Email Automation: Your guide to automated email marketing

Managing emails takes more time than most business owners can afford. Between reviewing inbox, welcoming new users, following up with existing ones, and maintaining regular communication, email marketing often becomes a full-time job in itself. Email automation can solve this challenge by handling routine communications while maintaining the personal touch your customers expect.

This guide will show you practical ways to implement email automation, with a real showcase on Latenode and straightforward approaches that work for businesses of any size. Whether you're new to automation or looking to improve your existing setup, you'll find actionable insights to make your email marketing more efficient.

Key Takeaways: Email automation transforms manual tasks into systematic processes while maintaining a personal touch. Success relies on balancing automation with genuine value for customers - focus on strategic timing, relevant content, and clear purpose for each automated sequence. Start small, measure results, and adjust based on performance metrics and customer feedback. 

What is email marketing automation?

Email marketing automation systems work like a well-trained assistant who knows exactly when to reach out to your customers, how to sort out your inbox, or how to filter this data into insights for analysis. When someone sends a message, subscribes to your newsletter or makes an order, the system sends relevant messages, maintaining timely communication without constant manual effort.

Here's an idea for a scenario: A customer browses your online shop and adds items to their basket but doesn't complete the purchase. Instead of manually tracking such cases, your email automation scenario notices and sends a gentle reminder at an appropriate time. The customer receives helpful information precisely when it matters.

Modern automation tools do more than just send scheduled emails. They observe how people interact with your messages, learn from these patterns, and adjust their timing accordingly. This means your communications become more relevant over time, without requiring constant adjustments.

They combine customer data with behavioural insights to create meaningful interactions. They can segment your audience, track engagement, and optimize delivery - all automatically. So, each automated email sequence becomes a thoughtful conversation with your customers. But why would you build these in the first place?

Why would you automate email campaigns?

First, it dramatically reduces the time spent on routine tasks - welcome messages, order confirmations, and follow-ups happen without your involvement. Second, email automation improves consistency - every customer receives timely, relevant communications regardless of your workload. Third, automation enables sophisticated personalization that would be impossible to manage manually.

For instance, on Latende, there are data enrichment nodes to find more relevant information about your clients across the web. You could use them with ChatGPT to compose an outreach email, and send it to your clients. This way, you track customer behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns, using this info to offer better content. We have a showcase about personalized outreach, check it here.

Why automate email campaigns? Key reasons:

Perhaps most importantly, automation helps maintain quality customer relationships as your business expands. When handled manually, scaling email marketing often leads to delays, errors, and inconsistent messaging. Automated emails maintain high standards regardless of your subscriber count, ensuring each customer receives the attention they deserve. 

Take the daily email digest from the following Latenode showcase as another example. This digest can be a good starting point for your journey of building scenarios for automated emails on Latenode. Just as it helps organize your incoming messages, automation can structure your outgoing communication, ensuring nothing important falls through the cracks. 

Setting up an automated email digest on Latenode

Consider this typical challenge: managing the daily flood of incoming updates. Latenode offers an elegant solution – an automated email digest system that transforms how you handle daily communication. You can take the template via this link.

Here's how the digest operates: 

• Collects all texts received within the past day;
• Filters out non-essentials;
• Delivers a clear, organized brief to your preferred messenger or chat. 

The technical implementation is straightforward:

1. First, set up a scheduled trigger using a cron expression (0 8 * * *), which runs the automation daily at 8:00 AM in your time zone. 

2. The "find email" Gmail integration node then retrieves messages from the previous 24 hours using the newer_than:24h filter.

3. A custom JavaScript node processes the emails, extracting key information like subjects, senders, and message content. To write the code, we asked our AI assistant. The code filters messages based on specific keywords, excluding unwanted content:

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The filtered data passes through a ChatGPT-4o Mini node that categorizes emails into structured sections. Here is the prompt:

The final step delivers this digest to your chosen platform - Slack, Telegram, or Discord. To connect the latter, you’ll first need to add an additional node for Javascript integration to format the message and an HTTP request integration node to connect to its API. This automation ensures you never miss important messages while significantly reducing time spent managing emails. 

