Create a Welcome Series Automation Flow – Postscript

Who gets this? Shops on all Postscript plans have access to this feature. Learn more about Postscript Plans.

Automation flows are the perfect way to create and send multi-stage communications triggered by a certain event (e.g., subscribing to texts, abandoning a cart, etc.). By creating a welcome series, you can:

Introduce your brand. Use your welcome series to introduce your brand's SMS experience, establish brand voice, or educate subscribers on your brand or mission.
Send coupons or CashBack for signing up. Use your welcome series as an opportunity to send subscribers a discount or CashBack after signing up for your SMS program.
Interact with your subscribers. Welcome series can also be used as an opportunity to learn what products your subscribers are interested in so you can send an automated, personalized product recommendation in return.
Share your brand's contact card. Invite subscribers to add you to their contact list by including a contact card in your first welcome series message.
Create a unique welcome experience based on opt in source. Use trigger filters to narrow your audience based on which popup, landing page, or keyword they've opted into.

In this article, we'll walk you through how to create a welcome series flow and answer some commonly asked questions.

Create a Welcome Series Flow

1. Select Messaging in the side menu of your Postscript dashboard, then select Automations.
2. Select Create Automation in the top-right corner of the page, then choose Create Automation Flow.
3. Select Use a template or select Create a new automation. Then select Continue (or Create flow) in the bottom right corner.
4. Name the automation. Choose a name that will allow you to easily identify your Welcome Series and track this flow in the future.

Select the trigger Subscriber Created. A trigger is an action that will begin the automation flow. For your Welcome Series, we want an individual to enter the flow when they are created as a Subscriber in your list.
Add trigger filters. Trigger filters can help you fine-tune when an automation is triggered. For example, you may only want subscribers who opt into your Labor Day Sale desktop popup to receive this specific welcome series.
Add Subscriber filters. User filters can help you narrow down which subscribers can receive your Welcome Series. With the settings in the example above, this Welcome Series will only send to subscribers who have previously triggered the keyword ELLE.
Entry Filter. Entry filters limit how often a subscriber can enter a flow. For welcome series flows, we can leave this parameter undefined. The trigger Subscriber Created automatically limits entry to once per subscriber because subscribers can only be created once.
Add a cancellation trigger. The cancellation trigger tells Postscript when to remove a subscriber from an automation flow. We encourage using "Checkout Started" as the cancellation trigger. This will remove a subscriber from your welcome series flow, and move them into either an abandoned cart or post-purchase automation.
Save. Select Save in the bottom right corner of the Automation properties editor.

Want to keep it simple? No worries! Adding subscriber filters or cancellation triggers are all optional ways to customize your automation flow.

1. Add actions. You can begin building your Welcome Series by dragging and dropping flow actions such as Wait for Event, Add to Flow, Send Message, Delay, and/or Update Subscriber.
2. When adding a Send Message action to your automation flow, you may consider using some of our message enhancements located in the bottom right corner of the Message Editor to spruce things up.
  - Add emojis by clicking the square smiley face icon.
  - Add merge tags like subscriber first name, your shop link, or your shop name by clicking the overlapping tags icon.
  - Add a Postscript-generated coupon by clicking the percentage icon.
  - Add a Shopify-generated coupon and discount link by clicking the hyperlink icon. Note: Links and tags are trigger-specific. Not all link or tag options will be visible for all trigger types. For example, an abandoned cart link can only be added if the automation flow trigger is Checkout Started.
3. If you're ready for subscribers to begin receiving your flow immediately or if you'd like to schedule when the flow will begin allowing subscribers to enter, select Schedule or Activate in the top-right corner of the page. You have two options when sending a flow:
  - Activate immediately: This option will immediately begin the flow allowing subscribers to enter the automation based on the selected properties.
  - Activate at a scheduled time and date: Choose when you'd like the flow to begin allowing subscribers to enter.

Note: Postscript adheres to TCPA-defined quiet hours for flows. Flow messages scheduled to send outside these quiet hours will send during the next waking hours window. Learn more about quiet hours here.

FAQs

Can I add a trigger filter to my automation properties? Trigger Filters are not supported when using the automation trigger Subscriber Created.
Can I build my welcome series automation flows based on the popup a subscriber opted in with? Yes, you can leverage trigger filters to refine your welcome series trigger and message subscribers with specific welcome series language based on which popup they opted in to your SMS program with.
Can I add a subscriber frequency filter? The trigger for a Welcome Series is Subscriber Created. While an individual can opt out of your SMS program and then opt back in, they can only be created once on your SMS list. Because a subscriber profile can only be created once ( and their profile indicates if they are active or inactive), the welcome series has a default once-per-subscriber setting. In other words, no subscriber frequency is needed when using the trigger Subscriber Created.
Will my Welcome Series send to manually uploaded subscribers? A Welcome Series is triggered when a subscriber is created by a keyword, popup, or through our API (think: integrations). The subscribers you manually uploaded to your account will not receive your Welcome Series. If you'd like to send these subscribers a message, consider requesting a subscriber tag on the upload form, and then sending this list a campaign.

Get Support

Have questions? Please feel free to reach out to our wonderful Support team at support@postscript.io or via live chat. You can also submit a support request here!

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