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What actions can you perform in automations and what do they mean?
What actions can you perform in automations and what do they mean?

This article explains what each of the actions in automation means.

M
Written by Martyna Woźniszczuk
Updated over a week ago

Actions are a series of processes through which contact goes through after entering your automation. When a contact encounters an action in its automation path, the specified move is performed. To find out what the actions are all about and what role they play in automation, go back to the article Contacts, Triggers and Actions: key elements of each automation.

In this article, we'll explain what each type of automation mean and share some examples of how to use it.


Table of contents:


Please note that the actions available in the automation editor depend on the level of your subscription plan.

Sending options

As we wrote in the article Contacts, Triggers and Actions: key elements of each automation, this category of actions applies only to messaging.

  • Send an email

This action will send an e-mail to the contact who will go through this automation step, i.e., who will fulfill the condition in it. You can build the e-mail yourself or you can use ready-made templates. Remember that in order to receive a message, the contact details must include an e-mail address.

  • Send a site message (available in Professional and Enterprise plan)

This action allows you to display messages to the selected contact when they visit any or a predefined page on your website. You can use this option to view information about a new offer or an available discount code for purchases to get your contact to place an order. You must have website tracking installed to use this feature.

  • Send an SMS

When a contact encounters this action in your automation, a text message will be sent to them.

  • Send a notification email

This action works best for communication within your company (e.g. with members of your sales team). It sends an e-mail notification that the contact has reached a certain stage in automation.

  • Send an 1:1 email (available in Professional and Enterprise plan)

Sending 1: 1 e-mail to any e-mail address allows you to send automatic message to contacts that have not yet opted in.


Conditions and Workflow

You can use the actions in this category to add logic to your automations and/or manage other automations.

  • Wait

The Wait action suspends the automation of contact at this stage. You can specify how long it must wait before it moves to the next action on the automation track.

There are two types of wait actions that you can create:

  • Timed wait – contacts will wait in this action for a period of time you specify, then proceed to the next action in the automation.

  • Conditional wait – contacts will wait in this action until certain conditions are met, for example, until they perform a certain behaviour or until you collect certain information about them.

Wait conditions are created with the segment builder. In addition, you have the option to set a time limit for how long a contact will wait in this action if they don't meet the conditions to proceed.

  • If/Else

This action creates a fork in your automation. There are two paths in this fork: path Yes and path No.

The Yes path is for contacts that meet the conditions you specify, and the No path is for contacts that do not.

  • Split (available in Professional and Enterprise plan)

This action allows you to create A/B test automation.

There are two types of split actions:

  • Even split – a traditional A/B split test determines a winning path.;

  • Conditional split – this split will send all contacts down one path until specific conditions are met and then a different path after. This is not a traditional split test and no winning path is determined. Conditions for this split are created with the segment builder.

  • Go to

The Go to action allows you to move contacts to another step of the automation. You can use it to bring contacts back to a branch or create loops.

  • Goal

The Goal action allows contacts to jump from their current location in your automation to that goal step if they meet the conditions to do so.

For example, if a contact meets a condition you specify in step 2 of 5, steps 3 and 4 will not apply to it (step 5 is your Goal). The conditions for this action are created with the segment builder. You can use this action to start other automations, send targeted messages to contacts, customise contact and transaction results, and even add a contact to a specific step in your automation upon entry..

  • Start an automation

The Start an automation action will start an automation you specify when the contact reaches that step.

  • End this automation

This action is an indication that the automation ends at this point.

Even without the End this automation action, your automation would still end when your contact reaches the last step of the automation. This action is more of a note that there are no more steps for the contact to take in your automation.

  • End another automation

This action stops the contact from running through all automations or an automation you specify. Thanks to this, you can be sure that they will not be involved in an excessive number of automation.

  • Webhook

The Webhook action sends a webhook to another application, allowing you to automate actions with apps outside of QuarticOn.

  • Perform math

This action lets you execute calculations on existing custom contact fields or custom deal fields. With this action, you will be able to adjust the numerical value of an existing field using either the add, subtract, multiply, or divide math function


Contacts

This category of actions gives you a variety of actions related to managing contacts.

  • Subscribe

This action adds a contact to a list. This will give the contact an Active status.

  • Unsubscribe

This action removes the contact from a list. For instance, when a new customer makes an order, you could remove them from your prospect list and, using the Subscribe action, add them to your customer list.

  • Convert (available in Professional and Enterprise plan)

This action enables a contact to trigger a conversion while in an automation. In this action, you can select an existing conversion to trigger or create a new conversion.

