Email Automation: Guide to Automated Marketing Emails

Email marketing has the potential to generate substantial return on investment (ROI). To capture the full potential of this channel, you need email automation to handle message scheduling, email sequences, and marketing campaigns.

This guide covers everything you need to get started with email marketing automation. I'll cover how to set up email automation campaigns, types of emails to automate, and tips to improve your strategy — so you can grow your business with email.

Key takeaways:

• Email automation saves time and improves timing, handling repetitive tasks and ensuring messages reach subscribers at the optimal time without intervention.
• Audience segmentation is essential for increasing relevance and allows you to send more targeted emails that generate higher engagement rates.
• Continuous testing and optimization helps you identify what works best for your audience and make data-driven decisions about best practices for your email automations.

What is email automation?

Email automation is the process of sending marketing and transactional emails to subscribers based on specific triggers, schedules, or behaviors. Instead of manually writing and sending each message, you create automated workflows that customize the content and deliver the emails at the ideal time.

Using email marketing automation software saves you time and handles repetitive manual tasks. It also ensures that you send emails at the ideal time. Which can improve email marketing campaign results and help you achieve more ambitious engagement and conversion goals.

7 Types of marketing emails to automate

You can automate almost any type of marketing email, including monthly newsletters, welcome emails, and event reminders. Let's look at a few of the most common use cases for B2B companies — with email automation examples.

1. Welcome emails

Welcome emails are the first emails you send to introduce your business to new subscribers. They're great for telling potential customers what your business offers, what they can expect from subscribing to your email list, and where to find more information.

Here's a welcome email from Napkin, which the company automatically sends to subscribers right after they create a new account. It suggests use cases to help new users get started, and it encourages subscribers to open the design app and start creating.

2. Webinar invitation emails

Webinar invitation emails announce upcoming events and encourage subscribers to attend. They typically tell subscribers what they can expect to get from the event along with details like the webinar date and time.

Here's an example from our team at Livestorm, inviting subscribers to attend a panel discussion featuring three partner marketing and demand generation experts. To capture attention, it shares a customer engagement statistic before suggesting a solution and listing what the webinar will cover.

3. Registration confirmation emails

Registration confirmation emails assure subscribers that they've successfully signed up for an upcoming event. They generally reiterate the event details and share an access link so subscribers can easily join the event.

Confirmation emails like this one from Agorapulse automatically send to attendees moments after they register. Because they include calendar links, they're helpful for increasing attendance and other event marketing goals.

4. Reminder emails

Reminder emails keep events and time-sensitive happenings top of mind. You can automatically send them to people who expressed interest in the event (such as webinar registrants) or people who haven't yet taken a certain action (like people who haven't used a discount code).

Webinar reminder emails like this one from Minuttia automatically send to registrants a certain amount of time before the event begins. By sending a one-hour reminder, the agency has a better chance of boosting attendance.

For B2C companies, abandoned cart emails are another type of reminder email. Instead of reminding subscribers about an event, they encourage customers to purchase an item in which they've shown interest.

5. Email newsletters

Email newsletters update subscribers on company news, industry trends, and new products or services. By sending newsletters every week or month, your company can keep prospects and customers engaged, which can help retain existing customers and drive new business.

This monthly newsletter from Todoist includes time management tips targeted to the productivity software platform's audience. Each newsletter also includes calls to action that encourage readers to apply the tips and use the software.

6. Thank you emails

Thank you emails show appreciation to subscribers who completed a specific action, such as attending an event or making a purchase. These emails often include links to watch an event replay or start using their purchase.

Livestorm's event marketing team sent this thank you email to people who attended our annual product keynote. The automatic email includes a recap of the event along with an event replay link and bonus resources.

7. Cancellation email

A cancellation email informs registrants that a planned event has been postponed, rescheduled, or cancelled. It's helpful for sharing updates efficiently to create minimal inconvenience.

