Email Campaign Automation in HighLevel

Email is still the highest-return channel in most businesses. HighLevel builds the sending infrastructure, the automation logic, and the tracking dashboard all in one place so you are not managing three separate tools to run a single campaign.

Reading time: approximately 10 minutes.

What Is Email Campaign Automation in HighLevel?

HighLevel handles email in two distinct ways. The first is broadcast campaigns – one-time emails sent to a targeted list of contacts at a specific time.

The second is automated sequences – emails sent automatically based on what a contact does or what stage they reach in a workflow.

Both types are built and managed inside HighLevel without needing a separate email platform like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or Klaviyo.

The Email Builder handles the design and broadcast side. The Workflow Builder handles the automation side.

Both use the same templates and send through the same LC Email infrastructure.

How the Two Systems Work

Email Builder Campaigns

Found at Marketing, then Emails, the Email Builder is where you create templates and send one-time campaigns. You build the email using a drag-and-drop editor, select your recipients, choose a send option, and either send immediately or schedule for a future time.

Four send options are available: Send Now, Simple Schedule, Batch, and Smart Send. Smart Send analyzes 60 days of recipient engagement data to recommend the single best send time for maximum open and click rates.

Campaign tagging lets you apply tags to contacts based on how they interact with the email – opening it or clicking specific links. Those tags can then fire Contact Tag workflows, connecting one-time campaign engagement directly into your automation system.

Workflow Builder Email Sequences

The Workflow Builder handles email automation triggered by contact behavior or events. A form submission, a tag addition, an appointment booking, a purchase – any of these can start an automated email sequence.

Inside the workflow, you add Send Email actions and Wait actions between them to control the timing. If/Else branches let you route contacts differently based on whether they opened, clicked, or ignored previous emails.

The result is a responsive sequence that adapts to actual behavior rather than sending identical emails to everyone on the same schedule.

HighLevel also provides a built-in Email Drip Sequence recipe under Workflow Recipes that gives you a ready-made structure to customize rather than starting from scratch.

LC Email: The Sending Infrastructure

LC Email is HighLevel’s built-in email service provider. It replaces the need to connect a third-party provider like Mailgun or SendGrid for most accounts and works out of the box with minimal setup.

Pricing is $0.675 per 1,000 emails across all plans. Every new sub-account follows a ramp-up model during the first seven days that gradually increases the daily sending limit to build sender reputation and avoid spam filters.

After day seven, daily limits are:

• Shared IP: up to 15,000 emails per day
• Dedicated IP: up to 450,000 emails per day

The daily counter resets at midnight UTC. If you hit the limit before reset, the account is locked for the rest of that period.

Full email tracking – delivery, open, click, bounce, unsubscribe, and spam complaints – requires a dedicated LC Email sending domain. Without one, tracking is limited.

Third-party SMTP providers show only opens and clicks and do not support delivery or bounce tracking.

What You Can Build

• One-time promotional broadcasts sent to a SmartList, a tag segment, or a manually filtered contact group with full delivery and engagement tracking after the send
• Smart Send campaigns that use 60 days of engagement history to automatically schedule the email at the time most likely to produce the highest open and click rates for that specific audience
• Lead nurture drip sequences triggered by form submissions or tag additions, sending a series of educational or value-driven emails over days or weeks to move contacts toward a buying decision
• Onboarding email sequences triggered by a purchase or signup event, welcoming new customers, delivering access credentials, and guiding them through the early product experience
• Behavior-based email branching that routes contacts into different email paths depending on whether they opened, clicked, or ignored previous emails in the sequence
• Re-engagement campaigns triggered by an inactivity tag or a date-based condition, targeting cold contacts who have not opened or clicked in a defined period with a specific win-back offer
• Engagement-based tagging that applies tags when contacts open or click campaign emails, firing Contact Tag workflows to route engaged contacts into more targeted follow-up sequences
• Batch sending for large lists that spreads a broadcast delivery over time to protect sender reputation and reduce the risk of spam filter triggers during high-volume sends
• Post-appointment and post-purchase follow-ups triggered automatically by appointment status changes or payment events, delivering timely follow-up content without any manual coordination

Key Definitions

“A send option that analyzes 60 days of recipient engagement data to recommend the optimal delivery time for a campaign. Requires the location to have sent at least 1,000 emails in the past 60 days. After sending, the Statistics dashboard shows engagement lift versus the location’s 60-day historical baseline.”

