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We've designed this guide to introduce you to automation flows, deep dive into Flow Actions, and help you understand an automation flow's overall and message-specific performance. 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 and dive into automation properties.
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.
- Select these three lines to unhide the Postscript navigation bar and navigate out of Flow Builder.
- Select Back to Flows to navigate out of the editor and into your Flows Dashboard.
- Give your automation flow a name that helps you identify it from all automation drafts or activated automations.
- Optional: Add a description to your automation flow.
- Customize your flow by dragging and dropping Flow Actions into your automation flow. Each action is broken down here.
- Preview your automation properties. For more information on Automation Properties, click the next tab in this module titled Automation Properties to the right.
- Drag and Drop your Flow Actions (from step 5) to the Drag action here placeholders throughout your build.
- Save. Don't forget to save your flow when you are ready to schedule, launch, or need to continue editng at a later time.
- Schedule or Activate allows you to either activate your flow immediately or activate your flow at a scheduled date and time. Activating a flow will begin allowing subscribers to enter based on the selected automation properties.
- 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).
- 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).
When you set up your automation flow, adding specific properties can determine what event adds subscribers to the flow, how often they can enter a flow, and when to remove a subscriber from a flow. Automation Properties also offer ways to fine-tune both the trigger event and filter specific subscribers in or out of a flow.
- Define the automation trigger. A trigger is an action that will begin the automation flow. In the example above, the flow will send to a subscriber who starts the checkout process.
- Add trigger filters. Trigger filters can help you fine-tune when an automation is triggered. The example above will only send to a subscriber whose abandoned cart subtotal is more than $100.
- Add Subscriber filters. User filters can help you narrow down which subscribers can receive an automation. The flow above will only send if the subscriber has previously placed 2 orders.
- Add a subscriber frequency filter. The subscriber frequency filter allows you to choose how often a subscriber can enter a given automation flow for a certain period of time. The example above will only allow subscribers to enter this flow every 30 days.
- Add a cancellation trigger. The cancellation trigger tells Postscript when to remove a subscriber from an automation flow. In the example above, a subscriber will be removed from receiving this automation if they place an order.
- Save. Don't forget to save your automation properties by selecting Save in the bottom-right.
Want to keep it simple? No worries! Adding trigger filters, subscriber filters, a subscriber frequency filter, or a cancellation trigger are all optional ways to customize your automation 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.
Our Send 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 the automation flow templates we've crafted just for you! 
- Add an image or gif to your message. Learn how to create a custom gif here.
- Message editor. Edit your message here and preview it to the right.
- Add emojis to your message by clicking the smiley face icon.
- Add tags to your messages such as the first or last name of your subscriber, your shop name, or shop link.
- Add a Postscript coupon to your message.
- Add product or discount links to your message. Discount links are links embedded with a Shopify discount.
- Add the copy "Reply STOP to unsubscribe" to your message by clicking the checkbox.
- Save. Once you've crafted the message to your liking, don't forget to save!
- Hide the message preview by selecting the eye in the upper-right corner of the message preview.
- Preview your message by sending it to yourself before you activate your flow.
- Duplicate your message to make building out a flow of messages more efficient.
- Delete your message by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the message editor.
With our Delay action, you can choose from three types of delays that will allow you to perfect the timing of each individual message within a flow to your subscribers. Learn about each type below or, for a deep dive into message scheduling, check out this article.
- Delay your message for an amount of time. This option allows you to send your message after a specific interval of time (e.g. Delay sending this message until after a 5-minute delay or after a 5-week delay).
- Delay your message until a specific date allows you to choose the exact date and time that you'd like to send each individual message (e.g. Delay sending this message until December 20th, 2022 at 4:00 PM).
- Delay your message until a certain time of the week allows you to choose a day of the week and a time of day that you'd like to send each of your flow messages (e.g. Delay sending these messages until Sundays at 2:00 PM).
- Save. Once you've added your message delays, don't forget to save!
- Duplicate your Delay action to make building out a flow of messages more efficient.
- Delete your Delay action by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the Delay editor.
Optimize your message conversions by finding the best combination of timing, images, message copy, and incentives for your brand all through A/B testing in Flow Builder! Not sure what to test? Check out the four A/B tests every SMS Marketer should be running. 
- Auto Balance automatically sets your branches to an even distribution.
