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; we cover these in this article.
No scheduled enrolment
We recommend creating your program without scheduled enrollment when you want to enrol a contact in a program that starts immediately. Learn more
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.
To learn how to enrol a contact using the API, check out the articles:
REST API: Create program enrolment
SOAP API: CreateEnrolment
The contacts must already exist in your account before enrolment occurs.
There is a limit of 20 API enrolments per account per hour. If you want to enrol more than 20 contacts per hour using the API, you must add contacts in batches rather than individually.
Recommended method: enrol more than 20 contacts per hour
In this method, you add a collection of contacts to a list, then enrol that list to a program using the API. You can then empty the list at a point in the program and begin the process again.
To enrol more than 20 contacts:
Add or import contacts into a list.
Enrol the list into the program every *five minutes using the API.
This can be whatever *length of time you want.At the start of your program, add a Remove contact node to remove all the contacts from your enrolling list.
Enrol using a list join action
You can set your list to enrol all new contacts onto a program automatically. Therefore, your contacts can sign up for a list with a signup form and enter themselves into the program.
This option only works for individual contact additions, not bulk uploads or bulk API calls.
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.
While this method is almost instantaneous, there might be a delay of up to 15 minutes 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 onto a program, you could send a campaign directly from sign-up 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 right away, and there is 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.