Why Is My Kartra Sequence Not Working - And Sequence Best Practices.

Originally Posted: December 15, 2021 || Slightly modified.

I have seen a growing number of questions/concerns about sequences recently so here’s some of my best practices, tips, and troubleshooting tips. These are my personal recommendations from working primarily in Kartra for the last handful of years.

General Recommendations:

• Sequences: Good to send any day/any time based on an action (starting rule/automation).

• Broadcasts: Good to send at a specific day/time to people who meet a set condition (conditions).


• Starting rules: things that cause this sequence to start.

  • Example: The sequence will start for people when the do this thing going forward. It will not start for people who have already met this condition.

    I personally prefer to use starting rules to start my sequences, others prefer other things, but you can subscribe people to sequences in the product/form/membership builder etc or assign people to certain steps in automations.

  • To subscribe those who have already met this condition, from Communications > Leads > Filter and Select the leads, and in the actions drop down, choose Subscribe to sequence, and choose the step.

- Troubleshooting:

• Is your sequence activated? (The little pause icon ⏸ will display in the list of sequences. The green play button means that the sequence is paused ▶️) .

• Is the step activated?

• Are your lines connected? (the little gray half moons 🌑 need to have a line between the steps and they little grays need to be yellow 🌕).

• A lead can only be in a sequence at one time, so if you are already in it, and try to enter again, it will not fire.

• Are you testing with a fresh email address (one that is not in the sequence)? (see this blog post about how to test with a fresh email address)

  • If you are using a tag as a starting rule, you will need to remove and re-tag your testing account, as a tag cannot be re-tagged if they are already tagged with the same tag.

- Pro-tips

• Use an unsubscribe at the end of your sequences to remove people when they are finished getting those messages.

• The little number bubbles ② to the left are reference numbers NOT the order in which your email are sent.

• Optimize who your sequence goes to with Recipients.

• Name your sequences something that people want to be on in the public description (No one wants to be on your newsletter list).

• Remember: People can unsubscribe them selves from sequences.

• If you pause a sequence you reset any delays you have in the sequence.

• Avoid editing sequences when people are in them. It just makes things squarely.

• If you have a lot of emails in a sequence consider splitting them into multiple sequences and moving your leads between sequences for easy management later.

• If you are using date/time specific emails in sequences (not my personal recommendation) know that they will fire for about 2 hours after the indicated time and then skip. (Again broadcasts are recommended for date/time specific sends.)