Now that you know what Route is all about it’s time to understand how things work. This is a brief explanation of our software and we’ll link every item to its own section with detailed explanation.
To start using Route you need to:
1. Install our Main Script to start collecting data;
2. Get contacts into Route via forms, Imports or adding them manually;
3. Create campaigns with specific triggers to send the emails.
Take a look at this video explaining how Route works:
Main Tracking Script
This is a sample of our main tracking JavaScript:
IMPORTANT! If you want to copy and paste the code above you must replace ‘YOURORGANIZATION_ID’ with your own Organization ID that you can find under Settings in Route.
What should I do with it?
In order to use Route you must get our main script and paste it on the header of your site, just above the tag.
This is the first thing we’ll ask you to do, that’s how important it is.
Why?
Because it’s the only way you’ll be able to gather information about what people are doing on your website (we can track your users even when they’re redirect from another domain with our cross-domain tracking. You just need to make sure Route we’ll be on every domain you want to track). and act on these information.
What are contacts for Route?
Route is a machine that will only work and send emails if it’s fueled with people. Those people will be considered contacts.
What makes a person a contact in Route?
A contact is someone that you have at least the email.
What are the ways to capture contacts within Route?
- Through forms;
- By adding a new contact contact manually;
- Importing a list;
- By collecting them from a 3rd party application you integrate with Route.
Is there any difference in the ways to capture contacts?
Yes. The contacts that come from the forms of your website will be tagged with a cookie so you’ll be able to track everything they do.
Contacts added manually or imported will be tagged with a cookie only when they click on a link in one of the emails you’re sending or fill in a form on your website.
To learn more take a look at Identified contacts.
What’s the best way to capture contacts?
The best way to get and identify contacts is integrating your site’s forms with Route or creating new forms using our form builder tool (soon it will be available).
We recommend using your forms to capture contacts because what’s better than your own website, built around your own business strategy to convert the best leads and be able to track the way those leads interact with what you’re offering?
That way you can create better campaigns.
What are campaigns?
A campaign is where you can set the triggers and send the emails.
What kind of campaigns can I create?
Route has two different types of campaigns: Broadcast and Automations.
What’s the difference between Broadcast and Automations?
Choose a Broadcast campaign if you want to send an email like a Newsletter. It’s the kind of email marketing that will impact a lot of people with a more generic message, usually from a list.
Choose Automations if you want to send automated emails based on user activity or characteristics.
There are two types of Automations: Transactional emails (e.g. confirmation of a subscription, onboarding emails) or Behavioral emails (e.g. based on user-behavior or characteristics).
How can I engage with the contacts in a campaign?
Right now the only way to interact is through emails.
What kind of emails can I send?
As you already know, there’re two different ways to send emails: Broadcast and Automations.
But there’re are also two different ways to define the best email template to be used: Personal Email and Regular Email .
What are Regular Emails?
The essence of “Regular Emails” is: generic messages and mass customization. People will open the email and realize it was sent through an automated process. It will be clear that an Email Marketing tool was used (in our case, a Marketing Automation tool).
What are Personal Emails?
“Personal Emails” appear that someone actually took the time to write that specific email to the contact.
No fancy html template, plain text only and avoiding too much text customization like bold, underscore and italics. People that receive an email Like a Human must believe someone manually sent it.
What about tracking user behavior with events?
Route allows its users to track user behavior on the website through custom events. That way you can create campaigns with more complex triggers. Right now we offer three ways of tracking events: JavaScript, API HTTP and Segment.
With the events it’s possible to track clicks and pageviews of your site or the way people are using your application being useful for onboarding and creating the right flow of messages to make users complete tasks that will lead to their success.
Although tracking events are an important part of Route for those who want more complex Marketing Automation usage, it’s not required to implement. You can have success triggering campaigns using only forms and attributes of your contacts.
Can I invite my team to use Route?
Sure you can! We actually think it’s something really important and you should do it right away.
Go and invite your Agents!
New users can be invited as agents. The role of a agent is to be the person that will be the direct contact with the leads entering your sales and marketing funnel.
Remember that we have 2 types of email: Like a Human and Like a Software. The agents will be the ones assigned on the Like a Human emails.
If you have sellers, customer success, support or any other job position that a person is assigned to different leads and keeps a personal relationship with them, invite this person as an agent and automate part of their contact with the lead.
Keeping it personal by making the same agent contact the same lead creates a scenario where the lead gets familiar with your agent and your company.
Learn how Route distribute the leads among your agents here.
Next: Use cases to inspire you