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ConvertKit is an email service provider for bloggers and online business owners. It packs a powerful punch with automations and triggers in an easy-to-understand interface. Unlike many of the other email service provider options out there, ConvertKit uses a simple interface making it easy to use even for those of us who aren’t very technical.

I’m going to teach you everything you need to know in my free series: Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit.

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

Below you will find affiliate links. I am sharing these resources with you because they have helped me tremendously through my blogging journey. I do not recommend any products in this review that I do not use myself.

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit includes:

  1. Email Marketing Tips for Beginners
  2. CovertKit Tutorial: Sequences vs. Broadcasts
  3. ConvertKit Tutorial: Automations
  4. ConvertKit Tutorial: Segments and Tags
  5. 7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks <– this post!

Now that we’ve covered all the basic functionalities of ConvertKit in previous articles, it’s time to dig into the most powerful part of ConvertKit… automations!

Automations make your business life better… seriously! By leveraging automation triggers in email marketing, you can track useful information on your customer’s behaviors and interests. This allows you to give the right content to the right people at the right time.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it’s true! Let me walk you through my favorite ways to use automations inside ConvertKit. I guarantee you’ll find at least one new way to implement automations in your business. They will make your life easier while ultimately making you more money.

As I walk you through these automations, I have assumed you’ve read my article on what automations are and how to use them: ConvertKit Automations

Ready? Okay, let’s dive in!

ConvertKit Tutorial: Types of Automations

Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Learn the power of automation triggers in ConvertKit. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

Here’s a quick recap of the different triggers and actions you can use when building your automation rules inside ConvertKit.

Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Learn the power of automation triggers in ConvertKit. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

Triggers: Actions Subscribers Take

  • Subscribes to a sequence
  • Subscribes to a form
  • Completes a sequence
  • Clicks a link
  • Tag added
  • Tag removed

Action: Automated Result

  • Subscribe to a sequence
  • Unsubscribe from a sequence
  • Subscribe to a form
  • Unsubscribe from a form
  • Add tag
  • Remove tag

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks

#1 Choose Your Own Path Sequence

Instead of assuming the information that your email subscribers will want from you, why not ask them? Brilliant idea, right?! Watch my quick tutorial on how to set this up…

https://youtu.be/n3lVQyIesYM

#2 Custom Unsubscribe Links for Campaigns

I don’t know about you, but I know I sell to my email list. After all, it’s something we pay for in order to convert customers. Not everything I sell or promote will be interesting to all of my subscribers. I certainly don’t want to lose a subscriber completely just because they are not interested in a certain promotion I am running.

Enter custom unsubscribe links.

By law, all emails must have an unsubscribe option.

Back in February, I was promoting Elite Blog Academy and didn’t want a ton of people to unsubscribe because they were not interested in blogging. To prevent this, I set up a custom unsubscribe link, in addition to the required unsubscribe link that’s always there.

If a subscriber clicks opt-out of EBA sales emails link, they would be added to a tag I set up prior to sending the email.

How to Set Up a Custom Unsubscribe Link in ConvertKit

Step 1: Create a custom URL for the opt-out link. I do this as a page inside my WordPress dashboard. When a subscriber clicks the “opt-out” link in my email it directs them to a page that says “thank you for updating your email preferences!”

Step 2: Create a new automation rule. Under trigger select “clicks a link” and enter the new URL you just created. Under action select “add tag.” I usually name these tags “opt-out of xyz.

Step 3: Set up a new segment. This segment will be used to send broadcasts for the duration of the campaign you will be emailing about. This is what mine looked like for Elite Blog Academy.

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

#3 Last Minute Notifications

I’m guilty of not using this one enough. You know the emails you get 3-4 hours prior to the cart closing on a big product launch? The truth is, not everyone wants another email in their inbox telling them the cart is closing. You may risk a few unsubs by sending the last-minute email. In my opinion, it’s worth a few unsubs because my conversion rate on the last minute emails is usually pretty high. Nevertheless, you may want to take a different approach.

This will work with any type of notification. The two I see the most are…

  1. Notify me when the sale is about to end
  2. Notify me when the cart is open

How to Set Up Notifications in ConvertKit

Step 1: Create a custom URL. I do this as a page inside my WordPress dashboard. When a subscriber clicks the “notify me” link in my email it directs them to a page that says “thank you I will notify you when xyz happens!”

Step 2: Create a new automation rule. Under trigger select “clicks a link” and enter the new URL you just created. Under action select “add tag.” I usually name these tags “notification for xyz.

