What's new at Instant

SMS is now available in all Abandonment Flows and all Stock Flows

SMS in flows started with your Checkout and Cart Abandonment flows. It now covers every abandonment flow and every stock flow, and turning it on works the same way in each one. That puts a text in front of a shopper who browsed a product, left a collection page, ended a session without buying, or is waiting on a product that is low or back in stock. Each of those moments can now reach a shopper by SMS as well as email.

SMS can now be turned on for every abandonment flow and every stock flow

New Insights tab on Abandonment Flows

Flow reporting has always told you how much revenue an abandonment flow recovers. It has not told you much about who it recovers, or what they buy. Insights fills that gap. You can see whether the flow brings back first time or returning customers, whether the coupon is helping or costing you margin, and which products and price points drive the recovered revenue.

Checkout, Cart and Browse Abandonment flows now have a third tab, Insights, which breaks down where the flow's conversions come from

Countdown Timers are now in the block library

Countdown timers add real urgency to a sale or launch email. This release puts them in the block library as a standard block, so adding one takes a couple of clicks and no design work. Because the timer runs live in the inbox, the time shown is always correct at the moment the email is opened. A shopper who opens your sale email on the last day sees the hours left, not the number that was right when you sent it.

A new Countdown category in the block library gives you 6 timer styles to choose from

All flows now support up to 10 touchpoints

Instant AI still sets the number of emails in each flow for you, based on what performs. What changes here is the ceiling, not the recommendation. If you have wanted more emails in one particular flow, you no longer have to work around a lower cap on that flow. Every email flow uses the same limit, so a Welcome or an Abandoned Cart sequence can run to 10 touchpoints when that suits your store.

Every email flow now supports up to 10 touchpoints, up from a maximum of 5

CTAs can now be overlaid on images

This follows text over images. The image editor already handled cropping and editable text, and the CTA was the last piece of a hero image that still had to be built somewhere else. Every CTA style in your brand kit is available in the editor, so a button placed over an image matches the rest of your email with no setup. Pick Custom when one image needs something different.

Editing an image now includes a CTA option, so you can place a button over any image

Send emails from a different email address

Most of your email should come from the same place, and it still does unless you change it. This is for the emails that should not: a campaign written by your founder, or a plain text step in a flow that reads like a note from a person rather than from a brand. A plain text email lands differently when it actually arrives from your founder, and a message asking whether someone needs help with their order works better coming from support than from your marketing address.

A new From section when you edit any email lets you pick which address that email sends from, in both campaigns and flows

Improved flow analytics with per step analytics

The numbers behind your flows were already being tracked. What changes here is the order they appear in, so the revenue a flow brought in reads first and the detail sits under it. The per step card is the new part. You can see which touchpoint is doing the work and what share of the results comes from each step, so a flow that looks healthy overall no longer hides a step that is not pulling its weight.

Flow pages have a new structure, with revenue data at the top, then interactions, then the per step breakdown

Add text over images

Text added to an image is usually baked into the file the moment it is saved. From that point a small copy change means rebuilding the image from scratch, and the original layers are gone. Instant keeps the text as its own layer for as long as the image exists. A price, a date or an offer can be corrected weeks later in a few seconds, without going back to a design tool.

The image editor now lets you layer text over any image

SMS Welcome flows are now live

This is a standalone flow rather than SMS added to your existing Welcome flow. It has its own trigger, its own touchpoints and its own copy, and it does not replace or delay the email welcome a shopper is already in. Welcome copy is the most bespoke content most brands write, so this flow hands you the message to write rather than generating it. A shopper who signs up with a phone number and no email address now gets a welcome as well, where before they heard nothing from you until your next SMS campaign.

A dedicated SMS Welcome flow texts a shopper as soon as they subscribe to SMS

Brand kit now supports a mobile only logo

Plenty of brands have a long horizontal logo that works well on desktop and gets squeezed on a phone, so they keep a shorter mobile version alongside it. Until now the way to handle that in an email was a custom header with your own logic for what to show and hide on mobile. You can keep using Instant’s standard header instead, and just upload the second file.

Upload a second logo that is specific to mobile

Request Review Flows now support custom triggers

Set your own waiting period between an order being fulfilled and the review request sending

Bounce Reasons now on the deliverability dashboard

This page reports on work that is already happening. Instant manages a large number of deliverability scenarios for you automatically, and the recommendations page already tells you when something needs your attention. Reasons adds the evidence behind that. It shows why the bounces you still see are happening, and once the detail is visible most accounts look a lot healthier than expected.

