You’ve got a sequence (or are about to create one). You want to add new emails to the sequence. And you want to ensure that subscribers who have reached the end of the sequence don’t miss out on the new emails. This guide will walk you through exactly how to do that.

In part 1, you’ll learn how to set this up from scratch. And then in part 2 (coming soon), you’ll learn how to adapt an existing sequence where people have already completed it.

Adding subscribers to sequences

First things first – lets’ recap on how you can add subscribers to sequences. You can add them in two ways:

  1. Via an Automation Rule
  2. Via a Visual Automation

Most people opt for a Visual Automation since that is the easiest way to create automations in ConvertKit. But using a visual automation when you want subscribers to get new emails is going to cause a few issues.

Visual Automations are designed to keep people moving through in a flow, step by step. If you add someone to a sequence in a Visual Automation, they will be held in that spot in the automation while they are in the sequence. As soon as they have received every email in the sequence, they’ll be marked as “completed” for that sequence. They’ll then leave the sequence and move to the next step in the automation.

The problem with this is that if you go back and add a new email to the sequence, subscribers who have passed that point have already left the sequence and so won’t receive it.

Use Automation Rules

The solution is to use Automation Rules instead. The difference between Visual Automations and Automation Rules when it comes to sequences is that when you add someone to a sequence with an Automation Rule, they stay subscribed to the sequence, unlike with a Visual Automation. This is exactly what we want. If they stay subscribed to the sequence, when you add new emails to it, they’ll get them and not miss out.

With that out of the way, let’s get this setup with a few examples.

Example 1: connecting a form to a sequence

A basic example of this is connecting a form to a sequence with an automation rule. As soon as someone submits the sign-up form, they’ll get added to the sequence.

Example 2: connecting a tag to a sequence

Another example is adding someone to a sequence when a tag is added to their profile.

In this example, any subscriber that has the tag Trigger - Onboarding added will get added to the Onboarding sequence.

Example 3: combining with a visual automation

You can still use ConvertKit Visual Automations to manage the automation. But instead of adding people to the sequence, add a tag instead. And then use that tag as the trigger for the automation rule.

Add the tag in an automation

To add a tag in a visual automation, click on the + and then under Action, click “Add or remove tag”.

Here is an example of one of mine that has such a tag:

And then if you head over to Automation Rules, you can use that tag as the trigger. This is what it would look like:

This essential means that when the tag “Trigger – Onboarding” is added to a subscriber, then add them to the Onboarding sequence.

Summing up

With some sequences, you want to add new emails and ensure that people who have reached the end don’t miss out. The cleanest way to do that is to add people to the sequence via an automation rule.

These are the steps when you are using a visual automation to manage the automation:

  1. In the Visual Automation, add a tag as an action
  2. Create a new Automation Rule
  3. Use the tag from step 1 as the trigger in the Automation Rule
  4. Add to the sequence in the Action in the Automation Rule

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