How to Create and Edit Automations

Automations in Recrevio allow you to react to user behavior in real time and run powerful workflows in the background – without manual work.

Common use cases include:

Sending a welcome email when someone joins your list
Delivering an ebook or resource after a form submission
Onboarding new members into a course or community
Following up after a purchase or abandoned checkout
Tagging and segmenting contacts automatically
Running drip email or multi-channel nurture sequences
Triggering sales messages based on engagement
Updating contact data as users interact with your content

Automations can be simple or highly advanced. This article explains everything you need to know to create and edit an automation flow, from triggers to actions and conditions.

For performance tracking, goals, and revenue analytics, see:

👉 How to Analyze Automation Performance

Creating or Editing an Automation

To get started:

Go to Marketing →>Automations
Click + Create Automation to start a new one, or
Click an existing automation to edit it

You’ll enter the Automation Flow builder, where all logic is defined.

Automation Flow Basics

Every automation flow in Recrevio is built using a few core building blocks that work together to control when, how, and why contacts move through the flow.

At a high level, an automation consists of:

Triggers – define when a contact enters the automation
Conditions – control timing and logic ( Delay and If/Else paths)
Actions – define what happens inside the flow (e.g. send messages, update contacts, start other automations etc.)

In addition to these core blocks, you can also:

Set Goals – define clear exit points so contacts leave the automation once an objective is reached (for example after a purchase or onboarding completion)
Add Notes – leave internal comments and documentation directly in the flow to explain logic, decisions, or instructions for yourself or your team

Together, these elements allow you to build anything from simple one-step automations to advanced, multi-path workflows—while keeping the flow readable, structured, and easy to maintain.

Triggers (How Contacts Enter an Automation)

Triggers determine when and why a contact starts an automation. An automation can have one or multiple triggers.

List & Group Triggers

Added to a list – Starts when a contact is added to a marketing list
Removed from a list – Starts when a contact is removed from a list
Added to a member group – Starts when a contact joins a member group
Removed from a member group – Starts when a contact leaves a group

Tag & Property Triggers

Tag is added – Starts when a specific tag is applied
Tag is removed – Starts when a specific tag is removed
Property is changed – Starts when a contact property updates

Email Engagement Triggers

Opens an email – Starts when a contact opens an email
Clicks on a link in an email – Starts when a specific link is clicked

Commerce Triggers

Makes a purchase – Starts after a successful order
Order status changes – Starts when an order moves to a new status
Abandons their checkout/cart – Starts when checkout is abandoned

Behavior & Interaction Triggers

Goal Reached – Starts when another automation goal is completed
Reaction – Starts when a reaction is recorded
Poll Option – Starts when a poll option is selected

Video Triggers

Video Started – Starts when a video begins playing
Video Portion Watched – Starts when a defined portion is watched
Video Completed – Starts when a video is finished

Membership & Content Triggers

Enrolled in a circle – Starts when a user joins a circle
Completed content in a circle – Starts when content is completed

Conditions (Logic & Flow Control)

Conditions give you precise control over how your automation behaves, which path a contact follows, and when actions happen. Instead of running a linear flow, conditions allow your automation to adapt in real time based on contact data, engagement, and timing — making each journey more relevant and intentional.

Conditions are especially powerful when you want to personalize experiences, avoid unnecessary messages, or handle multiple scenarios within a single automation.

Delay (Timing Control)

Delays control when the automation continues.

You can pause the flow:

Delay with a specific amount of time
Delay the automation flow for a specific number of days, hours or minutes
Delay until exact time
Set a specific date and time when the automation flow will continue
Delay until a condition is met
This feature is coming soon...

Delays are commonly used to:

Create drip sequences
Space out messages naturally
Control onboarding or follow-up timing
Prevent overwhelming contacts with too many actions at once

By combining delays with conditions, you can build automations that feel thoughtful and human rather than automated.

If / ElseIf / Else (Conditional Logic)

If / ElseIf / Else allows you to split the automation into multiple paths based on conditions.

In Recrevio, conditions can be based on:

Contact properties (profile data, UTM values, custom fields)
Tags
Lists
Member groups
And more...

You can combine conditions using AND / OR logic, which means:

AND requires all conditions to be true
OR allows one of multiple conditions to be true

This logic can be nested, allowing you to group conditions together and build more advanced decision trees. This makes it possible to model real-life scenarios where different combinations of data lead to different outcomes – all within a single automation.

Why Conditions Are So Powerful

Conditions turn automations from simple sequences into dynamic systems that respond to each contact individually.

They are commonly used for:

Personalization
Send different messages depending on who the contact is, where they came from, or what they’ve done.
Advanced logic
Handle multiple scenarios in one automation instead of creating many separate flows.
Conditional follow-ups
Change the next step based on engagement, status, or timing — for example skipping sales messages if a purchase has already been made.

With conditions, your automation becomes smarter, more efficient, and far more effective — guiding each contact down the most relevant path automatically.

Actions (What the Automation Does)

Actions define what happens to the contact inside the automation.

