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Why did subscribers complete my workflow when it still has future email steps?
Why did subscribers complete my workflow when it still has future email steps?

All about completed subscribers in workflows

Petra Molnar avatar
Written by Petra Molnar
Updated over a week ago

You spend so much time crafting the perfect nurture sequence only to see that some subscribers show up as completed the workflow, although it still has several email steps.

How is it possible? What has happened here?🤷🏻‍♀️

Let’s find out.

What can cause subscribers to complete a workflow?

1. Bounced email address

The reason subscribers completed a workflow immediately is if a subscriber email address bounced, meaning their inbox was unreachable. Flodesk automatically moves bounced email addresses to the end of the workflow to clean your pipeline and protect your sender reputation.

You can learn more about bounced email addresses in the following guide: What does it mean that a subscriber's email 'bounced'?

2. Unsubscribed email address

Subscribers can unsubscribe from your email list by clicking on the unsubscribe link in any of your workflow emails. Or they might even mark your email as spam. If it happens mid-workflow, they will be marked as completed and won’t receive the rest of your workflow emails.

3. Non-active subscriber added in bulk to a workflow

Subscribers may also automatically complete a workflow when you add existing subscriber segments into a workflow. Some of those subscribers end up being contacts who have either unsubscribed, bounced, or marked your email as spam in the past.

Because of this, they're no longer active subscribers eligible to get emails from you. So when they get entered into a workflow, they will automatically complete it since they can't be sent any emails.

4. Subscriber reached the exit step

Subscribers who reach the exit step at the end of a workflow or workflow branch will be set as completed and won’t receive any new additions. Even if you delete the exit step and continue building your workflow with further steps, any new steps that are added will only be available for new subscribers or those that are still active in the workflow.

Once a subscriber has finished a workflow and been set to completed, this action cannot be undone. They cannot become “uncompleted.


Remember: You can filter your subscriber list by going to Audience > All subscribers > Filter.

Clicking the Filter option will open up your subscriber filter pop-up screen.

Under Status, select Active, which will tell you how many active subscribers you have. Or select Unsubscribed, Bounced, or Marked Spam and you'll see those totals as well.

If you enabled the double opt-in feature for your opt-in form, you may also see Unconfirmed contacts in your audience list. But as they haven’t confirmed their subscription, they are not yet active in your audience.


Note: If your subscribers didn’t receive your newly added workflow email steps, it’s because the subscribers have completed the workflow, they are stuck on a time delay step or the subscriber is already past that step in the workflow.

For example, if your subscriber is on email step 5 and you add a few new emails before email step 5, they won’t receive those.


Let’s sum it up!

Subscribers may complete a workflow for various reasons like their email address bounced, they have unsubscribed from your list or marked your email as spam.

Also, if you add existing subscribers to a workflow, only those still in an active status are eligible to get your emails. The rest will be marked as completed.

More to learn:



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