How to Start Email Automation: Best Tools & Tips (2025)

“You’ve got mail!”
Still one of the most powerful phrases in the digital world, right?

Even today, email continues to dominate the marketing landscape. Email marketing is the most effective way to connect with your audience and drive results. But here’s the truth: keeping up with different customer groups, sending timely updates, and doing it all consistently is exhausting if done manually.

That’s where email automation comes in. Instead of spending endless hours typing and scheduling, automation handles the task of sending the right message to the right person at the right time—without the heavy lifting.

The results? More engagement, higher conversions, and more time back in your day.

So, are you ready to learn more about this super awesome concept of email automation? Let’s go!

**What Exactly is Email Automation?**

Okay, let’s keep this simple. Email automation is like having a super-smart assistant who sends the right emails to the right people at the perfect time… all without you lifting a finger every single time.

Imagine this: someone signs up for your newsletter. Instead of scrambling to write a welcome email, your automation tool goes, “I got this!” and sends it out instantly. A few days later, it might send them a helpful tip or a product they might like. Pretty cool, right?

Basically, Email automation allows you to schedule your emails and send them to the relevant audience at scale, based on a certain set of rules (keywords, data source, frequency, etc.) that you can define. No more hitting “send” a thousand times a week.

🗂️ Quick Fact: Marketers at top-performing companies use email automation as the #1 reason to increase revenue.

In short, email automation is your secret weapon to save time, stay consistent, and make your audience feel like you’re always one step ahead.

Let’s now explore how email automation works.

🚀 Save time and stay consistent — build and send smart, automated newsletters with elink.io

How Does Email Automation Work?

Okay, let’s talk about how email automation actually works behind the scenes. Don’t worry, it’s not rocket science. In fact, once you understand the basics, it’ll all feel super intuitive.

🧠 Step 1: Set Your Triggers

Every automated email starts with a trigger: an action that tells the system it’s time to send a message. That trigger could be something simple like a user signing up for your newsletter, making a purchase, abandoning a cart, or clicking a specific link. As soon as this action happens, your email automation tool jumps into action.

📩 Step 2: Create the Email Workflow

Next comes your workflow — the sequence of emails sent after the trigger. Here, you decide what each message says and when it should go out. For example:

A welcome email needs to be sent immediately after someone subscribes
A follow-up email two days later with helpful tips or resources
An offer email a week later, encouraging engagement or purchase

This sequence can be as simple as one email or as detailed as a multi-step journey, depending on your goal.

⚙️ Step 3: Choose Your Audience

Targeting is key. Not everyone should get the same message. That’s where segmentation comes in. Automation platforms let you divide your audience based on their interests, past behavior, purchase history, or even demographics.

This ensures that your emails feel personal, relevant, and timely — not generic or spammy.

🔄 Step 4: Let It Run (and Keep Optimizing)

Once your automation is live, it takes care of the repetitive work for you, sending the right email to the right person at the right time. But that doesn’t mean you can forget about it. Keep checking performance metrics like open rates, click-throughs, and conversions. Small tweaks, like adjusting your subject line or timing, can make a big difference over time.

Now, we know that you are curious to learn why email automation is so effective and popular. Let’s talk benefits next!

Must-Check 💌 Best 10 Expert Tips to Improve Newsletter Open Rates

Why Use Email Automation? (4 Reasons You’ll Love It!)

Email automation isn’t just about saving time—it’s about sending smarter emails that truly connect. Instead of juggling endless tasks, automation helps you reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message. Let’s look at four powerful reasons why email automation is a game-changer you’ll absolutely love.

1. ⏳ Saves Time

From research & ideation to designing & distribution, the entire process of sending emails and newsletters takes up a lot of time. And it’s pretty much exhausting, right?

Luckily, you don’t have to send out emails manually. You can make technology do all the heavy lifting for you. With email automation, you can get your content out in the world more quickly and effectively. With email automation, you set up your workflows once, and the system handles the rest. That means more time for creative brainstorming, strategy, or maybe just enjoying that extra cup of coffee.

2. 💸 Cuts Costs

Out of all the amazing benefits that email automation offers, this one is undoubtedly the best.

Wondering how email automation can save money? Well, if you want your marketing team to focus on creating dynamic content, you need someone to take over all those repetitive tasks.

So, instead of hiring more employees, you can just use an email automation system. Moreover, as you will be saving lots of money, you can put it into other aspects of your business. Isn’t that great?

