

Ask HN: Do you know any email automation app? - aymeric

I want my marketing guy to be able to define emails that will be sent to my users based on queries that he should be able to build.<p>- If 30 days have passed since user signed in 
  Then send email A<p>- If user sends first message
  Then send email B<p>As a developer I just want to send what a specific user do to this automation app and let the marketer deal with email automation:<p>- Just signed in (2011-09-10 12:41)<p>- Sent first message (2011-09-11 13:54)<p>- ...<p>Does such an app exist ?
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dmk23
There are literally hundreds of ESPs (Email Service Providers).

Many of them offers APIs that can be programmed. You just need to define
clearly what exact automation functionality you need and then select the right
ESP based on API features and other factors, that surely would include
pricing.

YC recently funded an ESP as well: <http://www.mailgun.com>

Take a look

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aymeric
The thing is that I want my marketing guy to be able to set up the email rules
and to write the emails without my intervention.

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freshhawk
I'm pretty sure Office Auto Pilot has all of these features. I haven't set up
the complicated rules but we had an intern do it and another coworker has
worked with the API and it's pretty simple.

I haven't used it enough to say it's great or not, but it does all of these
things and everyone around me seems happy with it.

~~~
aymeric
Thank you I will check it out.

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maxbrown
At least some of this can be done with MailChimp, right?

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aymeric
Well I thought so too.

The way I intended to use MailChimp for this scenario was:

1\. All new users go in the Users list in mailchimp.

2\. Under the Users list, I have multiple groups:

\- Sent first message

\- Liked a message

\- Edited his profile

etc...

3\. When a user does an action, I add him via the MailChimp API to the right
group. (Can the same contact be in different groups?)

But then I stumbled upon this article:
[http://blog.mailchimp.com/autoresponder-triggers-in-
mailchim...](http://blog.mailchimp.com/autoresponder-triggers-in-mailchimp/)

"Some users have told us, “I don’t want to send autoresponders based on
subscription to a list. I need to trigger them via the API to send to people
already on my list.”

Our answer to that is NO."

I don't want my users to have to double opt-in again in MailChimp when they
have already done it for my application.

Do I misunderstand how MailChimp works?

