As an email strategist we can often be heard educating our clients on the value of automated, triggered messages. These types of messages can be as simple as a "Welcome" message, to as complex as a "Lapsed, Multi-buyer, Web-only Purchaser" message. Regardless, each automated message has the opportunity to be highly targeted to a subscriber based on a specific state they have reached in respect to how they are interacting with you.

From a results standpoint, these types of messages often have the highest results and return.

We also tend to have a "set-up and forget it" mentality with these messages, which can be problematic if, as an example, images included in the message are removed or expired.

West Paw Design, an online retailer of dog apparel, beds and toys, has a really nice automated "Thank you for updating your profile" message that unfortunately succumbed to this error.

Take a look below and you will see several product images that are no longer working.

The Lesson: Set-up as many automated messages as you can that make sense; however, also setup an ongoing process to test and validate that these messages that you've 'set-up and forgot' are still performing as expected.