Sending Actions

Send Email Notification – Send an email to a specified email address
Send Email – Sends an email to the contact
Send SMS – Sends an SMS message
Send WhatsApp – Sends a WhatsApp message
Send Voice – Sends a voice message

Used for:

Customer communication and follow-ups
Onboarding and welcome sequences
Promotions, launches, and announcements
Transactional and behavioral messaging
Multi-channel communication strategies

💡 Note

Email, SMS, and WhatsApp actions can support sales tracking if enabled.

👉 See the separate articles on How to Enable Sales Tracking in Campaigns and Automations and How to Analyze Campaign Performance for full details on how to measure and analyze automations.

Voice messages are engagement-only (no sales tracking).

Contact Management Actions

Add a tag – Applies a tag to the contact
Remove a tag – Removes a tag
Update contact property – Changes contact data
Add contact to a list – Adds to a marketing list
Remove contact from a list – Removes from a list
Add contact to a member group – Grants group access
Remove contact from a member group – Revokes access
Enroll in a circle – Adds to a circle
Unenroll from a circle – Removes from a circle

Used for:

Segmentation and audience management
Access control for content, communities, and memberships
Lifecycle management (lead → customer → member)
Personalization based on behavior or status
Keeping contact data clean and up to date

Automation & System Actions

Start another automation – Triggers a different automation
Trigger a webhook – Sends data to external systems

Used for:

Advanced workflows spanning multiple automations
Modular automation design (reusable building blocks)
Integrations with external tools and platforms
Scaling complex automation setups without duplication

Compliance & Cleanup Actions

Add a note – Adds an internal note to the contact
Unsubscribe – Stops marketing emails
Delete contact – Permanently removes the contact

Used for:

Internal documentation and team collaboration
GDPR and consent compliance
List hygiene and database cleanup
Preventing unwanted or duplicate communication

Editing an Existing Automation

You can edit both Draft and Active automations by clicking on the automation in the All Automations view.

What you can edit

When editing an automation, you have full flexibility to adjust how the flow works and what actions are performed.

This allows you to refine logic, improve messaging, optimize timing, and adapt the automation as your business, offers, or audience evolve.

Depending on your needs, you can make small adjustments or more advanced structural changes to the automation flow. For example, you can:

Change triggers
Add or remove steps
Add or remove triggers
Update conditions
Edit messages
Reorder the flow
And more…

How edits are applied

However, it’s important to understand how changes affect contacts inside an automation:

Changes apply only to future contacts entering the automation
Contacts already inside the automation are not updated retroactively
If a contact has already passed a step, that step will not be re-run
Edits only affect contacts that reach the updated step after the change was saved

This ensures predictable automation behavior and prevents unexpected re-triggers.

⚠️ Be careful when editing active automations

Avoid making major structural changes (adding, removing, or reordering steps) in active automations unless you fully understand the impact.

Changes will not apply to contacts who have already passed the edited step, which can lead to:

Inconsistent experiences
Missed messages or actions
Split logic behaving differently for old vs new contacts

Best practice:

If you need to make significant changes, consider:

Duplicating the automation
Making changes in the duplicate
Activating the new version for future contacts

Set a Goal (Exit the Automation Intelligently)

Setting a Goal in an automation allows you to define a clear success point where a contact should exit the automation as soon as the goal is reached. This is one of the most important tools for keeping automations relevant, respectful, and effective.

Instead of letting every contact go through every step no matter what, goals make your automation adaptive to real behavior.

How to set a goal

Open the automation you want to edit
Click Set a Goal in the top-right corner
Choose the goal type
Configure the goal condition
Save the automation

Once a goal is set, any contact who reaches the goal will immediately exit the automation, and the goal completion will be tracked in Analytics & Goals.

Why goals are important

Goals help you avoid over-communicating or sending irrelevant messages to contacts who have already taken the desired action. This is especially important in automations that run continuously over time.

Common problems goals help you prevent:

Sending sales emails to someone who already purchased
Continuing onboarding emails after a user has completed setup
Promoting a course to someone who already finished it
Running nurture sequences for contacts who have already converted

With a goal in place, the automation becomes outcome-driven, not just step-driven.

How goals work

A goal represents a success condition
When a contact meets the goal condition:
- The goal is marked as completed
- The contact immediately exits the automation
The goal completion is tracked in Analytics & Goals

This makes goals both a logic tool and a measurement tool.

Available goal types

You can set goals based on key actions and changes, such as:

Added to a list
Added to a member group
Tag is added
Property is changed
Opens an email
Clicks a link in an email
Makes a purchase
Video started
Video completed
(Visited page is coming soon)

These options allow you to define goals that match both engagement milestones and business outcomes.

Common use cases for goals

Goals are often used to:

Stop sales flows after purchase
Exit the automation as soon as a contact buys, so they don’t receive further sales messages.
End onboarding when setup is complete
Once a user enrolls to a circle, completes a video, completes a key step in a circle, or finishes onboarding content.
Prevent duplicate messaging
Ensure contacts don’t receive the same reminders or promotions multiple times.
Measure automation success
See how many contacts actually reached the intended outcome, not just how many entered the flow.

Best practice

Always ask: “What should make this automation stop?”
Use goals early in long or complex automations
Combine goals with analytics to continuously improve performance

By using goals, your automations stay smart, respectful, and conversion-focused—helping you deliver the right message to the right contact at the right time, and stop when the job is done.