For example, this cancellation email template automatically customizes the email subject line, preheader, and content with the event name and date.

How to automate marketing emails

Now that you know what type of automated emails to send, let's walk through the process of setting up the software, building a subscriber list, and creating emails.

Choose an email marketing automation tool

First, you need an email automation tool. To choose the right one for your business, consider these factors:

• Email list size: Do you have a few hundred or tens of thousands of subscribers?
• Sending volume: Will you send a couple thousand emails or more like a million each month?
• Automation needs: Do you plan to keep your email workflows relatively simple or do you need a solution with advanced logic and multi-branch automations?
• Integrations: Your email platform should connect to the rest of your tech stack. Make a list of the customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing platforms you already use to check integration options.

When you're clear on your needs, evaluate the options. Some of the most popular choices include a dedicated email marketing automation platform with specialized features or an all-in-one marketing suite that handles several channels.

In addition, some marketing platforms have built-in email automation. For example, our webinar software has automated email capabilities, allowing you to send emails related to webinars and virtual events.

Build an email list with audience segments

Email marketing is a permission-based inbound marketing channel. Subscribers must opt in to receive your company's marketing messages, and marketers must follow GDPR and other email regulations.

One of the best ways to attract subscribers and grow your list is to offer high-value resources. For example, hosting webinars with exciting speaker lineups, creating industry reports with original data, and developing free tools can all help generate signups.

Design email automation workflows

Map out the buyer's journey that your ideal customer follows as they go from awareness to consideration to decision. Identify touchpoints where email content would add value.

Use the email examples above to guide you. For example, start with a welcome email that introduces your business and shares important resources with new subscribers. Then consider creating an email newsletter to keep subscribers updated on news, product launches, and upcoming events.

Set up triggers for specific actions like webinar signups and post-event thank you messages. But be careful with timing.

In many cases, you want to send behavior-based emails when certain actions happen. When you factor in newsletters, webinar invitations, and other automated emails, however, the number can get overwhelming. Set rules to avoid sending certain emails if you've already messaged the subscriber within a certain time window.

Create email templates

Design email templates that reflect your brand identity and that work for a variety of use cases. For example, you might have different designs for newsletters, invitations, educational email series, and re-engagement emails.

Create templates with built-in branding and automated personalization. This way, all you have to do is add the content of your message. Then, you can start sending automatically.

With Livestorm, you can easily set up email templates for webinars. Just add your company name, logo, colors, and fonts. Adjust the messaging to fit your brand voice. Then, add the template to Livestorm or another email platform.

Review your results and optimize your approach

Once you start to use email marketing and automation, check the results weekly or monthly. Pay attention to email metrics like:

• Open rate and click-through rate, which show if subscribers are interested in your emails and the content you share
• Conversion rate, which reveals if subscribers are responding to your calls to action and if your offers are targeting the right audience
• List growth, which reflects how well your efforts are working to attract new subscribers

Identify your best email marketing campaigns and use them as models. Iterate on the subject lines, messaging, and campaign structure.

Tips to improve your email automation strategy

Once you have the basics down, use these actionable tips to create more effective email automations.

Segment your list to make every email relevant

Don't send every message to every subscriber. Instead, send messages to specific audience segments.

Create audience segments based on factors like job title, location, or buyer's journey stage. Set up segments based on engagement patterns or subscriber behavior, such as attending previous webinars on a topic.

This way, you can send targeted content to subscribers. Which can increase customer lifetime value by 33%.

Include personalized elements automatically

Not all of your emails have to sound the same. Use automation to insert dynamic content like customer names, company names, locations, or actions.

For example, our webinar marketing team automatically personalizes event emails with information like the name of the customer, the title of the event, and the date of the webinar.

A/B test email subject lines to maximize clicks

Do your subscribers prefer clever subject lines that make them laugh or that touch on their pain points? Or do they respond more to subject lines that convey a sense of urgency or fear of missing out?

