an integration like Wonderment, you can create trigger filters using data from your integrations' custom event payloads.

Creating a trigger filter for a custom event involves finding the relevant data in your event's payload, selecting the appropriate operator for your data, and setting conditions that should be met based on that data.

See the example custom trigger filter section below for a start-to-finish example and the custom trigger filter types section for information on what types of data can be used in trigger filters.

Example custom trigger filter

In this section we'll describe each step using an example of an order placed event with a filter to only trigger on orders that are greater than ten dollars.

Step One: Access your event's payload

To determine what data is available to use in your filter you'll create an automation using an event in your custom integration as the trigger and access the trigger's data using the email builder preview:

1. Create an automation
2. Click Select Trigger
3. Click the custom tab
4. Click Custom Event
5. Select your store, a limit per contact, and the event
6. Click the + button to add a new node
7. Click Send Email
8. Click Create New Email
9. Enter a name and select a sender profile
10. Click Next to Content
11. Enter a subject line
12. Click Create Email
13. Click Start From Scratch
14. Click Visual Builder
15. Add a text block to your email
16. Replace the placeholder text with {{ event_name | json_encode }} and replace event_name with your event's actual name
17. Click preview

At this point you'll see your event's payload, unformatted, in the email preview window. Next, you'll format the data and determine what you want to use as your trigger filter.

Step Two: Find relevant data

1. Copy the payload from the email preview
2. Paste the payload into a JSON formatter like jsonformatter.org and follow the formatter's instructions for formatting your JSON
3. Review your data for a parameter you want to use as a trigger filter

For example, given the following payload we can create a trigger filter based on the order's subtotal using the subtotal_price property:

Step Three: Create a trigger filter

In the example above, the custom event's name is order and the property we want to create a filter from is subtotal_price. Filters on custom event data are constructed using dot notation; our trigger filter will use order.subtotal_price.

You'll need to use nested dot notation if your desired filter property is part of an array. For example, if subtotal_price was part of an array called pricing, we'd use dot notation to include the array like so: order.pricing.subtotal_price. A JSON beautifier can help visualize nested properties to ensure your dot notation refers to your data accurately.

To complete the custom event trigger filter:

1. Click your automation's trigger
2. Under Trigger Filters, click Edit
3. Enter your dot notation
4. Select your argument's type; number for our example (see below for more detail on types)
5. Select an operator; is greater than for our example (see below for more details on types)
6. Enter a value; 10 for our example
7. Add additional conditions as needed
8. Click Save

Custom trigger filter types

Trigger filters can be created using the following data types:

• Boolean - A true or false statement like whether a customer is a member of your VIP program
• Date - A date like date of subscription, upcoming renewal, or birthday
• List - An item in an array like whether a particular product is in an order or a maximum/minimum number of products in an order
• Number - A number like subtotal or total of order
• Text - Any text field like email address, name, or physical address properties

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