Setting up an automated email takes less time than most people expect. The planning is the important part: deciding what should trigger the message, what it says, and how it fits with everything else you send. This guide uses a welcome series for a Brisbane homewares store as a running example, but the same steps apply to any automation.
Step 1: Pick one automation to start with
Don’t try to automate everything at once. For most businesses the best first automation is a welcome series, because new subscribers are at their most interested. Others worth considering early are birthday emails and renewal reminders.
Step 2: Check you have consent
If the automation contains any promotion, the Spam Act 2003 treats it as a commercial message. Contacts entering the automation need to have consented, and every email needs to identify your business and include a working unsubscribe. A purely transactional message, such as an order confirmation with no promotional content, is not a commercial message, but adding a “you might also like” block changes that. When in doubt, include the unsubscribe.
Step 3: Map the sequence
Sketch it on paper first. For the Brisbane store:
- Day 0: Welcome and thank-you, with the promised discount code.
- Day 3: The story behind the store and its best sellers.
- Day 7: A reminder that the discount expires soon, sent only to contacts who haven’t used it.
Step 4: Build the emails
Create each email in the Mailpro editor from a template or from scratch. Use dynamic fields to include the subscriber’s name or store location. Keep each email focused on one idea.
Step 5: Set the trigger
In Mailpro, create a new automation and choose the trigger. For a welcome series, the trigger is a new subscription to a list, usually from a subscription form. For a birthday email, it is a date field. See the FAQ on creating an automatic email when a contact subscribes.
Step 6: Add delays and conditions
Add a wait between each email. Use conditions to skip steps when they no longer apply, such as removing people who already used the discount. Consider local time: if your list covers Western Australia as well as the east coast, a fixed-hour delay may land the email in the early morning in Perth.
Step 7: Test the whole flow
Subscribe with your own email address and a colleague’s. Check that every email arrives, the links work, the discount code is valid and the unsubscribe stops the sequence immediately.
Step 8: Switch it on and monitor
Activate the automation and check the statistics after the first week, then monthly. Look for a step with unusually low clicks or high unsubscribes, and rewrite it. Our page on automated email statistics explains what to track.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Forgetting the automation exists. A welcome email that mentions a sale that ended last year, or a store that has closed, undermines trust. Diarise a review every quarter.
- Clashing with campaigns. A new subscriber can receive a welcome email, an EOFY campaign and a birthday offer on the same day. Use tags to pause campaigns for contacts in their first week.
- Ignoring local time. Date-based automations fire at the same moment for everyone unless you split them. Contacts in Western Australia are two or three hours behind the east coast, depending on daylight saving.
- Mixing transactional and promotional content. Adding a promotion to an order confirmation turns it into a commercial message under the Spam Act, with all the consent and unsubscribe obligations that follow.
- Collecting dates you don’t need. A birthday automation only needs day and month. Asking for a full date of birth collects more personal information than the purpose requires.
Adding SMS to an automation
Mailpro automations can send SMS as well as email, which suits reminders. A clinic might send a confirmation email when a booking is made and an SMS the day before the appointment. Keep the SMS short, identify the business, and if the text contains any promotion, include an opt-out. From 1 July 2026, an unregistered alphanumeric sender name is shown as “Unverified” on Australian phones, so register your sender ID first. Our FAQ on SMS regulations in Australia explains the register.
Ideas for your next automations
- A pre-EOFY sequence for business customers in early June.
- A “your warranty is expiring” reminder.
- A service reminder before summer for air-conditioning or pool businesses.
- An SMS appointment reminder the day before, with an opt-out included as the Spam Act requires. See SMS marketing in Australia.
Where the data sits
Automations rely on personal data such as birthdays and purchase history. Mailpro stores it in Switzerland on private infrastructure, outside US jurisdiction, and never sells or rents it, which supports your obligations under the Privacy Act 1988. Return to the automated emails overview for more automation types.