This example demonstrates how Latenode’s email automation capabilities are far beyond traditional email marketing, offering tools for various challenges. Similar principles apply to customer-facing email automation, where timely, organized communication drives engagement and results. Try building on Latenode!

Smart ways to use automated emails in your business

Email automation starts when it’s aligned with your customer journey. Here are possible applications that businesses find particularly useful:

• Customer lifecycle emails;
• Welcome messages for new subscribers;
• Product usage guidance;
• Renewal reminders;
• Anniversaries.

Each sequence of your automated email marketing serves a clear purpose. For example, when someone launches a free trial, they receive carefully timed messages helping them discover key features and achieve early success. If usage drops, the system triggers a re-engagement sequence offering assistance and highlighting valuable features they haven't tried yet. 

This systematic approach ensures no important touchpoint is missed while maintaining a personal feel. The key lies in understanding your customers' needs and creating automated responses that address them effectively. For instance, if someone frequently views a particular product category, your system can share relevant information or special offers in that area.

Measuring the success of your automated email marketing

Begin by establishing clear baseline metrics before you automate email management. This allows you to measure the actual impact of your automated sequences compared to manual approaches. Tracking results needn't be complex. While there are many metrics available, focus on those that directly impact your business:

Regular analysis helps find which sequences perform best and where adjustments might help. You could segment it by customer type, campaign objective, and automation trigger to understand what works best for different scenarios.  Look beyond basic open rates. What matters is how your automated emails influence customer behavior and contribute to your business goals.

Finally, you can collect customer feedback about your automated emails and monitor support questions related to auto-messages. If your strategy is underperforming, you'll start getting negative replies pretty quickly or simply face ignoring. If not, customers will respond by writing happy messages, even if they realize that your outreach interactions are automated. 

Anyway, this full-swing approach to measurement will eventually help you meet both your tasks and customer needs, if you’re ready to adapt.

Email automation best practices and tips

Starting with automated email marketing might feel hard. However, successful businesses typically follow some proven practices that balance efficiency with personal touch. These foundational approaches help automate emails that feel genuine and attract clients effectively. Start with these prompt elements:

• Write naturally, as if speaking to one person;
• Keep messages clear and focused;
• Include specific next steps;
• Test thoroughly before launching.

Maintain a balance between automation and personalization. While the system handles delivery, your messages should still sound human and thoughtful. Regular reviews of your automated content help ensure it remains relevant and engaging. Remember that automation serves your customers, not the other way around. 

Each automated email should offer genuine value, whether it's helpful information, timely reminders, or relevant offers based on their interests.

Start your email marketing automation on Latenode

Starting out is easy with Latenode. The platform guides you through each step, from building your first scenario to developing more sophisticated workflows.

Consider launching an email automation scenario with one or two sequences:

• A welcome series for new subscribers
• Order confirmation and follow-up messages
• New outreach campaigns for inactives

As you become comfortable with the basics, you can explore more advanced features. Build upon what works for your case. Remember, effective email automation isn't about sending more messages; it's about lifting the burden of routine – for an idea, by sending the right messages at the right time. Focus on bringing value for your clients, and the results will follow naturally.

FAQs

How much time does email automation typically save? 

It eliminates most routine tasks like welcome messages, order confirmations, and follow-ups, potentially saving hours daily that would otherwise be spent on manual email management.

Will automated emails feel impersonal to my customers?

Not if done properly. Modern automation combines customer data with behavioural insights to create personalised, relevant interactions that can actually feel more timely and thoughtful than manual emails.

What's the first step in implementing email automation? 

Start with one or two basic sequences, such as a welcome series for new subscribers or order confirmation messages, and build from there as you become more comfortable with the system.

How do I know if my email automation is working? 

Focus on key metrics like conversion rates, engagement trends, list growth, and customer retention rather than just open rates. Customer feedback and response patterns will also indicate effectiveness.