How To Pause The Aweber Autoresponder

14 | Posted In Marketing, Technical by David

My readers know that I am a big proponent of Aweber for mailing list management. Out of the many things that you can do with Aweber, one of them is an autoresponder.

If you’re not already familiar, an autoresponder is simply a pre-scheduled series of emails that get sent out to a new subscriber on automatic after they subscribe to your list.

For many months, I was using an autoresponder sequence. I still am a supporter of the idea, however I’m currently in the process of re-evaluating the idea. That said, there is certainly an issue with an autoresponder when you’re engaging in a structured marketing campaign.

Picture 1 When you do a product launch (which I just got done with), you are going to be emailing your list with pre-launch and launch emails. If you are running a pre-scheduled sequence at the same time, the messages conflict. From a subscriber’s viewpoint, your message during pre-launch is literally all over the place.

The solution is to turn off your autoresponder sequence, at least temporarily.

The problem is… Aweber has no way to place a sequence on pause. It seems like an easy enough thing to do, so perhaps I can talk them into adding that feature at some point. :)

In the meantime, here is a sneaky little work-around for putting an Aweber autoresponder sequence on pause:

  1. Take a screenshot of the current ordering and timing of your AR sequence. You will use this later to put everything back, if you wish to do so.
  2. Go into each message in your sequence and set the interval to 999. Note that the “0” message (the welcome message) needs to stay in place, so you might just need to re-word it to make it fit into your new campaign.
  3. Do your launch.
  4. If/when you decide to put everything back, then consult the screenshot you took in #1 above and reset all the intervals to what you had before. Delivery will resume from where it left off with all subscribers.

Hope that helps somebody. :)

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  • http://www.theblogmag.com/ Ben Collins | The Blog Mag

    Certainly will come in useful in the future. Thanks David. Hope the launch is yielding some serious reward for you..!

  • remarkablogger

    Very useful, but shit, you'd think they could put a real pause button in there. :-)

  • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

    Bet they will now!

    Good tip Dave.

  • http://www.melvinblog.com/ Melvin

    cool. I've been long using Aweber but was not aware of this trick. Thanks

  • http://www.girlwithnoname.com/ Girlwithnoname (Jackie)

    actually, you only really need to do that with autoresponder #2. it won't matter what #3 and higher are because #3 and higher won't go out until #2 goes out. So if #2 won't go out for 999 days, then #3 won't go out for at least 1000 days.

    cheers.

  • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

    And….my launch ends tomorrow… ;-) Good to know for the next one!!

  • http://www.slymarketing.com Jens P. Berget

    It would be awesome to have a real pause button. I'm using the autoresponder, and I have a sequence, messages will be sent for many months. I have thought about sending emails to my list manually, but then they'll get too many emails from me.

    Pausing it at the time when I'm sending the email would be a awesome.

  • http://nathanhangen.com/blog Nathan Hangen

    Great idea man. Wish I thought of that before. It's been a problem in both of my big launches. Seems like there should be a pause button though.

  • http://www.Escapingthe9to5.com/ Maren Kate

    Good stuff, I use aweber for my blog & business responders & never knew that! Thanks!

  • http://website-in-a-weekend.net/ Dave Doolin

    Yes, message #2 is the only one necessary to reset.

    Followups, apparently, get put in directly in the outgoing queue immediately on saving them using AWeber's built in editing forms. This can lead to a nasty surprise if you aren't careful. I may be missing something though, if anyone can correct me, love to know.

    If I may be so bold, I just published “Your First AWeber Autoresponder Followup Series” on February 3rd explaining exactly this notion of pausing a series. (David, if this is too bold, I'll snip it out.)

    Another thing AWeber needs to do is allow followups to be segmented like broadcasts. Building a separate lists and merging for specific campaigns is way too messy, which is why I haven't done it.

  • http://www.jaiganeshv.com/ Jai

    Great tip for list builders like me that uses Aweber!!

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    True, however if your list has been around awhile, then you have people who are mid-sequence already. So, if you only changed the second message, anybody who had already received it would keep on getting the AR sequence. This is why I say change them ALL to 999.

  • http://www.jaiganeshv.com/ Jai

    Great tip for list builders like me that uses Aweber!!

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    True, however if your list has been around awhile, then you have people who are mid-sequence already. So, if you only changed the second message, anybody who had already received it would keep on getting the AR sequence. This is why I say change them ALL to 999.