Guide to Automation Flows

   Tip! Select any of the images or gifs in this article for a closer look.

We've designed this guide to introduce you to automation flows and do a deep dive into Flow Actions. We recommend looking through this guide to optimize Flow Builder for your brand.

Overview


Automation flows allow you to message subscribers at various stages in their customer journey, whether it's after they add a product to their cart, create their first order, or welcome them to your SMS program. Keep in mind that pairing automation flows with strategic segmentation allows you to engage and send personalized messages to different pockets of your subscriber base and can result in high click-through rates, conversion, and overall earnings.

Automation Flow Basics


In this section, we'll take a look at how to navigate the flow editor's main page, dive into automation properties, and explain how reconnecting splits work.

Main Page Automation Properties Reconnecting Splits

Understanding how to navigate the Automation Flows main page is the first step to unlocking and harnessing the power of Flow Builder so your brand can optimize conversions, build an interactive SMS program, and create opportunities for hyper-segmentation.

automation-flows-1.png

  1. Select these three lines to unhide the Postscript navigation bar and navigate out of Flow Builder.
  2. Select Back to Flows to navigate out of the editor and into your Flows Dashboard.
  3. Give your automation flow a name that helps you identify it from all automation drafts or activated automations.
  4. Optional: Add a description to your automation flow.
  5. When your automation flow has been activated, you can view your overall flow metrics.
  6. Customize your flow by dragging and dropping Flow Actions into your automation flow. Each action is broken down here.
  7. Preview your automation properties. For more information on Automation Properties, click the next tab in this module titled Automation Properties to the right.
  8. Drag and Drop your Flow Actions (from step 6) to the Drag action here placeholders throughout your build. The Drag action here placeholder will show when an action is selected.
  9. If your automation flow has been activated, this indicator will show the date and time the flow was last activated.
  10. Save changes, activate or deactivate your flow, or view a flow's version history with these three buttons. To view a flow's history, select the circled ellipses, then select View version history.
  11. This indicator shows the Status of your automation. Statuses are Draft, Scheduled, Activated, (meaning sending is in progress), and Deactivated (meaning the flow is no longer actively allowing subscribers to enter).
  12. This tool allows you to zoom out, zoom in, or re-frame the entire flow (re-framing your flow is handy if you get lost in a void and aren't able to find your flow).

Flow Actions


Our toolkit of flow actions assists with perfecting the timing of your automation messages, allows you to experiment with various approaches through A/B splits, automates responses to subscribers based on their actions or inactions, and can tag subscribers based on their engagement with your brand for future hyper-segmentation. To add any of these actions, just drag them from the toolkit and drop them into your flow.

Message Delay A/B Split Event Splits Update Subscriber Add to flow Attribute Split
Our Message tool offers a variety of customization options for you to create on-brand messages. Tip! If you're unsure what your message should include, check out these automation flow templates! Screen_Shot_2022-06-13_at_11.46.57_AM.png
    1. Add an image or gif to your message. Learn how to create a custom gif here
    2. Message editor. Edit your message here and preview it to the right.
    3. Add emojis to your message by clicking the smiley face icon.
    4. Add tags to your messages such as the first or last name of your subscriber, your shop name, or shop link.
    5. Add a Postscript coupon to your message.
    6. Add product or discount links to your message. Discount links are links embedded with a Shopify discount.
    7. Add the copy "Reply STOP to unsubscribe" to your message by clicking the checkbox.
    8. Save. Once you've crafted the message to your liking, don't forget to save!
    9. Hide the message preview by selecting the eye in the upper-right corner of the message preview.
    10. Preview your message by sending it to yourself before you activate your flow.
    11. Duplicate your message to make building out a flow of messages more efficient. 
    12. Delete your message by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the message editor.

Understanding Automation Flow Metrics


Metrics, or data, help you understand whether the messages you send are achieving the goals you've set. You can view the performance of your automation flows on your Flows Dashboard page or on a specific automation flow page. Simply select an activated flow to view overall performance metrics and metrics by a specific message.

Overall Performance Specific Message Performance Branch Analytics

Screenshot 2024-06-11 at 9.18.31 PM.png

  1. Revenue. The amount of sales dollars earned from orders created within your shop's designated attribution window. See your shop's attribution window here
  2. Total orders. The number of orders attributed to this flow. This card also contains your flow' Conversion Rate (calculated by dividing the total amount of orders placed within your shop's designated attribution window by the total number of clicks * 100.)
  3. Total clicks.The total number of times subscribers have clicked any link in this flow. Click-through-rate (CTR) is also populated on this card (calculated by taking total clicks on all links divided by the total number of messages sent.
  4. Sent Messages. View the total number of messages that were sent while this flow was activated.
  5. Automation Triggered. The number of times this subscriber was fired due to a subscriber taking an action. This card also populates the unsubscribe rate for this flow (calculated by dividing the total number of unsubscribes attributed to a flow message by the number of total messages sent in this flow).

Extra Resources


  • Automation Flow Metrics Quick Guide. Better understand the performance of your automation flow by analyzing each flow.
  • Fantastic Texts. Need some inspiration? Check out some real-life customers and how they interact with their subscribers using automations.
  • Guide to Subscriber Event Split. Learn how to branch based on click events, subscriber responses and more.
  • Customize and Brand Your Messages. Learn how to further customize your messages by checking out this section in the Help Center!

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!

Need ongoing channel strategy guidance? Please fill out this form and we'll connect you to one of our certified partners.

Was this article helpful?
1 out of 1 found this helpful