Use Cases by Industry

Marketing Agencies

An agency manages email marketing for five local service business clients. Each client has their own sub-account with a dedicated sending domain.

The agency builds email templates in each sub-account, sets up lead nurture drip sequences triggered by form submissions on each client’s website, and sends monthly promotional broadcasts to each client’s contact list.

Campaign tagging fires tag-based workflows when contacts engage with emails, routing them into more targeted follow-up sequences without any manual intervention from the agency team after initial setup.

Outcome: The agency delivers fully managed email marketing across all five clients from a single platform, with each client’s campaigns and automation running independently in their own sub-account.

Coaches and Course Creators

A business coach uses a lead magnet funnel to collect email addresses. Every form submission triggers a 7-email drip sequence over 14 days, delivering educational content and gradually introducing the coaching offer.

Contacts who click the pricing page link in any email receive a tag that fires a more direct sales follow-up sequence. Contacts who open every email but never click get a different branch with a softer re-engagement email asking what they are looking for.

The sequence adapts to behavior rather than treating every lead identically.

Outcome: The coach’s email list works automatically, qualifying and routing leads into different paths based on engagement without anyone manually managing the process.

E-Commerce and Online Businesses

An online retailer uses HighLevel to send weekly promotional emails to their customer list through the Email Builder. Smart Send schedules each broadcast at the time most likely to generate opens and clicks based on that list’s historical engagement patterns.

Post-purchase, an automated workflow fires a 3-email sequence: an order confirmation, a delivery update, and a review request timed to arrive 48 hours after the expected delivery date. Each email uses custom values to include the order details and product name.

Outcome: Promotional emails go out at the optimal time automatically, and every customer receives a consistent post-purchase experience without the retailer manually scheduling any of it.

Real Estate Teams

A real estate team captures buyer leads through a home valuation form on their website. Every submission enters a 30-day email drip sequence with market updates, buying guides, and neighborhood spotlights tailored to the area the contact is interested in, using custom values to personalize each email.

Contacts who click a specific property link receive a tag that fires a showing request sequence. Contacts who do not engage after 14 emails receive a re-engagement email asking if they are still looking before the sequence ends.

Outcome: Every buyer lead receives a 30-day nurture sequence automatically, and the most engaged leads are identified and routed into a more direct sales path without the team manually sorting through their inbox.

SaaS and Subscription Businesses

A SaaS company uses HighLevel to run their trial user onboarding sequence. Every new trial signup triggers a 10-email onboarding sequence over 14 days, each email focused on a specific feature or use case.

Emails are timed to help users hit the activation milestones most correlated with converting to a paid plan.

Users who do not open any of the first three emails receive a branch that switches to a shorter, more direct sequence with a different subject line approach. Users who reach the trial end date without upgrading enter a separate win-back campaign.

Outcome: Trial users receive a structured onboarding experience automatically, with behavior-based branching adapting the sequence to how each user is actually engaging rather than sending the same emails regardless of activity.

Who Is This For?

How to Set Up Email Campaign Automation

This walkthrough covers setting up LC Email, building a template, sending a broadcast campaign, and building a workflow drip sequence.

Step 1: Set Up LC Email and a Dedicated Sending Domain

Go to Settings, then Email Services. Confirm LC Email is selected.

To unlock full tracking and higher sending limits, click Add Dedicated Domain and follow the DNS verification steps for your domain registrar.

Once verified, go back to Email Services and enable open and click tracking under the tracking settings. This is required for full engagement data on every campaign you send.

Step 2: Build an Email Template

Go to Marketing, then Emails, then Templates. Click Create New Template.

Use the drag-and-drop builder to add content blocks, images, and buttons. Use custom values like {{contact.first_name}} to personalize the email content.

Click Preview to review the layout. Click Send Test to deliver a sample to your inbox.

Verify that merge fields populate correctly and that the unsubscribe link is present in the footer.

Step 3: Create and Send a Broadcast Campaign

Go to Marketing, then Emails, then Campaigns. Click Create Campaign.

Select your template. Click Send or Schedule.

Add the sender name, sender email, and subject line. Add recipients by selecting a SmartList, a tag, or filtering contacts manually.

Choose your send option. If using Smart Send, review the recommended time and accept or override it.

Click Send or Schedule to confirm.

Step 4: Enable Campaign Tagging

On the Send or Schedule screen, enable Add Tags and click Add Conditions. Set a condition to apply a tag when the contact opens the email.

Add a second condition to apply a different tag when they click a specific link. Make sure link tracking is enabled.

