What does an automation rule actually do?

The two halves

The rule editor has two columns, Trigger and Action.

The trigger is the event that says when the rule should run. The actions are what systeme.io then does. You add each one with a plus icon and finish with Save Rule.

What can set one off

• Funnel step form subscribed, narrowed to a particular page.
• New sale, for people who bought something.
• Tag added, for contacts given a specific tag.
• Email link clicked, narrowed to one email and then to one link inside it.
• Course completed, Module completed and Lecture completed, each of which can be pointed at a whole course or at one part of it.

What it can do back

Send an email, which you write inside the rule itself. Add a tag, which systeme.io suggests for segmenting those contacts. Subscribe the contact to a campaign.

An emailed attachment is capped at 5 MB. Anything larger has to be compressed first.

Three places to build one

• Automations, then Rules, then Create.
• Inside the funnel editor: pick a page, open its Automation rules tab, then Add rule.
• Inside a website page's Form element, under the Actions tab, which adds rules without leaving the editor.

The rule that catches people out

systeme.io says it plainly for the Tag added trigger: the tag has to be added to the contact after the rule is set up. Tagging somebody first and building the rule afterwards does nothing at all.

The cap on a single contact

A trigger can be activated a maximum of 20 times by the same contact. After the twentieth, that trigger is deactivated, and automation rules and workflows are switched off for that person.

The Email link clicked trigger also carries a one minute cooldown after the first recorded click. That stops a double click, or an email provider's automatic link check, from firing the same rule over and over.

How far back you can look

Automation rule task history is kept for one month, then removed as part of data cleanup. A task missing from a contact's profile is most likely older than 30 days rather than broken.

Turning one off

The three dots beside a rule offer Edit automation rule, Disable rule and Delete rule. A saved rule is live straight away, so disable is the switch, not delete.