3. 🎨 Boosts Creativity

We know that you crave creativity. We know that you hate doing repetitive tasks. Who doesn’t? 💁🏻‍♀️

Fortunately, with email automation taking care of things for you, you can get your creative juices flowing and take your business to new heights.

In short, by automating your email marketing, you’ll have more time and more energy to dedicate to creative tasks, because the mundane tasks will be performed by email automation. Awesome, right?

4. 📈 Grows Your Revenue

Automated emails aren’t just easy. They’re effective. From abandoned cart reminders to personalized welcome sequences, automated email campaigns drive better engagement and more sales.

Secondly, email automation would drastically reduce the factor of human error. The result? You won’t have to handle the unnecessary expenses that come with mistakes!

So, if you want to ace email marketing, you need to perform email automation! This brings up the question: Which is the best tool for email automation tool out there? Let’s find out! ✨

Read This 👀 The Most Important Email Marketing Metrics to Check in 2025

🛠️ Best Email Automation Tools to Try in 2025

Now that you know what email automation is and how powerful it can be, it’s time to explore some tools that make it super simple. These email automation tools will help you save time, boost your reach, and help you connect better with your audience. Let’s get started!

1. Elink.io – Best for Newsletter Automation & Content Curation

If you’re a busy marketer, solo creator, or part of a small team, elink.io is a content curation suite that you need to have in your toolkit

Elink.io is an easy-to-use, smart content curation toolthat helps you collect links, articles, videos, or products and turn them into professional-looking newsletters, web pages, or content collections in minutes. All you have to do is drop in the links, and elink automatically designs a beautiful, ready-to-share newsletter for you. It’s fast, smooth, and makes content sharing way less stressful.

The best part? elink offers an amazing automation tool that does the heavy lifting for you and saves you tons of valuable time by automating content creation for your newsletters, websites, and more. You can choose sources and add filters to make your content more relevant and effective.

Pretty cool, right? Now, let’s walk through how you can use elink.io to effortlessly automate your email newsletters step by step.

How to Automate Email Newsletters Using elink.io? (Step By Step)

1. Log in to elink and click on the ‘Automation’ tab.

2. After that, click on the ’Create Automation’ option.

3. You’ll see a pop-up in which you can name your automation and set the scheduling frequency. Depending on your needs and goals, you can choose between daily, weekly, or monthly for each automation. Along with that, you can set the time at which you want the process to start running.

4. Now, you have to determine whether you want to update an existing elink post or generate a brand new elink post regularly.

5. When you have made that decision, it’s time to define your sources. You can choose from an RSS Feed, RSS Feed folder, or a bookmark folder.

elink.io makes it easy to publish the right content by allowing users to define their own keywords, ensuring only the most relevant articles are selected.

You can choose between ‘Most Recent’ and ‘Best Results’ depending on your preference.

The best results prioritize keywords first and then the time at which the article was published.
Most recent is vice versa, i.e, it’ll place a priority on the time first and then on keywords.

After that, you’ve to choose the maximum number of articles you want to be published.

6. In the final step, choose exactly what you want to happen once the post is published.

Do you want it to be published in only your elink.io account so that you can look it over once?
Do you want to receive a notification informing you that your post has been created?
Do you want it to be automatically sent over to Mailchimp in a draft state?
Do you want to share it via Zapier and send it to one of the 1000s of applications you can integrate with?

The amazing tool, elink.io, gives you so many choices!

And BOOM! It’s done. Now have a cup of coffee while watching your published content being automatically created. Let the magic happen!

Beyond automation, elink.io offers an impressive range of features that are designed to enhance your efficiency and creativity. Here’s a closer look at the top features that make elink.io stand out.

✅ Bookmark Manager: Save, organize, and curate content (articles, videos, product pages, resources) all in one place. Perfect for creators who want to build newsletters quickly from saved content.

✅ Create Newsletters Quickly: Design professional newsletters in minutes by simply adding links, articles, or videos. Elink automatically pulls in titles, descriptions, and images, so you don’t have to start from scratch. Customize layouts, colors, and fonts to match your brand, and you’re ready to go.

✅ Beautiful Templates: Pick from a wide variety of responsive, modern templates designed to look perfect on desktops, tablets, and mobiles. You can customize colors, layouts, and fonts to match your brand effortlessly.

✅ Smart Embed Options: Turn your newsletter into a web page, embed it into your website/blog, or share it as a live link. Real-time updates ensure your content stays current, even after sharing.

✅ Integrations with your favourite tools: Elink integrates with Gmail, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, and more. You can design newsletters in Elink and push them directly to your email platform—saving hours every week.

