Sequences
Last updated: 13th January, 2023
Sequences are an extremely powerful way to send a series of messages with a shared goal to your contacts.
You can create sequences, add messages, and link sequences to Smart Groups to automatically subscribe and unsubscribe contacts.
Why Sequences are helpful
A Sequence is a series of messages sent to contacts – that all drive the contact to perform a common goal.
A few examples of good Sequences:
- Send a series of messages to convert a new user into an activated user during their 14 day trial – driving them to set up a specific feature.
- Sending an educational series of emails to a contact who has just downloaded your free ebook sample – to drive them to purchase the full ebook.
- Send a series of messages to encourage an existing churn-risk customer to return to your app and try a new feature – to reduce their likelihood of churning.
Sequences vs Messages
Sequences are almost identical to Automated Messages – you choose when and who you want to engage with, you create your message, hit publish, and your contacts will automatically receive a message when they meet the criteria you defined.
The big difference – as the name suggests – is that Sequences are a series of messages, while Automated Messages are just one-offs. Use Messages for simple “when this happens, send this message” style engagements. When you want to persuade contacts to achieve a grander goal, perhaps over the course of a few days or a few weeks, Sequences are a better solution.
Learn more about Automated Messages ->
Key components of a Sequence
Sequences consist of a few concepts:
Name and purpose
Name and purpose – to make it easier for you to collaborate with your team, we recommend keeping the title simple and action based, and describing the goal of the sequence – e.g. “Active New Users” is a good title, and the description of the Sequence could be “Drive new users to activate feature X after they sign up.”
Who should receive the Sequence?
You can define exactly who receives your Sequence, and when they receive it, by creating a Smart Group in GoSquared. Smart Groups enable you to specify exactly the criteria you want people to match before receiving a message.
Learn more about Smart Groups ->
You can choose between:
- Subscribing all users who enter the Smart Group in the future (ie. from the moment you publish the Sequence)
- Subscribing all users who enter the Smart Group in the future and all users who have already entered the Smart Group (ie. existing users prior to publishing the Sequence)
Messages
A Sequence is made of a series of messages.
You have multiple options for which format to send your message.
Use in-app messages for when users are likely to be online. For example, the first message in your Onboarding Sequence could be an in-app message, to welcome new users while they are online.
You can also select between in-app & email, or Email Only.
In addition, when sending via email, you can choose to send your message as a simple email using the standard GoSquared email template, or you can create a totally custom HTML Email – handy if you have created an email in another tool and want to bring it over to GoSquared.
Email Only messages work great in a Sequence to re-engage users when they might be offline, or to send through more detailed instructions.
You can choose how long to wait between sending messages in a Sequence. Often, you’ll want to send the first message in a Sequence immediately – for example, when a contact has signed up for a trial. But you will likely want to wait at least a day to send a further message in your Sequence, and at least another day after that. You definitely don’t want to bombard your contacts with too many emails! No one likes that!
Advanced options
You can set when a Sequence should start and stop sending. For example, you may want to send a Sequence over a one week period when running a promotion.
You can also limit the times when messages in a Sequence send – for example, you might want to limit messages to only send during office hours so your team are available to answer any replies that may come in from your contacts.
Frequently Asked Questions about Sequences
How does subscribing and unsubscribing work?
When you set up a Sequence, you choose to link it to a Smart Group.
Once linked, contacts entering the Smart Group will be subscribed to the Sequence.
If a contact no longer matches the criteria of the Smart Group, they will exit the Smart Group. As a result, they will no longer receive any further messages in the Sequence.
This quick, mini-tutorial will show an example scenario:
NB. Please note, if after setting up a Smart Group and associated Sequence, you make changes to the Smart Group’s filters, these will not be reflected onto users who are already subscribed to the Sequence.
Using the example from the video tutorial, if after setting up this Sequence, we changed the Demo filter to ‘is set’ - this would not remove users who had already entered the Smart Group and subscribed to the Sequence. They would continue to receive the remaining messages in the series, regardless of the change in filter.
Manually unsubscribing Users from a Sequence
You can force a user to drop out of a Sequence by clicking the “Unsubscribe” button within the list of subscribers to the Sequence.
Once unsubscribed manually, the user will be added to the Sequence’s “Unsubcribe list”.
NB Once manually unsubscribed from a Sequence, users will continue to receive other GoSquared Automations and/or Live Chat messages.
Can I run multiple Sequences for the same Smart Group?
We recommend one Smart Group per Sequence as a best-practise rule.
To avoid running into issues, we recommend creating Smart Groups dedicated to each Sequence you run. This keeps Sequence Smart Groups separate from any Smart Groups you may use to view and understand your contacts.
What happens when a contact unsubscribes from a Sequence?
All emails sent to contacts with GoSquared Engage must include an unsubscribe link so it’s easy for them to opt out.
If a contact chooses to opt out they will be immediately unsubscribed from all emails sent with GoSquared Engage.
Can I insert images into Sequence messages?
Yes! Drag and drop images from your computer into the Sequence message and it will be uploaded and placed into the message.
How can I migrate drip campaigns or sequences from another service?
We’re always keen to help our customers get set up with GoSquared successfully – it’s why we’re here!
We have a series of helpful articles to assist with migrating from other services, and if you have any questions that aren’t answered here, please get in touch with our team on Live Chat.