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Email Marketing & Campaigns

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Overview#

AutomateNexus CRM includes an email marketing platform that lets you create, send, and track email campaigns directly from your CRM. By combining your subscriber lists with a block-based email editor, tracked links and automated workflows, you can deliver personalized campaigns that drive engagement. This guide covers the complete email marketing workflow from campaign creation to analytics.

Getting Started#

Navigate to Marketing → Marketing Campaigns in the sidebar to open the Email Marketing page. Its tabs are Campaigns, Audience, Templates, Analytics and Settings; the header shows how many campaigns you have and carries an Automations link to the workflow builder.

Prerequisites#

  • A way to send: connect your own provider under Settings → Marketing sending (see Sending From Your Own Domain below), or add hosted email sending under Settings → Plans to use Managed sending, which needs no setup.
  • At least one list with subscribers on the Audience tab; campaigns are sent to lists.
  • Default sender details under Settings → Sending defaults (default from name, from email and reply-to), which new campaigns start with.

Creating a Campaign#

  1. On the Campaigns tab, click New campaign. The editor opens full screen; type a name in place of Untitled campaign at the top.
  2. In the Details section of the setup panel, enter the Subject line and, optionally, the Preview text most inboxes show next to the subject.
  3. In Sender, choose what to Send with (Managed sending or a connected provider) and confirm the From name, From email and optional Reply-to.
  4. In Audience, tick the lists to send to; the estimated number of recipients updates as you go.
  5. Build the email in the editor (see Email Template Builder below), then Preview it, Send test, Save draft or send it (see Scheduling and Sending).

The Campaigns tab lists each campaign with its status (Draft, Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Paused or Failed), audience, recipients, delivered count and open and click rates. The ⋯ menu on a row offers Edit and Send now for drafts and scheduled campaigns, plus Send test, Duplicate and Delete.

Audience Segmentation#

Campaigns are sent to lists, which you manage on the Audience tab:

Subscribers#

The Subscribers sub-tab holds your marketing audience. Add people one at a time with Add subscriber (email, first name, last name and a status of Subscribed, Pending, Unsubscribed or Cleaned) or in bulk with Import CSV. Search by email or name, filter by status, and select subscribers to Add to list, unsubscribe or delete them.

Lists#

On the Lists sub-tab, click Create list and choose its type:

  • Static — add subscribers manually: a list you fill yourself from the Subscribers sub-tab.
  • Dynamic — auto-update from rules: a segment that automatically includes every subscribed contact matching all of its rules. The rules are Source is, Email contains and Joined within (days); with no rules, every subscribed contact matches.

Each list has a Signup form: a hosted signup page you can link to and an embed code for your website. New subscribers are added to that list; leave Double opt-in on to email a confirmation link before subscribing, which is recommended for deliverability and compliance.

Suppressed#

The Suppressed sub-tab is your suppression list: addresses on it never receive marketing email from any campaign. Unsubscribes, hard bounces and spam complaints are added automatically, each with its reason (Unsubscribed, Bounced or Complained). Use Add suppression to exclude an address yourself, for example competitors or internal team members. Removing an address makes it eligible to receive email again, so only do that with permission.

Email Template Builder#

AutomateNexus CRM provides two ways to design your emails, switched with the Design / HTML toggle at the top of the editor:

Design Editor#

The block editor lets you build emails without coding. Under Add block, choose from Heading, Text, Button, Image, Divider, Spacer, Social and Custom HTML blocks; drag blocks to reorder them, or use the move, duplicate and delete controls on each block. Selecting a block shows its properties (text, size, image URL, button label and link, social links, and so on), and Email styles sets the page background, content background, text color and width. The Templates menu loads a ready-made design (Hero announcement, Newsletter, Promotion, Welcome, Event invite or Product launch) to edit. The Brand button applies the brand kit saved under Settings — logo, colors, font, button radius and footer line — and with Apply to new campaigns by default turned on there, new campaigns start branded.

HTML Editor#

For full control, switch to HTML. Write or paste raw HTML on the left and watch the live preview on the right. The merge tags {{first_name}}, {{name}}, {{email}} and {{unsubscribe_url}} are supported. Use the Templates button to start from a template and Save as template to keep the current email for reuse.

