The entry rule for your campaign is always the first thing you should set up! This will determine which contacts enter into the campaign and receive your automated messaging. Ask yourself: which of my contacts do I want to receive messages from this campaign, and at what point do I want them to start receiving this messaging?

Most entry rules will be based on contacts taking a certain action, such as completing their first visit or purchasing a 5-class pack. Sometimes, entry rules can be based on contacts not taking a certain action, such as not visiting in 30 days. Whatever your intention for the campaign, establishing the correct entry rule will set your campaign up for success!

Once you have created your auto-campaign, setting up your entry rule will be the first step you encounter. If you haven't yet created your auto-campaign, log into Marketing Automation and navigate to the Auto-Campaigns tab in the navigation menu > click Create an Auto-Campaign in the top-right.

Once you have created and named your auto-campaign, it's time to set up your entry rule! Marketing Automations will prompt you with the question: Who should enter this auto-campaign?

Marketing Automations will first suggest to you a number of Quick Options conditions - these are commonly used conditions that are already set up for you for convenience. If you aren't seeing the condition you want in this list or aren't sure of what will be the best option for you, click Custom Rule at the bottom to see our full-fledged list of conditions.

When in doubt, choose Custom Rule! This will give you access to all of the awesome conditions you can use to pull contacts into your auto-campaign. Feel free to use the search bar to filter based on condition types. Depending on your booking software, the conditions may differ slightly from the image below.

Each condition has a series of drill-down options within for you to customize with. This gives you the ability to get really specific with who you are targeting with your campaign - but feel free to stay high-level, too! How nitty-gritty you get is completely up to you and your intentions for your messaging.

Let's use our First Visit condition as an example.

When we select this condition, the condition is pre-set to be as general as possible. There is no specific timeframe selected, and the condition is not currently filtering on any specific payment options, classes, or locations. This is great for capturing any contacts who simply have their first visit ever.

What if we want to be more specific and only capture contacts who have their first visit on a 10 Class Pack? Let's use our qualifier drill-down option to accomplish this!

Once you've finished customizing your entry rule, click Save. You'll then see your entry rule set up in the campaign.

Combining multiple conditions can be helpful when trying to accomplish a very specific campaign or add a restriction for another condition. The most important thing to note when combining multiple conditions in your entry rule is that they become "AND" conditions, not "OR" - "OR" scenarios unfortunately are not accomplishable with auto-campaigns and would require separate campaigns to be set up.

For instance, you may want to set up a campaign to target contacts who purchase your 10 Class Pack, but only those that have also not visited before. This would involve combining two conditions:

Notice that when we add both conditions, the entry rule shows this as an AND scenario:

An important thing to note about the logic of auto-campaigns is that they are forward-looking by nature. In simpler terms, if a contact has already met this entry rule in the past, they will not pull in.

For example, if you create an auto-campaign to target contacts who create a new profile in your booking software, this is only going to pull in contacts who create a profile from that day onward. Contacts who created profiles 6 months ago, or even 1 week prior to the campaign start, will not be captured.

If you are looking to also capture these past contacts, you can utilize our Segments tool to do so. Segments, unlike auto-campaigns, are able to capture contacts retroactively. Read more about creating segments and how you can incorporate them into existing auto-campaigns.

To learn more about editing an existing entry rule, check out this article!

Now that you have your entry rule all set in your auto-campaign, it's time to set your goal(s)!