One option is using your email marketing platform's AI marketing tools to generate ideas. But with A/B testing, you don't have to guess. Instead, you can send emails with one subject line to one group of subscribers and another subject line to the rest of the group.

Then, you can compare the results to see what drives the most opens, clicks, and conversions. You can also apply what you learn to the next emails you automate.

Write email preheader text that gets attention

It's easy to focus all your energy on writing compelling subject lines. But preheader text can also be incredibly effective in getting subscribers to open your emails.

Subject lines tend to be very short. The ideal length is 30 to 50 characters or four to seven words, which doesn't leave you with much room to say anything.

Preheader text displays after subject lines in subscribers' email inboxes. It's a great place to share more information about what the email contains, sparking interest and prompting subscribers to click.

Add a clear call to action to prompt next steps

Make it as easy as possible for subscribers to decide what to do after reading your email. Include one clear call to action in every email, embedded in either a link or a button.

Use action-oriented language like "Sign up" or "Get started" that aligns with the content of the email and the action you want subscribers to take next.

Why you should use email automation

Setting up automated email marketing creates plenty of perks for your business. Here are a few of the best reasons to use email automation.

Create personalized customer experiences

When you think of automatic emails, it's easy to assume generic mass emails — or worse, spam. But one of the biggest benefits of email automation is that it can tailor communication to specific users based on several factors.

For example, you can segment your audience by their actions, such as when they signed up for your list, what their job title is, or which webinar they attended. Then, you can automatically send them relevant content.

This helps you create better customer experiences with higher engagement and stronger relationships. Over time, this can lead to more conversions, higher product adoption rates, and happier customers.

Even small touches can help. For example, personalized subject lines can increase open rates by 26%. And sending segmented email campaigns can increase email revenue by 760%.

Nurture engaged prospects and customers

Automated email sequences keep prospects engaged throughout the buyer's journey without the need for manual touches. To guide prospects through your lead generation funnel, set up drip campaigns that share helpful resources over several weeks.

You can also create automated email campaigns that respond to certain behaviors. If a prospect clicks a link in one email, you can follow up a few days later with more relevant content.

Say a prospect clicks to read a blog post about a specific pain point. You might follow up with a case study that details how your solution helped a customer address the same pain point. Over time, automated touches like these can guide prospects toward a conversion.

Scale your marketing strategy with minimal resources

As your business grows, the number of emails you need to send gets longer and longer. Manually sending all those webinar follow-up emails or monthly newsletters would take hours every day. Which would take time away from strategic tasks.

And if you did send all those emails manually, you might miss a chance to send them at the ideal time. For example, your webinar follow-up email might go out hours or days later — when it's too late to leverage engagement and prompt action.

It isn't just about sending more messages. With an email automation platform, you can send more messages that are more relevant at the right time for the cost of a software subscription.

Frequently asked questions about email automation

How do I automate my email?

To automate your email program, select automation software that aligns with your needs and fits your budget. Promote your email list to attract subscribers, and segment subscribers by job title, customer status, or behavior.

Then, create email sequences and automate them by setting triggers — such as sending welcome emails when subscribers sign up and email newsletters every Monday.

What is the best email automation software?

The best email automation software depends on your company's needs. Consider factors like the size of your subscriber list, the complexity of your email automations, and your marketing budget.

If you need to automate emails related to webinars and virtual events, for example, Livestorm is a good choice. If you need an all-in-one tool that handles complex automations across the customer lifecycle, Customer.io is a smart choice.

Does Gmail have email automation?

Gmail has limited email automation features, and it's not an email marketing tool. The platform restricts send volume, allowing you to send a limited number of emails per day (typically 500 for free accounts and 2,000 for Workspace accounts).

With Gmail, you can manually schedule emails to send at specific times. However, you can't use Gmail to create automated workflows or to send responses automatically. For true email marketing automation with segmentation and advanced workflows, you need a dedicated tool.