---
title: "Automation Builder - How Marketing Campaigns Work"
description: "Learn how to automate lead nurturing with personalized follow-ups using ClearCRM’s visual campaign builder."
url: https://help.clearcrm.com/en/articles/11666994-automation-builder-how-marketing-campaigns-work
collection: "Marketing"
updated: 2026-07-24
language: en
---

# Automation Builder - How Marketing Campaigns Work

Learn how to automate lead nurturing with personalized follow-ups using ClearCRM’s visual campaign builder.

## 📌 What are Workflow Automation or Marketing Campaigns?

Marketing Campaigns in ClearCRM help you **automatically follow up with leads and customers** based on their actions. These campaigns allow you to send targeted emails or SMS, assign tags, update statuses, and much more — all without manual effort.

You can build out workflows that trigger after someone fills out a form, meets a condition, or joins a segment — perfect for onboarding sequences, drip campaigns, or lead scoring systems.

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## 🧭 Where to Find It

Go to **Marketing** from the left-hand menu, then click on **Automation Builder**.

Once you create a new campaign, you’ll see tabs for:

-   **Workflow** – to visually build and edit the campaign
    
-   **Actions** – a full list of campaign actions
    
-   **Statistics** – performance tracking
    
-   **Leads/Customers** – who is currently enrolled
    

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## 🛠️ What Can You Do?

With Campaigns, you can:

-   Trigger actions when someone fills out a form
    
-   Send emails or SMS messages
    
-   Add tags for segmentation
    
-   Score leads based on behavior
    
-   Set conditions like "clicked email" or "submitted form"
    
-   Automate multi-step nurturing without writing a single line of code
    

Each campaign begins with a **data entry point** (like a form or segment), then proceeds through **actions** and **conditions** that guide the contact's journey.

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## 🌱 Why Use It?

Whether you're welcoming new signups, delivering lead magnets, or nudging contacts toward a deal — campaigns give you the tools to **scale communication** while staying personalized.

You can build once and let ClearCRM take care of the follow-ups for every new form submission or segment match.

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## 📌 **Email Delivery Timing**

When you send automated marketing emails, ClearCRM processes them through a delivery queue. You may see a banner stating:

_“Emails are queued and can take up to 1 hour to be delivered.”_

This means messages are not always sent instantly but are released in batches within the hour. This ensures reliable delivery even during high-volume campaigns.