Please note: Generally, we strongly advise against making adjustments in an active automation. This can lead to unexpected errors. Therefore, always set the automation to 'Inactive' before you start working on it!
Are your contacts indicating that they are receiving your emails twice, or do you see more contacts waiting in the wait step of your automation compared to the number of contacts in the automation?
This means that your contacts are in your automation twice. This could be due to the following:
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You have two start triggers and your contacts meet both triggers (or more than two).
- An integration is causing a contact to enter the automation
In this article, we will explain both options and how you can best resolve this.
You have two start triggers and your contacts meet both triggers
You can check this as follows:
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Open the contact and click on the automation where they are duplicated, it will also show (2) next to it.
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You can then view both paths in the automation by clicking on 'Show'. By doing this for both, you can also see through which start trigger they entered.
Do contacts meet both conditions? Then you can probably remove one of the two start triggers.
For example, if you have the start triggers 'Fills in form A' and 'Subscribes to list B' set as start triggers. However, as soon as someone fills in the form, they are automatically subscribed to the list. This is an example of how both start triggers are then triggered. Keeping one of the two is sufficient.
Not sure if your automation will still work properly if you remove one of the two start triggers? Then send us an email with an explanation, and we will assist you right away!
Your start trigger is set to 'Runs multiple times'
When setting up your start trigger, you can indicate whether it can be activated only once or multiple times. For example, if you have 'Submits form' as a start trigger and a contact performs this action multiple times, they will be added to your automation multiple times. If you want to prevent this, you can set it to run only once:
How can you resolve this?
If this concerns a single contact, you can open the contact profile and click on the automation. Then you can stop one of the two paths.
If it concerns a group of contacts and each contact is in the same place in the automation twice (meaning they receive the same email twice and are in the same wait step twice), you can follow these steps:
Please note! It is important to perform the steps for each group of contacts in a specific wait step and not for all contacts at once.
- Click on the contacts in the wait step where they are duplicated
- You will then see an overview of all contacts in this wait step
- Click on 'Edit all' and give the group a temporary tag (for example TemporaryA)
- Wait a minute, then click on 'Edit all' again. This time, remove the contacts from the relevant automation (they will be completely removed)
- Next, you want to add them back once and get them back in the right place. Go to the automation and add a wait step of 5 minutes at the very top as the first step, this is temporary
- Then, above the wait step where the contacts initially were, add a goal action. With a goal, you can skip intermediate steps for contacts that meet a condition and get them back in the right place in your automation.
- Fill in the goal as follows:
- Name: here you can give a name to your goal, your contacts will not see this
- Click to add goal: here you enter the condition that contacts must meet to be pulled towards this goal. In this example: tag is TemporaryA
- You can leave the rest as it is, click on 'Close'
- Now we need to add the contacts again. Go to your contacts overview and click on the search bar > Advanced search. Enter: 'tag is TemporaryA'
- You will now see an overview of all contacts you had previously removed. Click on 'Edit all' and re-add them to your automation
- Now go to your automation, you will see that your contacts are back in your wait step, but only temporarily. It may take a minute for everything to be processed
- Once they are all back in the right place, you can click on the contacts in the wait step again. You can then click on 'Edit all' and remove the temporary tag again
- Also, remove the goal in your automation
- Repeat these steps for each wait step where contacts are duplicated. Once you are done, you can remove the wait step at the top of your automation (of 5 minutes)
An integration is causing a contact to enter the automation
It can sometimes happen that a contact is added to an automation twice due to an external integration. For example, suppose your automation has the start trigger 'Subscribes to list ‘Customers’', but you also have an integration with Plug & Pay. In this environment, you've not only set up contacts to be subscribed to the relevant list but also to be added to the automation. This means that when contacts subsequently complete a purchase, they are added to the automation twice.
If you want to check if a contact has been added to an automation twice through an external integration, you can do so from the contact profile. Follow the same steps as for You have two start triggers and your contacts meet both triggers, namely:
- Open the contact and click on the automation where they are in twice, this is also indicated by ‘(2)’.
- You can then view both paths in the automation by clicking 'Show'. Doing this for both will also show you through which start trigger they entered.
When one of the two automation paths shows ‘Contact manually added to this automation’, it may mean that the contact has been added through an external integration.
Note: Of course, there are other possible reasons when this start trigger is displayed, see also: What does “Contact manually added to automation” mean?. Be sure to check this article to ensure nothing else is at play.
After checking this, you should consider through which method you want to add contacts to the automation. Remove the start trigger in the automation itself, or ensure that contacts can no longer be added via the external integration.