How to Create an Event-Based Automation in ListSend

A guide covering standard automations that are triggered by a single event's creation, start date, or end date.

Automations in ListSend come in two types: standard automations (triggered by a single event) and frequency-triggered automations (triggered on a recurring schedule, like weekly or monthly roundups).

This guide covers standard automations.

Good use cases for event-based automations include:

Sending an announcement email when a new event is published
Sending a reminder a set number of days before an event's start date
Notifying subscribers when an event is canceled

Step 1: Create a New Automation

Click the Automations tab in the left navigation.
Click Create Automation.
Enter a name for the automation (e.g., "New Event Announcement").
Optionally, add a description for your own internal reference.

Step 2: Configure the Trigger

The trigger determines what causes the automation to run. You'll choose both a trigger event and a send timing.

Trigger event options:

When an event is published
Based on the event's start date
Based on the event's end date
When an event is canceled

Send timing options:

Immediately
A few hours after the trigger
A few days after the trigger
Next weekday (useful if events are published overnight which sometimes can happen with auto-imports and you don't want emails going out at odd hours)
Next specific day of the week (e.g., always send on Tuesdays regardless of when the trigger fires)

Step 3: Choose Recipients

Select who will receive this automation email. Options include:

All subscribers (default)
Filtered by tags (you can mix and match tags -- pay close attention to if it's set to subscribers that have ONE of the tags or ALL of the tags. If you accidentally select "ALL" of the tags, you might send to nobody if nobody has all of those tags).
Subscriber recency filter -- only sends to subscribers added recently, which can be useful for welcome-style emails (this feature is still in beta, let support@evnetvesta.com know if you have any issues).

Step 4: Set the Send Time

Choose the exact time of day the email should go out, and confirm your time zone. Then click Save and Continue.

Step 5: Build the Email

This is where you design the email itself. A few things work differently here compared to standard email builds:

Single Event Block

The single event block always displays the event that triggered the automation. It will look different each time the automation fires, depending on the event. You can toggle which details appear, including:

Event image
Title
Date and time
Location
Short description
Ticket link button

Event List Block

You can also add an event list to the email (e.g., under a "More Events" header). A few options specific to automations:

Excludes the triggering event by default -- the event shown in the single event block won't repeat in the list. You can turn this off if needed.
Date range -- set how far into the future (days, weeks, or months from the trigger date) the list should pull events from.
Max number of events to show in the list.
Choose which details to display for each event in the list (e.g., title and ticket button only).
Show recurring dates -- if enabled, each individual occurrence of a recurring event appears as its own row. If disabled, only the start and end dates are shown.
Optionally add a View All button at the bottom of the list, linking to a URL of your choice.

Step 6: Use Variables

In any automation email, you can insert dynamic variables that pull in information from the triggering event. These can be placed in text blocks, headers, and subject lines.

Available variables:

Event title
Event description
Event start date
Event start time
Event location
Event URL (the ticket link added in Vesta)
Event image URL (the banner image uploaded to Vesta)

Example uses:

Add the event title to your subject line (e.g., "Just Announced: [Event Title]")
Use the Event URL variable inside a button so the button destination updates automatically with each send

Note: Subject line variables don't display in the preview, but they will populate correctly when the automation fires. It can be helpful to send a campaign to yourself as a test (set your tag in subscribers to "test" and then select recipients to only those who have "test" as a tag).

A note on previewing: The preview will show a sample event as a placeholder to demonstrate formatting. The actual email will reflect the real event that triggers it.

Step 7: Save and Activate

Click Save Draft. Once saved, it will take you back to the automations page. You'll have to click "Enable" to activate the automation. You can always turn it off by clicking the "Disable" button to toggle it off.