Email Automation PRO
Yatra's free plugin already sends all 17 baseline transactional emails (see Email & notifications). The Email Automation module adds two power-user tools on top:
- Sequences — multi-step drip campaigns triggered by booking events (welcome series, pre-trip tips, post-trip review request).
- Email logs — a per-send delivery log so you can prove "we sent it" when a customer says "I didn't get it."
What you'll need
| Thing | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Yatra Pro license | Yatra → License |
| Email Automation module enabled | Yatra → Modules → Email Automation |
| Working transactional email | See Email → Delivery — connect a real ESP through WP Mail SMTP / FluentSMTP / Post SMTP before enabling sequences. |
Step 1 — Enable the module
- Open Yatra → Modules.
- Find Email Automation → toggle on.
- Two new tabs appear in the Email hub: Sequences and Email logs.
Step 2 — Create your first sequence
Open Yatra → Email → Sequences → + Add Sequence.
Sequence basics
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | Internal label. |
| Trigger event | One of: booking.created, booking.confirmed, booking.cancelled, booking.completed, payment.received, payment.reminder, enquiry.created. |
| Status | Active / Paused. Paused halts new entries; existing in-flight steps still complete. |
Audience filters (optional)
Limit the sequence so it only runs for customers matching:
- Destinations — multi-select
- Trip categories — multi-select
- Customer country — multi-select
- Trip type — Single day / Multi day / Flexible
Leave them all empty to apply to every customer matching the trigger event.
Steps
A sequence is a list of one or more steps, run in order. Click + Add Step for each:
| Step field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Delay | When to send relative to the trigger. Options: Immediately / N minutes / N hours / N days / Until X days before travel_date / X days after travel_date. |
| Template | Pick any template from the Email Templates list — including the legacy / system templates and any custom templates you've created. |
| Skip if customer has | Optional. E.g. Skip if customer has already received this template in the last 7 days — prevents over-mailing. |
Example sequence — Pre-trip welcome series:
Trigger: booking.confirmed
Audience: Destination = Bali
Step 1 — Immediately → Welcome to your Bali adventure (template: custom_welcome)
Step 2 — 7 days before travel_date → Packing & weather tips (template: custom_packing_tips)
Step 3 — 1 day before travel_date → Final reminder + arrival info (template: custom_final_reminder)
Step 4 — 1 day after travel_date → Hope you loved it — leave a review (template: review_request)Save → set status to Active.
Step 3 — Send a test entry
On the sequence's detail page, click Send test → enter a customer email → Yatra runs the sequence against a synthetic test booking with realistic merge-tag data so you can verify the entire flow without making a real booking.
Step 4 — Verify in Email Logs
Open Yatra → Email → Email logs after running a test or live booking.
| Column | Notes |
|---|---|
| Timestamp | When the send was attempted. |
| Recipient | Email address the message went to. |
| Template | The template key used. |
| Sequence | If from a sequence, links back to it. |
| Status | sent / failed / bounced / opened (when ESP webhooks are wired). |
| ESP response | Raw response code from your transport plugin. |
| Open / Click | When your ESP posts opens/clicks back via webhook. |
Click a row for the full payload — rendered HTML, headers, merge-tag values, ESP response body.
Sequence statistics
Each sequence carries running stats:
- Entered — total customers who matched the trigger + filters.
- In progress — currently between steps.
- Completed — finished all steps.
- Opens / Clicks — when your ESP delivers those events.
- Unsubscribes — customers who clicked the unsubscribe link.
Common patterns
| Goal | Trigger | Steps |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome new bookings | booking.confirmed | 1 step immediately |
| Pre-trip tips for adventure travelers | booking.confirmed + audience = Adventure category | 7d / 3d / 1d before travel |
| Pre-payment reminder for unpaid bookings | payment.reminder | 1 step immediately |
| Post-trip review nurture | booking.completed | 1d after, 14d after (if no review yet) |
| Enquiry-to-booking nurture | enquiry.created | Immediately + 2d + 5d |
Troubleshooting
Sequence entered but no email sent — open the Email logs tab and filter by recipient. A failed row with an ESP error tells you exactly what went wrong (usually authentication / DNS / spam-filter related).
Sequence runs but emails arrive in spam — set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on the From domain. WordPress's built-in wp_mail() doesn't authenticate properly with most receivers.
Wrong template used — sequences and the underlying transactional emails read from the same template list. If you edited the wrong template, your sequence will use the edited version.
Customer unsubscribed from one sequence but still receiving another — unsubscribes are per-customer-per-list, not per-sequence by default. Set the customer's email_subscribed = 0 to stop everything (or extend with custom code via the yatra_email_should_send filter).
Step delay didn't fire — Yatra uses WordPress cron. Confirm wp-cron is running (or use a real system cron — recommended). Visit /wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron once to manually flush the queue.
Useful links
- Email & notifications — the full template catalog and merge-tag reference.
- Settings → Advanced → Debug mode — writes a copy of every send to
wp-content/uploads/yatra/email-debug.log. - Hooks & filters —
yatra_email_sequence_entered,yatra_email_should_send,yatra_email_step_processed.
Where to read more
- All modules — module catalog.
- Mailchimp Integration — sync customers to Mailchimp for external sequences (alternative to native sequences).