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Email Marketing & Campaigns

Overview

AutomateNexus CRM includes a full-featured email marketing platform that lets you create, send, and track email campaigns directly from your CRM. By combining your contact data with powerful segmentation and automation tools, you can deliver highly personalized campaigns that drive engagement and revenue. This guide covers the complete email marketing workflow from campaign creation to analytics.

Getting Started

Navigate to Marketing → Email Campaigns to access the email marketing dashboard. Here you will see an overview of your recent campaigns, key metrics, and quick-access buttons for creating new campaigns.

Prerequisites

  • At least one verified sending domain (see Domain Authentication section below).
  • Contacts imported into your CRM with valid email addresses.
  • A sender profile configured in Settings → Email → Sender Profiles.

Creating a Campaign

  1. Navigate to Marketing → Email Campaigns → Create Campaign.
  2. Choose your campaign type:
    • Regular Campaign — One-time email blast to a segment.
    • A/B Test Campaign — Test variations before sending to your full list.
    • Automated Drip — Multi-email sequence triggered by an event.
    • RSS Campaign — Automatically send new content from an RSS feed.
  3. Enter the campaign name and select your sender profile.
  4. Click Next to proceed to audience selection.

Audience Segmentation

Select who receives your campaign using powerful segmentation tools:

Segment Types

  • All Contacts — Send to your entire contact list (use with caution).
  • Saved Segments — Pre-built segments based on filters you have created.
  • Dynamic Segments — Real-time segments that update as contacts match criteria.
  • Tags — Target contacts with specific tags.
  • Manual Selection — Hand-pick individual contacts.

Segment Filters

Build custom segments using any combination of:

  • Contact fields: Name, email, company, job title, location, source.
  • Engagement: Email open rate, click rate, last engagement date, engagement score.
  • Deal stage: Current deal stage, pipeline, deal value range.
  • Tags: Has tag, does not have tag.
  • Activity: Last activity date, activity count, activity type.
  • Custom fields: Any custom field you have defined.
  • List membership: Belongs to list, does not belong to list.

Pro Tip: Create a suppression list for contacts who should never receive marketing emails (e.g., competitors, internal team). Add it as an exclusion in every campaign.

Email Template Builder

AutomateNexus CRM provides two ways to design your emails:

Drag-and-Drop Editor

The visual editor lets you build professional emails without coding:

  • Content blocks: Text, images, buttons, dividers, spacers, social links, video thumbnails.
  • Layout blocks: Single column, two columns, three columns, sidebar layouts.
  • Dynamic blocks: Product cards, article feeds, countdown timers.
  • Personalization: Insert merge tags like {{first_name}}, {{company}}, {{deal_value}}.
  • Conditional content: Show or hide blocks based on contact attributes (e.g., show different content for leads vs customers).

HTML Editor

For full control, switch to the HTML editor. Paste your custom HTML or edit the generated code. The editor includes syntax highlighting and a live preview panel.

Template Library

Access pre-built templates from Marketing → Templates. Categories include:

  • Welcome emails and onboarding sequences
  • Product announcements and feature updates
  • Newsletters and content digests
  • Promotional offers and seasonal campaigns
  • Event invitations and webinar registrations
  • Re-engagement and win-back campaigns

A/B Testing

Test different versions of your campaign to optimize performance:

  1. Select A/B Test Campaign when creating your campaign.
  2. Choose what to test:
    • Subject line — Test up to 5 different subject lines.
    • Email content — Test different email designs or copy.
    • Send time — Test different days or times.
    • From name — Test different sender names.
  3. Set the sample size (recommended: 20-30% of your audience).
  4. Choose the winning metric: open_rate, click_rate, or conversion_rate.
  5. Set the test duration (minimum 2 hours, recommended 4-24 hours).
  6. The winning variation is automatically sent to the remaining audience.

Scheduling and Sending

  • Send immediately: Campaign goes out as soon as you click Send.
  • Schedule for later: Pick a specific date and time.
  • Timezone-aware sending: Deliver at the same local time for each recipient (e.g., 10 AM in their timezone).
  • Send window: Restrict delivery to business hours (e.g., Mon-Fri, 9 AM - 5 PM recipient local time).
  • Smart Send Time: AI-optimized delivery based on each contact's historical engagement patterns.

Warning: Always send a test email to yourself before sending to your full audience. Use Send Test button to preview in different email clients.

