Build automated campaigns

Build automated campaigns

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Last updated October 15, 2026 15:45

Build marketing and store automations like welcome emails and drip campaigns.

Automations run after someone takes an action on your site, like joining your mailing list or buying a product. Use automations to send emails, build drip campaigns, and organize contacts with tags and mailing lists.

You can build automations on all current Email Campaigns plans. If you're on a legacy plan without automations, change your billing plan to a current one.

To use customer activity automations, you need a Squarespace website. You can use subscriber activity and form response automations without a website.

You can't create or edit automations in the Squarespace app.

The three types of automations

Visitor behavior triggers your automations. You can build:

Subscriber automations - These send after someone submits a newsletter block or joins a mailing list. You can connect these to one or more mailing lists, or send them to all subscribers or potential customers.
Customer automations - These send after someone buys a product or signs up for a pricing plan, even if the product is free. They don’t send after subscription renewals, or invoice and in-person sales.
Form response automations - These send after someone submits a form block, if the email field is required. They don’t send for the add to cart or checkout forms.

Build an automation

Step 1 - Choose a preset

To build an automation, go to the automations dashboard, click Create automation and click Customize below a preset. Choose from these options:

Welcome new subscribers - Sends after someone subscribes to a mailing list.
Welcome and follow-up with engaged subscribers - Sends after a subscriber opens your welcome email.
Thank first-time customers - Sends after a customer's first purchase.
Reply to form submission - Sends after someone fills out a form with a required email field.
Tag Contacts who fill out a form - Adds tags to contacts who completed a form with a required email field.
New subscriber discount (website needed)- Sends after someone subscribes if they haven't bought anything yet.
New subscribers who haven’t purchased (website needed) - Sends if a subscriber hasn’t bought anything after a set amount of time.
Post-purchase recommendation - Sends after a customer buys a specific product.
Frequent buyer discount - Sends after a customer places multiple orders.
Lapsed buyer discount - Sends after a customer hasn't bought anything for a set amount of time.
High-spender discount - Sends after a customer spends over a set amount.
Post-purchase follow-up - Sends after a customer buys any product.

Step 2 - Add or edit a time delay, condition, or action

An automation is a sequence of triggers, time delays, conditions, and actions. For example, the welcome and follow-up with engaged subscriber preset sends a welcome email to new subscribers, waits ten days, checks who opened the email, then sends another email to anyone who did.

The presets are starting points. You can use them as-is, or change the rules. In the automation editor, click an action, time delay, or condition to edit it. Hover over the gray lines connecting them and click + to add new rules.

Trigger - The visitor behavior that starts the automation. You can change the trigger settings, but to choose a different trigger type (for example, to switch from a subscriber activity automation to a customer activity automation), choose a different preset.
Time delay - The amount of time that passes between the trigger and the next step, up to 730 days. Choose No delay to start the next step right away, Wait for to delay the next step for a set number of hours or days, or Wait until to schedule the next step for a set date and time. If you don't set a time, the automation restarts at the hour it was first triggered.
Condition - The behavior an automation checks for before it takes an action. For example, it can check if someone opened the last email in the series. Always add a time delay before a condition to give subscribers time. Without one, nobody meets the criteria.
Action - The action the automation takes. It can send an email, add or remove contact tags, or add and remove contacts from mailing lists. Emails in an automation count toward your monthly send limit.

Step 3 - Edit emails the automation sends

To add a new email to the series, click Action, then click Promotional or Transactional and choose an email template. To edit an existing email in the series, click the email, then click Edit email. Change the email content, subject line, and preview text. Style the email, and send a test to yourself to preview it.

Step 4 - Turn on the automation

When you’re ready, click Go live. Automations that are on have a Live status in the dashboard.

Automations pause while you edit them

Your draft saves as you go and stays paused while you edit, so subscribers never receive an unfinished email.

Copy an existing automation

To reuse an automation:

Open the automations dashboard.
Click the Copy icon on an automation to create one with the same format.
Enter a name for the new automation.

Add or remove contacts from mailing lists

Use automations to keep your mailing lists healthy.

When building an automation, add a time delay and condition. For example, wait three months, then check if a subscriber opened your last email.
Add an action, then click Manage mailing lists.
Choose Add to or Remove from mailing list, then choose a mailing list.

Add or remove contact tags

Tags help you organize contacts in the Contacts panel, target future campaigns, and track how people interact with your emails. To add or remove a tag with an automation:

When you add an action, click Add or remove tags.
To add a tag, choose Add to tag from the dropdown menu, then choose an existing tag or create one.
To remove a tag, choose Remove from tag, then choose an existing tag. You can only remove tags that already exist.
Click Done.
To tag someone without sending them an email, delete the email action from the end of the flow.

