Build one complete automation other than the welcome sequence, test every branch and switch it on.
Before you open your email tool, pick the flow you will build and write its name at the top of a blank document. It must be something other than the welcome sequence, and it should be the flow that fixes the biggest leak in the business today. Take it from the flow you drew in Lesson 7.1, "Every automation is a trigger, a condition and an action", or from one of the two flows you chose in Lesson 7.2, "The flows worth setting up first".
Most failed automations fail quietly, and nobody notices. An untested branch can send the wrong email to the wrong people for months. A condition can check for a tag that is never added, so half the flow never runs. Owners often assume a flow works because nobody has complained. The aim here is to know the flow works because you watched every branch behave correctly. You will end with a live flow, a saved diagram of it, and exit rules consistent with Lesson 7.3. Plan on about fifty minutes of building and testing, plus the time to write the emails.
Write all the emails in that one document before you open the flow builder, as you did for the welcome sequence in Lesson 4.4. For each email, record the subject line, preview text, body, a single link, and its branch and position.
When the writing is done first, the tool work becomes pure assembly. Writing first also shows whether the flow makes sense as a sequence. Read each branch's emails in order, as one subscriber would receive them, and check that the branch reads as a coherent story. Priya, an invented business owner, runs an enquiry flow where parents submit a form and may then book a trial. Her "did not book" branch tells one story: available slots, then answers to common questions, then a personal message from Priya. If two emails on one branch say nearly the same thing, merge them or cut one.
Set the trigger first and confirm it is something the tool can detect, using the check from Lesson 7.1. Add the delays, conditions and emails in order, pasting the text from your document. Set the sender name and reply address on every email.
Add an exit condition, which is the event that takes someone out of the flow. It is usually the purchase, booking or reply the flow exists to produce. Then check the newsletter exclusion or frequency setting from Lesson 7.3, so people in this flow do not also receive a pile of other marketing.
Add an internal notification wherever a human follow-up would help more than another email. Most tools can send an internal email to an address you choose. In an enquiry flow, it might alert the owner when a parent has not booked after two emails. In an abandoned cart flow on a high-value order, it might be a note to call or message the customer. The notification should state who the person is and what they did, so the owner can act without searching.
A flow with two conditions has at least three paths, and each path needs its own test contact that meets that path's conditions. Use personal addresses you control, or use the plus trick: many inboxes deliver yourname+test1 at your provider to your normal inbox.
Shorten the delays while you test. Use the tool's test mode if it has one, or a temporary copy with short delays as in Lesson 4.4. Walk each test contact down a different branch. For each test, write down which emails arrived, in what order, and whether the notification fired. Compare the results against your diagram. Any difference is a bug, so fix it and test again.
Priya ran three tests. In test one, she submitted the enquiry form and booked a trial straight away, and expected the contact to exit to the confirmation and reminder. In test two, she submitted the form, did not book, then booked after the follow-up email, and expected the contact to exit at that point. In test three, she submitted the form and never booked, and expected the flow to end with a notification to her.
In the first round, test two wrongly received the "Still thinking about it?" email after booking. Her calendar connection had added the booking tag a few minutes late, after the condition had already checked. A tag added by a connected tool can arrive late like this, and a short wait before the condition fixes it. Priya added that wait, and the second round of testing passed.
Switch the flow on for real contacts only after every branch behaves correctly. Then save a diagram of the flow as built. It can be a screenshot of the tool's canvas or a clean redraw of your paper version. Label it with each email's subject line and the condition on every branch. The owner, or anyone helping, will use it at the next review. Over the following week, watch the first few real contacts go through and check that each took the expected branch.
Your flow is done when it:
is switched on for real contacts has passed a test on every branch, with results written down has an exit condition for its goal is protected against overlap with the newsletter has at least one internal notification where a person should step in has a saved diagram with every subject line and branch condition
The activity below asks you to switch on that tested flow and save its diagram as your record.
Switch on one automation flow you have tested. Save a diagram of it showing each email's subject line and the condition on every branch.
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