Use the "Send a 1:1 email" action as part of your sales engagement automation. Doing so can help you improve customer experiences, connect personal sales messaging to broader marketing strategies, and automate personal touch at scale.
Take Note
- One-to-one emails sent through this action come from your connected email account and use your email client. These emails are not sent from ActiveCampaign or our email servers
- You can use the "Send 1:1 email" action to nurture leads who have not opted into your lists(s). We recommend that your ActiveCampaign plan has a contact limit to cover leads once they opt-in to receive your emails
- The sending limit is 500 emails a day per connected email account
- You can insert a deal owner’s signature into the email. To learn more about this option, visit the Add a deal owner’s signature to an automated one-to-one email article
- One-to-one emails are text-only emails. It is not possible to add images or use the drag-and-drop email designer to create these emails
- If adding this action 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
About the "Send a 1:1 email" action
You can use the "Send a 1:1 email" automation action to send outbound emails with your connected email account.
In order to use this action, you need to first connect your email account to Deals and set a preferred email account. If you already connected your email account to deals, then you need to disconnect and reconnect your email account in order to use this action.
This action works with any automation trigger. Note that if you’re using a non-deal related trigger in your automation, you need to select a specific email address as the “From Email” sender. You will not be able to use the “%deal_owner_email%” option.
As contacts move through this action in your automation, a one-to-one email is sent to them. That email will appear in your email client's sent folder and on deal and contact records.
To learn about what you can and cannot do with the one-to-one email action, view the table below:
| You can: | You cannot: |
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✔ Send emails to prospective customers who have not opted into your list |
✘ Thread replies |
| ✔ Set a CC or BCC. Use a comma with a space to separate multiple email addresses. For example, joe1@example.com, joe2@example.com | ✘ Schedule to send within business hours |
| ✔ Use contact, deal, and account personalization tags in your email | ✘ Send unlimited emails (500 daily limit per connected account) |
|
✔ Use Bold, Italics, Underline, Hyperlinks, Bullets, and Numbered Lists in your messaging |
✘ Manually add contacts into an automation from the Contact record or Bulk Edit tool |
| ✔ Customize your signature | ✘ Add contacts that are not opted in to receive marketing communications to an automation that contains a marketing email |
| ✔ Track opens, clicks, and replies | |
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✔ Trigger automations to run when a contact opens, clicks, or replies to the one-to-one email |
|
| ✔ Combine marketing and sales emails in the same automation
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How to add and configure the "Send a 1:1 email" automation action
- Connect or reconnect your email account to the Deals CRM.
- Set a preferred email account. This is the default "From" email address that appears on all auotmated one-to-one emails.
- Click the "Automations" tab on the left menu.
- Create or select the automation you want to use with this action.
- The automation builder will load. Make sure your automation uses a Deal-related trigger.
- Click either the CRM section or the Sending Options section on the right sidebar to expand it.
- Drag the "Send a 1:1 email" action to your automation.
- A modal window will appear. Click the "From Email" field drop-down menu.
- Next, click the "From Email" option you would like to use. You can choose from one of the connected email accounts, or you can select %deal_owner_email%.
If you choose %deal_owner_email%, we'll use the preferred email address you set on the Deals Settings page. You can configure the preferred email address on the "Settings > Deal" page in your ActiveCampaign account.
- Type the name of your email into the field provided. This name is internal only and will not be seen by your contacts. Note that each email name needs to be unique, you can now use the same email name more than once.
- Type your subject line and message into the fields provided.
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Optional: Insert the deal owner’s signature into the message.
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Click the personalization icon (lightning bolt)
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Click the “Deals” option
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Click the “Deal Owner: Signature” option
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- Click "Email Tracking" to expand tracking options. You will see that open and link tracking are set to "On" by default.
If you set up a one-to-one email within an automation before engagement tracking was available, you will need to update that automation block to enable tracking.
- Click the "Add" button.
Personalize your automated one-to-one email (recommended)
You can insert personalization tags into your automated one-to-one emails. Doing so adds specific information from the contact, deal, or account record into your email.
When you insert a tag into your email, we’ll display the tag only. Once the email is sent, contact, deal, or account-related information will replace the tag itself.
For example, you can use a personalization tag for a contact’s first name, deal value, account name, etc.
Using personalization in your sales emails can strengthen your engagement and establish trust with your leads and customers.
Learn more about personalization tags.
To personalize your one-to-one emails:
- From the one-to-one email composer, click the personalization option (lightning bolt).
- Select the standard object (Contacts, Accounts, Deals) and the field you wish to insert.
- When finished, click the “Save” button.