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Automation Components: Triggers, Filters & Actions

Build smarter workflows with the building blocks of automation

Updated this week

Automations in Uscreen are powered by three core components that work together to create intelligent, behavior-driven email sequences.

Understanding how triggers, filters, and actions work will help you build automations that engage the right members at the right time with the right message.

Every automation workflow is built using three types of components:

  • Triggers: The events that start an automation (e.g., when someone starts a trial or cancels)

  • Filters: Optional conditions that narrow your targeting (e.g., only members who spent $50+)

  • Actions: What happens next (e.g., send an email, wait 3 days, add a tag)

ℹ️ INFO: These components give you the flexibility to create personalized member journeys without needing external tools like Mailchimp or Drip.


Goals Function

Goals ensure members stop receiving an email sequence once they've taken the action you wanted, like converting from a lead to a paying member.

How Goals Work

  • Set a goal when creating your automation (e.g., "Subscription Purchased")

  • When a member achieves the goal, they automatically exit the automation

  • Track goal completion in your automation analytics to measure success

Why Use Goals

  • Stops nurturing emails after someone takes the desired action

  • Improves member experience and trust

  • Measure conversion effectiveness

  • Helps creators understand how effective their messaging is

💡 TIP: Setting Goals prevents your users from receiving irrelevant emails and gives you a clear understanding of your automation's effectiveness.


Available Triggers

Triggers are the events that automatically enroll members into your automation workflow. Choose the trigger that matches the member behavior you want to respond to.

New Lead

Fires when someone becomes a lead in your system. Use this to nurture leads and convert them to paying members with welcome sequences, educational content, or special offers.


Common use cases

  • Lead nurture sequences

  • Lead conversion campaigns with coupon discounts

  • Educational drip campaigns

🔗 Learn more about the Lead User Type

Subscription Assigned

Automatically welcome and onboard new members with an email sent the moment they are granted access to a subscription.

This trigger fires when a subscription is assigned or granted to a member, regardless of how it was assigned, whether manually by an admin, or automatically through the Publisher API or Zapier.

This trigger does not initiate on Subscription purchase. Use "Subscription Purchased" for those customers.

Common use cases:

  • Instant welcome emails when members gain subscription access

  • Onboarding sequences for assigned subscriptions

  • Access confirmation communications

ℹ️ INFO: This triggers for both private and public subscription plans.

🔗 Learn more about Subscriptions

Subscription Trial Started

Triggers when a member begins a free trial. Perfect for onboarding sequences that help new trial users discover your content and activate quickly.

Common use cases

  • Trial onboarding and activation flows

  • Feature education sequences

  • Win-back campaigns for users who cancel during trial

Subscription Purchased

Fires when someone purchases a subscription, excluding trials. Use this to target all active new members outside of their trial period.

Common use cases

  • Welcome sequences for paying members

  • Paid member-only communications

  • Upsell and cross-sell campaigns

💡 TIP: This also triggers when a trialing user converts into a paid subscriber.

🔗 Learn more about the Member User Type

Subscription Canceled

Triggers when a member cancels their subscription. Essential for win-back sequences to reduce churn.

Common use cases

  • Re-engagement sequences

  • Feedback collection

  • Special win-back offers

Bundle Assigned

Fires when a bundle is assigned to a member via checkout, the admin panel, the API, or from a bulk assign task. Note that bundle triggers fire after payment is completed for paid bundles.

Common use cases:

  • Bundle-specific welcome series

  • Content access notifications

  • Bundle upsell sequences

📝 NOTE: Make sure you've selected Bundle Assigned as the trigger and not Subscription Assigned or Purchased when targeting bundle purchases. This is a common setup mistake.


Available Filters

Filters are optional conditions to narrow targeting, helping you create highly specific segments based on member attributes and behaviors.

When to Use Filters

  • Exclude coupon users: Use the Lifetime Spend filter to target only paying members

  • Target high-value customers: Set minimum spend thresholds

  • Segment by plan type: Send different messages to different subscription tiers

  • Prevent duplicate messaging: Use tag filters to exclude members already in other sequences

Filters use logical operations to combine multiple conditions:

  • ALL: Member must match all selected filter criteria

  • ANY: Member must match at least one of the selected filter criteria

  • NONE: Member must not match any of the selected filter criteria

Subscription

Target members based on their specific subscription plan. Perfect for sending plan-specific messaging or upselling to higher tiers.

When to use

  • Send tier-specific content recommendations

  • Promote upgrades to premium plans

  • Deliver plan-specific onboarding

💡 TIP: You may select multiple plans to target, and the filter works for both Public and Private plans.

