The three gates before any automated send
- Consent: does a valid, recorded permission exist for this channel and this kind of message?
- Permission: is the automation allowed to send on behalf of this org, from this number or address?
- Relevance: is the record still in the state that made this message appropriate?
Why the relevance check is the one people skip
The reminder was queued on Monday for Thursday morning. On Wednesday the customer cancelled. If the send does not re-read the record's current state at execution time, you remind someone about an appointment that no longer exists — and you look like you are not paying attention.
Anything scheduled ahead of time must re-validate at the moment of sending. The state at queue time is a starting assumption, not a fact about the future.
What should never be fully automatic
- First contact with a lead who has not given channel consent.
- Anything containing a price, a discount or a contractual commitment.
- Anything that follows a complaint, a dispute or a cancellation.
- Bulk sends to a list nobody has reviewed since it was built.
- Any message whose wording changes based on a model's judgement, without a human seeing the pattern first.
Opt-out has to be global
When someone opts out, the obligation attaches to the person, not to the campaign. A stop reply to a reminder must also suppress the follow-up sequence, the review request and the seasonal note. If your suppression list is per-automation, you will eventually message someone who told you to stop.
Treat suppression as a single check consulted by every automated send path, and keep a record of when and how the opt-out arrived.