Automation Actions

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Automation Actions

Actions are a series of processes that a contact proceeds through once they enter your automation. The action is executed as a contact encounters it in their automation path. Actions can be external, such as communicating with contacts via email, SMS, or site message, or internal, such as updating a deal or contact score, adding the contact to another automation, or sending notification emails.

In this article, we'll explain each automation action and share examples of how you can use them.

Take Note

• Actions available in the automation builder depend on your plan level. For example, some customers may have access to all actions listed below, while others may not. Learn more about ActiveCampaign plans and pricing.
• Starter plans can have up to five actions in an automation.
• When building automations, we recommend creating several smaller, manageable automations over one large one. Here is a best practices guide to learn more.
• If adding any actions to an “Active” automation, make sure to set the automation to “Inactive” first. Once you’re done editing the automation, set it back to “Active” so contacts can continue to enter your automation and proceed through your workflow. Learn how to make automations active and inactive.

Actions and Plan Availability at a Glance

Base Plans	Automation Actions	Enterprise	Professional	Plus
Starter (Max of 5 per automation action)	Send an email ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Wait ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Subscribe ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Unsubscribe ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Add a tag ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Remove a tag ✅	✅	✅	✅
	AI Actions Library ✅	✅	✅	✅
	Send an internal notification email ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Send a site message ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	If/Else ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Go to ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Jump To ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Webhook ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Format data > Copy field values ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Format data > Extract phone numbers or URLs ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Format data > Capitalize a field ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Update a contact ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Add a note ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Adjust a contact score ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Add to Facebook Custom Audience ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Remove from Facebook Custom Audience ✅	✅	✅	🚫
	Split ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	Start an automation ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	End another automation ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	Format Data > Add or remove time from a date field ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	Format Data > Perform math ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	Convert ✅	✅	🚫	🚫
	Create a contact in Salesforce ✅	🚫	🚫	🚫
	Create a lead in Salesforce ✅	🚫	🚫	🚫
	Add contact to Salesforce campaign ✅	🚫	🚫	🚫

Actions Available with Starter, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise Plans

“Send an email”

Located under "Sending." This action sends an automated campaign to each contact who goes through this automation step. You can design the email and time it by placing a wait condition before it. Note that the contact will need an email address to receive the message. Learn more about the Send an email action.

You also have the option of split testing within the "Send an email" action. This is separate from the "Split" action. Learn more about the Send an email action split test.

Contacts must have a list subscription to receive automated campaigns.

“Wait”

Located under "Workflow." The wait action pauses the automation for the contact at this step. You can specify how long they wait before proceeding to the next action in their automation path.

There are four types of "Wait" actions that you can create:

• Wait for a set period of time
• Wait until a specific day and/or time
• Wait until a custom date field matches
• Wait until specific conditions are met

Learn how to configure the Wait automation action.

“AI Actions Library”

Located under "Workflow." The “AI Actions Library” is a collection of actions that let you transform the value of a custom field and save the result into another custom field. For example, you can use the "AI Actions Library" to summarize text, reveal sentiment analysis, translate language, extract data to react automatically, and build your own AI actions with an AI Prompt.

Learn more about the AI Actions Library. You must purchase activities to use the "AI Actions Library."

“Subscribe”

Located under "Contacts." The “Subscribe” action adds a contact to a list, resulting in the contact having an "Active" status. For more info on contact statuses, visit Contact statuses explained.

This action will affect automation list associations and unsubscribes. Learn more about how to manage unsubscribes and list associations in automations.

“Unsubscribe”

Located under "Contacts." The “Unsubscribe” action removes the contact from a list.

“Add a tag”

Located under "Contacts." The “Add tag” action will apply a tag to a contact when they reach this step.

“Remove a tag”

Located under "Contacts." The “Remove tag” action will remove a tag from a contact when they reach this step.

Actions Available with Plus, Professional, and Enterprise Plans

“Send an internal notification email”

Located under "Sending." This action sends a notification email to someone in your company when an action you specify occurs.

“Send a site message”

Located under "Sending." This action lets you display messages to an opted-in contact when they visit a specific page on your site or any page of your site. You may want to use this to display information about a new offering or a coupon code for a product to get your contact to complete a purchase. Read more about Site Messages.

To use this feature, you must have site tracking installed and enabled on your site.

“If/Else”

Located under "Workflow." An “If/Else” action creates a fork in your automation with a "Yes" path and a "No" path. The conditions for this action are created with a segment builder.

“Go to”

Located under "Workflow." The “Go to” action lets you move contacts to another automation step.