Three ways to use tagging automations

These examples combine triggers, conditions, and tags. After you tag contacts, you can filter and message them from the Contacts panel.

Tag customers who open your thank you email as engaged

To set this up:

Choose the Thank first-time customers preset.
Add a condition that checks if the subscriber opened the email.
If they did, add an action that adds an Engaged tag to their contact.
Build an email that encourages them to return to your site.

Tag form submitters as leads

To set this up:

Choose the Tag Contacts who fill out a form preset.
Add an action that adds a Lead tag to the submitter's contact.
Build an email that encourages leads to return to your site.

Remove the lead tag after a first purchase

To set this up:

Choose the Thank first-time customers automation.
Add an action that removes the Lead tag from the customer's contact.

Ensure you have enough sends for the emails in your automations

Promotional emails in your automations count toward your monthly sends. Ensure you have enough for all promotional emails in your drip campaign. If you reach your monthly send limit, the automations pause, and you'll need to turn them back on in the next usage period or after you upgrade your plan. People who would have received emails while automations are paused won't get them, even after the automation is live again.

Build a drip campaign

A drip campaign is a series of emails that sends over time based on what a subscriber does. For example, if someone joins a mailing list on your fitness site, send three emails over three weeks with tips to help them start exercising. A drip campaign can send up to 15 emails, including the first one.

To build a drip campaign:

Choose an automation preset.
Set a time delay between the trigger and the first email.
Add an action email. This is the first email in the series.
Hover over the line below the first action email and click +, then choose Time delay, Condition, or Action.
Repeat until the series is complete, then click Go live.

Send transactional emails

You can send transactional automations on the core plan or higher.

Send transactional emails to customers to share important information about their purchase or ask for feedback. For example:

Send an event reminder when a class is approaching.
Send a project kickoff to remind customers about your timeline and scope of work.
Send a session recap after a workshop.

Build a transactional email automation

To build a transactional email automation:

If you have a third-party domain, verify it. Squarespace domains are already verified.
Open the automations dashboard and click Create automation.
Choose a preset.
Customize the trigger and time delay.
Add an action email, choose Transactional, then choose a template.
Edit the email. Because these emails aren’t for marketing, you can’t add product, discount, or blog blocks.
When you’re ready, click Go live. The automation sends to new customers.

Who can I send transactional emails to?

Because transactional emails are for sharing important information about a purchase, you can send them to all contacts, even if they don’t accept marketing from your site. These emails don’t include an unsubscribe link.

Edit an automation

Changing an automation affects new subscribers or customers, not people already in the sequence. People who trigger an automation before you edit it receive the original version. This includes changes you make to the automation’s timing, email content, and other actions and conditions. To edit an automation:

Open the automations dashboard.
Click an automation to open it.
Make changes, then click Go live.

Rename an automation

To rename an automation:

Open the automations dashboard, then click ••• on an automation.
Click Rename.
Enter the new name, then click Save.

Delete an automation

To delete an automation:

Open the automations dashboard, then click ••• on an automation.
Click Delete, then click Delete again to confirm.

Pause an automation

Pausing stops an automation from sending without deleting it. Anyone who would have triggered an automation while it was paused won’t receive it. To pause an automation:

Open the automations dashboard, then click ••• beside an automation.
Click Pause.
To restart it, click •••, then click Start.

Track opens, clicks, and unsubscribes

Click any live automation to see how many people received it, opened it, and clicked a link, and to track unsubscribes. On some website plans, traffic sources analytics also shows the revenue your campaigns earn.

What happens when people unsubscribe

People can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of your emails.

If someone unsubscribes before a subscriber activity automation sends, they won't get the automation.
If someone unsubscribes from a customer activity automation, the unsubscribe from all customer activity automations you’ve created.
Unsubscribing from a customer activity automation doesn't unsubscribe them from any mailing lists they're on.
If someone unsubscribes partway through a sequence, they won’t get future emails in the sequence.

Abandoned cart and customer review automations

Your site might also send these automations, which don’t count toward your monthly sends. You can’t change the automation settings for these emails, but you can edit and style the email itself in the customer notifications panel:

Recover abandoned carts - Sends after a customer leaves checkout with items in their cart.
Request customer reviews - A customer activity automation that sends 14 days after someone buys any store product.

Customer activity automations don’t add contacts to your mailing lists

Sending a customer activity automation doesn't sign the customer up for your mailing list. Encourage them to subscribe by adding a newsletter subscribe option to checkout.

Review the other emails your site sends to customers

Separate from automations, your site sends emails to customers with important information about their orders. To see all the emails your site sends, go to the customer notifications panel.

Why aren't my automations sending?

If your automations aren't sending as you expected, review these common reasons why.

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Build automated campaigns