Why don't my contacts receive automated emails?
If you created an automation, but the automated emails associated with it are not going out to the recipients, there are several explanations for why this might be happening. We listed the most common cases and explained how to fix them below.
The automation trigger doesn't include imported contacts
When you use the 'Contact subscribed' trigger, you can choose whether you want to include imported contacts. If you disable that option, imported contacts won't enter the automation:
The automation was stopped
If you decide to stop your automation at any point, no new contacts will be added to the sequence, and all contacts currently going through it will exit it immediately.
Stopping it is not the same as pausing it – you can still edit the steps and options of the automation at the "Paused" stage, and your contacts will remain "frozen" until you start it again.
Stopping your automation is irreversible, and you'll be presented with this pop-up:
Contacts were added to the list before automation was started
If you use the "Contact added to list" trigger, note that it would only work for contacts added to that list after activating your automation.
If you'd like to target contacts already on your list, consider using the "Contact tag added" trigger and following the steps outlined in this guide to add tags in bulk.
Contacts don’t match a specific condition or filter
Some filters might exclude most of your contacts, depending on specific data. If a contact doesn't match specific requirements to trigger the automation, no emails will be sent.
Filters
Filters allow you to specify in more detail which contacts should enter the automation after it is triggered for them. In the example below, we added a filter based on the date the contact was added to the list. The automation is supposed to work for contacts added after July 12th.
However, our contacts were added before July 12th. None of the contacts match that requirement, so they won't move forward in the automation.
Conditions
We want to send an email to all contacts who meet all of the following: they were added through import, and their email addresses start with the letter "A."
Even though the contacts were added through import, they both start with the letter "M." Since they do not meet all the conditions, they will not trigger the "Yes" path, so they won't receive emails associated with that path.
Contacts have already finished the automation
If your contacts completed the automation, they will appear in the "Finished" metric.
If you added more steps to your automation but some contacts have already finished that sequence, they will not go through those new steps. In such a case, we recommend sending the newly-added emails as one-off campaigns.
To easily find the contacts who finished the previous iteration of your automation, consider adding a tag as the last step in your automation.
Contacts are on a different list than the one attached to the automation
Only contacts connected to the list associated with an automation can enter it.
You can check which list your automation is attached to by clicking on the "Setup" button at the top of the page:
It's not possible to change the list connected to automation after it was started.
If the above examples are not applicable to your case, please reach out to our support, and we'll look into this for you.