The right email at the right moment — automatically
Welcome new subscribers, wish them a happy birthday, recover abandoned carts and win back quiet contacts. Build it once, and it works around the clock.
What automations in MailNesto does
Automations in MailNesto are journeys that start on their own when something happens — a person joins a list, gets a tag, leaves a cart, has a birthday, reaches a lead score or is due to reorder — and then move through emails, waits, conditions and actions you lay out on a canvas. Once a journey is live, every new person who matches walks through it without anyone pressing send.
This is where email pays back the time it takes. The welcome email goes out soon after the sign-up, not on Monday when someone remembers; a lapsed customer hears from you at day 90; a hot lead lands on a salesperson’s task list while still interested. Each takes minutes to set up and then runs for months.
You can start from more than 40 recipes with the emails already written, or from a blank canvas. Either way, the builder checks the journey for problems before it can go live and shows live counts on every step once it does.
Automations, done properly
Triggers for every moment
Joins a list, gets a tag, submits a form, opens or clicks a campaign, has a birthday or anniversary, enters a segment, places an order or abandons a cart.
Branches and conditions
Split the path on whether someone opened, clicked, bought or matches any rule — and send each group what fits.
Waits that make sense
Wait days or hours, until a date, or until a weekday and time in the contact’s own time zone.
Actions beyond email
Add or remove tags, move between lists, update fields, notify your team or call a webhook.
Ready-made recipes
Welcome series, birthday treat, win-back, post-event follow-up and more — with the emails already written.
See every step
Live counts on each step, conversion per path and a report for every email in the journey.
A canvas that shows what is happening
Journeys read top to bottom: a starting point, then steps — Email, Wait, Wait until, Condition and Split, plus actions to tag, move between lists, update a field, call a webhook, notify your team, create a deal or task, unsubscribe, or end the journey.
Before a journey can go live, the builder lists anything that would stop it working — an email with no subject, a condition with no rule, a split that does not add up to 100%, a webhook without a proper address. Warnings, such as an empty branch, are shown but do not block it.
Once live, every step shows how many people reached it and are waiting there. Open any contact’s run to see which steps they passed and why they left, or take them out by hand.
- Up to 60 steps per automation
- Send a test of any email step to your own inbox
- Send windows: an email step only goes out on chosen days and hours, in your workspace time zone
- Edit a live journey, or pause it for bigger changes
Sixteen ways for a journey to start
Most journeys start from something a contact does or becomes: joins a list, gets or loses a tag, is created, enters a segment, opens a campaign, clicks a particular link, unsubscribes, or has a field change — plan becomes “trial”, say. Shop journeys start from a left checkout or a due reorder; sales journeys from a lead score or a deal stage. You can also add people by hand.
Date journeys run on any date field, on the day or up to 30 days either side, at the hour you choose, every year. Recurring journeys run weekly or monthly for a list or segment you pick.
Every starting point can carry a filter — “joins the Newsletter list and city is Chennai”. Depending on your plan, one automation can have up to three starting points.
- Birthday, anniversary and renewal dates, from 30 days before to 30 days after
- Weekly or monthly recurring journeys
- Lead score and deal stage starting points for sales follow-up
- Choose whether imported contacts start a journey; the import screen lists which automations they would start
- Optionally enrol everyone already in the list or segment when you switch a journey on
Conditions, splits and “wait until”
A Condition step sends people down different paths based on anything a segment can check: fields, tags, lists, opens and clicks on earlier emails in the journey, orders, website visits, lead score or predictions. Two paths make a yes/no; up to eight make a sorter where the first match wins and the last path catches everyone else.
A Split step divides people at random by percentage, to test two versions of a follow-up.
“Wait until” holds each person until something happens — they open the welcome email, place an order — or the time limit runs out, then sends them down a “Happened” or “Timed out” path. People who act early move on early.
- Up to eight paths per condition or split
- Rules grouped with all/any and nested
- Conditions can check opens and clicks on emails inside the same journey
- An empty branch simply carries on to the next step
Goals, re-entry and clean exits
Give a journey a goal — “Ordered again”, “Upgraded”, “Became a hot lead” — written as rules. The moment a contact matches, they leave the journey wherever they are in it and count as a conversion in the report. Nobody gets a discount reminder for a purchase they made an hour ago.
Re-entry decides whether someone can go through more than once: a welcome series once per person, a post-purchase thank-you after every order. Birthday journeys run yearly, and each abandoned cart starts its own run.
People who unsubscribe, bounce, complain or are suppressed never get another email from a journey; at the next email step they are taken out, with the reason recorded. A goodbye journey started by an unsubscribe sends exactly one email.
- Goal conversions and goal rate in the automation report
- Once per contact, or each time the trigger happens
- An Exit step to end a path on purpose
- Top exit reasons listed in the report
Journeys that follow your shop
With Shopify, WooCommerce or the Orders API connected, a checkout left untouched for the delay you choose starts the abandoned-cart journey, once per cart. The cart’s link, total, item list and item count are copied onto the contact, so the email can say “3 items, ₹2,450” and link straight back to the checkout. A starting filter on cart value lets you treat a ₹500 cart and a ₹15,000 cart differently.
