How to Trigger an Email Based on the Email Activity in MassMailer

Follow-up emails play a significant role in driving engagement when using emails as a marketing medium.

That said, in the case of mass email campaigns, if you do not have an automated workflow to trigger these emails, you will have to invest a fair amount of time and resources to track every click and trigger a follow-up email individually—not the most efficient way to go about things.

MassMailer allows you to circumvent this predicament using the Salesforce Flow so that you can set up a system that automatically triggers follow-up emails when a recipient clicks on a link.

This blog will walk you through how you can set up such a system so that you never miss an opportunity to nurture a lead with zero effort. Read on!

What Are Follow-up Emails and Why You Should Automate Them?

Follow-up email, as the name suggests, refers to a secondary email sent to a recipient after an initial interaction.

Essentially, when a prospect interacts with your email, it signals interest on their part. That said, interest does not always equate to a recipient taking the next step toward a conversion. 

Without a well-timed follow-up, you lose the momentum gained when a prospect shows interest in your email and the opportunity to nurture them further down the sales funnel. This is where automation comes in. With it, timely follow-up emails pass on the right message to a potential lead at the right time without requiring any manual intervention.

As a result, you will witness:

• Higher Engagement & Conversions 
• A significant reduction in time and resource investment 
• A consistency in communication with potential prospects/customers, and
• Explore the ability to scale at will. 

How Does MassMailer’s Email Tracking System Work?

Before we discuss how to set up the automation, let’s first understand how the functionality behind it works. To trigger automated emails, you need a system that can track recipient interactions in real time.

MassMailer does this using the Email Status object—a custom Salesforce object that captures and records various email engagement events, which, to name a few, include:

• Opens: When a recipient opens your email.
• Clicks: When a recipient clicks on a link within the email.
• Email Deliveries: When the email is successfully delivered.
• Bounces: When the email fails to reach the recipient due to an invalid address or other issues.
• Unsubscribed: When a recipient opts out of further communication.
• Reported as Spam: When a recipient marks the email as spam.

The act of logging these events is what serves as the foundation for setting up trigger-based automation within MassMailer and the Salesforce ecosystem.

How to Set Up Follow-Up Email Automation In MassMailer

The process of setting up follow-up emails on Massmailer is straightforward, and we will be using Salesforce Flow for it. For this demonstration, we will set up a follow-up email to trigger a “Click” event—a strong indicator of interest. 

Step 1: Create A Process In Flow 

Navigate to Salesforce Flow and create a process on the MassMailer Email Status object. Here, you can give the process a name, but make sure you set it to start when a record is created. 

Under the “Object” field, make sure you select “MassMailer Email Status,” as this is the object that stores all email activity data.

Step 2: Define The Trigger Criteria

Now, we add a criteria to the automation and give it a name. For this example, under the “Conditions for executing actions” section, we select “When conditions are met” and then enter the specifics for the conditions.

Here we select “Email Event Type” as the field, set the condition to “Equals” and enter “Click.” This ensures that the process is triggered only when a recipient clicks on a link inside the email.

Note: You can also add additional (optional) filters that work only on specific campaigns or use subject line filters that trigger only the action for specific types of emails.

Click “Save” once all conditions are set.

Step 3: Configure the Follow-up Email Action

Now, we need to set up an action that sends a follow-up email. To do so, first click “Add Action” and choose “Apex” as the action type. Then select “Email via MassMailer” as the Apex Class to send the follow-up emails. Configure the following parameters:

• Record ID: Select Contact ID (ensures the email is sent to the correct recipient).
• Template ID: Choose the Salesforce email template for the follow-up email.
• From Name & Email: Set the sender details.
• To Name & Email: Pull recipient details from the Contact Object.

Note: The template ID is required to send automated emails. There are two ways to locate them:

• From Salesforce Classic Email Templates
• Using MassMailer Lightning Template Builder

Step 4: Activate and Test the Automation

Click “Activate” in Salesforce Flow to enable the workflow.

Once you hit “Confirm,” the automation should be in place. The next step is to test this automation, and we do that with a simple test email like this:

• Navigate to MassMailer to send an email, select a contact, and send them a test email. Make sure that the email has a clickable link. For the purpose of this test, it is easiest to send the email to yourself. 
• Open the test email in your inbox (or ask the selected contact to do so) and click on the link inside it. This action should trigger the MassMailer Email Status Object to log the click event.
• To verify that the follow-up email was sent, refresh the contact’s email activity log in Salesforce. You should see two entries: the original email that was sent initially and the automated follow-up email triggered by the click event. 

With this setup, you will ensure timely and relevant engagement every single time.

Summing It Up

With the MassMailer Email Status Object capturing real-time engagement data, you can tailor your automation, ensuring that every potential lead is nurtured.

Whether you’re handling a handful of prospects or running large-scale campaigns, this setup scales effortlessly, helping you drive conversions without added complexity.

If you’re looking for a robust solution to send, track, and automate emails within Salesforce, MassMailer has you covered. With features like advanced email verification, the ability to run mass and drip campaigns, and detailed real-time tracking, you can run sophisticated email campaigns without any of Salesforce’s built-in limitations.