Create Email Automations with Mailchimp | Mailchimp Automations Tutorial

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform with power-packed features that allow you to create email automation and launch them with ease.

In this Mailchimp automation tutorial, we’ll explain how to launch email automation in a matter of minutes using customer journeys.

Email automation is essential for driving specific actions and events, such as increasing customer engagement, recovering lost customers, cross-selling, nurturing relationships, and more.

However, you’ll need a paid Mailchimp account for that.

The free version only allows a single automated email.

This could be a welcome email sent automatically when a visitor subscribes to your newsletter.

However, this tutorial is about creating an automated email sequence.

This feature is known as ‘customer journeys’ in Mailchimp.

How to Create Email Automations with Mailchimp?

Let’s meet you inside the Mailchimp dashboard to understand more about email automation!

Access Customer Journeys within Mailchimp

To access email automation, navigate over to and click on ‘Automations’, ‘Campaigns’, or you can simply click on ‘Create’ on the top-left.

For this Mailchimp automation tutorial, we’ll opt for the third option by navigating over to ‘create’.

Now, you’re required to follow these steps below:

• Select ‘Customer Journeys’ from the menu on your left
• Click ‘Start Creating’. You’ll be taken to the newest version of customer journeys within Mailchimp. However, if you’re an old user and prefer the classic version, click on ‘Classic Automations’ in the upper-right corner. It’s highly likely that the classic version is going to be phased out soon, so in this guide, we will proceed with ‘Customer Journeys’ in this Mailchimp automation tutorial.
• If you had set up email sequences before, you’ll find them under ‘My Journeys’

Choose an Email Sequence Template

To find email sequence templates offered by Mailchimp, scroll down until you find a section titled ‘Looking for inspiration?’

You may also create email automation from scratch if you like.

However, for this tutorial on how to use Mailchimp automation, we’ll opt for a template instead.

You need to pick an email sequence template that aligns with your goal.

Mailchimp offers various templates depending on what your goals are.

For example, your goal could be to:

• Recover lost customers
• Welcoming new contacts
• Promote cross-sell opportunities
• Remind customers to reorder …and more!

In this tutorial, we’ll choose a premade template named ‘Welcome new contacts’ and start customizing it.

The customer journey objective here is to nurture relationships.

You can see what the customer journey looks like right now (refer to the screengrab).

Start by:

• Clicking on ‘Build a Journey’
• Then select your audience from the drop-down menu

If you’re completely new to Mailchimp and don’t have an audience yet, watch this beginner’s tutorial on how to use Mailchimp (this will help you get started with MailChimp).

Once you’ve selected your audience, click ‘Continue’.

On your right, you can see the current automated email sequence.

It’s important to know that if you upgraded to the Essentials plan, you can only access four points in your customer journey.

However, if you have the Standard plan, you can access up to 10 points within your customer journey.

Let’s go ahead and break down this email sequence that’s designed to welcome your contacts:

Read More: How To Use MailChimp

Understand the Customer Journey

Below we have explained the customer journey at every step:

Step 1: Audience Building

When visitors sign up to your email list, they’ll be added to this email sequence.

If you have Mailchimp integrated on your website and someone subscribes to your email list, then they’ll be added to an audience called ‘Syndeo Media’ (an example for this tutorial).

We’ve also built landing pages within Mailchimp that capture audiences and add them to our email list called ‘Syndeo Media’.

Once a visitor signs up from our website or a landing page, they’ll be sent the first email instantly (learn how to create a landing page with MailChimp here).

Step 2: Customizations

As you can see from the email sequence, the subscriber will be sent the second email in our sequence two days later.

In that, there will be more information ‘About Us’.

You can customize the look, feel, and content of each of these emails in your sequence using the drag and drop email builder.

We will also talk more about customizing your emails soon!

Step 3: Conditions

After a delay of two days, you can see that the sequence has an if/else rule.

Your contact will join the ‘yes’ path if they meet your conditions.

The conditions chosen for this Mailchimp automation tutorial are ‘clicked’.

Therefore, if the visitor clicks the first email, then they will be added to the ‘Yes’ path and then receive the second email two days later.

The same condition is set for Welcome Email 2. If needed, you can add additional conditions or changes if you like.

Step 4 (a): “Yes” Path

Any subscriber added to the ‘Yes’ path will be tagged as a ‘high engagement’ contact.

Tags are used to basically group your audience.

You can have multiple tags within your email list so that you can target different groups within your audience.

Step 4 (b): “No” Path

If a visitor does not click on the ‘welcome email’ or the ‘More about us’ email, they will be added to the ‘No’ path. And, they will be tagged as ‘No Engagement’.

By clicking the three vertical dots next to a journey, you can either edit a journey or delete it.

Customize Each Email

Remember when we mentioned that you can customize each of these emails in the sequence?

It’s time to understand how in this Mailchimp automation tutorial.

Click on the three dots next to your welcome email and select ‘Edit Journey Point’.

You can now proceed to change the subject line (the first thing that your contact would see), preview text, and schedule.

You now need to design your email.

Click on ‘Select a Template’ and then pick an appropriate layout.

Use Mailchimp Email Builder

Mailchimp is a leading email automation platform that allows you to create personalized emails using its simple email builder.

On the right-hand side, you have different blocks (like text, boxed text, divider, image, image group, image card, image text, and more) that you can easily drag and drop over to the left-hand side of your email.

You can also remove the existing blocks by clicking the bin icon.

By clicking the pencil icon, you can start customizing each of these blocks.

The formatting options are on your right.

Here, you’ll find various editing options under content, style, and settings.

When you’re done formatting, click ‘Save & Close’.

If you want to save this template for the future, click ‘Save as Template’ in the top-right corner, name your template, and hit ‘Save’.

To head back to your email sequence, click ‘Save and Return to Journey’.

Also Read: Top 5 FREE Email Marketing Software

Set Rules: Time Delay

If you click on ‘Time Delay’, you can choose to delay your next email by as many days, weeks, or hours as necessary.

And when you’ve set the rule, click ‘Save’. Now when you edit the next email, this time you can choose ‘Use a Previous Campaign as a Template’

On your left, you can see other rules such as ‘Wait for Trigger’.

Drag-and-drop it to your email to add the rule.

Below the Rules, you’ll notice down certain ‘Actions’.

Using the same drag-and-drop feature of Mailchimp, you can add actions to your email sequence.

For example, under the ‘No’ path, you can drag and drop the ‘Unsubscribe’ action.

Feel free to go through each action on your left and add the one that makes sense to you.

When you’re ready to activate the email automation, click ‘Turn On’ in the upper-right corner.

Your new email sequence is now live!

If you navigate over to ‘My Journeys’, you’ll see your newly created email sequence.

By clicking the three dots next to it, you can also either replicate your journey or simply view it.

Also Read: BEST Email Marketing Software

Mailchimp Automation Tutorial for Beginners

That is everything we wanted to cover in this Mailchimp automation tutorial!

If you are a beginner and want to have a more detailed visual walkthrough then we have a video tutorial below to guide you through the MailChimp automation process. Enjoy!