How to Use MonkeyPod's Email Automation App

Send automated emails to your relationships with MonkeyPod's Email Automation App! While Email Outreach is great for your regular email campaigns, this app lets you configure automated emails to be sent when someone completes a certain action like signing up for your email list, donating a specific amount, purchasing a membership, progressing though a pipeline, and a whole lot more. The "drip campaigns" can even be configured to send a series of emails based on different criteria over time.

What are some good use cases for the Email Automation app?

What are some good cases for Email Automation drip campaigns:

1. Volunteer Management - Keep your volunteers informed about important information and deadlines.
2. New Employee Onboarding - Send a series of planned emails over time to introduce new information to you employees incrementally.
3. Welcome to New Donors - Send a sequence of emails to tell new donors more about your organization over a few months to tell them more about your mission and what you're up to.

How do I install the Email Automation app in my MonkeyPod?

From the main menu, choose Apps & Integrations > Email. Then click the link to learn more about the Email Automation app in the App Marketplace. The next screen displays information about the Email Automation app along with an "Install" button. Click that to install the app.

Once installed, the "Install" button changes to "Manage /Update Settings". Click that to have MonkeyPod walk you through the initial setup, described below.

Note that now the app is installed, you can also find it in the Apps & Integrations menu under "My Apps & Integrations".

What's involved in setting up an email automation?

It's easy! You need to configure four main things:

• The email message(s) that will be sent by the automation
• The email list to use
• The trigger that will start the email automation
• Any additional steps in the automation

Get started with a plan

Before starting on those four things, it's very important to have a plan! Email automation is a big tool with a lot of settings and possible paths for your automation to take, so make sure you jot down what you want your automation to do before you begin to configure it. You'll want to think through Here's an example:

"When a donor gives over $500, send a thank you email, then send another email a week later to follow up about becoming a volunteer."

Documenting your automation with something as simple as that will make your experience with the email automation app a smooth one!

Steps to configure basic settings for email automation

To get started setting up your first email automation click on "Create a drip campaign" as shown below.

Complete the "Basic Settings" as your MonkeyPod walks you through the setup of one email automation:

• Name of drip campaign: enter the name to use for your drip campaign. For example: New Donor Welcome Emails.
• Mailing list: select the mailing list to use for this campaign.
• What causes someone to enter the drip campaign? They...: Choose the trigger that cause someone to enter this email automation. For example: they subscribe to an email list, donate through a specific fundraising page, complete a pipeline step, or purchase a specific item.
• Other information as needed: depending on the type of trigger there may be extra information that the email automation app needs to be able to kickoff the email automation.

Click "Save Settings" when finished.

Selecting triggers/actions for your email automations

After completing the basic settings, you're ready to configure the actions that the email automation should take. There are three types of actions that you can configure:

• React: These are actions that you want the automation to take. You can choose to:
  • Send an email to the relationship going through the automation.
  • Unsubscribe the relationship from the email list.
  • Subscribe the relationship to another list.
• Check: This action checks to see if the relationship going through the automation meets certain criteria that the automation is configured to react to. You can choose what condition to check for, as well as how long your MonkeyPod should check. For example, it can watch for a week to see if an automated email message gets opened.
• Pause: This action pauses the relationship in the automation for a period of time. It can be further configured to pause or halt the automation completely.

To get started on configuring the actions for your drip campaign, click "Add an action" under the "Actions/Logic" tab.

Select which action you would like to add to the campaign and complete the necessary details as you're prompted. Be sure to save each step when you're ready.

For example, the email automation below will send the "Event Follow Up Thank You" automated message then wait for three days and send the "Event Follow Up Invitation to Volunteer" automated message then subscribe the relationship to the Events email list.

Setting up your automated messages

Your automated email campaigns use specific "automated messages" that you'll write just for this purpose. To set up these messages to use in your campaign, click the "Automated Messages" tab at the top of the "Email Automation page," and click "Create an automated message."

You're then prompted to give the message a name and to pick a template to get started. At this point, you can just draft the email message like you would for a standard email outreach message.

Starting your email automation

Now that you have your basic settings, actions, and automated messages configured, you're ready to start your automation! Click the "Run/Pause" tab and click the play button (or "Click to start") to start running the automation.

On the main "Automated Campaigns" screen, you'll be able to see which automations are currently running because they will have the spinning gear. Paused automations will show the play button so that you can also start them from this screen.