Best Marketing Automation Software

Zapier Core Features (And Pros)

Zapier’s strength lies in its simplicity and flexibility.

Take its user-friendly Zaps, for instance.

Choose a trigger, define an action, and you’re good to go. You don’t even need any coding skills, as it’s built for beginners in mind.

(We’ll take an in-depth look at how Zaps work in a later section.)

Another winning feature of Zapier? The variety of integrations. 

You can easily find any automated workflow that suits your use case.

Are you a small online business owner who wants to share content across social media platforms like Twitter and Linkedin pages?

The good news is that Zapier has that.

Want to email a new lead each time you receive a new Google Form submission?

Zapier has you covered.

I use Zapier’s appsuite to help me syndicate content, save contact form submissions and automate lead handling. It eliminates manual work and frees up a ton of time for the me and my team.

Suffice to say, Zapier’s useful for just about anything!

Pro Tip: If you want to see what Zapier can do for a specific job role, check out its Explore page.

Cons Of Zapier

Zapier’s far from a perfect tool, and there’s plenty of room for improvement.

For one thing, Zapier’s prone to breaking.  

Users experience occasional failing Zaps and struggle to pinpoint the cause behind them.

Source: G2 

I have some pretty complex zap’s in progress so I can give it some room for error. But for teh most part Zapier will work 99% of the time for simple A to B automations. Ive found the stability falls to 70 and 80% when you start adding A to B to C automations.

A word of caution: It’s extremely easy to burn through the Tasks on Zapier. At the agency I consult to when we had a viral marketing campaign running the leads came in thick and fast and we burned through 1,200 tasks in a very short period causing our account to lock up and a payment or upgrade to the next plan before we could continue to get leads.

If your Zaps are complex (i.e., you want to integrate data with large volumes of events between two channels), brace yourself for the impact.

Zapier Pricing Plan

It’s free to start Zapier.

Once signed up, you automatically start a 14-day free trial of Zapier’s Professional plan.

This gets you 1,000 Tasks and unlimited Zaps, by the way!

After the 14-day trial period (and assuming you don’t upgrade to a paid plan), Zapier downgrades you to its free plan, which includes:

• 100 Tasks per month: Every time Zapier completes an action, a Task is created (e.g., updating an entry in a spreadsheet is one Task).
• Five Zaps: Zaps are automated workflows that connect your apps. Each Zap consists of a trigger (e.g., submit an entry to Typeform) and one or more actions (e.g., update a Google Sheets entry).
• 15-minute update time: Zaps check your triggering app for new data every 15 minutes.
• Single-step Zaps: A Zap with one trigger and one action. Multi-step Zaps have more than one action or include filters or searches.

If you’re looking for basic automation needs, Zapier’s Free plan is enough to get you going.

For complex automation (e.g., you want to add customers who buy a product to a specific email list and filter them according to their location), you’ll need Zapier’s Starter or Professional plans.

Zapier Review: An Example In Action

Of course, don’t let these drawbacks stop you from trying Zapier.

It’s still very much a cool automation tool that simplifies your workflow.

Let’s do a quick walk-through on how to create a single-step Zap.

Imagine you’re a freelance web designer and you just created a survey on Google Forms.

You promote it on social media every week, and it attracts a steady stream of responses.

You want to add these new contacts to your email list. (This example assumes the users have given you permission.)

Normally, you’d export these responses to Google Sheets and copy-paste their email addresses in your email marketing software mine is SendFox or your email service provider (ESP).

Now that you’ve signed up for Zapier, you know this is going to be a walk in the park.

So how should you go about it?

First, two things:

1. Export your Google Forms responses to Google Sheets (click Responses > Google Sheets icon).
2. Create your new email list in your ESP.

These ensure Zapier will pull in the data and the Google Sheets and email list will become selectable in the dropdown list.

I know, I know. It bugs me, too, that Zapier can’t automate these two steps. There’s a little prep work involved when you’re using the tool for the first time.

A heads-up: Zapier triggers new entries only after creating and turning on a Zap. It doesn’t natively import or export your existing data. To overcome this limitation, check out this handy trick by Zapier.

Next, go to Zapier and click Get Started Free.

Right after signing up, Zapier directs you to its onboarding page.

Select your persona, industry, and number of employees. Click Continue. 

Select the apps you use in your business and click Finish Setup.

Click Make A Zap on the top left corner.

Name your Zap, and click the Google Forms app.

In the Zap editor, select your Trigger Event. 

Note: I selected New Response in Spreadsheet. This means Zapier will start the Zap whenever there’s a new response row added to the bottom of a spreadsheet.

Click Continue.

Next, click Sign in to Google Forms. 

After you grant Zapier’s access, click Continue.

Next, in Customize Response, select your spreadsheet and worksheet. Click Continue.

Click Test Trigger and look for a confirmation message. If you spot a confetti emoji, that means it’s working.

Click Continue to get directed to the Action step.

Select your Action Event and click Continue.

Next, click Sign in to SendFox. 

Click Continue after granting Zapier’s access.

Customize your contacts, and click Continue.

If you still don’t see your list on Zapier, click Load More in the list dropdown field. Your new list should appear.

Pro Tip: If you want to add multiple steps in your Zap (e.g., add a conditional workflow, delay an action for a certain amount of time), click the ‘+’ sign.

You’ll see a selection of apps, and four options under Helpers (Paths, Filters, Delay, Formatter).

Pick the most appropriate Helper to further customize your Zap.

Once you’re done designing it, click Test & Review.

You’ll see a green box that indicates success.

Scroll down and click Turn On Zap. 

That’s it!

You no longer need to manually copy-paste your contacts from your spreadsheet to the ESP.

Zapier automatically does that, while you focus on running your business.

Final Thoughts: Should You Get Zapier?

If your patience is running thin from doing the same manual tasks over and over again, then yes, you should get Zapier.

Just about anyone can benefit from this zero-coding automation tool.

Whether you’re a time-strapped business owner or a non-technical marketer, Zapier can help streamline your workflow and reclaim your hard-earned free time.