When no preset covers what you want, build your own. The builder is short: pick what to watch, narrow it down, choose the email, decide when it goes.
Most of what agents want already exists as a preset with a written email. Build custom when you need a filter the presets do not offer, or a threshold of your own.
#Step 1, choose the event
What the trigger watches for. Each event type asks for the settings it needs, so what you fill in changes with your choice:
| Watching | It asks for |
|---|---|
| A contact being added | Days after added, how long to wait before emailing |
| A contact going quiet | Days without contact, how long counts as quiet |
| A favourited property changing price | Minimum $ reduction or minimum % reduction, so trivial changes are ignored |
| A listing changing stage or status | From status and To status, leave either blank for "any" |
| Days on market | Days milestone, the number to fire at |
| An anniversary | Days before anniversary |
| A settlement date | Days before settlement |
Without a minimum, a $500 adjustment on a $700,000 house emails your client as if something happened. A minimum of 2% or $5,000 keeps it meaningful.
#Step 2, narrow it with filters
Filters stop a trigger firing for everyone. Pick a field, an operator, and a value:
| Operator | Matches when the field |
|---|---|
| equals / not equals | Is, or is not, exactly your value |
| contains / not contains | Includes, or does not include, your text |
| in / not in | Is one of, or is none of, several values |
| is empty / is not empty | Has no value at all, or has any value |
Fields include contact attributes such as tags and billing city. A trigger with no filters fires for every matching contact, which is sometimes right and often too broad.
#Step 3, choose the email
Pick the template it sends. You can use a system template, a private copy you have edited, or write one. Use Preview to see it with sample data before going live, see Templates.
#Step 4, decide when it goes
| Timing | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Immediately | Sends as soon as the event is detected |
| At a scheduled time | Waits for a time of day you set, in Eastern time |
| After a delay | Waits a set period, so it does not read as automated |
An email landing three seconds after someone favourites a house is obviously a robot. Twenty minutes later reads like you noticed. For anything genuinely urgent, a price cut on a home they are deciding about, immediate is right.
#Before you switch it on
- Preview the email with sample data.
- Check the filters would not match your entire database.
- Set a threshold on anything price-related.
- Remember deduplication caps it at one email per contact per trigger type per 24 hours.
- Remember the daily cap, every trigger competes with your campaigns for two slots.