Events are responsible for providing a vast source of information and other important functionality to your Drip account. They track subscriber activity, store and transfer information, and play an essential role in both automation and segmentation. In this article, you'll learn about the different ways this feature will enhance how you use Drip.

In this article:

• Events explained
• Predefined Drip events
• Custom events
• Event-based segmentation
• Event-based automation

 

Events explained

Events record and describe the different ways subscribers interact with your marketing content. Those types of interactions might range from when a new lead submits a form and subscribes to a campaign, to all the steps between that lead up to them becoming a customer.

Take the following event for example:

Submitted a form
 - form_id: 123456
 - url: https://mystore.com/discount-signup
 - page_title: Discount Offer Page
 - occured_at: **defaults to current time**

That event records an instance where a subscriber submitted a form and is a good example of how an event is constructed. 

Events are referenced by a given name and contain little bits of information known as properties. Properties are how an event stores the specifics about the action that took place. Although properties might vary with each event, a date and time property is always included.

At this point, you might be wondering where events come from and how you can record them in your account. The following are the different ways you can source and record events in Drip:

• predefined Drip events
• third-party integration providers
• Drip's REST and JavaScript APIs
• automation

 

Predefined Drip events

Below is a list of predefined Drip events:

Predefined Drip events

 

Custom events

A custom event is any event not already predefined by Drip. As Drip's predefined events are used to record subscriber interactions with Drip-based features, custom events are a way for you to record activities which are unique to your use-case and business model. 

The following examples look at the differences between two separate types of businesses and the kind of activities they might record with their own custom events:

Software company example:

• A software company connects their API to Drip's API in order to send information to Drip each time someone starts a trial account with their service. The company would also like to track each instance the trial user logs in subsequently, as well as if the user becomes a paid customer following their trial.
  
  Event names that might fit the software company's needs:
  
  • Started a trial
  • Logged in
  • Became a customer
    
    

Ecommerce example:

• An ecommerce store is using Drip to send automated emails to anyone who performs certain types of activities while browsing their store. They're most concerned with when someone views one of their product pages, when someone starts or abandons a checkout, and when someone completes an order.
  
  Event names that would fit the ecommerce store's needs:
  
  • Viewed a product
  • Started checkout
  • Abandoned checkout
  • Placed an order

While considering names for your custom events, we suggest starting with these best practices: 

• Be descriptive, yet not too complex.
• Use a past-tense verb when describing the action (e.g. Submitted a form, Made a purchase).
• Capitalize the first word only.

Sticking to those practices will help ensure that your naming conventions remain consistent.  

 

Event-based segmentation

Segment your subscribers by the types of actions they perform so you can send better-targeted emails to those who share specific commonalities.

To segment your subscriber list by Events:

1. From the top navigation in your account, click Subscribers.
2. Using the Subscriber Filter, select Events performed.
3. Build the rest of your filter, then click Refresh.

For example, the following filter returns a list that will include any subscriber who submitted a form within the given timeframe.

 

Event-based automation

In automation, events can be used to trigger actions and other components in your Workflows and Rules. While building your automation, Drip's predefined events are made available for use:

To use one of Drip's predefined events not listed in the trigger drop-down, or to use your own custom event, use the Performed a custom event trigger. Then, enter the name of the event you'd like to use.

Each time the given event is recorded in Drip, it will also trigger any automation you've set in relation to that event.