6 Steps to Your First Automation
Follow these steps in order. By the end, you'll have a working customer follow-up system running automatically.
1
Start your free trial
Go to activecampaign.com and click "Start a free trial." No credit card required. You get 14 days to test everything before paying anything.
When asked to pick a plan, choose Starter ($29/month). It includes everything you need: email automation, CRM deals, pipelines, forms, and reporting for up to 1,000 contacts.
💡 Tip: During signup you'll be asked what you use it for. Answer "Email marketing" and "CRM." This helps ActiveCampaign show you the most relevant features first.
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Screenshot: ActiveCampaign signup screen selecting "Starter" plan
2
Import your contacts
In the left sidebar, go to Contacts → Import. Choose "Import from file" and upload your CSV. ActiveCampaign walks you through matching your spreadsheet columns to the right fields (first name, last name, email, phone).
Once imported, your contacts appear in a searchable list. You can click any contact to see their full history, emails sent, automations they're in, and any notes you've added.
💡 Tip: You can also add contacts one at a time if you don't have a list yet. Go to Contacts → Add Contact. This is fine for getting started.
3
Create tags to organize your contacts
Tags are labels you attach to contacts so you can group and target them. Think of them like sticky notes: "new-customer," "repeat-customer," "vip," "inactive-6-months."
Your automations will use these tags. For example: "When a contact gets the tag 'new-customer', send the welcome email sequence." Or: "When a contact hasn't booked in 6 months, add the tag 'inactive' and send a win-back offer."
Go to Contacts → Tags → Manage Tags and create your first set. Start simple, you can always add more later.
💡 Good starter tags: new-customer / repeat-customer / vip / inactive-90days / requested-quote / booked / completed-service / review-requested
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Screenshot: ActiveCampaign tag manager example tags for a service business
4
Build your first automation
This is the exciting part. Go to Automations → Create Automation and choose "Start from scratch."
Your first automation should be a New Customer Welcome Sequence. Here's the exact flow to build:
- Trigger: "Contact is added to tag: new-customer"
- Action: Send email, "Welcome to [Business Name]!" (introduce yourself, set expectations)
- Wait: 3 days
- Action: Send email, Helpful tips or FAQ relevant to your service
- Wait: 7 days
- Action: Send email, "How did we do?" + link to leave a Google review
💡 Tip: ActiveCampaign's automation builder is drag-and-drop. You drag in "Send Email," "Wait," and "Add Tag" blocks and connect them. It's much easier than it sounds once you open it.
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Screenshot: ActiveCampaign automation builder welcome sequence with 3 emails and wait steps
5
Set up your deals pipeline
A "deal" in ActiveCampaign is any potential or active customer relationship you're tracking. Think of your pipeline as a whiteboard with columns, each column is a stage, and you drag customer cards from left to right as they progress.
Go to CRM → Pipelines → Add Pipeline and create your stages. A good starting pipeline for service businesses:
- New Lead, Someone expressed interest
- Contacted, You've spoken or emailed
- Quoted, You've sent a price
- Scheduled, Appointment or job booked
- Completed, Job done, follow-up due
- Won, Paid and happy
💡 Tip: You can set automations to trigger when a deal moves to a specific stage. Moving to "Completed" can automatically trigger your review request email. Moving to "Won" can add the "new-customer" tag and start your welcome sequence.
6
Connect your email inbox
Go to Settings → Email → Connected Accounts and connect your Gmail or Outlook. Once connected, any email you send to a contact from your inbox is automatically logged on their ActiveCampaign record.
This means your entire conversation history with a customer, quotes, confirmations, support emails, all lives in one place. No more digging through your Gmail to remember what you last said to someone.
💡 Also useful: Install the ActiveCampaign Chrome extension for Gmail. It shows you a contact's full CRM record right inside your Gmail window so you never lose context.