How to create a Birthday flow?

A birthday is a perfect opportunity to connect with your customers in a personal and memorable way. Birthday automation allows you to automatically send personalized messages—via email, SMS, or Viber—on your customers’ special day. By setting up this type of automation, you can increase engagement, build loyalty, and make each customer feel valued. This guide will walk you through creating a birthday automation step by step, from choosing the entry source to customizing the message and timing.

Step-by-step: Creating a birthday flow

Step 1: Start a New Journey

Navigate to Marketing Hub > Journey Builder and click Create New Journey. This is where you’ll set up the structure for your birthday automation and define the flow your customers will follow.

Step 2: Name Your Journey

Give your journey a clear and recognizable name, like “Birthday Automation”, so you can easily identify it later among your other journeys.

Step 3: Select the Entry Source

Choose the entry source that will trigger the automation. For a birthday automation, select Life Event as the trigger—this ensures that each customer enters the journey automatically on their birthday.

Step 4: Select Actions

Now it’s time to define what will happen in your journey. Choose the actions you want to take, including which communication channel to use. In our example, we’ll send birthday messages via Viber to ensure a personal and timely touch.

Step 5: Finish and Save the Journey

Always include a Journey End block to properly “close off” your journey. Once the journey is complete, save your work (click Publish) so it’s ready to be used.

Once you click “Publish”, you’ll be automatically redirected to the Journey Builder page, where your newly created journey will appear at the top of the list.

Step 6: Building the Automation Flow

To start building the flow, you can either:

• Click on + Create new flow directly from that page, or

• Navigate to the Automation tab and click + Create new flow there.

Step 7: Add Flow details 

Make sure that all fields are populated to your desired liking as well as making sure that appropriate Journey is chosen. 

In case you want to learn more about goals and actions check out Automation Studio.

Step 8: Select your audience and schedule 

At this step, you can choose whether to send the message to all customers or use a pre-created segment for a more personalized approach. 

Simply pick the desired segment from the dropdown menu. You can also define the time when the message will be sent, ensuring it reaches your customers at the right moment.

👉 If you want to learn more about creating segments, click here.

Step 9: Customize your message 
At this stage, you will create the message that will be sent to your customers. The options depend on the communication channel you selected when setting up the journey:

• Email → You can either use a pre-made template or create a new one on the spot.
• Viber / SMS → You can compose the message directly within this step.

In our example, we’ll continue with Viber and create a personalized message for the birthday automation.

👉 While composing the message, you can:

• Insert placeholders to personalize your text. Simply type / and a dropdown will appear with available fields (such as the customer’s first name). This way, each customer receives a message tailored to them.
• Add an image to make the message more engaging. You can either upload the image directly or paste a link to the image.

👉 Before saving, make sure to test your Viber message to check how it looks on the recipient’s device and confirm that placeholders, images, and links display correctly.

Once you are satisfied with the results, save your message. Then click Continue to move forward and complete your flow.

Step 10: Last step – Set the flow configuration

Now that your journey structure is ready, it's time to fine-tune the flow behavior and communication settings.

• Schedule 
  Define when the flow should start and end, so everything runs exactly when you need it to.
• Entry limits 
  Decide how many times a profile can enter the flow.  

Now, click “Create Flow.” 

You’ll be redirected to the Automation page, where—depending on your user level—you can approve the automation and activate it. Once activated, your automation is ready to go!

Want to see it in action? Just check out the video below!

Your automation is ready — we look forward to seeing your results.