Automations
A CRM automation is a rule that runs when a defined event occurs. You tell the system what to watch for, which records qualify, and what action to take. This guide covers how to design a rule and decide which recurring agency work is suitable for automation.
On this page
- The three parts of an automation
- Why agencies automate
- How to plan an automation
- Workflows an agency can hand off
- Aim it with tags and smart lists
- Common questions about automations
The three parts of an automation
Every automation has three parts. Thinking about them separately makes a rule easier to get right.
- Trigger. The event that starts the rule. A contact is created, a deal moves stages, a task comes due. Without a trigger, nothing runs.
- Conditions. An optional filter on top of the trigger, so the rule only acts on the contacts you care about.
- Actions. What the system does when both pass: assign a task, send an email, set a field, or notify the team.
A rule with only a trigger and an action runs for everyone. Conditions narrow it to the contacts that matter.
Why agencies automate
The value of an automation is not cleverness. It is that the step happens every time.
An agency runs the same small processes across many clients at once. Follow up on a new lead. Start onboarding when a deal closes. Chase an overdue invoice. Each is a two-minute task, but spread across fifteen clients they are the first things to slip on a busy day. A rule that fires on the event removes the remembering.
The result is not fewer people doing work. It is that the routine parts happen on time, so the team spends its attention on the work that actually needs a person.
How to plan an automation
- Name the business event, such as a new qualified contact.
- Define the trigger that represents that event.
- Add conditions that exclude records outside the intended audience.
- Specify the action, owner, and deadline.
- Write test cases for matching, non-matching, repeated, and incomplete records.
- Decide how failures will be surfaced and retried.
Workflows an agency can hand off
A few rules that pay for themselves quickly.
| When this happens | The automation does this |
|---|---|
| A lead submits a form | Assign a follow-up task, due in 2 hours, to the on-duty owner. |
| A deal is marked won | Notify the team and open a kickoff call task. |
The invoice-overdue tag is added | Assign a chase-payment task to the account owner. |
A contact joins the inactive 90d smart list | Enroll them in the win-back email sequence. |
Take the won-deal rule. Before it, a closed deal sat until someone remembered to set up the kickoff, and onboarding started late often enough to notice. With the rule, the kickoff task exists the moment the deal closes. The client gets a fast start and nobody had to remember anything.
The form-lead rule solves a different problem. A lead that waits a day for a reply goes cold. Assigning the follow-up within two hours keeps response time short even on a busy afternoon.
The invoice rule is quieter but just as useful. An overdue invoice is easy to miss until renewal, when the conversation is harder. The moment the tag lands, someone owns the follow-up.
Aim it with tags and smart lists
Conditions turn a blunt rule into a useful one, and this is where the other guides plug in.
A tag can be the condition. "When a deal is created, only act if the contact has the enterprise tag." A smart list can be the condition too. "When a task comes due, only act if the contact is in the high-refund list." The condition is re-checked each time the trigger fires, so the rule stays accurate as those tags and lists change.
The pattern: tags mark a state on a contact, a smart list collects everyone in that state, and an automation watches for the moment that state matters and acts on it.
Common questions about automations
Can one contact trigger the same automation twice? Only if the trigger event happens twice. A contact created once fires a "contact created" rule once.
How do I pause a rule without deleting it? Disable the rule rather than deleting its definition or history. The exact control depends on the CRM executing it.
Why keep rules small?
Name each rule for what it does. Assign follow-up on new lead ages well in the run history. A single giant rule with six branches does not.
What happens if a condition stops matching? The rule does not run for that contact the next time the trigger fires. Conditions are checked fresh on every run, not cached from when you saved the rule.
Can I see what an automation did? A production automation system should retain a run history showing when the rule fired, which record it evaluated, what action it attempted, and whether that action succeeded.