How to add an email to a flow

You will learn

Learn how to use the email component in the flow builder to add automated emails into your series. After dragging a new email card into a flow, you'll be able to configure your content and update key settings on the details sidebar.

Add an email

To add a new email into a flow:

1. Drag the Email component from the sidebar and drop it on any drop point on the flow canvas.
   
2. After adding a new email to your flow, edit the email by clicking the action icon (3 dots) in the corner of the email card and select Edit.
   

When you click Edit, you'll be taken to a page where you can update the following for your new email:

• Name
• Subject line
• Preview text
• Sender name (From label)
• Sender email address / Reply-to address
• CC / BCC

You will then be prompted to create your email content using our drag and drop editor, our text-only editor, or by choosing a pre-built template from our library or your existing saved templates. 

Configure email settings

There are three key settings you can choose to configure for your email: 

• Smart Sending 
  Enable Smart Sending to skip over recipients that have already received an email from you too recently. This is on by default.
  
• UTM Tracking
  Including UTM parameters is useful for tracking clicks in Google Analytics. This is off by default.
• Additional Filters
  Add additional filters to an email to further restrict who will receive it. This is off by default.

In the details sidebar for an email, you can see and toggle the above settings at any time.

Change an email's sending status

After you've created the content for your new flow email and previewed it, you are ready to turn your email from draft to manual or live: 

• Draft
  This is the default status for a new email and is the status you should use while you're still configuring your content and adjusting settings. When an email is in draft, nobody will be queued up or receive the email.
• Manual
  When you are done configuring a new email and are interested in testing it out, you can place it in manual mode. When an email is in manual, it is active in your flow but no emails will trigger automatically at send time. You will need to manually review and send all scheduled emails.
• Live
  To "turn on" an email in a flow series, you will need to change the email's status to live. A live email is active in your flow and is sending automatically.

Note that every new email is in a draft state by default. Until you configure your email content, you will be unable to adjust the status to manual or live.

There are two ways you can change the status of an email. You can use the dropdown menu in the details sidebar, or you can change the status from the email card itself on the canvas.

Additional resources

Learn more about flow actions: 

• How to add a time delay to a flow
• How to add an SMS action to a flow
• How to add an update profile property action to a flow