Automations aren’t retroactive.
This means if you create a Visual Automation triggered by a form, the only subscribers who will enter that automation are those who sign up to that form after the automation was created.
Now, that’s all well and good if you’re aware of it beforehand and can plan accordingly. But what if something changes, or for some reason you create an automation a bit too late?
No worries! Here’s a workaround you can use to retroactively pull those subscribers into that automation.
1. Create a temporary tag
From the sidebar of the subscribers page, click + Create a Tag. You can give this tag whatever name you like.
Don’t worry too much about what to name it. We’ll be deleting it by the end of this tutorial!
2. Add that tag as an additional entry point to your automation
To add an additional entry point to an automation, click the plus sign to the right of the current rightmost entry point.
Next, click ‘Is added to a tag’, select the temporary tag you created in Step 1 from the dropdown, and then click ‘Add Event’.
3. Add the tag to the subscribers you want pulled into that automation
❗️Make sure you complete Step 2 first! The tag has to be added as an Entry Point before it gets added to the subscribers in order for this method to work.
Click here for a guide on how to bulk-add a tag to your subscribers!
4. Wait for those subscribers to be pulled into your automation
Since those subscribers will have received the tag after it was added as an entry point to the automation, those subscribers will be pulled into that automation.
It may take a few minutes for the system to fully process this action, especially if you’re adding it to a large number of subscribers. You should be able to check the progress by monitoring the number of subscribers marked as Completed under that entry point here:
5. Delete the tag and entry point
Once the Subscribers have been pulled into the automation, you no longer need the tag or entry point we created.
There are two things to delete in order to fully ‘clean up’ this process:
The temporary tag you created from the sidebar of the subscribers page (How To Delete a Tag)
The entry point of the automation
Removing the tag will not remove the subscribers from the automation.
NOTE: Deleting the entry point for an automation will remove any of its statistics. If you think you'll need statistics later, we recommend not editing the automation.
That’s it! Those subscribers will now continue to move through that automation as expected.