Please note: In general, 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!
Sometimes you may want contacts to receive an email a certain number of days before or after a specific date based on a date in their own field, or to be moved to another step in the automation. You can set this up using the plus/minus option in wait and goal steps.
For example, you can use this to send a coupon code or discount voucher before a contact's birthday. On the other hand, you can also use it to send follow-up emails after an event date. All you need for this is a custom date field.
When it comes to the plus/minus logic, it's important to remember the following:
- ‘Plus’ can be translated as ‘the current date plus X number of days is the webinar date’. For example, today is 1 June and the webinar is on 6 June. In this case, 1 June plus 5 days is the webinar date, 6 June.
- ‘Minus’ means ‘the current date minus X number of days is the webinar date’. For example, the webinar was on 10 June and today is 15 June. In this case, 15 June minus 5 days is the webinar date, 10 June.
- To use the plus/minus option in wait steps, you need to choose 'Wait until certain conditions are met' when creating the step.
In standard webinar automations, most users will want to send an email X number of days before or after the webinar. In such cases, you use ‘date is current date plus/minus X days’. However, there are also situations where you want to send contacts an email when they sign up on or before/after a certain date. In these situations, instead of ‘is’, you use the options ‘on or before’, ‘before’, ‘on or after’, or ‘after’. But how does the plus/minus logic work in these cases? To clarify this, a few examples are provided below.
Reminders for a webinar
Let's say the contact has the date 11 January in the 'Webinar' field. In relation to the webinar, we want to send the following emails:
- A reminder: 7 days before the webinar date
- A reminder: on the day of the webinar
- A follow-up: a day after the webinar
7 days before the webinar
Set up the wait step for the reminder (7 days before the webinar) as follows:
When a contact reaches the wait step, it will remain in the queue until 4 January, because 4 January ('Current date') plus 7 is 11 January (the webinar date).
Webinar day
For the reminder on the day of the webinar, set the wait step as follows:
One day after the webinar
The day after the webinar, we want to send a follow-up. For this email, place a wait step that you set as follows:
When a contact reaches this wait step, it will remain in the queue until 12 January, because 12 January ('Current date') minus 1 is 11 January (the webinar date).
Webinar reminders without a specific day
Let's say the contact has the date 10 June in the field 'Webinar'. You want to send an email in the week before with important information regarding the webinar, regardless of whether someone signs up 1 month or 3 days in advance. However, for someone signing up 1 month in advance, you do want to send a warming email. But, if someone signs up 3 days in advance, you only want to send the final emails.
Then you use the following settings: 'Webinar is on or before current date plus 7'.
If the webinar takes place within 7 days, a contact will be passed through and can receive an email with information.
In this example, we warm up contacts for the webinar through 2 emails. Email 1 is sent to contacts when the webinar is 7 days away or less. Email 2 is sent when the webinar is within 3 days.
If a contact signs up 5 days before the webinar, they will still receive email 1 at 9:00 in the morning.
If a contact signs up 2 days before the webinar, they will immediately go to the '3 days before webinar' goal and receive email 2 at 9:00. This contact will then skip email 1.