A new Reasons tab on the deliverability dashboard breaks down every reason your emails bounce

Skip Campaign emails if someone converts

Campaigns and flows have always worked differently. A flow reacts to what a shopper does, and a campaign sends to everyone on the list. That gap mattered most when you were using a multi-step campaign to nurture shoppers towards a purchase, because someone who bought from the first email kept getting the rest. You can now put that logic on a campaign. Build three or four emails to warm shoppers up, and anyone who converts along the way stops receiving the remaining sends.

Turn on a toggle to stop sending the remaining emails in a multi-step campaign to shoppers who convert

Crop images from the email editor

Small image changes used to mean leaving Instant. You would open the image in another tool, crop it, save it, then come back and upload it again. Now the edit happens where you are already working, so the back and forth goes away for the small adjustments that come up while you are building an email.

Crop and edit your images from inside the email editor

Send a preview email to someone else

If you work with an agency or review emails across a large team, the person signing off on the copy is often not the person logged into Instant. You can now send the preview straight to whoever needs to see it, without forwarding it on yourself.

Send a preview email to an address other than your own

Winback periods are now adjustable beyond 90 days

A 90 day winback window is best practice for most stores, and it gets the strongest results across our merchant base. But some categories have much longer natural repurchase cycles, and a 90 day cap meant the flow would reach shoppers well before they were ready to buy again. You can now match the winback period to how your customers actually shop, whether that is four months, six months, or longer.

Set a winback period to any number of days, not just up to a 90 day maximum

Daily, weekly and monthly view for the campaign revenue graph

The campaign revenue graph can now be filtered by daily, weekly or monthly, instead of showing the last 7 days only

Configurable stock thresholds for Back in Stock and Low in Stock

Set your own unit threshold for the Back in Stock and Low in Stock flows, instead of the fixed 10 units

Upload images up to 10MB

Upload images up to 10MB

Upload customers to a custom list

Often you run an event and walk away with a CSV of sign-up emails, then need to email everyone on that list. You can upload them as new shoppers so they are in your campaigns, but it can be hard to know where you met them or to keep that group of people associated together. Tagging them on upload solves that. The shoppers go into your master list as normal, and the shared attribute lets you find the exact group again in segmentation and target them in a campaign. Previously you could do this with Shopify tags, which is still a great, closely integrated approach. This is an alternative for when you think in terms of "lists", while staying integrated with everything in segmentation.

When uploading a new list of shoppers, you can now choose to tag everyone in that upload with a shared attribute

More visibility over Shopify integration events

See webhook events and conversion events directly on your Shopify integration page

Improved breakdown of segment count

Your total email list and the number you can actually send a campaign to are often different, and it is not always obvious why. The usual reason is that suppressed contacts cannot be sent a campaign, so they are removed from the eligible count. Now you can hover over the total and see the full breakdown yourself, so the numbers make sense at a glance without having to ask.

A tooltip now sits next to the total eligible contacts for a campaign, breaking down how that final number is reached

Custom flow improvements

Some brands run a sale, waitlist, or promotion that only needs a flow for a short window, then take it down again. That kind of short-lived, custom automation was hard to manage before. Now you can add a Shopify tag to the right customers and trigger a custom flow off it, for exactly as long as you need it, without touching your core flows. One brand recently shut their store for 48 hours and built a waitlist flow that captured everyone who submitted their email while the store was down. When they reopened, they sent a campaign to everyone carrying that tag: an on-demand announcement to a warm, ready audience of over 1,700 people. The same approach powers competitions too, like tagging 1 in every 100 entrants as a winner and triggering a flow just for them.

Trigger a custom flow automatically when a specific Shopify tag is added to a customer

Predicted Gender in segmentation

Predicted gender is based on census data matched to first names, the same approach used elsewhere. It is not relevant for every store, but some verticals rely on it heavily, so if you segment this way today you can now do it inside Instant.

A new filter on a shopper's profile that predicts a shopper's gender based on their first name

Filter segments by product variant

Build segments based on a specific product variant, not just the product itself

Turn off review stars in emails

Turn off review stars in your emails if you'd rather not show them

Dismissible Klaviyo integration banner

The banner prompting you to integrate with Klaviyo can now be dismissed

Improved shopper profiles and customer health insights

Shopper profiles used to mean a full page redirect every time you wanted a closer look. Now you can open a profile in a side panel, glance at what you need, and carry on where you were. The new customer health insights turn each profile into a quick read on the relationship. See who your highest spenders are, how often they buy, and when they're likely to order next, so you can spot the shoppers worth a targeted follow up.