✅ Automated Content Updates: Connect your RSS feed, and Elink automatically refreshes your webpages with the latest posts or resources. Your audience always receives fresh content—without any extra effort from you.

💸Pricing: Free Plan & Paid Plans Starting at ~$12/month

Pro Tip 💡 Use elink.io’s bookmark manager to save and organize links as you browse — perfect for curating future newsletters effortlessly.

2. Mailchimp – Best for All-Round Email Marketing

Mailchimp has been a household name in the email world for years—and for good reason. It’s incredibly easy to use, yet powerful enough for complex campaigns. Whether you’re sending a welcome email or launching a full-blown marketing series, Mailchimp handles it all.

It has a drag-and-drop builder, audience segmentation tools, and built-in analytics to help you track every click and open. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with e-commerce platforms, CRMs, and social media tools, making it a complete solution for all-around email marketing.

Top Features:

Easy drag-and-drop builder that lets you design stunning emails in just a few minutes.
Smart audience segmentation to send personalized and relevant messages every time.
A/B testing for subject lines, content, and timing
Built-in CRM and social ad integration

💸Pricing: Free Plan & Paid Plans Starting at ~$13/month

3. ActiveCampaign – Best for Advanced Automation

ActiveCampaign is a powerful tool for businesses that want to automate their marketing while keeping it personal and relevant. It helps you set up workflows that respond to how your contacts interact with your emails, website, or other channels. For example, you can automatically send a welcome email when someone subscribes, follow up with product recommendations based on their clicks, or re-engage users who haven’t opened your emails in a while.

Beyond email, ActiveCampaign integrates with CRMs, e-commerce platforms, and other marketing tools, so you can track every customer touchpoint in one place.

Top Features:

Smart predictive sending powered by machine learning
Comprehensive contact and deal management tools
Advanced site tracking, lead scoring, and behavior-based triggers
Built-in CRM with email, SMS, and multi-channel support

💸Pricing: Free Plan & Paid Plans Starting at ~$15/month

Know This 📌 ActiveCampaign Newsletter: How to Create it in Less Time?

4. ConvertKit – Best for Creators and Bloggers

If you’re a creator, artist, or blogger looking to grow your audience, ConvertKit makes email automation effortless. Its intuitive platform lets you set up automated sequences based on subscriber actions, ensuring every message reaches the right person at the right time—without any manual effort.

With beautiful, customizable emails, you can engage your subscribers, share updates, and nurture relationships consistently. Plus, analytics help you track open rates, clicks, and conversions so your email strategy keeps improving. Focus on your content, not the tech.

Top Features:

Action-based subscriber management
Landing pages and opt-in forms
Seamless integration with creator tools like Teachable & Shopify
Simple email sequences and broadcast options

💸Pricing: Free Plan & Paid Plans Starting at ~$29/month

5. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) – Best for Multichannel Campaigns

Brevo is ideal for businesses aiming to manage communication across various platforms. Beyond email, it supports SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, and more, allowing you to stay connected with your audience through multiple channels.

The platform offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop email editor, customizable templates, and AI-driven features like predictive sending and content generation. With advanced segmentation and automation workflows, you can deliver personalized messages at the right time, enhancing engagement and conversions.

Top Features:

Email, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat campaigns
Built-in CRM and contact management
Send time optimization and engagement tracking
A/B testing and real-time reporting

💸Pricing: Free Plan & Paid Plans Starting at ~$9/month

Check out These Email Newsletter Templates by Elink.io

Wrapping Up

Email automation isn’t just a buzzword. It’s the secret that can take your email marketing from “meh” to “whoa, that worked!” It helps you send the right message at the right time without lifting a finger every single time. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a part of a busy marketing team, automating your emails gives you back your time while keeping your audience engaged.

And with a powerful tool like elink.io, you don’t just automate emails. You create newsletters and content that look stunning, load fast, and convert better. Add the automation feature on top, and you’ve got yourself a productivity powerhouse.

Ready to hit send on smarter campaigns? Your email game is about to level up.

FAQs

1. How does email automation work?
Email automation runs on set rules like sending emails when someone signs up, clicks a link, or after a specific time. Once you set it up, it does the rest for you.

2. What are the benefits of email automation?
It saves time, reduces manual work, helps you target the right people, and increases engagement without constant effort.

3. What industries benefit the most from email automation?
Industries like e-commerce, SaaS, marketing, and education thrive with automation, especially where regular and personalized communication is key.

4. What’s the difference between email automation and email marketing?
Email marketing is the big picture. Email automation is the engine that keeps it running without manual effort every time.

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