Automatic sales funnels: technical implementation

Today I would like to raise the issue of the technical implementation of the auto-bucket. And pay more attention to the example of a bunch of several services. For example, CRM and funnels. In this article, I propose to consider several solutions that are implemented.

What are auto sales funnels?

In order not to overload the text with introductory information, I suggest leaving it behind the bracket. If you are not familiar with the term and would like to start studying the topic from the very beginning, I recommend starting it, for example, from this post. Also recently published a concept of how automatic sales funnels can solve the problem of starting sales in new branches . It illustrates the use case of the auto stove in life.

CRM Integration

Integration of services with each other is a typical task in the development of automatic marketing funnels. In some cases, you can do without programming: there are services like zapier.com, which can connect several tools among themselves, which by default do not provide for integration with each other.

For example, we want to collect contacts in Facebook Lead Ads and immediately transfer them to the Mailchimp, Unisender or GetResponse mailing service. Another option is to organize surveys using Google Forms, save data and send a mailbox to a subscription service.

Organizing the collection and exchange of data using services allows you to significantly increase the speed of translating new ideas into reality. And, literally, improve them every day.

When a team of several specialists and a project manager from the field of marketing are working on the project, everyone is aware of what is happening. As soon as an error or obvious improvement is found, everyone can just go in and fix it. Without a standard chain, “assign a task to a programmer -> assign a priority -> wait for the introduction”. This pleases both developers who can focus on new tasks and a team that promptly influences the auto-funnel performance.

This solution works when it is necessary to create a simple bundle with the direct logic “take it here, save it there”. Let's now take an example when we implement logic together with developers.

Bitrix24 + Unisender

In one of the craters, we had the following logic. After the subscriber receives the materials of interest, we send him the first personalized offer. It must be valid for 7 days and then become unavailable.

Used CRM: Bitrix24.
Email-mailing service: Unisender.

The first elements of the funnel

How to solve this problem, and what should be envisaged?

1. When clicking on a special link, we need to automatically create a Lead in Bitrix24.
2. At the same time, it is important to provide protection so that our customer base is simply not “spammed” by substituting 1,000 non-existing email addresses.
3. It is necessary to fix the date of transition. We will take 7 days from it when the offer is no longer valid.
4. The link should be unique and "burn out" in a week. At the same time, when clicking on a link, the script should check for the presence of the corresponding Lida. If there is - check the date, if not - create a new Lead.

The logic of the script for the proposal-starter

We solved the problem together with the Manao development partners. Separately for each item:

1. Creating Lida in Bitrix24. The mechanism is simple - in the links in the email that Unisender sends, we insert two parameters: {{Email}} - the email of the recipient and {{SendDate}} - the date the email was sent. A complete list of parameters that can be used is here .

Using these parameters, when clicking on the link, we get to the page with the suggestion where our script is located. His task is to create a Lead in Bitrix24 through the API.

Notice, we pass the date of sending the letter. Thus, if the interested party follows the link not immediately, but, say, in 2 days, then everything will be saved correctly. And he will have only 5 days, as was written in the letter.

Lida, produced in the manner described, are created with a specific name and status. To make them easy to filter.

2. Protect yourself from spam. Our link is: http://site.ru/offer1/?email=ya@ya.ru&date=01.08.2017&type=hello

Obviously, there is a risk that an attacker could go through the search for different email addresses in the corresponding GET variable. And then our CRM will be filled with a lot of meaningless information.

Protection options may be several. We chose a counter check by API Unisender. When a user clicks on the link provided, we send a return request to Unisender and check if there is actually a user among those who have confirmed the desire to receive our emails.

3. Fixing the date and type of proposal. The type of the offer and the date when it was made are entered into the Lida properties.

Each Lida automatically records a pair of properties: the type of the offer and its validity

All information transmitted to Bitrix24 can be used not only by robots, but also by living people. There are many variations.

4. The link must be unique and "burn out" in a week.

Before creating a new one, the script searches in Bitrix24 Lida with the corresponding Email, it is checked with the type of the offer and the date when it was made. If the Lead has already been created and more than 7 days have passed, we issue the message “sorry, you are late”. And the offer is no longer valid.

If the offer has not expired, the script displays a page with a special offer.

A similar solution can be made for almost any CRM with API support. And for any mailing service.

Similarly, “lower” in the funnel we can go from the opposite: from changes in CRM. For example, using Business processes, when the status of a Lida or Transaction has changed, transfer the user to another Email segment. Or run the appropriate chain of letters. And when the first transaction is made - transfer to another branch of the automatic sales funnel.

Bitrix24 + Unisender + Tilda.cc

Another example of a solution that can be considered in this article is the editing of the landing page. For the reasons described above, it is convenient to make landing pages for special offers in the constructor. It is fast, cheap, simple and beautiful. We love Tilda.

It would be very nice if, according to the logic described above, if the proposal is relevant to display a page on Tilda. And here there is some difficulty.

Let the real page address look like offer1.site.ru and be located on Tilda.cc servers. However, we need to prevent users from knowing about it. Let me remind you that special offers are always individual, with a personal link and a limited shelf life. If any person, without any funnel and personal link, can open the page at any time, then the whole point will be lost.

Hence the conclusion - you need to hide the address and make sure that, if the proposal is relevant, the page will be loaded from the constructor, but the original address will remain ( http://site.ru/offer1/?email=ya@ya.ru&date=01.08.2017&type=hello ). And this is possible only in one case: when the page is located on our hosting.

For this, we have implemented another integration. Now with Tilda.cc. Using its API, we export the page code to our server. When you click the "Publish" button, our script is sent to Webhook and reports that the page has just been changed. Data from Tilda comes in JSON format. Since the number of requests to the service is limited, we cache the answers. When changing a project, Tilda sends a request (Webhook) to our server, upon receipt of which we delete cache files. When opening the page, we re-cache the answers and show the page to the user.

This solution also greatly facilitates further work on the “spinning” of the car funnel. If we want to completely replace one special offer with another one or change its description - the issue is solved from several hours to one day. We simply embed a new page into the automatic system by clicking on the “Publish” button.

Conclusion

Of course, automatic funnels are first and foremost marketing. And usually, when they write about marketing technologies, most often the reasoning comes down to ROI, “before” and “after” cases, compared to other channels. However, auto-buckets are also logic, algorithms and (as I hope, we managed to show) a large number of integrations. Therefore, in this article, I wanted to demonstrate at least the simplest examples of technical implementations.

It should be noted once again: instead of the Bitrix24 and Unisender considered, there can be practically any CRM or mailing service. The main condition is API availability.

Also, automated marketing funnels are powerful content marketing. Very much depends on the content strategy in car dealerships. Therefore, we plan to devote one of the following articles to this issue.