Automation triggers

2 min readChecked against the dashboard on 15 September 2026

Every automation starts with one Trigger node. It defines who enters the flow and when.

The triggers available

Contact created

Fires when a new contact is added to your account, whatever the source — an import, a store sync, a routed ad lead or the API. The natural trigger for a welcome series.

Added to an audience

Fires when a contact joins a specific list. Useful when you want to control entry deliberately: put someone in the list and the flow begins.

Entered a segment

Fires when a contact starts matching a segment's rules. Because segments re-evaluate themselves as behaviour changes, this is what powers flows like "became a VIP" or "lapsed". See Segments versus lists.

Custom event

Fires on a specific event from your store or website — an abandoned checkout, a shipped order, a browse without purchase. This is what the Commerce templates use, and it needs the relevant connection in place to receive those events.

Date or anniversary

Fires relative to a date on the contact — a birthday, a signup anniversary.

Tag added / tag removed

Fires when a specific tag is put on a contact, or taken off.

The tag can come from anywhere: a CSV import, the API, a connection's routing rule, or a Tag Contact step in another automation. That last one is what makes tags the general-purpose way to chain flows together — flow A finishes and tags someone onboarded, flow B starts on that tag.

Three things worth knowing:

Matching ignores capitalisation, so VIP and vip are the same tag.
Re-applying a tag somebody already has is not a change and starts nothing. This is what stops a re-run of the same import from re-enrolling your whole list.
If two flows tag each other, the chain is cut off after five hops rather than looping forever.

This is the natural trigger when the thing you care about is not something the product models — "proposal sent", "trial extended", "churned" — because you decide what the tag means.

Choosing between them

The distinction that matters most is audience-joined versus segment-entered.

Added to an audience is a one-off act. Someone is put in a list; they enter once.
Entered a segment is a state change. Someone starts matching a rule, and if they later stop matching and match again, they can enter again.

If a flow should run exactly once per person, an audience trigger is the safer choice.

Entry is not the same as sendability

A trigger decides who enters the flow. It does not override consent or suppression: contacts who cannot be emailed are still not emailed, even mid-flow. So a busy trigger does not necessarily mean a lot of mail.

Next: open your automation and click the Trigger node to see or change what starts it.

Create an automationAn automation sends email on its own in response to something a contact does, rather than on a date you pick. A welcome series, an abandoned checkout nudge, a birthday email.Why has nobody entered my automation?Work through these in order — the first two account for most cases.Building a conditionA Condition step splits the people in a flow into two paths — a Yes path and a No path — based on what you know about them. A Goal uses exactly the same builder to describe an outcome.Segments versus listsBoth are audiences a campaign can send to, and both appear in the campaign builder's Audience dropdown — grouped under Lists and Segments. The difference is who maintains them.

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