Autopilot: Date based smart segment

This article demonstrates how to create smart segments based on custom date fields. You can then trigger Journeys using these smart segments. You can use both fixed and relative dates. For example, you could:

• send contacts an offer via email on their birthday;
• send contacts a reminder via SMS one day before an appointment; or
• display a Headsup message to contacts whose subscription expires in the next 7 days.

Before getting started, please ensure that your custom fields are the "date" field type and that your data complies with Autopilot's date format. You can populate custom fields via API, Segment.com, Salesforce, Zapier or spreadsheet import.

If you're not yet familiar with how to create smart segments learn more here. 

How do I create a date-based smart segment?

Select your custom date field and then choose from one of the following options:

Next, choose either "today", "specific date", or "relative date":

"Relative date" allows you to choose from the following options:

What does "event repeats yearly" mean?

This option determines whether the year is ignored when determining which contacts are included on the smart segment.

When considering whether to enable this option, ask yourself whether the event:

• occurs every year (e.g. a birthday or annual subscription renewal), in which case you would enable this option; or
• is unique and occurs only once (e.g. an appointment), in which case you would disable this option.

Example use cases

Below are four examples of date-based smart segments. Once you have created the smart segment, you can create Journeys using the Smart Segment Trigger:

When configuring the Journey, remember to consider whether it will be ongoing. For example, if you wanted to create an ongoing Journey that sends contacts an email on their birthday, you would chose the second or third option (the latter will also include those contacts whose birthday it is at the time of publishing the Journey):

1. Birthday is today

2. Last login more than 30 days ago

3. Appointment in the next 7 days

4. Insurance expires in December 2017