Adding an Action step to my Act! Marketing Automation campaign

Question: How do I add an action step to my Act! Marketing Automation campaign?

Product Family: Emarketing
Product: Act! Marketing Automation

Answer:

Many times, when creating a campaign, you would like for certain things to happen during the campaign based off of your recipients' response to the emails within (whether they open an email or click on a product link within an email). By adding an Action step to your flow, you now have that ability. 

I will run you through an example of what this would look like. Let's say that I have created a campaign, with the first email announcing a new product with a link that directs you to that product page on my website. Then I want to add a Decision step assessing if my recipients clicked on the product link within the email. If they did click, I want to add an Activity in Act! for one of my sales reps to reach out to the recipient with more information on our new product. If they did not click on the link, then nothing happens, they are done with the campaign. Here is how to build this out:

In your AMA campaign, follow these instructions on how to add a Decision step after your first email step. In the example we are using in this use case, you would build your decision step to asses a Link Clicked (Specific URL), then select the new product URL. Once the Decision tree is added to your campaign flow:

1. Click the End step under the Yes branch.
2. In the pop up's first drop down, select Change Action Type and in the following drop down, select Actions. Click Go.
3. You are taken to your Action step editor with a pop up asking you to select your action type. You can select any of the following options:
   • Create Activity - Create an activity in Act! that will appear in the Task List.
   • Create Opportunity - Create an opportunity in Act! that will appear in Opportunities.
   • Add to Drip - Add these contacts to another AMA Drip Campaign.
   • Add to Group - Add these contacts to an Act! group.
   • Update Contact Field - Update a specific field for your contacts.
   • Notification - Send an email notification to a specified Act! user.
   • Remove from Drip - Remove these contacts from another AMA Drip Campaign.
4. In our example, we will select Create Activity from the drop down. You will then see the following fields appear:
5. 
6. In the first drop down, select the user you want these activities to be assigned to. Note that each individual click from the decision step's assessment will create a unique activity. So, if 20 recipients click your product link, 20 activities will be created, one for each contact. You can use the account manager, which will be dynamic depending on the account manager of each recipient this campaign is sent to. Or, you may choose one user for all activities to be assigned to.
7. In the next drop down, select the activity type. The options presented here reflect the types of activities that can be used in Act! In this example, I am selecting To-do.
8. In the Regarding field, enter a brief description of of what this activity relates to. This will make it easier for the user to determine what this activity is about. In this example, I will put "Contact interested in new product".
9. In the Details field you can enter more details about the activity and what you would like the user to do. In this example I will put "contact clicked new product link in our Summer 2020 new product campaign. Reach out to this contact with more information on our new product".
10. Once the fields are filled out, click Save.
11. You will now see your selection in the Actions setup. Under Drip Actions, give your action step a name. Something simple like "Add Activity" will suffice.
12. You can add as many additional actions as you want. To do so, click the Actions drop down and select Add Action. The same pop up we saw before will appear and you can add additional action items to this step.
13. Once you are done with the action step setup, click Actions > Save & Return.

You will be taken back to your campaign flow. If you are finished building out your additional steps in your campaign, make sure each branch in the campaign ends with an End step. In this case, you will click the Action step and in the pop up, select Insert Action After. In the following drop down, select End, then click Go. Your campaign flow is now complete!