It's possible to start an automation program as soon as a contact signs up to a form or completes a specific action.
There are four options for this:
Each option has some limitations, which we cover in this article.
No scheduled enrolment
We recommend creating your program without scheduled enrolment when you want to enrol a contact into a program that starts immediately.
Learn more in Understand and create program start condition.
Using an integration
If you use a pre-built integration with us, there might already be a solution built for you.
Learn more in the Integrations section of the Help Centre.
Enrol using the API
When you enrol a contact into a program using our API, the contact starts their journey immediately rather than waiting for the program's next scheduled execution.
Learn how to enrol a contact using the API in the following articles:
REST API: Create program enrolment
SOAP API: CreateEnrolment
The contacts must already exist in your account before enrolment occurs.
API limits
You can call the program enrolment API up to 60 times per hour.
Each call can enrol up to 25 contacts, or enrol entire lists.
This operation does not count toward your flat‑rate transactional API limit.
Learn how re-enrolment works and what limits apply in Enrolment limits.
Recommended method: enrol large volumes of contacts
If you need to enrol more than 25 contacts at once, use address‑book enrolment.
This lets you add all contacts to a list and enrol that list in a single API call.
Example workflow:
Add or import contacts into a list.
Use the API to enrol the list into your program.
(Optional) At the start of your program, use a Remove contact node to clear the enrolment list.
Enrol using a list join action
You can use Surveys, pages, and forms to create a form that automatically enrols a contact into a program after they respond. This is done using the submit actions of your form.
Although the process is typically immediate, a delay of up to one minute may occur before your contact is fully enrolled and active in your program.
Learn more
Enrol using Surveys, pages, and forms
You can use Surveys, pages, and forms to create a form that automatically enrols a contact onto a program after responding. This is done using the submit actions of your form.
Although the process is typically immediate, a delay of up to 1 minute may occur before your contact is fully enrolled and active in your program.
The first email is not sent using a program
If you're looking to send a campaign instantly and enrol a contact into a program, you could send a campaign directly from signup using a join action for a list.
You can then automate the program based on a rule such as contacts who have been sent Campaign1, and haven't previously been in this program, ready to send the following email in the sequence. This means contacts get the first email straight away, and there's no significant delay in sending the first campaign.
However, your program won't contain the first email in the sequence, which could look confusing. It helps to add a note to your program as a reminder.