Setting up an automated email campaign in RiTA

Note: You need administrator or advanced list automation access to complete the steps in this article. 

Send a series of emails to groups of contacts that are tagged by their profiles such as 'Investor', 'Buyer' or 'Prospective Vendor'. This lets you create an email series that is of high value and relevant to a particular group. For example, you can create a monthly market update email campaign targeting investors to keep them updated about rental yields within a certain suburb. 

It is recommended that you complete the RiTA Automations for Administrators training course to get a better understanding of how automations work in RiTA.

To set up a new automated email campaign:

1.  Go to Automations and select +New Automation.
   Image 1: Setting up new email automation flows.
2. Select List Automation. 
   
   Image 2: Choosing the automation type.
3. Enter a name for your email campaign and switch the toggle to On to activate the campaign immediately. If you do not want to activate the campaign now, leave the switch at Off. If you only intend to run this campaign once, it is important to switch this automation off after your email has been sent. 
   
   Image 3: Activating the automation.
4. In the Contact Filters section, you will see mandatory filters that must be in place for all automated emails. These include filters that specify contacts you are engaging with have a valid email address and have provided consent to receive emails from you. You cannot change these filters. If you have created a relevant segment previously, click on Load Segment to target your email to only a specific segment. Otherwise, click on Add a filter to set the relevant filters for your email campaign.
   
   
   Image 4: Setting contact filters.
5. In the Communication Channel section, set how often you want this email to be sent to your contacts and select Single Email.
   
   Image 5: Setting the conversation frequency and communication type.
6. In the Email Settings panel, you can configure:
   • Sender Details: The name and email address that will be displayed to your contacts. Enter a fallback email so that contacts have an email address to reply to in case the sender's email address has not been set up in your account. You may use a generic office email for this purpose. Please contact customer care if you need more assistance with email settings.
   • Sign off: The email signature that will be included in this email
   • CC or BCC: Include the email addresses of your assistants or team members if required.
   • Conversation sequence: Select one or multiple templates that you want RiTA to use in this email sequence.
7. Next, set the email schedule and review responsbility. You have two options for controlling when your email is sent:
   • Automatic: Send at a time: This options sends the email at the specific time you set, even without anyone reviewing it. You can still edit the filters or cancel the email send at any time before the scheduled send time.
   • Manual: Require Approval: This lets you assign a team member to review the email before it is dispatched. The email list is generated, but the email will not send until the assigned reviewer manually clicks the Send Now option. Emails are usually sent within 10 minutes of this manual action.
8. Choose the specific day or days you want the emails to be sent to your contacts.
9. Use RiTA’s Scheduled Holidays feature to pause email sends during specific periods, such as school holidays or staff leave. National public holidays are included by default, but you must add any State or Territory holidays that apply to your area.
10. RiTA will recommend a Daily List Size based on the number of contacts in your Automation and the frequency of communication you have set. You can enter the suggested daily limit or set your own. 
11. In the Create Follow Ups section, go to the Email panel and assign follow up tasks to your team. This setting is optional and you can tick more than one option. 
    
    Note: Email opens and clicks are tracked on a best-effort basis. Accuracy can be affected by email client security features like image blocking or link scanning.
     
    • Contacts who opened an email [ x ] or more times: Creates a follow up when the email is opened the nominated number of times.
    • Contacts who clicked more than [ x ] email links: Creates a follow up when the email is opened or clicked the nominated number of times
    • Contacts with no engagement within [ x ] hours: RiTA will create a follow up automatically if there is no open or click activity. We recommend to leave this off, unless you want to know which clients don’t engage with the email at all. By default, RiTA will stop monitoring activity after 72 hours.
12. Next, set how you want to manage contacts who unsubscribe from your emails and other email send failures. This setting is optional and you can tick more than one option:
    • Unsubscribe: Creates a follow up if your contact unsubscribes from your email.
    • Send Failure: Incorrect Contact Details: Creates a follow up if the recipient's email is incorrect.
    • Send Failure: Merge Field and Configuration Errors: Creates a follow up if there is an error in the configuration of your template or Automation. We recommend switching this on to identify problems in your templates and automation settings. These errors could be due to incorrect settings on your templates or missing data. We recommend that these follow ups are assigned to the RiTA Account Administrator in your office.
    • Fallback assignee: RiTA will assign the follow up to this person if she is unable to assign follow ups to the selected user in the automation settings.
13. Use the CRM settings to choose a user to attribute this automation activity to in your CRM. Set this only if you are using Rex CRM.