September 2020 Release Roll-Up

In this article we've outlined all of the new features and updates included in our September product release. Enhancements include: Automation, Forms, and the Zapier integration.

Automation

Our automation workflow and designer has been updated to provide a better user experience, save time, and provide more options for creating your automations.

Create an Automation workflow

We updated and simplified the workflow to help you build an automation in 4 simple steps: Setup, Design, Test, Schedule

Automation Designer

We included usability improvements and new features in the designer to give you the tools you need to build powerful workflows. The following is included:

1. Duplicate Step
Copy an existing email in the workflow by dragging over the Duplicate Step action, and dropping it on top of a Send Email step. The new Send Email step will appear below the original Send Email step that was copied, and the new email will need to be tested before the automation can be scheduled.

2. Update Field
The update field action has been redesigned to make it easier to use. We pulled categories out of this step into it's own step, leaving a simple field selection.

3. Update Category
A new action step is now available to add or remove a contact from a category. Choose your categories from the "Add to" or "Remove from" menus.

4. Pause
Control when contacts transition out of a pause step by scheduling the frequency and time to release the contacts from the Pause step. 

5. Exit
You can now easily transition a contact out of an automation, and drop the contact into another automation. The first step of the target automation is not executed, so it’s best to start the next automation with an Event. Be sure to update the contact’s data (category, status, etc) if you want to use it in the next automation. Note: Transfer to another Automation requires that the 2nd Automation is scheduled or running. You may not transfer to a draft Automation.

6. Re-entry
Control whether or not contacts can enter the automation more than once, and define the timeframe between exit and re-entry.

7. Multiple Entry Events
You can now define multiple events to start an automation, and contacts will join when one of the events occur.

Forms

Our forms designer has been updated to provide you with additional creative options for designing forms as well as advanced options for triggering display of form on webpage and sending a Lead Alert.

Form Designer

The designer has been updated to give you more control over the design of your forms. The following is now supported:

1. Placeholder Text
Provide guidance to the subscriber by adding placeholder text to form fields. In the example below, we removed the field label and instead utilized placeholder text to identify what information should be input.

2. Form Field Borders
Customize the borders of your form fields to display on all sides, top, bottom, left, or right.

3. Form styling
Change the styling of your pop-up, banner, and floating box forms to incorporate backdrop color and opacity. These new style options are found in the STYLE tab, then click "Form Style". Opacity set to 0 will be transparent and opacity set to 100 is opaque.

Lead Alerts

Assign a lead alert campaign to the form and when it's submitted the Lead Alert will be sent to the identified team member. Find this functionality in the INFO tab.  Available to B2B licenses.

Form Display triggers
Specify trigger options for displaying the form, and the frequency that visitors should see the form. Find this functionality in Step 4 (Finalize) in the create-a-form workflow. Available to Enterprise licenses.

Zapier Integration

Improvements to our Zapier integration based on customer suggestions. You can use the following features to improve your data integration experience with Zapier and your ESP.

• Sync additional data fields.
• Add a contact to a category, and remove a contact from a category.
• Unsubscribe a contact.
• Send an email to a contact.

See this article to learn more about this integration.

Drag-and-Drop Editor

The drag-and-drop editor was enhanced to:

1. Improve the usability when creating an unsubscribe link. Now you can link an unsubscribe form in your template or campaign to collect valuable feedback.

2. Provide the ability to specify a maximum number of records to include in a repeater group. Example use case could be that you send an email with product review links for items recently purchased. When an order contains more than 5 items you can use this setting to cap the number of product review links that are available in the email to your customer.