Important: Subscriber Event Split is formerly known as Wait for Event Branching.
Automation flows are the perfect way to create and send multi-stage communications triggered by a certain event (e.g., subscribing to texts, placing an order, etc.). With Flow Builder, you can schedule individual messages, limit the frequency of how often a subscriber can enter your flow, and take advantage of Subscriber Event Splits. Subscriber Event Splits allows you to easily visualize and build your flow, add automated responses to subscriber replies, and even automate follow-ups to previous messages based on subscriber action.
How Subscriber Event Splits Benefit You
Scale your one-to-one customer conversations by automating follow-up messages unique to the responses you receive from subscribers.
Collect zero-party data by using this feature in tandem with subscriber tags to add or remove tags based on subscriber replies to your automation flow.
Subscriber Event Split will always include a none of the above or event never occurred branch so your brand can still scale automated responses for:
Any responses that do not match the specifications for placement in the other branches.
Subscribers who do not respond within the Max Wait Time configured when setting up the branching.
Add Subscriber Event Splits to Automation Flows
Select Messaging on the left-side navigation panel of your Postscript Dashboard.
Select Flow Builder then select an existing automation flow.
If you have not yet created an automation flow, select Create Flow in the upper right corner. Choose Automation. Select either Use an automation template or Create a new automation, then select Continue in the bottom right of the module.
Set your automation properties. Learn more about how to set up your automation flow here.
Under Flow Actions, select and drag Subscriber Event Split to the space below the first message in your flow.
Choose your event. The event indicates that you intend to branch subsequent messages based on the selected action (in the example above, the flow will branch subsequent messages based on if the subscriber creates an order).
Under Max Wait Time, enter the amount of time you will allow for subscribers to complete the event (in the example above, we will wait 24 hours for the subscriber to create an order. If they create an order after 24 hours, they will flow into the default none of the above or event never occurred branch).
Under Branches, select a property and add a value for each branch (in the example above, we have selected Discount Codes | Code as the property and added LOYALTY10 as the value to indicate we will send subsequent messages based on if the subscriber created an order with the discount code mentioned in the first message) (Note: when using is or is not logic, you can add multiple matches to your branch - these values are not case sensitive).
Continue adding branches by selecting the + New Branch button under the none of the above or event never occurred branch.
Select Save in the bottom right of the Subscriber Event Splits editor.
Under Flow Actions, select either the Delay icon or the Send Message icon. Then, drag and drop the icon under each branch to add either a delay or a message to that branch.
Select Save or Schedule or Activate in the upper-right area of Flow Builder. You can choose to activate the flow immediately or schedule the flow to activate at a certain time.
Understanding Approximate Matching
Postscript employs Approxmiate Matching to match subscriber responses to the intended response even if the subscriber’s reply is misspelled or contains a typo. For example, if a reply option is Summer and the subscriber replies with "summr", they will still funnel down the correct branch. With Approximate Matching, your brand can:
Improve subscriber engagement. Since approximate matching allows for more accurate response routing, your messaging strategy can become more targeted and effective in order to improve engagement and drive conversions.
Get time back. Spend more time focused on orchestrating an optimized SMS program and less time defining all possible permutations of an intended response within a single flow.
Enhance the user experience for subscribers. Approximate matching facilitates a better conversational user experience since it ensures that subscriber responses are correctly matched to the intended response.
To enable Approxmiate Matching, be sure your Subscriber Event Splits filter settings are configured with the parameters Is or Is not. When your parameters are defined with Is or Is not, you'll be prompted with a checkbox to accept approxmiate matching.
Subscriber Event Splits Use Cases
Product Feedback Interactive Survey Click Event Retargeting
Requesting product feedback with event branching is a great way to scale one-to-one interactions with subscribers while informing your brand of areas for improvement. Check out the video below to see a step-by-step tutorial on how to build a product feedback automation flow.
Using your welcome series as an interactive survey is an effective way to engage early with subscribers and help your brand create a personalized customer experience throughout the entire buying journey. Collect zero-party data, or data that subscribers intentionally share with your brand, by adding subscriber tags to each branch.
Leveraging the Wait for Link Clicked event is an excellent way to re-engage subscribers at scale. In this section, we'll walk you through how to set up a welcome automation flow that retargets subscribers if they clicked a link in your automation flow, but did not purchase.
From your Postscript Dashboard, select Messaging, then select Automations.
Select the Create Automation button in the upper-right corner, then choose Create Automation Flow.
Choose whether you'd like to create a new flow or use an automation flow template. Then select the Continue button in the bottom right corner.
Set your automation properties. For this use case, we recommend using the trigger Subscriber Created and the cancellation trigger Order Created. (Tip! This will remove a newly created subscriber if they purchase while in this flow).
Drag and drop the Send message action into your flow and add your welcome copy.
Next, drag and drop the Subscriber Event Split action below your welcome message. Select the dropdown below Event and choose Link clicked.
Adjust your wait time. This is the duration Postscript will watch for a subscriber to click the link in your welcome message. Next, save your settings by selecting the Save button in the lower-right.
You can drag and drop the Delay action into your flow. This is the delay Postscript will observe after a subscriber clicks a link in your message For example, if your delay is 30 minutes, the subscriber will get your automation flow message 30 minutes after clicking a link in your welcome flow).
Drag and drop the Send Message action into each brand. We recommend adding targeted copy to subscribers who clicked the link in your flow (Copy inspo: "Hey! We noticed you checkin' us out. Anything we can help you find?" Their responses will route to your Responses tab for customer support.)
Continue editing your flow as you see fit. To save your flow, select the Save Changes button in the upper-right corner.
When you're ready to activate your flow, you have two options:
Activate Now. This will immediately begin adding subscribers into your flow.
Schedule Flow. This will activate your flow at a set date and time.
Note: When evaluating which branch to route a subscriber down, the Wait for Click Event split action will respond to any link click in your flow. If a subscriber reaches a Wait for Click event split and clicks any link within the maximum wait time, they will be routed down the Link Clicked branch. This is important to keep in mind if you are using more than one Wait for Click event split action in your flow.
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