Trigger Components
Understanding Triggers
What is a trigger?
A trigger is the starting condition that initiates the workflow. It defines when and why a contact should enter the workflow.
Triggers act as the entry point of any workflow. Without a trigger, the workflow will not know when to start or which contacts to pull in. Choosing the right trigger ensures your automation runs at the right moment for the right audience.
Workflow Entry, Re-entry, and Editing
Can you re-engage inactive users?
Yes. You can segment the contact and then use the segment entry trigger to send re-engagement emails.
This approach allows marketers to systematically target contacts who have stopped interacting with campaigns. By defining inactivity-based segments, you can automate re-engagement without manually monitoring contact behavior.
Can a contact enter the same workflow more than once?
Yes. If they meet the trigger condition again, they will re-enroll back to the workflow. However, the re-enrollment toggle must be enabled.
Re-enrollment is useful for recurring behaviors such as repeated form submissions or list entries. Enabling this option ensures contacts are not restricted to a one-time automation experience.
What happens if you remove contacts from a list used in the trigger?
They will no longer enter the workflow.
Once removed, those contacts will be excluded from any future workflow entries tied to that list. This helps maintain accurate audience targeting and prevents unintended automation entries.
Can the trigger be edited after the workflow is active?
No. Once the workflow is active, the trigger will pull the contacts to the set-up based on the configuration. This ensures consistency and prevents disruption to contacts already progressing through the workflow.
Can you use multiple triggers in one workflow?
Yes. However, you can only have one e-commerce-based triggers.
This allows flexibility for non-commerce workflows while maintaining clarity and data accuracy for e-commerce-related automation.
E-commerce Triggers
What is the Purchase Follow-up trigger?
This trigger is used to enter contacts who have purchased products from your store. While configuring this trigger, select the store from which contacts have purchased and click Save.
This trigger is ideal for post-purchase communication, such as onboarding, cross-sell, or feedback campaigns.
What is the Abandoned Cart Trigger?
This trigger is used for contacts who have added products to their cart without making a purchase. Click Select Cart, select Store, add time in hours of abandonment as a condition, and click Save.
This enables timely reminders that can help recover lost revenue by re-engaging high-intent contacts.
API and Tag-based Triggers
What is the Open Trigger?
You can use this trigger to start a workflow when contacts are imported from another application using API keys. Once this trigger is used, click Generate an API Key and click Copy to copy the key to the clipboard for future reference before clicking Save.
This trigger is useful for integrating external systems with your marketing automation workflows.
What is the Tag Removed Trigger?
This trigger is used to start a workflow when contacts are removed from the tag you have selected. While configuring this trigger, select the required tag; the contacts removed from it will enter the workflow automatically.
It helps automate follow-ups when contacts exit a specific classification or lifecycle stage.
What is the Tag Assigned Trigger?
This trigger is used to start a workflow when contacts are assigned the tag you’ve selected. While configuring this trigger, select the required tag, and the contacts assigned to it will enter the workflow automatically.
Tags make it easier to trigger contextual automation without complex segmentation logic.
Field and Email-based Triggers
What is the Field Update Trigger?
The contacts who met or satisfied the criteria configured in the Field Update Trigger will enter into the workflow.
This trigger is commonly used for lifecycle changes such as lead status updates or preference changes.
What is the checkbox at the end of the Email Action trigger? And what happens if you don’t select the checkbox in the Email action Trigger?
This option allows entry of the contacts who've already received the email campaign and performed the selected responses in the trigger.
If you don’t select the checkbox, it will pull out the contacts who will perform the selected responses in the future (after activating the workflow).
Together, these options determine whether the workflow includes only future responders or also past responders, giving marketers flexibility in campaign-based automation.
What responses are present in the “Any email campaign” of the Email Action trigger?
This option will pull out the contacts who have performed responses such as Delivered, Opened, Any link clicked, Specific link clicked, Skipped, Survey Started, and Survey completed in any of the sent campaigns.