Template Library#

The Templates button in the HTML editor opens Choose a template with two tabs: Starters, ready-made designs you can edit (Simple, Newsletter, Announcement, Promotion, Welcome and Event invite), and Saved, the templates you saved from the campaign editor. Your saved templates are also listed on the page's Templates tab, where you can edit, copy or delete them; the same saved templates are offered by the Send Email step in the workflow builder.

Scheduling and Sending#

  • Send now: Choose Send now in the Schedule section and click the Send now button; the campaign is queued for your selected lists, minus anyone suppressed.
  • Schedule for later: Choose Schedule, pick a date and time in the future, and click Schedule. The campaign shows as Scheduled in the list with its send time, and can still be edited or sent early with Send now.
  • Save draft: Keep the campaign without sending; a draft is never sent on its own.

A compliant footer with an unsubscribe link and your organization's postal address is added automatically when sending.

Campaign Analytics#

After sending, open the Analytics tab, or read the Delivered, Opens and Clicks columns on the Campaigns tab:

Key Metrics#

  • Sent: Number of emails sent across your campaigns, with the percentage delivered.
  • Open Rate: Percentage of sent emails that were opened.
  • Click Rate: Percentage of sent emails in which a link was clicked.
  • Unsubscribes: Number of recipients who unsubscribed, with the percentage of sends that bounced.

A bar chart compares open and click rates across your most recent campaigns, and the table below lists each sent campaign with its sent, delivered, opens, clicks, bounced and unsubscribe figures and the date it was sent. Recipients who bounce or complain are added to the Suppressed list automatically.

Every link in your email is rewritten automatically for click tracking, and an invisible pixel records opens. Opens and clicks feed the figures above and the Email Opened and Email Link Clicked triggers in the workflow builder. Tracking links use the platform's domain unless you set your own under Settings → Tracking domain.

Drip Campaigns & Sequences#

Automated email sequences that nurture leads over time are built in the workflow builder rather than on the Campaigns tab. Click the Automations link at the top of the Email Marketing page (or go to Projects → Workflows), then:

  1. Click + New workflow, or open the Templates tab and deploy a ready-made drip such as Lead Nurturing Drip, Welcome Journey by Engagement or Follow-up Sequence (stops on reply).
  2. Set the enrollment trigger:
    • Record Created (a new contact, customer or lead)
    • Form Submitted
    • Deal Stage Changed
    • Contact Replied, Email Opened or Email Link Clicked
    • Manual, to enroll records by hand from the Deals, Contacts or Customers list with Enroll in workflow
  3. Build your sequence steps:
    • Send Email: Send a saved template or an email written on the step; turn on Marketing email so the unsubscribe footer is added and unsubscribed people are skipped.
    • Wait / Delay: Wait a number of hours or days before the next step.
    • Wait Until: Pause until the recipient replies to, opens or clicks the last email, or a deadline passes, then continue down the HAPPENED or TIMED OUT path.
    • Branch (If / Else): Route on a field value.
    • Create Task, Update Record and Log Activity: Hand the contact to a person, update a field or note what happened.
  4. Set Enroll each record on the trigger (Once, Again after a number of days, or Every time) so contacts do not re-enter the sequence unintentionally.

Contacts who unsubscribe are skipped by every marketing email step, and a Wait Until step ends the outreach the moment they reply. See the Workflow Builder guide for the full list of triggers and steps.

Compliance#

CAN-SPAM Requirements#

  • Your organization's postal address and a working unsubscribe link are added to the footer of every campaign automatically, and each message carries List-Unsubscribe headers so inboxes can show their own unsubscribe button.
  • CAN-SPAM allows 10 business days to honor an unsubscribe; AutomateNexus CRM processes it immediately, adding the address to the Suppressed list and excluding it from all further marketing sends.
  • Use accurate From name and subject lines.

GDPR Compliance#

  • Email consent is tracked as the subscriber's status on Audience → Subscribers (Subscribed, Pending until a double opt-in confirmation, Unsubscribed); SMS and WhatsApp consent are recorded on the contact or customer record (see SMS Marketing below).
  • Only send marketing emails to people who have opted in, and leave Double opt-in on for signup forms.
  • Honor data deletion requests (right to be forgotten) by deleting the subscriber and, where needed, the contact record.
  • Include your data processing basis in email footers where required; the brand kit's footer line is a convenient place for it.

