Automations

Automations are multi-step sequences built in the same block editor as campaigns, but triggered automatically instead of sent by hand.

Triggers

Each automation has exactly one trigger, chosen when you create it:

• On list subscribe — a subscriber confirms their subscription to a specific list.
• On segment entry — a subscriber newly matches a specific segment’s conditions.
• On anniversary — a subscriber’s signup date matches today’s month and day.

Note

The list-subscribe trigger fires at double opt-in confirmation, not at the moment a subscriber is added. A subscriber added manually, via CSV import, or via a Ghost import does not enroll — only a subscriber who clicks the confirmation link in their own signup email does. This keeps automations tied to genuine, confirmed consent.

Segment-entry automations only enroll subscribers who join the segment after the automation is published — existing matching subscribers at publish time are treated as a baseline and skipped. Anniversary automations enroll each active subscriber once, on the next occurrence of their signup month and day.

Steps

Build the sequence from two step types:

• Send — an email with its own subject line and blocks, built the same way as a campaign.
• Wait — a delay, in hours or days, before the next step runs.

Draft, live, paused

An automation starts as a draft, where you can freely edit its steps. Publish it to go live — publishing validates that every send step has a subject and at least one block, and that the automation has at least one step. A live automation’s steps are locked; pause it first if you need to make changes, then publish again.

Tracking

Each send step tracks its own sent, open, and click counts and rates independently, so you can see which step in the sequence is performing — the same open-pixel and click-tracking mechanism used for campaigns (see Tracking & reports).

What drives it

Enrollment and step advancement both run off the same one-minute cron job that drives campaign sending — see The cron job. Nothing in an automation fires without it.