  • Update a contact

The Update contact action allows you to add data to the contact record. You could use this action to add data to a custom field. For instance, you could update a Status field with Promoter if they share a campaign on social media.

  • Add a tag

This action will apply a tag to a contact when they reach this step.

  • Remove a tag

This action will remove a tag from a contact when they reach this step.

  • Add a note

This action attaches a note to a contact record.

This is useful for adding information through the marketing process. For example, if a lead is passed to the Sales team, a Sales representative can read notes about the contact. This helps them better understand the contact when engaging with them so they can close the sale.

  • Add to Facebook Custom Audience

This action is available with the Facebook Custom Audience integration.

It will add contacts to a Facebook Custom Audience you specify. In addition, this action will let you create a new custom audience. If you're creating a new Facebook Custom Audience, it will be of the Customer List subtype.

  • Remove from Facebook Custom Audience

This action is available with the Facebook Custom Audience integration.

It will remove contacts from the Facebook Custom Audience you specify.

  • Adjust a contact score

The Adjust score action moves a contact score up or down when they reach this action in your automation. If the proceeding actions indicated sales-ready behaviour, you could add points to their score. You could give out negative points if the contact unsubscribes or fails to engage (open or click) your campaigns.

Note that you can also set the contact score to a specific value or reset the score to 0 with this action.


CRM

This category of action gives you a variety of actions related to managing deals.

  • Add a deal

This action creates a deal record for an opportunity. This action lets you automatically create deals for contacts as they reach sales readiness. You may want to use this action with a Score changes trigger so that when a contact score reaches a threshold score, a deal record is automatically created and placed in your pipeline.

  • Update a title

This action will edit a deal’s title.

  • Update a status

This action can be used to change a deal’s status to Open, Won or Lost. You could use this action to mark a deal as Won when the associated contact makes a purchase.

  • Update a deal owner

This action will change who a deal is assigned to. You could use this action to change ownership as the deal reaches a point where there is a hand-off. For instance, as deals are qualified and near closing, the deal could be handed off to a more experienced sales rep.

  • Update a value

This action changes a deals estimated value.

  • Update a stage

The Update stage action moves a deal to another stage of your pipeline. This action is a crucial part of automating your sales process so you may use it often. When a contact performs a certain behavior, such as replies to an email or visits a link you sent them to, you could move them further down the pipeline.

  • Update a custom field

To Działanie aktualizuje wartość niestandardowego pola transakcji. Możesz użyć tej akcji, aby automatycznie wprowadzić nową wartość, skopiować dane z istniejącego pola kontaktu lub wyczyścić wartość w polu oferty niestandardowej.

  • Update an account field

This action allows you to add or modify an account level field value. You could use this action to add data to a custom field.

  • Update an account owner

When contacts move through this action in your automation, the account owner for the account the contact is associated with will be updated. You can use this action to switch account ownership from an Account Executive to a Relationship Manager or change ownership if a contact changes locations.

  • Send a 1:1 email

Sending 1: 1 email to any email address allows you to send automatic email to contacts that have not yet opted in.

  • Add a task

This action creates new to-do items. This action is very useful for staying organised and making sure no lead falls through the cracks. You can automatically add tasks as the pipeline stage changes so that all associated work has task reminders created.

  • Add a note

This action adds a note to the deal record.

  • Complete a task

This action closes a task by marking it as completed. You can use this action to automate your workday and stay organised by having tasks closed as you or the contact perform certain behaviours.

  • Adjust a deal score

The Adjust a deal score action moves a deal score up or down. Note that you can also set the contact score to a specific value or reset the score to 0 with this action.

  • Add Contact to Account

The Add Contact to Account action lets you create and add contacts to a new or existing account.

With this action, you can automatically assign new contacts to existing accounts, create new accounts from data collected from a contact record, or clean up and maintain appropriate data hygiene related to accounts and contacts.


Salesforce

This category of action gives you a variety of actions related to creating contacts and leads in Salesforce.

  • Create a contact in Salesforce

When a contact reaches this step in your automation, they will be added to your Salesforce account as a contact.

  • Create a lead in Salesforce

When a contact reaches this step in your automation, they will be added to your Salesforce account as a lead.


Now that you know the individual actions of your automation, go to the article on trigger types: What triggers can you set in automations and what do they mean?.

If you have already read this one, then feel free to proceed to the step-by-step instructions on how to navigate through the automation wizard and how to combine triggers with actions: How to use the automation editor? Introduction.

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