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# Turn on marketing automations

An automation, or recipe, is a message that MERIDIQ sends on your behalf whenever a client reaches a certain moment — eight weeks after their last visit, their birthday, two days after a no-show. Each recipe has its own switch, its own timing and its own wording, and none of them send anything until you turn them on.

| 📍 **Where to find this:** Left navigation menu → Marketing → Automations

## ✅ What you can do

- Turn each recipe on or off with a single switch
- Change when it fires and exactly what it says
- Send yourself a test before any client sees it
- Cap the credits one recipe may spend in a month
- Open its log to see every send, skip and failure

## 🧩 The six recipes

| Recipe | When it sends | Why clinics use it |
| ---- |
| **Rebooking reminder** | A set number of weeks after the client's last visit for that service, 8 by default | The single biggest source of repeat bookings — most clients simply forget they are due |
| **Birthday greeting** | On the client's birthday, at 10:00 by default | Goodwill, and a natural reason to get in touch without selling |
| **Follow-up after visit** | A set number of days after a completed appointment | Catches problems early and shows aftercare, which drives reviews |
| **Win-back** | Once a client has not visited for a set number of months, 6 by default | Reaches people who drifted away and would come back if asked |
| **No-show recovery** | A set number of days after a missed or cancelled visit | Recovers a booking that would otherwise be lost entirely |
| **Welcome new client** | A set number of days after the client record is created, no appointment needed | Makes a new client feel expected, and gives them the booking link early |

![The six automation recipe cards with their switches and results](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/8/c/a/c/8cac159472d82800/marketing-recipes_oheiv1.png =650x256)

Each card shows the recipe's **live timing** in its subtitle, so it always states what you actually configured rather than a stock example. Underneath, three numbers report what it has produced: **sent**, **bookings** and **revenue**.

|| ℹ️ Before **Win-back** is switched on, its card shows something different: how many clients match today, and what messaging them would cost. It is a free look at the size of the opportunity before you commit.

## ▶️ Turn a recipe on

1. Click **Marketing → Automations** in the left navigation menu.
2. Use the **switch** in the top-right corner of the recipe card.

The recipe starts working from the next hourly check.

||| ⚠️ If your clinic is not yet verified for SMS, or has no credits, the switch refuses and MERIDIQ tells you to finish the setup at the top of the page. See [Set up SMS marketing](https://help.meridiq.com/en/article/set-up-sms-marketing-13yrho6/).

## ⚙️ Configure a recipe

Click **Configure** on any card. The panel is the same for every recipe apart from its timing section.

### Channel and timing

The **Channel** is **SMS**. Timing is the section directly below it, and it is the one part that differs per recipe: weeks for rebooking, a time of day for birthdays, days for follow-up, no-show and welcome, months for win-back.

![Channel and timing settings at the top of the Rebooking reminder panel](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/8/c/a/c/8cac159472d82800/marketing-configure-timing_6gzon4.png =650x549)

**Rebooking reminder** has two extras, because treatments do not all repeat on the same cycle:

- **All services** — on by default. Switch it off to limit the reminder to specific services, then use **Add services** to pick them. The picker has a search box, which matters when you have a long service list.
- **Per-service overrides** — give individual services their own interval, while everything else keeps the **Default interval for all services**. A three-week service and a six-month service can then live under one recipe.

|| ℹ️ Timing is measured from **each client's last appointment for that service**, not from the day you switched the recipe on. Someone who was in seven weeks ago will hear from you next week, not in eight weeks' time.

||| ⚠️ If you switch **All services** off and add no services, nothing sends for that recipe at all. MERIDIQ warns you in the panel when the list is empty.

### The message

![Message editor with variable chips, character count and Reset to default text](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/8/c/a/c/8cac159472d82800/marketing-message-editor_1tmw6ru.png =650x495)

1. Edit the text in the **Message** box. Every recipe arrives with wording already written for it.
2. *(optional)* Click a chip below the box to insert a placeholder: **Client Name**, **Booking link**, **Practitioner**, **Clinic**, **Service** or **Unsubscribe**. Each is replaced with the real value for each client at the moment of sending.
3. *(optional)* Click **Reset to default text** to put MERIDIQ's original wording back.
4. *(optional)* Turn off **Sign with the client's practitioner** if you do not want the message signed. When it is on, MERIDIQ adds a short sign-off such as */ Anna S.* — personal messages get more replies.
5. *(optional)* Set a **Monthly credit cap for this automation**. That recipe pauses for the rest of the month once it has spent that many credits, and starts again next month.
6. Check the **Preview** at the bottom. It renders your real message with sample values, exactly as the client will receive it.
7. Click **Save**.

![Monthly credit cap and the SMS preview with sample values](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/8/c/a/c/8cac159472d82800/marketing-message-preview_1b8a8ei.png =650x259)

|| ℹ️ The line under the message box reads, for example, *137 characters · 1 SMS (1 credit per client)*. Cross 160 characters and it becomes 2 SMS and two credits per client, so trimming a sentence can halve the cost of a recipe.

|| ℹ️ The practitioner in a signed message is the one who performed the booking. If there is no booking to go on, MERIDIQ uses the client's most recent practitioner.

||| ⚠️ **The unsubscribe link is required and cannot be removed.** Delete the placeholder and MERIDIQ adds an *Unsubscribe:* line back before the message goes out. That link is what keeps your clinic on the right side of marketing consent rules.

## 📲 Send yourself a test

1. Click **Send test** on the card, or **Send test to my phone** at the bottom of the configure panel.
2. Confirm in the dialog.

The test uses the message currently on screen, including unsaved edits, so you can try wording before committing to it.

||| ⚠️ A test is a real SMS to your test number and is **charged like a normal message**. If no test number is set, it goes to your own number. It is never sent to clients.

## ⏸️ When a recipe pauses itself

If an unusual number of clients unsubscribe after a send, MERIDIQ stops that recipe on its own and the card shows **Paused by list protection** instead of its statistics. This is a safety net: something in the message is putting people off, and continuing would cost you your list.

1. Click **Review message** and change the wording.
2. Click **Resume**.

## 📜 Read the log

Click **Logs** on any recipe card for its full history. Each row shows the client, the recipe, the date and the outcome:

| Outcome | Meaning |
| ---- |
| **Delivered** | The message reached the client |
| **Clicked** | The client opened the link in it |
| **Booked** | The client booked after receiving it |
| **Skipped** | A guardrail stopped it, and the row says which |
| **Failed** | It could not be sent, and the row says why |
| **Pending** | Queued and on its way — normal for a few moments after a send |

Filter with **All**, **Sent**, **Skipped** and **Failed**, or search by client name.

||| ⚠️ Seeing lots of **Skipped** rows is not a fault. It usually means your own limits are working. Read the reason on the row and, if you want more messages to go out, raise the limit in **Guardrails**.

| 💡 Recipes are evaluated every hour, so a message can arrive up to an hour after the moment that triggers it, and anything falling inside quiet hours waits until they end. See [Set guardrails and credit limits](https://help.meridiq.com/en/article/set-guardrails-and-credit-limits-1agd3g3/).