You've seen the building blocks: triggers, waits, goals, actions and filters. Now let's put them together into one complete automation. It's a lead magnet funnel that delivers a free resource, makes a targeted offer, keeps nurturing leads who aren't ready, and stops selling the moment they buy.
A lead magnet is a free resource, like an ebook or a checklist, that you offer in exchange for someone's email address. Many businesses offer several, each about a different problem their product solves. The one someone downloads tells you what they care about, so you can follow up with an offer that fits.
We'll build it in four steps: add the triggers, send targeted follow-up, build a long-term nurture path, and add a purchase goal.
Go to Automations, then New Automation, and start from scratch. If you've turned on other objects, like Companies or Deals, you'll find automations under Contacts instead.
Click the plus icon, choose Add Trigger, and pick "Contact submits a form." Choose the form for your first lead magnet. You don't need a condition here, because everyone who fills out the form should get the freebie. Set "Who can activate this trigger?" to "Any contact in account," so new contacts can come in. Then add a trigger for each of your other lead magnet forms.
Next, decide what happens when someone who's already on the map fills out another form. For a map that delivers several lead magnets, choose "Add here again when triggered." It adds another instance of the contact, so someone who asks for a second ebook still gets it. If you'd rather a repeat form fill didn't start anything new, choose "Ignore this trigger" instead.
Under your first trigger, click What Happens Next? and add a Send an Email action. Choose the email that delivers the freebie.
Then add a Wait set to "Some time passes," like one day, so your emails don't all arrive at once.
Now make sure you don't pitch people who are already customers. Add a Condition element. It creates two paths, Yes and No. Set the condition to check whether the contact has already bought your product.
On the Yes path, add an End element and toggle on "Remove from this automation." That turns it into an Exit, so customers leave the map.
On the No path, send your first real offer, matched to the lead magnet. Someone who downloaded the guide on converting leads should get an offer about converting more leads. Add another wait, then another email. Three emails is a fine start. How often you send depends on your audience. Some businesses email daily, others weekly.
You don't have to build this twice. In edit mode, hover over the first email, click the move icon, and drag it to the What Happens Next? box under your second trigger. Choose "Copy this item and all following items." Do the same for your third trigger. Then click each copied Send an Email action and choose the emails written for that lead magnet.
Lots of leads won't take your first offer. The timing may be off, or they're still researching, so don't give up on them. Build one long nurture path with more general, helpful content that fits every lead. Space these emails further apart, like every three, five or seven days, so you stay in touch without wearing people out. With enough emails, this path can run for months.
Build the nurture path at the bottom of your first path. Then, in the empty What Happens Next? box at the bottom of each of the other two paths, add a Go to element and drag its handle to the first email of the nurture path. Now all three paths share one nurture sequence. Just note that Go to elements can't connect to triggers or goals.
Finally, add a Purchases product goal at the bottom of the nurture path and choose your product. If you sell more than one, add a goal for each. Set "Who can achieve this goal?" to "Any contact on this map," and choose "Move here when achieved." Now when a lead buys, wherever they are on the map, they jump to the goal and skip the rest of your sales emails. Leads who finish the nurture path without buying wait at the goal until they do.
Below the goal, you can add an End with "Move to new automation" toggled on, to send your new customers straight to an onboarding map.
Every What Happens Next? box needs an element before you can publish. Open the checklist to make sure everything is set up, then click Publish, then Save & Publish.
Once the map is live, it opens in Performance Mode. You'll see how contacts move through each step, so you can tell which offers convert and how your nurture path is doing.
So: triggers bring leads in, targeted emails make the right offer, a shared nurture path keeps you in touch, and a purchase goal stops the selling once they buy. Next up: Performance Mode basics, so you can see exactly how your automation is doing.