Campaign Analytics

After sending, track performance in Marketing → Email Campaigns → [Campaign Name] → Analytics:

Key Metrics

  • Delivered: Number of emails successfully delivered.
  • Open Rate: Percentage of recipients who opened the email.
  • Click Rate: Percentage of recipients who clicked a link.
  • Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): Clicks divided by opens — measures content effectiveness.
  • Bounce Rate: Hard bounces (invalid addresses) and soft bounces (temporary issues).
  • Unsubscribe Rate: Percentage who unsubscribed. Industry average is 0.1-0.5%.
  • Spam Complaints: Number of recipients who marked the email as spam.
  • Revenue Attribution: Revenue from deals that progressed after recipients engaged with the campaign.

Link Tracking

Every link in your email is automatically tracked. View click counts and unique clicks per link in the analytics dashboard. Use UTM parameters for Google Analytics tracking.

Drip Campaigns & Sequences

Create automated email sequences that nurture leads over time:

  1. Navigate to Marketing → Sequences → Create Sequence.
  2. Set the enrollment trigger:
    • Contact created with specific source
    • Tag added to contact
    • Form submitted
    • Deal moved to specific stage
    • Manual enrollment via API
  3. Build your sequence steps:
    • Email step: Send a specific email template.
    • Delay step: Wait X hours/days before the next step.
    • Condition step: Branch based on contact behavior (opened email, clicked link, visited page).
    • Action step: Update contact field, add tag, create task, notify team member.
    • Goal step: Define the sequence goal (e.g., deal created). Contacts who reach the goal exit the sequence.
  4. Set exit conditions (unsubscribe, reply, goal reached, manual removal).

Compliance

CAN-SPAM Requirements

  • Include your physical mailing address in every email.
  • Include a visible unsubscribe link.
  • Honor unsubscribe requests within 10 business days (AutomateNexus processes immediately).
  • Use accurate From name and subject lines.

GDPR Compliance

  • Track consent status for each contact in Contact Profile → Privacy → Consent.
  • Only send marketing emails to contacts with explicit opt-in consent.
  • Honor data deletion requests (right to be forgotten).
  • Include your data processing basis in email footers.

Domain Authentication

Authenticate your sending domain to improve deliverability:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Email → Domain Authentication.
  2. Click Add Domain and enter your domain name.
  3. Add the provided DNS records to your domain's DNS settings:
    • SPF: TXT record authorizing AutomateNexus to send on your behalf.
    • DKIM: TXT record for email signing verification.
    • DMARC: TXT record defining your domain's email authentication policy.
  4. Click Verify Domain to check DNS propagation (may take up to 48 hours).

Deliverability Best Practices

  • Warm up new domains: Start with small sends (50-100/day) and gradually increase over 2-4 weeks.
  • Clean your list regularly: Remove hard bounces and inactive contacts. Use Marketing → List Hygiene.
  • Monitor sender reputation: Check your domain reputation in Settings → Email → Reputation.
  • Avoid spam triggers: Don't use ALL CAPS, excessive exclamation marks, or misleading subject lines.
  • Check spam score: Use the built-in spam score checker before sending (available in the campaign preview).
  • Maintain engagement: Segment out unengaged contacts (no opens in 90+ days) to protect your sender reputation.

SMS Marketing

Send SMS campaigns alongside email for multi-channel outreach:

  1. Navigate to Marketing → SMS Campaigns → Create SMS Campaign.
  2. Select your audience segment.
  3. Write your message (160 characters for standard SMS, up to 1,600 for concatenated).
  4. Add personalization with merge tags.
  5. Schedule or send immediately.

SMS requires contacts to have opted in to SMS communications. Manage opt-in/opt-out in Contact Profile → Communication Preferences.

Troubleshooting

  • Low open rates: Test different subject lines with A/B testing. Check that your domain is properly authenticated. Verify you are not landing in spam folders.
  • High bounce rate: Clean your contact list. Remove contacts that have hard-bounced. Use double opt-in for new subscribers.
  • Emails going to spam: Check your sender reputation score. Review your content for spam trigger words. Ensure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are properly configured.
  • Unsubscribe link not working: Ensure the {{unsubscribe_link}} merge tag is included in your template. This is automatically added to the footer but can be removed accidentally in custom HTML.
Last updated March 21, 2026
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