Shopper profiles now open in a side panel, so you can click a profile and see a preview without leaving the page you're on

Smart coupons can now have a minimum amount configured

Pick a minimum % discount to offer in your smart rules, as well as a maximum

Filter segments by products in a collection

Filter segments based on whether a shopper has purchased a product inside a collection

Change the background colour of an individual email

Most brands use their brand kit for the vast majority of their emails, and that's exactly how it should work. But now and then you want one email to look different, without touching your brand kit or every other email. Now you can change the background and primary text colour of a whole email as a one off override, applied in bulk across that email in a couple of clicks. Without needing to manage individual blocks.

Set the background colour and primary text colour for a single email

Bulk paste for tone of voice words

Tone of voice words are meant to be single words or short phrases, but it wasn't always obvious, and some stores pasted in full paragraphs by mistake. Now the field tells you exactly how to add words, shows your allowance, and blocks overly long entries before they cause problems. Managing a long list is quicker, and you get it right the first time.

Paste a comma separated string of words into your prioritise and avoid fields, and each word is added as its own chip automatically

Drag and drop images onto the canvas

If you design images in other tools and just need them inside Instant, this is much faster. Drop a whole batch of files onto the canvas at once and we'll turn each one into an image block for you, so you can build a campaign in a fraction of the time.

Drag files straight from your computer onto the canvas in bulk

Cleaner advanced segment filter

Building a segment with several groups and nested logic used to be hard to read. The new layout makes the structure clear at a glance, so it's quicker to build the segment you want and easier to spot when the logic isn't quite right.

A refreshed layout for the advanced segment filter, making it easier to manage groups and AND/OR logic

Drag and drop improvements in the email editor

Placing blocks used to mean clicking and then dragging them into position after they landed in the middle of the canvas. Now you can drop a block exactly where you want it in one move, which makes building and rearranging emails quicker. If you liked the old click to insert flow, nothing changes, it still works alongside drag and drop.

Drag blocks straight from the gallery on the left onto the canvas, so you control exactly where each one lands

Remembering draft settings when swapping images

If you clone a campaign and swap in new images, you no longer lose the links and customisations you had already set. Everything carries over to the new image, so updating creative is a quick swap rather than a rebuild.

Swap an image and keep all your unsaved customisations, including URL links

Reorder segments

If you manage a large number of segments, the ones you use most can get lost in the overflow dropdown. Now you decide the order. Pin your key segments (like VIPs or recent purchasers) to the front so they're always easy to reach, and keep the rest tidied away.

Drag and drop your segments to reorder them however you like

Improved deliverability recommendations

Many brands add the correct DNS records and connect successfully, but do not realise other settings on their domain are still holding back their deliverability. The expanded recommendations catch these for you. It is a useful checklist before you go live, to make sure everything is optimised from day one. It is just as useful if you are already sending and want to confirm you are following best practice. Either way, the goal is simple: fewer emails in spam, more in the inbox.

Instant now assesses your DMARC and SPF settings on the deliverability dashboard to check you have the optimal setup, not just that your records are connected

Change font size in the text editor

Override any text to any size directly in the text editor

First Anniversary flow

The First Anniversary flow is a simple, personal way to build loyalty and win back customers who haven't shopped in a while. Marking the anniversary of a first purchase gives you a natural, warm reason to reach out, and pairing it with a discount turns that moment into an incentive to buy again. It works especially well as a winback, reminding customers of a brand they bought from a year ago with a personalised gift.

Enable a First Anniversary flow to celebrate a customer one year on from their first purchase

Change the background colour of layout blocks

A colour picker has been added to the Layout Block options

Minimum and maximum email touchpoints

Welcome flows now support up to 10 email touchpoints (previously 5)

Image gallery improvements

Upload images in bulk. When you add an image block, drag and drop multiple images at once and they auto-select and add to your email together.

Improved location filters

Many brands want to get granular with segmentation to unblock use cases the standard filters could not reach. You can now find every customer within 10km of your store, or target shoppers in specific suburbs for a local promotion. Set the location filter once, pick how you want to drill down, and Instant handles the rest.

The location filter in segmentation now supports more granular shopper information

Self-serve changes to domains and subdomains

Configure and change your own sending subdomain, without going through support

Meta integration for segments

Your first party data is some of your best ad targeting data, and Instant AI can help you make the most of it. The Meta integration lets you take any segment you can build in Instant, from cart abandoners to VIPs to shoppers who viewed a specific product, and turn it into a Meta audience for your ads. Because the segment is dynamic, the audience is too. We re-sync it to Meta every day, so as shoppers meet or stop meeting your criteria, your Meta audience keeps up without any manual exports. For example, build a segment of everyone who abandoned cart and viewed a specific product but hasn't purchased, sync it to Meta, then push them a special offer on Facebook and Instagram.

Connect Instant AI to Meta to build more targeted audiences for your Meta ads