Step 3: Send the email broadcast only to the tag with the people who decided they wanted to be notified.

#4 Upsell Email Subscribers via Automatic Nurture Sequences

This one is my favorite! Every time someone clicks on a sales page link for your product, you can automatically trigger them into a nurture sequence that will lead them straight to buying your product! What?! How awesome is that?!

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

How to Set Up Automatic Nurture Sequences

Step 1: Create a new automation rule. Under trigger select “clicks a link” and enter the URL for your product sales page. Under action select “add tag” and “subscribe to a sequence.” Create a tag that says “interested in xyz” and a sequence which has a series of emails that speaks to the value of your product.

Step 2: Use the link trigger every time you mention your product in an email. Anyone that is interested in the product will now be entered into the nurture sequence!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Email nurture sequences help you make #money on autopilot — esp. with @ConvertKit automations!” quote=”Email nurture sequences help you make #money on autopilot — esp. with @ConvertKit automations!”]

#5 Tag Everyone and Everything!

The more information you have about your email subscribers, the more money you will make. It’s true!

You may not be ready to send people to a nurture sequence every time they click a link but you might as well tag them with relevant information. Here are a few ways I tag my subscribers…

  1. Clicked a promotion link
  2. Clicked a product
  3. Clicked to set up a call with me
  4. Clicked my work with me page
  5. Clicked my sponsorship page
  6. Clicked to read my sample chapter
  7. Clicked a video in my email

The tags are endless. I highly suggest tagging email subscribers almost any time you use a link in your email.

#6 Seamlessly Move Subscribers Between Sequences

In #1 I showed you how to move subscribers into a sequence based on a choice they make. What about moving subscribers into a sequence automatically when a current sequence ends? Easy peasy!

How to Move Subscribers Between Sequences

Step 1: Create a new automation rule. Under trigger select “completes a sequence” and select the appropriate sequence you will be moving subscribers from. Under action select “subscribe to a sequence” and select the sequence you will be moving subscribers to.

…that’s it! Told you, easy peasy!

#7 Trigger a Coupon Code

This is similar to adding customers who click your sales page into a nurture sequence. Instead of sending them only to a nurture sequence, you could send them to the nurture sequence and to a sales page with a discount (it can be a limited-time discount, see my bonus trigger below).

How to Trigger a Coupon Code

Step 1: Create a new automation rule. Under trigger select “clicks a link” and enter the URL for your sales page with a discount. Under action select “add tag” and “subscribe to a sequence.” Create a tag that says “interested in xyz” and a sequence that has a series of emails that speaks to the value of your product.

Step 2: Use the link trigger every time you mention your product in an email. Anyone that is interested in the product will now be entered into the nurture sequence and have the opportunity to take advantage of the coupon code!

BONUS Trigger a Limited-Time Coupon Code

There are a lot of different ways you can set this up. How you do it will largely depend on the other tools and systems you have in place. I’ll show you how I set this up using ConvertKit, SendOwl, and LeadPages.

How to Set Up a Limited-Time Coupon Code in ConvertKit

Step 1: Create a thank you page that your customer gets redirected to after they sign up for your email list. I place a link to the opt-in offer on the thank you page and a limited-time upsell offer. I do this in LeadPages.

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

Step 2: Set up a coupon code. I do this in SendOwl because that is the checkout system I use for all my products.

Step 3: Set up an evergreen timer on your sales page. I set mine to 20-minutes and have the page redirect to a cloned thank you page without the limited-time offer. LeadPages will redirect customers to the cloned page without the offer after 20 minutes.

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

Step 4: In your first sequence email that triggers immediately after someone signs up for your email list, reiterate how to download the free opt-in by linking back to the thank you page. This part is super important! If your subscriber clicked off the thank you page, this will enable them to get back to the upsell offer within the allotted timeframe or it will simply redirect them once the timer runs out to the freebie link. I find that I get the most conversions from people clicking the link to claim their freebie from my email sequence.

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

ConvertKit Masterclass

In my new course, ConvertKit Masterclass, I am teaching you all of my advanced strategies for leveraging ConvertKit to grow and manage a thriving email list. If you’ve enjoyed this free series, I know you will love the masterclass!

Totally! I want to be an email-lovin’ ConvertKit guru!

Pin it!

7 Clever ConvertKit Automation Hacks! Learn more in my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Building an Email List with ConvertKit. Email marketing tips for online business and bloggers. Email marketing strategy entrepreneur / Email list growth / Make money from home / How to start a blog

 

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4 Comments

  1. I absolutely love this!! Such great actionable info that I’m adding to my todo list right now!