Automated emails based on dates can be used to send renewal notices, appointment reminders, birthday emails or other messages triggered by a date field stored in your contact database.
This feature is not available with the Standard billing plan.
How does it work?
Date based messages are triggered when a date stored in a custom field of contact records matches the current date. Date matching can be set to match a full date, including year, or only month and day.
Date format for matching dates with or without year
The date format in the custom field must be YYYY-MM-DD
If you want a full date match then the "Match full date" setting should be used. To ignore the year and match only month and day use "Match month and day only".
If you're only matching month and day, you still need to use a YYYY-MM-DD format. You can use a placeholder for the year. For example xxxx-06-28
Examples:
2023-06-28 using the "Match full date" setting will trigger the automation only on June 28th in 2023.
2023-06-28 using the "Match month and day only" setting will trigger the automation on June 28th each year.
xxxx-08-14 using the "Match month and day only" setting will trigger the automation on August 14th each year.
Email sent with the automation
The email sent with the date based automation is defined as part of an Automated Message. This need to be set up prior to enabling date based automations.
When are the emails sent?
Each automated email is sent at 2PM EST. This cannot be changed.
Step by step setup
Create a custom field that will store the dates used for the automation.
Set up an automated message sequence. This can include one or more emails. Follow steps 1 and step 2 from this page.
Create a date based automation using the custom field and automated email sequence you just created.
Add (import) data to the custom field
Here's a sample spreadsheet for importing renewal dates:
On the import screen, map the field to a custom field:
How to test the automation?
You can test the automation by adding a date (using a date that's one or two days ahead in the future) in the custom field used by the automation to your own contact record.
