C7 - Triggers & Automation

Trigger campaigns and automation: the seven default triggers and how to build automated follow-ups.

By Andres Miramontes

• 4 articles

7.1 The seven default triggers

What triggers do 10 triggers Triggers are automation that watch prospect behavior and act on it without you. When the trigger condition fires, its actions run — pausing campaigns, marking prospects, notifying you. PersistIQ comes with seven triggers already in place: The defaults 1. Added to campaign — fires when a prospect enters a campaign, for the actions you want at sequence start. 2. Replied — a prospect replies. Usually pauses the sequence so automated follow-ups don't hit someone who answered, and lets your team take over. 3. Opted out — the prospect clicked the opt-out link. Stops all contact. 4. Bounced — an email to the prospect failed, so the sequence stops rather than sending more email to a dead address. 5. Completed with no reply after 3 days — the prospect finished the sequence without replying; handles post-sequence cleanup or handoff. 6. Auto-replies pause campaign — out-of-office and similar automated replies pause the sequence for that prospect until they're back, so real follow-ups don't get burned while the mailbox is away. 7. Unrelated replies — a reply that isn't a real response to your campaign (wrong thread, automated noise) is handled without treating it as engagement. Why the defaults are good They encode the hygiene rules that keep outbound healthy: never keep sequencing a human who replied, never keep emailing a dead address, never blast someone on PTO. If you're new, leave them on. Where to see them Open Triggers in the top navigation to review each trigger, its condition, and its actions. See Editing trigger actions to customize what happens when a trigger fires.

Last updated on Nov 13, 2026

7.2 Editing trigger actions

Anatomy of a trigger 10 triggers Every trigger has two halves: - Condition — the behavior being watched (replied, bounced, opted out, added to campaign, and so on). - Actions — what happens when the condition fires. Common action changes - Replied — add a "notify the team" action (email or Slack-style alert) so hot replies get worked the minute they land, not next Monday. - Auto-replies pause campaign — add a notification so you know when a prospect is out of office; that's often a scheduling opportunity, not just a pause. - Completed with no reply — set the delay you want before this fires (default 3 days after completion) and choose whether the prospect gets tagged or handed off. - Bounced — tag the prospect so list cleanup is one filter away. How to edit 1. Open Triggers in the top navigation. 2. Select the trigger you want to change. 3. Adjust its actions — add or remove them. 4. Save. Change discipline Alter one trigger at a time and watch a few firing cycles before the next change. Triggers touch every campaign at once, so a bad edit multiplies fast. The defaults are sane; you're usually adding notifications, not removing stops.

Last updated on Nov 13, 2026

7.3 Creating custom triggers

When you need one 10 triggers The seven defaults cover sequence hygiene. Custom triggers add your team's workflow: routing, tagging, alerts. Examples: - Tag prospects who clicked a pricing link twice — "warming" for prioritized follow-up. - Alert the account owner when a large-account prospect replies. - Tag prospects whose auto-reply mentioned a successor so you remember to chase the new contact. Building one 1. Open Triggers. 2. Choose to create a new trigger. 3. Set the condition — the prospect behavior to watch. 4. Add actions: pause campaign, change status, apply tag, notify. 5. Save, then watch it fire on real events before relying on it. Design rules - Never weaken the safety defaults — don't build anything that re-contacts opted-out or bounced prospects. - Prefer tags over status changes — tags are reversible and don't fight the sequence state machine. - One behavior per trigger — compound triggers are hard to debug. - Test with one campaign — enable the trigger, run one small campaign, verify the actions fire as expected before going wide. [CONFIRM: exact list of available trigger conditions and actions in the current UI]

Last updated on Nov 13, 2026

7.4 Trigger best practices

The rules 10 triggers 1. Leave the safety defaults on. The replied / opted-out / bounced / auto-replies triggers exist so you never send a follow-up to someone who answered, unsubscribed, or has a dead mailbox. Removing them is how teams get spam-flagged and annoyed replies. 2. Add alerts before you add actions. The most valuable trigger change for most teams is "notify a human faster", not "automate more". A reply alert beats an elaborate auto-branch every time. 3. One change at a time. Triggers run account-wide. Change one, observe, then change the next. 4. Tag, don't destroy. When a trigger condition is ambiguous (unrelated replies), tag the prospect for human review rather than automatically removing or resuming them. 5. Review triggers quarterly. As your team and campaigns change, old automation outlives its purpose. Check each trigger still reflects what you want. 6. Watch the interaction with sending windows. A trigger that resumes campaigns interacts with windows and Daily Prospect Start — verify timing behavior after edits. Debugging a misfire When a trigger does something unexpected: check the prospect's timeline for the exact event that fired it, confirm the condition actually matched (an "unrelated reply" classification is judgment-based), and check whether a recent trigger edit is the cause. Revert recent trigger changes first — it's usually the last edit.

Last updated on Nov 13, 2026