A birthday automation sends a personalized email or SMS to fans on their birthday. Alongside Welcome Emails and Automations for checkout abandonment and poll responses, birthday automations give you a consistent, low-lift method to ensure fans feel recognized throughout the year.
Create a birthday automation
Navigate to Messages > Automations.
Click + New Automation.
Select Has a birthday as the trigger.
Choose your broadcast channel - email, SMS, or both.
Use the Details and Content tabs to configure your automation and compose your message. See Create Automated Email and SMS Journeys for a full walkthrough of these tabs.
What to include
A birthday message lands better when it gives something back. Consider including:
A store discount code
Access to exclusive or limited merch
Exclusive content such as music demos or behind-the-scenes videos
🟢 Top tip: Keep an eye on your message inbox once your birthday automation is live. Fans may reply to birthday SMS messages or email broadcasts - responding promptly reinforces the personal touch.
Recommended flow
The most effective birthday automations create a path for fans to engage and receive something in return.
Birthday email or SMS > Link to a Post
A Post is the ideal destination for a birthday automation. Set the Post to web only, configure Web access to a custom audience of fans who have been sent the birthday email or birthday SMS (or both), and keep it off your Posts feed so it remains exclusive to fans who receive the automation. Alternatively, the web access can be set to 'everyone' - all visitors can view this Post.
A birthday Post can include a video message, exclusive content, download links, a discount code, and a store link - all in one place. See Create and Publish a Post and How to Gate Content in a Post for more detail.
Birthday email or SMS > Link to a hidden landing page
A hidden landing page is an alternative if you prefer to keep the birthday flow separate from Posts. Email can carry a store link and discount code, but cannot host video or download links directly. A hidden landing page can include:
A birthday video message
Download links for demos, wallpapers, or other exclusive content
A birthday discount
A link to your store
🟢 Top tip: Create separate automations for email and SMS, each linking to their own hidden landing page or merch store. Keeping the flows separate lets you compare performance metrics across channels.
⚪ Note: Email and SMS birthday automations must be configured separately.
Performance
Connect your merch store to get a full picture of birthday automation performance. A connected store lets Openstage attribute purchases back to broadcasts - shown as Earnings on email broadcasts and ROI on SMS broadcasts. See Connect Your Merch Store for more detail.
SMS credit
SMS automations require SMS credit to be topped up before they can send.
🟢 Top tip: To estimate your average monthly cost for birthday SMS, create a draft SMS broadcast and limit the audience to fans with a date of birth on record. The review step displays the estimated send cost for that audience. Divide that figure by 12 for an average monthly cost.
⚪ Note: This estimate reflects the maximum cost at the time it was calculated for the selected audience. Collecting additional date of birth or phone number data over time will affect the estimate.