Hi everyone,
I’m trying to set up a webinar reminder sequence in Brevo, and I’m struggling with configuring the timing of the emails correctly.
What I Want to Achieve:
• The webinar has a fixed date and time (let’s say March 1st at 7 PM).
• I want a series of reminder emails to go out leading up to that date (e.g., 7 days before, 3 days before, 1 day before, and 1 hour before).
• The trigger for the sequence is when a contact joins a specific list (i.e., when they register for the webinar).
• Regardless of when they sign up, they should only receive the emails at the right time relative to the webinar date.
The Problem I’m Facing:
• In Brevo’s automation, I see that the “Delay” action only moves forward from when a contact enters the sequence.
• I need a way to set the automation so that emails are scheduled backwards from a specific end date, rather than being based on when the contact joins the list.
Question:
How can I configure Brevo to send emails at fixed times relative to a specific date rather than just using delays from when someone enters the sequence? Is there a workaround using conditions, custom fields, or another approach?
Would really appreciate any guidance!
Thanks in advance!
Hi @Marlonbha we have an improvement in mind to add an option in wait until step to wait until an fixed date happens. It is not planned yet so I can’t confirm any date for this. It may be released in Q3 of this year.
Still waiting for this functionality!
For the same webinar application scenario I did research in very detail what’s possible with automations and filled the gaps with custom solutions. Feel free to ping me, happy to share details.
The gist:
- “Forward automations” (= follow-up from added-to-list) are good for sign-up or “joined”, “missed” sequences
- Most missed: Countdown sequences (@Marlonbha’s reminder sequences)
- Also needed: End conditions for those forward automations; reason: when countdown (or actual webinar) starts, there shouldn’t be overlapping communication
- Also great to have would be “next day at ”; reason: people sign up 24x7 and it can be better not to send all the follow-ups at a sign-up time of, say, 23:30, but something like 10am
What can be done:
- Trigger MA events (the alternative to list-add-events) which would be perfect to indicate key webinar events like “registered”, “joined”, “missed” => regrettably, right now these events are not permitted as automation END events (or wait for … events – if I recall)
- Schedule emails for a specific send time based on a custom time calculation via API => requires field-based time calculations, e.g., 1 hour before the timestamp in field live_webinar_date
In general, Brevo works best with lists to both collect contacts at a given stage AND define end conditions. For example, I add contacts to a “countdown” list, which the post-sign-up sequence can then use as an end condition. In this case, that’s the only purpose of this list, as the actual countdown emails are custom-scheduled.
Brevo’s custom scheduling works very well by the way and BETTER than in other email solutions that only guarantee “sent within the hour”, which for a “webinar starts in 30 minutes” is insufficient or even actively harmful. It’s API-only of course.