wiki/knowledge/salesforce/2026-04-05-account-engagement-email-automation-setup.md · 1004 words · 2026-04-05

Salesforce Account Engagement Email Automation Setup

Overview

Working session between Chris Østergaard and Karly Oykhman to plan and begin implementing Salesforce Account Engagement (AE) email automation for a client (Cora). The goal is to route leads from three WordPress landing pages into segment-specific email flows. Two blockers were identified and assigned to Chris; no hard deadline exists — correct setup takes priority over speed.

Attendees: Chris Østergaard, Karly Oykhman (Asymmetric)
Date: 2026-04-05

Goal

Automate email nurture flows in Salesforce Account Engagement so that when a prospect submits a form on one of three landing pages, they are captured as a Salesforce lead and enrolled in the email sequence for their segment:

Segment	Landing Page
Digital Fabrication	WordPress page (Google Ads traffic)
Traditional Fabrication	WordPress page (Google Ads traffic)
Fine Art	WordPress page (Google Ads traffic)

Architecture & Segmentation Logic

Leads arrive via Gravity Forms on WordPress landing pages.
Each form submission should create a Salesforce Lead/Prospect with the Business Channel field populated to indicate segment.
AE uses Business Channel to route prospects into the correct email flow.
Three AE Campaigns (one per segment) are used to bucket email performance metrics (open rates, click rates) by segment.

Campaign Structure

Karly created the "Digital Fabrication" campaign as a test. Two more need to be created:
- Traditional Fabrication
- Fine Art

Campaigns are created under the Campaigns tab in AE → New → provide a name. A description (e.g., "Email flow from [segment] landing page form") is optional but recommended.

Future consideration: Parent campaigns (e.g., "Website Leads" or "Google Ad Leads") can group all three segments for roll-up reporting.

Key Decisions

Segmentation field: Business Channel (not "Business Type" — earlier naming confusion resolved)
One campaign per segment to enable clean per-segment email performance reporting
Priority: correctness over speed — client has no hard deadline; setup should be done properly
Karly will document the full segmentation logic in a Loom video for Chris's reference

Blockers

Blocker 1 — Gravity Forms → Salesforce Sync Not Configured

Status: ❌ Unresolved — assigned to Chris

The Gravity Forms Salesforce Add-on is installed on the WordPress site but has not been configured.
Chris submitted a test "Fine Art" form; the lead did not appear in AE's "Prospects Created" dashboard, confirming the sync is broken.
The add-on requires a feed to be created that maps Gravity Forms fields to Salesforce fields.

Resolution path:
1. Configure the Gravity Forms Salesforce Add-on feed for each form.
2. Map form fields to Salesforce fields, ensuring:
- Lead Source = "Website"
- Business Channel = correct segment value (e.g., "Digital Fabrication", "Fine Art")
3. Verify leads appear in AE after a test submission.

Related issue: Traditional Fabrication is missing from the Business Channel picklist in Salesforce. Karly will add it before Chris configures the feed mapping.

Blocker 2 — Email Template Missing AE Unsubscribe Tag

Status: ❌ Unresolved — assigned to Chris

Raphael built an approved HTML email template. When Karly attempted to save it in AE, it threw: "The unsubscribe tag is required in the body of the email."
Root cause: The template contains static unsubscribe text ("you can unsubscribe here") with no link — AE requires a dynamic unsubscribe tag specific to its platform.
Every ESP has its own unsubscribe tag format; Chris will research the correct AE syntax and update the HTML.

Resolution path:
1. Identify the correct AE unsubscribe merge tag (e.g., %%unsubscribe%% or similar).
2. Replace the static text in Raphael's HTML with the dynamic tag.
3. Re-save the template in AE.
4. Address a secondary cosmetic issue: a placeholder image in the template preview is misaligned — Chris will coordinate with Raphael to fix and refine the template before building the three segment-specific emails.

Access & Permissions

Chris initially could not access the AE app. Resolved during the meeting:

Karly added the Account Engagement Connector User permission set to Chris's Salesforce user profile.
Chris confirmed successful access to the AE app afterward.

Action Items

#	Owner	Task
1	Karly	Record Loom + write up segmentation logic (`Business Channel` field, flow routing) for Chris
2	Karly	Add "Traditional Fabrication" to the `Business Channel` picklist in Salesforce
3	Karly	Create "Traditional Fabrication" and "Fine Art" campaigns in AE
4	Karly	Add Chris and Raphael to the ClickUp task containing the HTML template
5	Chris	Configure Gravity Forms Salesforce Add-on: create feeds, map fields, populate `Lead Source` and `Business Channel`
6	Chris	Fix AE unsubscribe tag in HTML template; coordinate image alignment fix with Raphael
7	Chris	Build three segment-specific emails from the refined template; assign each to its corresponding AE campaign

Transcript Excerpts

On the project goal:

"They want to set up emails to where whenever somebody fills out that specific landing page, whether it's their segments are digital fabrication, traditional fabrication, and fine art — whenever somebody fills out one of those forms, they get added to the system and into an email flow that's specific to that segment." — Karly, ~5:05

On the Gravity Forms sync:

"I'll need to look into what actually is required to connect Salesforce and Gravity Forms." — Chris, ~24:10

On the unsubscribe tag:

"Every platform has their own structure for unsubscribes... I don't know [the AE format]. I can go mess around with it." — Chris, ~26:17

On timeline:

"They're not ones that's like they want to get it done like yesterday... we want to get it done properly, not quickly." — Karly & Chris, ~28:08

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