Marketing & automations overview

Why are segments, templates, and campaigns separate surfaces instead of one wizard?

Each one is reusable in its own right. A segment you define once gets used by every campaign and every automation that targets that cohort — the VIP segment built once is the recipient list for a private-viewing invite this month, a thank-you note next quarter, and the standing VIP-birthday automation. A template you write once is the reusable message for the next ten launches with the same shape. If they were collapsed into a wizard, every campaign would carry a fresh segment-definition and a fresh body, and the second campaign with the same recipient list and the same message would be a copy-paste exercise.

The cost is one more surface to learn for the first campaign; the win is every subsequent campaign is faster and the cohorts and messages stay consistent across the touchpoint history on each customer's record.

Why two automation surfaces — /marketing/automations and /customers/automation?

Two different lenses on the same underlying marketing_automations rows. /marketing/automations leads with the automation-type perspective — “here are the event-triggered automations Nexpura recognises, and here's the template each will dispatch when fired.” /customers/automation leads with the customer-segment perspective — “here are your segments (VIP, Inactive, Birthday, New) and here are the automations that target them.” Same toggles under both, same persistence; each surface is optimised for the operator question that brought them there.

Both surfaces are honest about the execution-layer gap. Whichever you land on, the picture of what fires today and what doesn't yet is the same.

How do segments stay in agreement with the customer book if customers change daily?

System segments are computed dynamically — the VIP cohort reads the is_vip column at lookup time, the Inactive 90+ cohort reads the updated_at timestamp at lookup time, the Birthday this month cohort reads the birthday column with a 30-day window. The count beside each segment refreshes when the segments page loads, or you can hit the manual Refresh count affordance.

Custom segments persist the rule shape (a typed rule object with the qualifier) and recompute the same way. The persistence is the rule, not a snapshot of which customers matched at definition time — a campaign sending today against a custom segment built three months ago picks up customers who newly qualify, and drops customers who fell out of qualification.

Where do touchpoints get recorded so I can avoid over-messaging a customer?

Every outbound message — campaign send, 1:1 send, automation dispatch when the runner lands, repair- ready notification, invoice receipt — records to the customer's Communications tab on their detail page. The tab stacks chronologically with the type labelled (campaign, 1:1 email, system notification, etc.), so a staff member preparing for a customer conversation can read the recent outbound history in one place.

There's no automatic cooldown or deduplication today — the system trusts that staff are reading the tab before composing a touch. An explicit cooldown affordance is on the backlog alongside the automation execution loop, since the same friction is more relevant the moment automation fires alongside manual outreach.

Channel — does marketing send by email, SMS, WhatsApp, or some combination?

Channel is configurable. The email-campaigns and bulk-email surfaces dispatch via the configured email provider; the WhatsApp-campaigns surface dispatches via the configured WhatsApp / messaging provider. The legacy bulk-SMS surface redirects into WhatsApp campaigns — the messaging shape is unified there. Per-campaign you pick the surface that fits the message; the recipient picker (segment / tags / manual) is the same on both.

Automations (when the runner ships) will route messages through the channel each automation type is configured for; the template the automation dispatches is the same template you'd pick for a manual campaign with the same shape.

The marketing hub KPI “Scheduled messages” shows campaigns I expected to have sent by now

Symptom:a campaign scheduled for an earlier time still shows under the Scheduled-messages KPI; no “sent” row appears on the campaign or in recipients' Communications tabs. Cause: documented in the campaigns and bulk send honest-disclosure section: scheduling a campaign persists the schedule on the row, but the runner that reads scheduled campaigns and dispatches them at the configured time isn't wired up. The campaign sits in scheduled status until someone manually sends it. Fix:open the campaign and hit Send now; it'll dispatch immediately. Until the scheduled-send runner ships, schedule-then-walk-away isn't the reliable path — send-now from a calendar reminder is.

Automation flows KPI shows N enabled but customers aren't receiving the automated messages

Symptom:the hub shows several automations enabled, the automations page confirms the toggles, but customers who should be matched (e.g. birthdays this week) aren't receiving anything. Cause: documented in the automations honest-disclosure section: the configuration UI ships the toggles and persists them; the cron runner that reads marketing_automations rows and dispatches messages doesn't yet exist. The enabled flag is intent, not execution. Fix: until the runner ships, use the manual equivalent — the Birthday this month segment with a campaign targeted at it covers the same audience the birthday automation would, run once a month instead of trickling daily. The clienteling workflow page documents the same pattern for re-engagement (Inactive 90+).

I can see the marketing hub but the quick-action tiles or Create campaign button don't do anything for me

Symptom: the page renders for your role but the destinations return a permission error. Cause:the hub itself is broadly visible (KPIs read from tenant data, not from per-user gates), but the create / edit / send actions are owner / manager only — salesperson, workshop, and accountant roles can read but not write. The action attempt surfaces “Only owner or manager can ...” inline. Fix: ask an owner or manager to perform the action, or to elevate your role if your responsibilities have changed. Roles are managed under settings.

Recent-campaigns panel is empty even though I know campaigns exist

Symptom:the hub shows the empty-state “No active campaigns” even though /marketing/campaigns lists rows. Cause: the hub panel reads the five most-recent campaigns by created_at; if those five are all in draft status, the active-campaigns KPI is 0 (it counts scheduled or sending) and the empty-state copy reads “no active campaigns” even though drafts exist. Fix:the copy is correct — drafts aren't active. Open /marketing/campaigns to see the full list including drafts; promote a draft to scheduled or send it now to activate it.

I want one bulk-email send to a segment without creating a saved campaign row

Symptom: you want a one-off send without the campaign-row overhead — subject, body, pick a segment, send, done. Cause: expected; the campaigns surface persists a row for every send so the touch is recorded against each customer's Communications tab. Fix: use /marketing/bulk-email — same recipient picker (segment / tags / manual), same subject + body editor, dispatches inline without a saved-campaign row. The send still records to each customer's Communications tab so the touchpoint history stays complete.