Automation: Fixed Rate Expiry

Navigate to Automations in Active Campaign

Click the orange 'New Automation' button in the top right hand corner. 

Click 'Start from Scratch' and then continue. 

You will now see a screen asking you to select your 'trigger' for the automation. Whilst there are many to choose from, in this instance you need to select the 'Date Based' trigger. 

The 'trigger' is the event that starts your automation. 

5.

Now you need to define your trigger further. 

In this instance, we want to send an email to our clients 30 days before a fixed rate expiry date, however, this can be tweaked according to your preferences (i.e. send the first email 60 days before the end of the fixed rate, for example). 

Ensure you have selected the fields as per the below image. 

The 'check' section is basically showing how often Active Campaign will check all of your contact records in Active Campaign to see if they meet the criteria you set out above. If they do, the email will be sent. 

Also ensure you 'run' the campaign when the year, month and day match the conditions so the email doesn't run on the same day every year during a 3 year fixed rate! 

Once your action options are set, click 'Add Start'. 

6.

Active Campaign will immediately ask you what you want to happen when the 'trigger' goes off. In this instance we want to send an email to our clients to begin with - click 'Send Email'. 

NOTE: SMS functionality is not yet available in Active Campaign. 

Click 'Create New email' on the pop-up box. Then, name your email with a relevant name. Your contacts will not see the name of the email, it just needs to be something relevant to you e.g. Fixed Rate Expiry 1. 

8.

Select your email template by hovering over the template you require and clicking 'Use this design'; you will get the opportunity to make amends to the email content, we recommend using the 'Fixed Rate Expiry' template and editing the copy to suit your needs. 

 At this next step, you need to add in the person who the email will come from - the default name will appear here, or you can use the personalisation icon to choose who the email will come from. If you want to choose the Relationship Manager choose BrokerName or BrokerPreferredFullName. Then choose the email address the email is coming from. Choose the BrokerEmail to use the Relationship Manager email, otherwise the email will be sent from the default Relationship Manager.

Also, add in a subject line of your choice, ideally something which will grab the attention of your client. You can personalise the subject line using the personalisation icon highlighted, select the fields you wish to include and click save, they will then appear in the subject line.

Then click continue. 

 Your template will appear in the browser. Edit the copy how you wish. To edit any of the content blocks, simply hover over the block and it will be framed with a black border, it will then give you an editing menu. Remember to use the 'Personalise' button on the text formatting menu to add in personalisation tags such as first name. 

For help on editing any email template, refer to this article: Edit your email campaign

Once you are happy with the email content, click 'Next' in the top right hand corner. You will be taken to a campaign summary page. Check all of the details are correct. 

At this point you will have the opportunity to preview your email and send yourself a test email (highly recommended!). To do this either click on 'Desktop Preview' or enter your email address and click 'send test'. Check you are happy with your email on the test/preview and if not, click 'Previous' in the top left to go and edit the email. Once you are happy with the email click 'Finish' in the top right to add this email to your automation. 

You should now be able to see your email in your automation map. 

At this point, you should also add in a Notification to your team that the Fixed Rate is coming to end. To do this, click on the + icon underneath your email in the automation map and select the 'Notify someone' under sending options. 

 Add in the details of who you want to notify and what you are notifying them about. Use the personalisation tags to pull in the variable data from each of your contacts, as per the below. 

If you pull through the broker email in the 'send to' box, it will pull through the relationship manager email address. Use the 'Personalize message' to pull through variable details of the clients and the fixed rate that is about to expire to avoid having to go into Mercury to check the details, the information will be in your inbox. Once you have added in all of the details, click OK and the notification will be added into your automation map. 

At this point it is a good idea to wait for a period of time before any other actions occur.

To do this, click on the + icon underneath the notification. Click on 'Conditions and Workflow' and then 'Wait'. Enter the amount of time you want to wait for before any other actions occur. In this instance we are going to wait for 10 days. 

At this point you might want to split the automation to send an email to anyone who didn't open the first email. To do this, click on the + icon and then use the 'If/else automation split' under conditions and workflow. 

Active Campaign will ask you how you want to split the automation. In the 'select a condition' box, click on 'Actions' and then 'has not opened' and the name of the first email in your automation, in this instance 'Fixed Rate expiry email'. This will now split your automation, so you need to decide what happens to both streams of the automation. The streams being, those who did open the first email, and those who did not. 

In this instance, we have decided to send another email to those people who didn't open the first email (follow steps 6-11) and send another notification to the broker. 

For those that did open the first email, we decided to send another notification to the broker, just so they can ensure they have followed up with the client. 

After both of these actions we have added 'End automation' for each stream. 

1. This is an example automation. There is unlimited scope for this to be amended according to each business. 
2. If you want to ensure the email is going to the applicants on the loan as opposed to a referrer, you might want to add in a condition at the beginning (after the trigger) where the condition is 1_relationship is primary applicant or applicant. You may also want to add in a condition that the loan status was settled (otherwise it may pull in opportunities that never settled).   
3. You may want to copy this automation and set up separate automations for 2_FixedRateExpiryDate and 3_FixedRateExpiryDate. This is so that the personalisation tags in the email can reflect those opportunities.