Can I rebuild my ActiveCampaign automation in bernard?
ActiveCampaign automations do not come across when you move. You cannot export their steps, and bernard does not have a canvas to rebuild them on. What it has are eight ready-made automatic emails, each started by one event, for each course a set of emails that follow each student’s progress, and for each tag a set of emails started when someone is given that tag. For most small businesses, the automations that matter are a welcome, a thank-you, and course delivery, and those map across well.
The prompt
“In ActiveCampaign I have an automation that [what starts it] and then [what it sends, and when]. Find the nearest thing bernard has for [my site], and tell me plainly what will not come across.”
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So the job is not “import my automation”. It is “tell Bernard what the automation does, and let Bernard find its nearest match”.
How to ask
Describe the automation the way you would to a friend: what starts it, what it sends, how long it waits between emails, and when it stops. For example:
When somebody confirms their sign-up, send a welcome at once, my best blog post two days later, and a note about my course three days after that.
Bernard first reads which automatic emails your site already has, then answers with one of three things.
The three answers
1. Rebuild it as an automatic email. When one of bernard’s automatic emails starts on the same event, Bernard drafts it in your words. The example above becomes the welcome sequence. Bernard shows you the plain-English summary: what starts it, each email and its timing, what stops it, and the most emails anyone can get. It is saved as a draft and sends nothing. Switching it on is a second step that waits for your yes.
2. Replace it with a campaign you send yourself. Some automations are really
a one-off with a timer attached, such as “email everybody tagged wholesale
before the spring fair”. You can send a campaign to that tag when the time
comes. Send an email campaign to my audience
covers it.
3. Drop it. When bernard has nothing like it, Bernard says so in one sentence, so you know what you are giving up. That includes anything that:
- starts on a page visit, an open or a click, a field changing, a deal, or a date or anniversary for someone who is not a student on a course;
- branches into separate paths, or checks anything other than a tag, a contact field or a student’s progress in a course;
- starts another automation;
- sends a text message or calls another tool;
- lets the same person go through more than once.
What each automatic email starts on
| What starts it | The automatic email |
|---|---|
| Someone signs up on a form but does not confirm | Remind people who didn’t confirm their signup |
| Someone confirms their sign-up | Welcome a new subscriber automatically |
| Someone buys from your shop | Thank people after they buy |
| Someone enrols on a course | Look after a new student automatically or Deliver a course by email automatically |
| Someone sends an enquiry | Follow up on enquiries automatically |
| Someone joins your waiting list | Announce to everyone on my waiting list |
| Someone finishes a course | Ask people for a review after they finish a course |
| A student finishes a lesson or a module, passes a quiz, finishes the course or gets a certificate | Email my students when they reach each point in my course |
| Someone is given a tag, or subscribes to a list (lists are tags here) | Start automatic emails when I give someone a tag |
A student you enrol by hand counts as enrolling, so a course sold somewhere else can still start your course emails once you add the student.
An automation that follows students through a course usually becomes a set of course emails. Its “wait until they finish Module 3” becomes an email that starts when a student finishes Module 3; its “if they have handed in the assignment, skip this” becomes a skip rule on a tag (Stop a course email going to a student it no longer fits); and its “stop when they finish” becomes the goal.
A step that added or removed a tag, changed a field or told your team becomes a step that does the same thing instead of emailing: Get told when a student reaches a point in my course.
Before you switch it on
An automatic email reaches people from the moment it is on, never anyone who arrived before. So the safe order is:
- Draft it in bernard and read the summary.
- In ActiveCampaign, stop new people entering the old automation.
- Let the people already partway through finish there.
- Switch the bernard one on.
That way nobody gets the same welcome twice. Change or pause my automatic emails explains how to change timing or words later, and how to pause one.
For every other ActiveCampaign feature, What does bernard have for each thing I use in ActiveCampaign? puts bernard’s answer beside it.
Questions people ask
- Can bernard import my automations?
- No. ActiveCampaign does not let you export an automation’s steps, and bernard has no workflow builder to put one in. You describe it in your own words, and Bernard matches it to what bernard has.
- What are the possible answers?
- Three. Rebuild it as one of bernard’s automatic emails, when one starts on the same event: one of the eight ready-made ones, a set of course emails that follow each student’s progress, or a set of emails started by a tag. Replace it with a campaign you send yourself when the time comes, when it was really a one-off. Or drop it, with a plain sentence saying why, when bernard has nothing like it.
- Does anything send while Bernard does this?
- No. Bernard saves the automatic email as a draft and shows you, in plain words, what starts it, what each email says and when it goes, and what stops it. Nothing is switched on until you read that and approve it.
- What about my branches and conditions?
- Free branches do not come across. In course emails, an email can wait until a student reaches a moment (a lesson, a module, a quiz), be skipped when a condition is true (a tag, something finished), and stop when a goal is reached. A step can also add or remove a tag, fill in a contact field, or tell you, instead of emailing. Where your automation branched, Bernard tells you which path it kept, which became a skip rule, and which it could not keep.
- Will the people already in my ActiveCampaign automation carry on in bernard?
- Not on their own. An automatic email only reaches people from the moment you switch it on. Let the people already partway through finish in ActiveCampaign, or take them out of it there and ask Bernard to add them by hand here, so nobody gets both. Adding by hand waits for your approval.