Save and send the campaign.

After sending, these tags will fire any Contact Tag workflows you have built for those tags, automatically routing engaged contacts into the next appropriate sequence.

Step 5: Build a Workflow Drip Sequence

Go to Automation, then Workflows. Click Create Workflow.

Select the Email Drip Sequence recipe as a starting point, or start from scratch.

Add your trigger – for example, Form Submitted filtered to a specific form. Add a Send Email action and select your first template.

Add a Wait action with your delay. Add the next Send Email.

Repeat for as many emails as needed.

Step 6: Add Behavior-Based Branches

After each email action, add an If/Else branch. Set the condition to check whether the contact opened or clicked the email.

Route contacts who engaged into a different, more targeted email path. Route contacts who did not engage into a follow-up with a different subject line or a different value offer.

This turns the sequence from a flat broadcast into a responsive automation that treats different contacts differently based on what they actually did.

Step 7: Test, Publish, and Monitor

Use Test Workflow with a test contact before publishing. Check that emails arrive correctly, merge fields populate, and wait timings are configured as intended.

Publish the workflow.

After the first real contacts run through, go to Marketing, then Emails, then Statistics to review campaign performance. Check the Details tab for any hard bounces and remove those contacts from your list promptly.

Step 8: Review Version History if Needed

If you need to restore an older version of a campaign, go to Marketing, then Emails, then Campaigns. Click the three-dot menu next to the campaign and select See Version History.

Select the version you want to restore. This is available for campaigns that have been edited after their initial creation.

Step 9: Maintain List Hygiene Regularly

After each campaign, export the hard bounce list from the Details tab in Email Statistics. Remove or suppress those email addresses from your contact list.

Monitor unsubscribe and spam complaint rates as indicators that your content or frequency needs adjustment.

A clean list with good sender reputation consistently outperforms a large list with poor hygiene on every deliverability metric.

How It Connects to the Rest of HighLevel

• Workflow Builder – all automated email sequences are built in the Workflow Builder using Send Email actions and Wait actions. The same workflow can combine emails with SMS, tasks, pipeline updates, and tag actions in a single automation sequence.
• Tag-Based Automation – campaign tagging connects one-time email engagement directly into the automation system. Tags applied when contacts open or click emails can trigger Contact Tag workflows immediately, routing engaged contacts into follow-up sequences without manual action.
• SmartLists – SmartLists are the primary recipient targeting tool for broadcast campaigns. A SmartList filtered by tag, engagement history, pipeline stage, or custom field conditions creates a dynamic, always-current segment that can be selected as the recipient list for any campaign.
• Contact Management – contact records store email address, engagement history, and tag data that determines which campaigns and sequences each contact is eligible for. Custom fields on contact records can be used as merge fields in email templates for personalization.
• SMS Marketing Automation – email and SMS run on the same Workflow Builder infrastructure and are commonly combined in the same sequences. A workflow can send an email, wait one day, then follow up with an SMS if the email was not opened, using both channels in a single coordinated sequence.
• Reporting and Analytics – email campaign statistics are one input into the broader HighLevel analytics picture. Delivery, open, click, and conversion data from email campaigns can be combined with pipeline and revenue data to measure the full impact of email automation on business outcomes.

Common Questions

To Wrap It Up

Email is still the channel with the highest return on investment for most businesses. HighLevel makes it practical to run that channel without adding another tool to the stack – the Email Builder, the Workflow Builder, the sending infrastructure, and the analytics are all in one place.

The two systems complement each other well. Use the Email Builder for broadcasts that need to go to a defined list at a specific time.

Use the Workflow Builder for sequences that need to respond to contact behavior and adapt as the contact moves through your funnel. Most businesses end up using both regularly.

The non-negotiable setup steps are the dedicated sending domain and consistent list hygiene. Everything else builds on top of that foundation.

1. Set up a dedicated LC Email sending domain before sending any campaigns – it unlocks full tracking and removes the shared IP sending cap
2. Always use Send Test before every campaign send to catch personalization errors before they reach your list
3. Add If/Else branches to workflow email sequences so engaged and unengaged contacts receive different content rather than identical emails
4. Enable campaign tagging on broadcasts to connect email engagement directly into your Contact Tag workflows
5. Review hard bounces after every campaign send and remove those addresses from your list the same day

A well-configured email system in HighLevel runs almost entirely on autopilot once the sequences are built and the list hygiene habits are in place.