- Designate Branch A's distribution by adding the percentage of subscribers you'd like to have your Branch A experience (this includes messages, delays, etc.).
- Designate Branch B's distribution by adding the percentage of subscribers you'd like to have your Branch A experience (this includes messages, delays, etc.).
- Save. Once you've customized your A/B Split distributions, don't forget to save!
- Preview or add to your Branch A's experience by dragging and dropping flow actions to the Drag action here placeholder.
- Preview or add to your Branch B's experience by dragging and dropping flow actions to the Drag action here placeholder.
- Delete your A/B Split action by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the Split editor.
With Wait for Event Splits, you can time and send automated messages to subscribers based on their actions or inactions. For example, you can send a Welcome Series and then split responses based on if the subscriber purchased from your Welcome Series. Take a deep dive into this tool by checking out this article.
- Add an event to your flow. This indicates that you intend to branch subsequent messages based on this event. For example, create branches based on if a subscriber creates an order after receiving the previous Day of the Week automation message.
- Add the Max Wait Time that you will allow for subscribers to complete the event. For example, wait 24 hours for subscribers to create an order after receiving the first message in your flow.
- Create your branches and select specific properties of each branch. In the example above, we will branch the flow based on if the subscriber creates an order using the Shopify discount code SHOPIFYDISCOUNT or not.
- Wait for Event branching will always include a none of the above or event never occurred branch to capture any events that do not match the specifications and subscribers who do not respond within the Max Wait Time.
- Add a new branch by selecting this option.
- Save. Once you've customized your Event Splits, don't forget to save!
- Preview your branches.
- Delete your Wait for event split action by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the Split editor.
With this tool, you are able to update subscriber profiles with tags based on their actions following a previously-received message within your flow. This lets you craft more personalized and hyper-targeted flows in the future. For a deep dive, take a look at this article. 
- Add or remove a subscriber tag based on which path the subscriber takes. In the example above, subscribers will be tagged as conditioner or shampoo based on their response to the Wait for Susbcriber Response Split.
- Save. Once you've added your subscriber tag, don't forget to save!
- Preview the Update Subscriber action.
- After tagging a subscriber, you may consider sending them a follow-up message. In the example above, we send a shampoo recommendation to those who responded to our first message with the word shampoo.
- Duplicate your Update Subscriber action to make building out a flow of messages more efficient.
- Delete your Update Subscriber action by selecting this option or clicking Delete Step in the upper-right corner of the editor.
Understanding Automation 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
- Sent Messages. View the total number of messages that have been sent.
- Unsubscribe Rate. Your flow's Unsubscribe Rate is calculated by dividing the total number of unsubscribes attributed to a flow message by the number of total messages sent in this flow Note: we attribute an unsubscribe to a flow if the flow message was the last message the subscriber received before unsubscribing).
- Click-Through Rate (CTR).CTR is calculated by taking total clicks on all links divided by the total number of messages sent.
- Conversion Rate. Your flow's Conversion Rate is calculated by dividing the total amount of orders placed within your shop's designated attribution window by the total number of clicks.
- Attributed Revenue. The amount of sales dollars earned from orders created within your shop's designated attribution window after a subscriber receives the automation flow. See your shop's attribution window here.
- Sent Messages indicates the number of this specific message that was sent to subscribers.
- Unsubscribe Rate is calculated by dividing the number of unsubscribes attributed to this message within the flow by the number of Sent Messages recorded for this specific message (e.g. 65,463). Note: we attribute an unsubscribe to a flow if the flow message was the last message the subscriber received before unsubscribing).
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) is calculated by taking the number of clicks on the links included in this message divided by the number of Sent Messages recorded for this specific message.
- Conversion Rate is calculated by dividing the number of orders placed by the number of clicks on the links included in this message (within your shop's designated attribution window).
- Attributed Revenue. The amount of sales dollars earned from orders created within your shop's designated attribution window after a subscriber receives this specific message within your automation. See your shop's attribution window here.
Note: If you edit and save a live flow, the analytics on all individual actions (i.e. specific messages) will be reset, but the overall performance analytics will remain the same.
Extra Resources
- Postscript's Video Learning Library. Level up your SMS skills with our quick walkthrough videos of Postscript features and tools.
- Fantastic Texts. Need some inspiration? Check out some real-life customers and how they interact with their subscribers using automations.
- 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!
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