Troubleshooting automation triggers and email sends

Automations are powerful tools for guiding subscribers through personalized journeys, but sometimes they don't trigger as expected, emails don't reach all eligible subscribers, or subscribers don't move through the workflow correctly. This guide walks through the most common reasons automations fail to work as intended and how to resolve them.

Every automation requires at least one trigger and one action before it can be published. If required, activate the trigger.

If your automation shows Inactive instead of Live or Draft, check that the trigger is activated and all action steps are fully configured before publishing.

How to fix: Go to Audience > Automations, open the automation, click the trigger step, and in the Properties panel, look for an Activate trigger toggle or button. Activate it, then publish your automation.

Automations in Draft status won't enroll any subscribers. Click Publish to make your automation live. Subscribers will begin entering the workflow as they meet your trigger and conditions.

If your automation uses a Manual trigger, subscribers are not enrolled automatically unless the trigger is linked to a subscribe form in the Website Builder. In that case, subscribers who submit the form are enrolled automatically. Otherwise, Manual triggers require you to explicitly enroll subscribers, either individually from their profile or in bulk by enrolling a segment. This behavior is different from other trigger types, which automatically enroll subscribers when trigger conditions are met.

How to fix: Manually enroll subscribers using one of these methods:

• Individual enrollment: Go to a subscriber's profile, click the dropdown next to Unsubscribe, select Add to Automations, and choose your automation.
• Bulk enrollment from a segment: Go to Audience > Segments, and either create and run a new segment or choose an existing one to use. Make sure the segment is complete and accurately reflects the group you want to enroll. From the segment's Overview tab, click Quick Export > Add to Automation.

Subscribers added via an import are not captured by the Signed up trigger by default. To enroll imported subscribers, the automation must include a manual import option, or subscribers must be added during the import process.

How to fix: Either use the Manual trigger to enroll imported subscribers after the fact, or when importing, enable the option to add subscribers to an automation during the import process.

The Unengaged trigger runs once daily and does not begin enrolling subscribers immediately upon being published.

What this means: If you publish an Unengaged automation at noon, it won't start enrolling subscribers until the following morning. Wait at least 24 hours after publishing before troubleshooting.

Subscribers who are already in the segment when the automation is created are not automatically enrolled. Segment entry and exit are not calculated in real time. Updates occur during segment recalculations, which vary by segment type. The first time you use a Segment action trigger, you must manually enroll existing segment subscribers using the next steps in this article.

How to fix: After creating a Segment Action automation, go to the segment's Overview tab, then Quick Export > Add to Automation, and select your automation to bulk enroll existing members.

Check whether you've added conditions to your trigger that might be too restrictive. Each trigger has its own settings in the Properties panel for you to configure the trigger and add optional conditions. Review all conditions and test with a single subscriber to confirm they're working as intended.

This can happen in instances like creating a Signed Up trigger with the tag condition, but the tag hasn’t been applied until after the trigger enrollment criteria has been assessed. To fix, evaluate the full workflow to see if the tag or custom field value can be added earlier. Or, remove the condition from the trigger, add a time delay after the trigger, and then add the tag or custom field condition to the next step. 

Subscribers who already completed the automation, meaning they've received the final email available at the time, will not receive new steps added later and have exited the automation workflow. Only subscribers still in progress or newly entering will enter additional steps.

What this means: If you add a new Send email step to a live automation, only subscribers who are currently in progress or new enrollees will receive it. Those who already finished the workflow won't move backward.

Some actions (like Send email) must be saved before the step is considered complete.

Steps display a status of Incomplete if required settings haven't been configured yet. This helps you quickly identify what still needs attention without manually activating each step.

How to fix: Open the Send email step, ensure you've created and saved an email, then publish the automation changes.

Tech Note: Email steps may also show as incomplete if the subject line of your email matches another email. 

Subscribers with this status have started the subscription process but haven't yet confirmed their email address. They will need to click the link to confirm their account within the email that is sent. They won't receive any emails (including posts dedicated to a segment or welcome email/sequences) until they complete this confirmation.

What this means: If your publication uses double opt-in, or if your subscribers are from referrals, subscribers won't enter automations until they confirm their email address and move to Active status.

When you're ready to apply those changes, click Publish. You'll be asked whether the updates should apply to subscribers already in the automation, or only to subscribers entering the workflow going forward.

How to fix: When publishing changes, choose the option to apply updates to subscribers already in the automation if you want in-progress subscribers to receive the new content.

If some subscribers didn't receive an automation email and you need to send it to them manually, you have two options:

Option 1: Create a segment and bulk enroll

1. Go to Audience > Segments and create a new segment with conditions that identify the subscribers who missed the email (for example, subscribers who entered the automation after a certain date, or those who match a custom field value).
2. From the segment's Overview tab, go to Quick Export > Add to Automation and select your automation. Subscribers will bypass the trigger and enter at the first step.

Option 2: Send a one-off broadcast If you only need to send the specific email once and don't need subscribers to continue through the rest of the automation, draft a regular post instead and send it to the segment of missed subscribers. This is faster and doesn't risk duplicate sends.

If subscribers are re-entering an automation unexpectedly (or not re-entering when you expect them to), review your re-entry settings.

Conditional re-entry: Subscribers can enter the automation multiple times, provided that they meet the acceptance criteria and additional conditions. If using Conditional re-entry, you must also set the Maximum re-entries per subscriber and the Cooldown period, which is how long they should wait between each entry.

How to check: Open your automation, click the pencil icon at the top of the canvas, and review the Allow re-entry? setting. Choose No re-entry, Unlimited re-entry, or Conditional re-entry based on your use case.