How do automatic emails work?

Some emails shouldn't wait for you to remember them. The welcome when a student enrols, the thank-you when a piece sells, the gentle reminder to someone who signed up but never confirmed — these matter most in the hours and days after something happens, which is exactly when you're busiest.

Bernard calls these journeys. A journey is a short, fixed series of emails tied to one real event. It starts when the event happens, sends a few emails on a schedule you chose, and stops — when the series ends, when the person unsubscribes, when a purchase is refunded (or, for enquiries, when you mark it resolved), or the moment you switch it off. Today your site knows six:

1. Remind people who didn't confirm their signup — one nudge to someone who signed up but hasn't pressed the confirmation button. A switch, nothing more.
2. Thank people after they buy — a thank-you, care advice for what they bought, and later a polite ask for a review.
3. Look after a new student automatically — a welcome with access details, getting-started help, and a check-in while they work through your course.
4. Welcome a new subscriber automatically — a proper hello, your best work, and an optional pointer to what you offer, for every subscriber who confirms.
5. Deliver a course by email automatically — lessons delivered by email on a schedule, from the moment someone enrols.
6. Follow up on enquiries automatically — a gentle check-in on an enquiry, honest about the fact bernard can't see your replies, until you mark it resolved.

Three principles hold for every journey, and they're worth knowing because they're the whole design:

You approve everything before it exists. Setting up a journey is a short conversation with Bernard — he reads your site and your course or shop first, asks only the few questions he can't answer himself, writes every email in your voice, and then shows you a plain summary: starts when… they receive… stops if… maximum emails. Nothing runs until you've read that and said yes.

Only people who said yes can receive anything. Your customers and students are in because they bought from you; sign-ups are in only after they confirm. There is no setting to get this wrong — Who actually receives my automatic emails? explains exactly who's in and who isn't.

It stays yours to change. Rewrite any email, pause the whole journey, or switch it off — see Change or pause my automatic emails. And when you have one-off news that shouldn't wait for an event — a sale, a new course — that's not a journey; that's "Write to your people now" on the same page.