Bundle Access

Filter by specific bundle products. Allows you to create bundle-specific communication flows.

When to use

  • Welcome sequences for specific bundles

  • Bundle-specific content highlights

  • Targeted upsells based on bundle ownership

💡 TIP: Same as the Subscription filter, the option allows you to select multiple bundles of different types.

Subscription Status

Filter by member status: Active, In Trial, Churned, or Paused.

🔗 Learn more about Membership Status

When to use

  • Target converted leads with Active/In Trial status

  • Identify churned users for win-back campaigns

  • Segment by lifecycle stage

  • Target paused subscriptions for re-engagement

User Type

Filter by whether the user is a Member or Lead.

🔗 Learn more about User Types

When to use

  • Separate messaging for leads vs. paying members

  • Target only leads for conversion campaigns

  • Exclude leads from member-only communications

Lifetime Spend

Filter by the amount a member has spent using three conditions: More than, Less than, or Equal to a specific amount.

When to use

  • Target only paying members (More than $0)

  • Segment by customer value

  • Exclude free trial or coupon users

  • Identify high-value customers (More than $100, $500, etc.)

Example: Set "More than $0" to exclude free or non-paying members.

💡 TIP: Useful for excluding users with coupons or filtering out free or non-paying members.

Tags

Include or exclude members based on specific tags they have (or don't have). Tags can be added manually or through automation workflows.

When to use

  • Prevent duplicate messaging across automations

  • Target specific behavioral segments

  • Exclude members already in other sequences

Lead Source

Filter by how the lead was captured in your system. Available sources include:

  • Abandoned Checkout

  • Email Capture

  • Live Event Preregistration

  • YouTube Funnel

  • Giveaway Funnel

When to use

  • Tailor messaging based on how leads discovered you

  • Target abandoned checkout leads with special offers

  • Segment by acquisition channel for better personalization

  • Track and optimize specific funnel performance


Available Actions

Actions are emails, wait steps, and tag management. The actual steps members go through once they're enrolled in your automation.

Send Email

Deliver a personalized email using Uscreen's visual builder. Emails can include dynamic content, images, buttons, and personalized member data.

Best practices

  • Keep subject lines clear and compelling

  • Use personalization tokens for member names

  • Include clear calls-to-action

  • Test emails before publishing

Wait

Add time delays between steps (minutes, hours, or days).

Common wait periods

  • 1-3 days between onboarding emails

  • 7 days before win-back attempts

  • Wait period equivalent to trial days for win-back sequences

Example: Wait 3 days before sending a follow-up email.

ℹ️ INFO: Wait steps are effective for creating drip campaigns and giving members time to take action.

Add Tag

Apply a tag to track member journeys or segment audiences. Tags can be used to label and create segments of users.

When to use

  • Track users passing through automations

  • Create behavioral segments

  • Label converted leads for easier tracking

  • Trigger other automations based on tags

Remove Tag

Remove tags when members progress through your workflow. Useful for preparing users to move to another segment.

When to use

  • Clean up temporary workflow tags

  • Move members between segments

  • Reset behavioral markers


FAQs

What's the difference between "Subscription Purchased" and "Subscription Assigned"?

Subscription Purchased triggers only when someone actively purchases a subscription through checkout. Subscription Assigned triggers when a subscription is assigned to a member through any method: checkout purchase, manual admin assignment, API, or bulk assign task. It works for both public and private subscriptions, making it the most versatile trigger for welcoming new subscription members.

Can I use multiple filters in one automation?

Yes, you can stack multiple filters to create highly targeted segments using ALL, ANY, or NONE logical operations.

What's the difference between ALL, ANY, and NONE filter logic?

ALL requires members to match every filter condition, ANY requires them to match at least one condition, and NONE excludes members who match any of the specified conditions.

What happens if someone meets the trigger but not the filter criteria?

They won't be enrolled in the automation. Filters must be met at the time of the trigger event.

How do I exclude free trial users from an automation?

Use the Lifetime Spend filter set to "More than $0" to target only members who have made a payment.

Can I target leads based on where they came from?

Yes, use the Lead Source filter to segment leads by acquisition channel (Abandoned Checkout, Email Capture, Live Event Preregistration, YouTube Funnel, or Giveaway Funnel).

What goal options are available for my automation?

Available goal options are dynamic and depend on which trigger you've selected. The system will show you relevant goal options based on your chosen trigger.

💬 We’re actively improving Automations based on feedback. We'd love to hear from you, so here's how you can submit feedback.

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