Collecting birth dates or renewal dates in your Act-On Forms allows you to engage your contacts with an annual birthday or anniversary message. Automating these yearly touchpoints is a simple way to show appreciation, strengthen customer relationships, and encourage continued engagement.
You can apply this same method to subscription renewals or any other recurring annual milestone.
Tips:
- Use A/B testing to compare different offers, incentives, or celebratory messages.
- Personalize your subject lines for higher open rates.
- Send reminder emails for perks or offers that are nearing expiration.
Essentials to Get Started
- An Act-On Contacts list or Marketing List that contains a date field for birthday, renewal date, or any annual anniversary.
Instructions
- When creating a segment, choose Birthdate (or your anniversary field) as your first condition.
- Select Date → equals for the comparison.
- Click the calendar icon and choose relative date.
- Relative date compares the month and day of the stored date to the current date.
- Define your segment criteria (days, weeks, or months).
- Important: Your selected date format must match the format stored in your list (for example, if your list displays “22 Apr 1979,” you must select “DD Mon YYYY”).
- Create one rule for each year you need to cover. For example, in 2021, a contact born in 1970 requires at least 51 years of relative date rules.
- Click Save to create your segment.
Once your new segment is ready, you can use it as the source for an Automated Program.
Each additional rule compares the relative date to the current date. You can specify multiples of 12 months (12, 24, 36, etc.) to cover each year. If you want to send a message 30 days before a birthday or anniversary, set the relative date to 11 months after the target date.
FAQs and Troubleshooting
For more guidance on segments and Automated Programs, see:
- Use Lists and Segments in Automated Programs
- Automated Journey Builder User Guide
- Create a Marketing List
General Advice
- Use your birthday or renewal segment as the source list for your Automated Program.
- Schedule the program to add contacts at least once per day.
- Enable Re-entry so contacts can re-enter the program each year.
- Re-entry is a controlled feature. If you do not see the option, contact Support to enable it.
- You cannot use this segment as an Exit Condition, because contacts leave the segment after their birthday or anniversary, which would immediately remove them from the program.
Below is an example timing configuration: contacts enter your Automated Program at 8:00 AM, wait one hour, and receive their birthday message at 9:00 AM.