“Jump To”

Located under "Workflow." The "Jump To" action allows contacts to jump from their current location in your automation to that "Jump To" action if they meet the conditions.

“Webhook”

Located under "Workflow." The “Webhook” action sends a webhook to another application, allowing you to automate actions with apps outside of ActiveCampaign.

“Copy field values”

Located under "Workflow > Format Data." The “Copy field values” action lets you extract a phone number or URL from an existing contact, account, or deal field and format it.

“Extract phone numbers or URLs”

Located under "Workflow > Format Data." The “Extract phone numbers or URLs” action lets you extract a phone number or URL from an existing contact, account, or deal field and format it.

“Capitalize a field”

Located under "Workflow > Format Data." The “Capitalize a field” action lets you capitalize text within a contact, account, or deal field to a selected output.

“Update a contact”

The “Update contact” action lets you add data to the contact record.

“Add a note”

Located under "Contacts." The “Add note” action attaches a note to a contact record.

“Adjust a contact score”

When a contact reaches the “Adjust score” action in your automation, you can move their score up or down.

“Add to Facebook Custom Audience”

Located under "Contacts." This action will add contacts to a Facebook Custom Audience you specify.

“Remove from Facebook Custom Audience”

Located under "Contacts." This action will remove contacts from the Facebook Custom Audience you specify.

Actions Available with Professional and Enterprise Plans

“Split”

Located under "Workflow." The “Split” action allows you to create split test automations.

“Start an automation”

Located under "Workflow." The “Start an automation” action will start an automation you specify when the contact reaches that step.

“End another automation”

Located under "Workflow." The “End another automation” action stops the contact from running through all automations or an automation you specify.

“Add or remove time from a date field”

Located under "Workflow > Format Data." The “Add or remove time from a date field” action lets you add or subtract a specified number of days from a given date or datetime contact, account, or deal field.

“Perform Math”

Located under "Workflow > Format Data." The "Perform Math" action lets you execute calculations on existing contact, account, or deal fields.

“Convert”

Located under "Contacts." The "Convert" automation action enables a contact to trigger a conversion while in an automation.

Actions Available with the Enterprise Plan

“Create a contact in Salesforce”

Located under "Salesforce." You must have the ActiveCampaign Salesforce integration to use this action.

“Create a lead in Salesforce”

Located under "Salesforce." You must have the ActiveCampaign Salesforce integration to use this action.

“Add Contact to Salesforce campaign”

Located under "Salesforce." You must have the ActiveCampaign Salesforce integration to use this action.

Automation Actions Available with the Pipelines and Sales Engagement Add-ons

“Add a deal”

The “Add deal” action creates a deal record for an opportunity.

“Update a title”

The “Update title” action will edit a deal’s title.

“Update a status”

The “Update status” action can be used to change a deal’s status to “Open,” “Won,” or “Lost.”

“Update a deal owner”

The “Update owner” action will change who a deal is assigned to.

“Update a value”

The “Update value” action changes a deal's estimated value.

“Update a stage”

The “Update stage” action moves a deal to another stage of your pipeline.

“Update a custom deal field”

This action updates the value of a custom deal field.

“Add a deal task”

The “Add a deal task” action creates new to-do items for your Deals.

“Add a deal note”

The “Add note” action adds a note to the deal record.

“Complete a deal task”

The “Complete task” action closes a task by marking it as completed.

“Adjust a deal score”

The “Adjust a deal score” action moves a deal score up or down.

“Update an account field”

The “Update an account field” action lets you add or modify an account field value.

“Add an account note”

The “Add an account note” action adds a note to the account record.

“Update an account owner”

This action updates the owner of an account.

“Add contact to account”

The "Add contact to account" action lets you create and add contacts to a new or existing account.

Automation Action Available with the Sales Engagement Enhanced CRM

“Send a direct 1:1 email”

You can send a 1:1 email with any connected email through an automation action.

Automation Action Available with the SMS Add-on

“Send an SMS”

When a contact reaches this action in your automation, a text message will be sent to them.

Automation Action Available with the Transactional Email Add-on

“Send a transactional email”

You must connect Postmark to ActiveCampaign to use this action.

Apps

This category gives you a variety of branded actions you can perform in your automation using a 3rd party application or integration.

More Resources to Help You Create Automations

Now that you are familiar with automation actions, you may want to learn about how the automation workflow builder works or go through a walkthrough of creating an automation so that you can see how combining triggers and actions lets you create fully automated sequences of events.

See Also

• Original ActiveCampaign Article

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