This is useful for behavior-based workflows across multiple campaigns.
What responses are present in the “Specific email campaign” of the Email Action trigger?
The option contains Delivered, Opened, Any link clicked, Specific link clicked, and Skipped as responses in the Email Action Trigger.
This allows more granular automation tied to a single campaign’s performance.
List and Form-based Triggers
What is the List Entry trigger? How do you add and configure a List Entry trigger?
You can create a workflow for any contacts who have entered a specific list using this trigger. You can also decide which contacts can enter the workflow by allowing only new contacts or only existing contacts or both new and existing contacts.
To configure a list entry trigger, follow these steps:
- From the navigation toolbar, select Automation and click Workflows.
- Click Create Workflow from the top-right and select a workflow template.
- From the left panel, drag and drop the List Entry trigger onto the canvas
- Click Select List.
- Select a list from the drop-down.
- Choose to allow only new contacts into the workflow, only existing contacts into the workflow, or both new and existing contacts into the workflow.
- Click Done.
What is a Form Submission trigger?
Using this trigger, you can start a workflow for those contacts who sign up through the signup form you select in this trigger. This trigger can be configured to allow contacts to enter either from any signup form or a specific signup form.
Form-based triggers help capture high-intent leads at the moment of conversion.
Segment-based Triggers
Can you choose more than one segment to trigger your workflow?
No. You can only select one segment to trigger your workflow.
This ensures clear qualification logic and avoids overlapping entry conditions.
What is the Enter a Segment trigger? And how do you add the Enter a Segment trigger?
With this trigger, you can create a workflow for contacts who've entered a specific segment.
To use the Enter a Segment trigger:
- From the navigation toolbar, choose Automation.
- Click Create Workflow in the top-right corner of the page.
- Select the Enter a Segment trigger
- Select the type of workflow you want to create and click Use Template, or click Custom Workflow to create your own workflow template.
- Drag and drop the Enter a Segment trigger onto the canvas.
- Click Select Segment and select the segment from the list already created in the dropdown.
- To add both existing and new contacts into the workflow, choose Allow Existing and New Contacts from the selected segment.
- To add only NEW contacts into the workflow choose allow new contacts from the selected segment.
- To add only EXISTING contacts into the workflow choose allow contacts already present in the selected segment.
- Click Save.
- Drag and drop the action /process components to the canvas and configure them.
- Click Activate to initiate your workflow for contacts entering a specific segment.
Date-field Triggers
Can you edit the date-field trigger after it has been applied?
Yes. There are two ways you can edit a date-field trigger after it has been applied: Click more (…) on the date-field trigger and click the Edit icon. You can also edit the date field trigger from the detail view on the right side of the canvas by clicking the Edit icon.
Can contacts re-enroll into the workflow while using the date-field trigger?
Yes, you can allow contacts to re-enroll into your active workflows if they meet the required trigger conditions. This is useful for recurring annual or milestone-based events.
When can you use date-field trigger for custom date or specific date?
Select the specific date field to trigger the workflow for specific events, webinars, renewals, etc. Select the custom date field for customized dates such as birthdays, anniversaries, and festivals.
Can you choose specific contacts to enter your workflow with date-field trigger?
Yes, you can drag and drop the date-field trigger to the canvas and click Select Date. Choose to use a custom date or a specific date. Specify the time contacts can enter the workflow. Enable Set criteria for contacts to enter the workflow button. Select the criteria the contacts must meet to enter the workflow and click Apply.
What happens to contacts who’ve entered the workflow through a date field trigger in exit criteria?
For date field trigger note that once the date field is changed then the contacts who've entered the workflow on the previous selected date will not be exited. For example, you specify a date, 25.12.2021 and certain contacts have entered the workflow on that date. Now you change the date to 26.12.2021, change it back to 25.12.2021, and set exit criteria for that date. The contacts who have first entered on 25.12.2021 before changing the date will not be exited.
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