Make.com Email Automation

Email Automation Capabilities in Make.com

Make.com handles email in two directions:

Inbound email processing:

• Trigger scenarios when new emails arrive (Gmail Watch, Outlook Watch)
• Parse email content and route based on sender, subject, or body
• Extract attachments and process them downstream
• Classify and triage inbox

Outbound email sending:

• Send personalised emails via Gmail or Outlook modules
• Trigger email sequences via marketing platforms (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot)
• Generate AI-written emails and send them
• Send reports, notifications, and alerts

Intelligent Inbox Triage

Scenario: AI-powered email classification

1. Gmail trigger: Watch emails in support inbox
2. HTTP Request to Claude: "Classify this email: sender=[sender], subject=[subject], body=[body]. Categories: billing, technical-support, sales-inquiry, press, partnership, spam. Also estimate sentiment (positive/neutral/negative) and urgency (high/normal/low). Return JSON: {'category': '...', 'sentiment': '...', 'urgency': '...'}"
3. Router: Branch by category

- Billing → Create ticket in billing system - Technical → Create Zendesk ticket (high priority if urgency=high) - Sales inquiry → Create HubSpot contact + deal - Press → Forward to PR team email - Partnership → Create HubSpot deal in "Inbound Partnerships" stage - Spam → Archive and mark read

1. Gmail Archive + appropriate label applied

No email requires manual sorting — the right team sees it within seconds of arrival.

Automated Follow-Up Sequences

Scenario: Multi-step follow-up after initial contact

1. HubSpot trigger: Contact stage moved to "Contacted - Awaiting Response"
2. Wait 3 days (via scenario scheduling or Make.com's built-in delay)
3. HubSpot Get Contact: Check if response recorded
4. Filter: No response recorded in last 3 days → continue
5. Claude HTTP: Generate personalised follow-up email based on contact data and initial outreach context
6. Gmail Send: Send the follow-up from the rep's Gmail account
7. HubSpot Create Note: Log follow-up sent
8. Wait 5 more days → repeat with final follow-up

This provides consistent follow-up without relying on reps remembering.

Personalised Outreach at Scale

Scenario: Daily batch of personalised cold emails

1. Airtable trigger (or Schedule): 9 AM daily — fetch 20 contacts from "To Contact" table
2. Iterator: Process each contact
3. HTTP Request to Apollo.io: Get company data for personalisation (news, growth signals, tech stack)
4. Claude HTTP: "Write a 80-word personalised cold email from [sender name] to [contact name] at [company]. Reference: [specific company detail from Apollo]. Offer to discuss [your value proposition]. End with a yes/no question."
5. Filter: Review queue — write draft to HubSpot (not send directly)
6. Or for confidence: Gmail Create Draft — create draft in Gmail for manual review before sending

Personalised outreach at the volume of bulk email.

Automated Reporting

Scenario: Weekly KPI report emailed to stakeholders

1. Schedule trigger: Every Monday 7 AM
2. Multiple data fetch modules:

- HubSpot: new leads this week, deals closed, pipeline value - Airtable: operational metrics - Google Sheets: financial data

1. Claude HTTP: "Given these metrics vs. last week's metrics, write a 3-paragraph executive summary. Highlight what improved, what declined, and one recommended action."
2. Gmail Send: Send formatted HTML email to stakeholder distribution list

Stakeholders get their Monday briefing automatically. No one spends Sunday night making slides.

Email Attachment Processing

Scenario: Extract data from email attachments

1. Gmail trigger: New email with attachment (filter by sender domain or keyword in subject)
2. Gmail Download Attachment: Download the file (PDF, Excel, CSV)
3. For PDFs: OpenAI Vision or Claude HTTP with base64-encoded file: "Extract the following fields from this invoice: vendor, invoice number, date, amount, line items. Return JSON."
4. For CSV/Excel: Parse with text modules → extract rows
5. Downstream modules: Write extracted data to Airtable, trigger follow-up actions

Invoice processing, contract analysis, expense extraction — all automated from email.

Email Analytics and Monitoring

Scenario: Track email opens and trigger follow-ups

Most email sending services (SendGrid, Mailchimp, HubSpot) support event webhooks for opens and clicks:

1. Webhook trigger: Email opened event from your sending service
2. Filter: Opened in first 2 hours (recent open = high intent)
3. HubSpot Update Contact: Mark as "High intent — email opened immediately"
4. Create HubSpot Task: "Contact ASAP — just opened proposal email"
5. Slack alert to sales rep: "[Contact name] just opened your email about [subject]"

Recommended Tools

• Make.com — Email automation scenario platform
• Gmail — Trigger and send via Make.com Gmail module
• Claude API — Email generation and classification
• HubSpot — CRM integration for outreach sequences
• Apollo.io — Contact enrichment for personalisation
• Instantly.ai — High-volume cold email sending

“Automated email that reads natural and responds to real context converts. The combination of Make.com's orchestration with Claude's writing is the foundation of that.”