The “next order is due” trigger uses each customer’s own rhythm. Someone who buys coffee beans every 24 days can get a reminder three days before day 24; one-time buyers are judged on your store’s typical gap. Pair it with an “Ordered again” goal.
- Abandoned-cart delay from 15 minutes up to 7 days
- Merge tags for cart total, items and the recovery link
- Product blocks in cart mode show the exact items left behind
- Reorder starting point from 60 days before to 60 days after the predicted date
- Orders credited to the automation that drove them
Recipes with the emails already written
The recipe gallery has more than 40 ready journeys, grouped into getting started, engagement, sales, leads and lifecycle. Each card says what starts it, how many emails it sends over what period, and what it needs — a connected store, website tracking or a date field — so you know whether it will work for you. Any recipe your plan does not include is marked.
A recipe becomes a normal automation you can change in every detail, and recipes that rely on a segment, such as “Lapsed customers (no order in 90 days)”, create it for you. There are shop journeys, event follow-ups, renewal reminders, lead nurture and proposal follow-ups.
- Welcome series that branches on whether the first email was opened
- Festival countdown and sale reminders, started by adding a list when you are ready
- Hot lead alert, personal note and “turn hot leads into deals”
- Sunset unengaged subscribers, or offer them fewer emails
- Trial ending soon, with an “Upgraded” goal
Up and running in three steps
- 1
Choose a trigger
Start from a recipe or pick what starts the journey.
- 2
Add steps
Emails, waits, conditions and actions on a visual canvas.
- 3
Activate
Optionally enrol everyone already in the list, then watch it run.
Automations for every kind of business
A tea brand in Darjeeling reminds each buyer three days before their usual reorder gap is up, with recommended products, and stops the moment they order.
An IELTS centre in Chandigarh tags enquiries “demo-request”; the journey alerts the counsellor, creates a call task for the next day and sends two emails about batch timings.
A skin clinic sends a birthday offer at 9 am on the day, and reminds patients seven days before their yearly care package renews.
A restaurant in Kochi runs a monthly recurring journey on the first of each month for its “regulars” segment with that month’s specials, and a win-back for diners who have not opened an email in 90 days.
A comedy club in Bengaluru sends an early-bird countdown to people tagged “event-interest”, then a thank-you to those tagged “attended” and a “sorry we missed you” note to no-shows.
A billing software company in Ahmedabad runs a trial journey that ends early on an “Upgraded” goal, while a high lead score opens a deal and a call task for sales.
- Visual automation builder
- Recipes with finished emails
- Opens-a-campaign and clicks-a-link triggers
- Birthday and anniversary triggers
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Segment entry triggers
- Yes/no branches
- Goal and exit conditions
- Re-entry rules
- Send windows in your workspace time zone
- Test the journey with yourself
- Per-step analytics
Many email tools treat automation as a straight line of emails and delays, with one yes/no branch at best. People who buy halfway through must be removed by hand, numbers cover the whole journey rather than each step, and sales follow-up needs a separate CRM.
MailNesto gives every journey goals that take converted people out at once, conditions and splits with up to eight paths, and “wait until” steps with a time limit. Starting points include store carts, predicted order dates, lead scores and deal stages, and the same canvas can create deals and tasks in the built-in CRM, so a hot lead becomes a follow-up without leaving the app.
Tips for better results
- 1
Start from a recipe even if you plan to change most of it — the waits, branches and goals are a sensible base.
- 2
Give every sales journey a goal. Without one, people who buy keep getting nudges to buy.
- 3
After an important email, use “Wait until” rather than a fixed wait, so engaged people move on quickly and others get a second chance.
- 4
Put a send window on cart reminders and similar emails so they never arrive in the middle of the night.
- 5
When switching on a list-based journey, decide whether to enrol everyone already on the list. For a welcome series the answer is usually no.
- 6
Before a large upload, check the import screen for the live automations the new contacts would start.
- 7
Read the exit reasons after the first week; many bounced or suppressed exits point to a list problem, not a journey problem.
Questions about automations
Can people enter an automation more than once?
You choose: once per contact, or again each time the trigger happens (with an optional gap).
What happens if someone unsubscribes mid-journey?
They leave immediately. Unsubscribed and suppressed contacts never receive marketing email.
Can one contact be in several automations at the same time?
Yes. Each automation keeps its own run for each contact, so someone can be in a welcome series and a birthday journey at once. Use goals and conditions if two journeys should not overlap.
Can I change an automation while it is live?
Yes, as long as the change leaves no errors — a live journey with a problem will not save. For bigger rebuilds, pause it first.
Can I A/B test emails inside an automation?
Yes. Add a Split step with two or more paths and the percentages you want, put a different email on each path, and compare the per-step numbers in the automation report.
Can an automation tell my team about something?
Yes. The Notify team step sends a note with a title to everyone, to owners and admins, or to chosen teammates. Sales journeys can also create a task with a due date or open a deal for the contact.
Can contacts from other apps start a journey?
Yes. Contacts sent in through the API, Zapier, Make, Pabbly Connect or an incoming webhook can be added to a list or given tags, which starts any journey that begins on that list or tag.
How do I see why a contact left an automation?
Find the contact in the automation’s list of runs. Each step is shown with its time, plus the reason they finished — goal reached, unsubscribed, removed by a teammate and so on.