Sending From Your Own Domain#

There is no SPF or DKIM screen inside AutomateNexus CRM; domain authentication happens at the email service that sends for you. The Settings tab offers three options:

  1. Managed sending: campaigns go out through hosted email sending, an add-on at $5 a month per 10,000 sends that an admin adds under Settings → Plans. Sends are metered against the monthly allowance shown on the same card, with no DNS setup.
  2. Connect provider: click Connect provider and choose SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark or Resend; enter the from email and name, an optional reply-to and label, the provider's API key (server token for Postmark) and, for Mailgun, the region and sending domain. Authenticate your domain (SPF, DKIM and DMARC records) in that provider's own dashboard, then click Send test on the provider row — the first successful test marks it Verified. Use Set as default to make it the sender new campaigns start with.
  3. Custom SMTP server: add your own mail server (Mailgun, Postmark, Amazon SES, Google Workspace and others) with its host, port, encryption, username and password, and use Test connection before saving.

Under Tracking domain, add a CNAME record from a subdomain such as links.acme.com to the host shown on the page, then enter the subdomain and save; open and click tracking and unsubscribe links will then use your domain instead of the platform's.

Deliverability Best Practices#

  • Warm up new domains: Start with small sends (50-100/day) and gradually increase over 2-4 weeks.
  • Keep your list clean: Hard bounces and spam complaints are added to the Suppressed list automatically; unsubscribe or delete long-inactive subscribers from the Subscribers sub-tab.
  • Avoid spam triggers: Don't use ALL CAPS, excessive exclamation marks, or misleading subject lines.
  • Test before sending: Use Send test and Preview to check rendering and links in a real inbox.
  • Maintain engagement: Send to people who joined recently or through a particular source (dynamic list rules) rather than to your whole audience, and remove subscribers who have stopped engaging.

SMS Marketing#

Send SMS campaigns alongside email for multi-channel outreach. Go to Marketing → SMS campaigns; the SMS Marketing page has Campaigns, Templates, Analytics and Settings tabs. Campaigns send from your own Twilio number, configured on the Settings tab (Account SID, Auth Token and Phone Number); a banner on the Campaigns tab warns when Twilio is not connected.

  1. Click New campaign and give it a name (Details).
  2. Choose the Audience: all customers or all contacts, narrowed with Status and Lead score filters. The panel shows how many matching records have SMS marketing consent and how many will be skipped.
  3. Write your message (Content). Insert {{first_name}}, {{last_name}}, {{name}} or {{phone}} with the buttons above the editor; the counter shows the length and the number of 160-character segments, which are billed per segment.
  4. Choose Send immediately after review or Schedule for later with a date and time, and optionally a rate limit in messages per minute (Schedule).
  5. Check the summary on Review and click Send campaign or Schedule campaign.

SMS campaigns are marketing, so they go only to people with recorded SMS marketing consent. Consent lives in the SMS marketing consent field on the contact or customer record; to record or withdraw it for many records at once, select them in the Contacts or Customers list and use the SMS consent action, noting where consent was obtained. Skipped recipients are listed in the campaign results. Reusable messages live on the Templates tab.

Troubleshooting#

  • Low open rates: Try different subject lines on successive sends and compare them on the Analytics tab. Check that your sending domain is authenticated at your provider and that you are not landing in spam folders.
  • High bounce rate: Bounced addresses are suppressed automatically; clean lists before importing them and keep double opt-in on for signup forms.
  • Emails going to spam: Review your content for spam trigger words, make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC are configured at your email provider, and keep your organization's postal address complete so the footer is.
  • Unsubscribe link not working: The footer with the unsubscribe link is added automatically when sending. In custom HTML, insert your own link with the {{unsubscribe_url}} merge tag rather than a typed address.
  • Campaign shows Paused: Sending stopped because the monthly email allowance was exhausted or the provider account could not be used; check Settings → Marketing sending, then resend.

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