How do I use a lead alert in my automation?

Lead Alerts provide real time feedback to your team. Add a Lead Alert to any point in your automation to notify an internal recipient of new contacts in an automation, or contacts in an automation branch that opened/clicked a campaign in the automation.

Many times a Lead Alert email will use merged information of the contact like %%emailaddr_%% to merge in the contact email, and %%firstname_%% to merge in the contact first name to pass information to your team.

To successfully set up a Lead Alert, follow the steps below.

How-To

1. Pull the Lead Alert step over into the preferred place in the workflow. Click the pencil icon to edit the step.
   
   
2. Choose an existing mailing or create a new mailing on demand. After selection of existing, or creating the new mailing, click the 'OK' button to continue to Lead Alert configuration.
   
3. Set the 'Email': This is an optional step. Only set this if the preferred email to direct the Lead Alert to is a data field stored in your account. For example, if you are utilizing our 'Rep Email' field to store a contact's representative information (email address), choose the field name from the menu.
   
   
4. Set the 'Alternate Email': This is a required step. In the case that the email you want to direct the Lead Alerts to is not saved in a database field, enter an email address here. Even if you are directing Lead Alerts to an email saved in a database field, add an alternative email here in case the field is blank for any subscriber. 
   For example, if you are utilizing our 'Rep Email' field to store a contact's representative information (email address), you may consider putting the sales manager's email as the alternative email just in case.
   
   
   
   
5. Choose the campaign: This is a required step. Don't forget, the Lead Alert is an actual email that is sent to your chosen email address. This email can be created beforehand in Campaigns as an Automated campaign type or created right within the automation workflow. In step 2 above, you should have already selected or created this mailing, this is your opportunity to make edits, or start over again.
    
6. Lead Alerts typically use merge tags and are very simple, as seen in an example below: