Build an Automated Journey for an AI Recipe Finder with an AI Email Writer

By the end, you’ll be able to set up a hands-free email workflow that sends personalized recipe suggestions to your subscribers without writing a single email yourself.

Not only does this save time, but it also keeps your audience engaged. When someone uses your AI Recipe Finder assistant and asks for recipes, they won’t have to write everything down or remember later; your automated email journey will handle the follow-up.

Let’s start with what this journey entails and why the AI Email Writer is a game-changer for putting it all together.

What is it and how the AI Email Writer helps

The “AI Recipe Finder” email journey is essentially an automated email workflow triggered by your reader’s actions. In this case, whenever a visitor saves recipes through your AI Recipe Finder assistant (for example, by submitting an AI Recipe Finder Email Capture Form on your site), it starts a sequence that sends them an email with those recipes.

Instead of having to craft that follow-up email manually or rely on a one-size-fits-all template, I use an AI Email Writer to generate a custom message that reflects the exact recipes the visitor wanted.

This is where LeadsWithDemos’s AI features shine. The AI Email Writer is an AI‑powered assistant that dynamically writes email content for you. It uses data from the AI Recipe Finder email capture campaign to pull details from each subscriber’s interactions.

The result? Each email feels personal; it greets the subscriber by name, thanks them for using the AI recipe finder, and lists the specific recipes they asked for, complete with clickable links. It’s like having a virtual email copywriter on standby for every subscriber’s unique request.

Using AI in this way isn’t just fancy! it’s effective… Personalized, timely emails can significantly boost engagement.

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to let the AI Email Writer handle both the email subject and body. It can craft a subject line relevant to each subscriber’s query, which saves you from guessing what will resonate. Just be sure to guide the AI with clear instructions (we’ll cover the prompt setup next) so it stays on brand and contextually accurate.

By leveraging this automated journey, you’re basically bridging the gap between an interactive on-site experience and a follow-up engagement channel. The AI Email Writer helps by doing the heavy lifting; no more writing out emails for each recipe request.

Now, let’s get into how you can set up this whole system from scratch.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Before we start, make sure you have the basics prepared including an AI Recipe Finder assistant on your site (the chatbot that provides recipes), an email capture form that collects emails when someone wants to save those recipes, and an email template for the AI-generated content.

If you haven’t set up the form yet, you can follow our guide on creating an email capture form for an AI Recipe Finder. Also ensure you have an email template and your signature ready; for example, you might want to copy our AI email template and add your personalized email signature before proceeding.

Create an Audience List of Your Subscribers.

• In your LeadsWithDemos Site, go to Leads > My Leads (Subscribers).
• Use the filtering option to find everyone who submitted your “AI Recipe Finder | Save Recipes Form” (this is the form your blog visitors fill out to save their chosen recipes). For example, add a filter where Form submitted is that specific AI Recipe Finder form.
• Apply the filter to verify it’s capturing the right people.
• Then click the option to Create audience list from those filtered results.
• Name the list something clear like “AI Recipe Finder Audience List” and save it.

This audience list will be the trigger for our journey; anyone added here (i.e. anyone who filled that form) will automatically enter the workflow.

Prepare your email template and signature.

Next, have an email template ready that the journey will send. You can clone a basic template and tailor it for this email sequence campaign. If you’re not sure what to use, you can get a copy of an email template for AI output from our resources. This template should include a placeholder for the AI-generated content.

Also, make sure your default email footer or signature is set up (see how to add a personalized email signature) so that every email feels consistent and professional.

Create a new Automated Journey in LeadsWithDemos.

Now the fun part…

• building the journey. Navigate to Marketing > Automated Journeys in your LeadsWithDemos site, and click the button to Create an automated journey.
• A blank journey canvas will open. Give your journey a name at the top, like “AI Recipe Finder Automated Journey”, so you can easily identify it later. I find that naming it after the campaign (AI Recipe Finder) helps keep things organized, especially if you end up making multiple journeys.

Define the trigger (who enters the journey).

Every journey starts with an enrollment trigger. By default, you’ll see a trigger step waiting to be set; click on that to configure it.

• Choose the option for Audience List membership as the trigger type.
• Then select the audience list you created (e.g. “AI Recipe Finder Audience”). This means as soon as a subscriber joins that list by submitting the form, the journey will kick off for them.
• Keep the condition as “is member of list” which basically captures anyone added.
• If you expect that the same person might save recipes more than once, you can enable the Allow leads to join more than once setting; this way, the same contact can go through the journey again every time they fill out the form. (This is handy if subscribers might request recipes on multiple occasions).

Add an AI Email Writer step.

After the trigger, it’s time to generate the email content.

• Click the + icon (add new step) and select AI Email Writer step from the options.
• You’ll be prompted to pick which AI assistant to use, choose the one you’ve set up for writing emails (for example, I had created an “AI Email Writer Assistant” in advance. If you need to set that up, follow our tutorial on building an AI Email Writer assistant first).
• Once selected, click on Configure Prompt. This is where you tell the AI what kind of email to write. You can use a structured prompt that instructs the AI to compose a friendly email with the saved recipes.

Here’s an example of what that prompt looked like:

# Objective
Generate an email for subscribers who have completed the email capture form associated with a "AI Recipe Finder" campaign, utilizing the given campaign details and dynamic placeholders.

## Campaign Details
The campaign description is: `REPLACE_WITH_CAMPAIGN_DESCRIPTION`.
The latest conversation the subscriber has had with the AI Assistant is: `REPLACE_WITH_LATEST_CONVERSATION_MESSAGES`.

# Email Subject Guidelines
- Limit subject to 60 characters.
- Avoid special characters.
- Ensure the subject line is relevant to the subscriber’s conversation with the AI Assistant.

# Email Body Guidelines
- Write between 100 and 200 words.
- In the parentheses, you can find the data for the subscriber's first name (REPLACE_WITH_FIRST_NAME). If the first name data is available, greet the subscriber by their name (e.g., "Hello REPLACE_WITH_FIRST_NAME!"). If not present, use "Hello there!" instead.
- After the greeting, add a brief thank-you paragraph acknowledging the subscriber’s form submission to save the recipes they requested (Nothing else).  
- Following the thank-you paragraph, reference the subscriber’s latest conversation with the AI Assistant (REPLACE_WITH_LATEST_CONVERSATION_MESSAGES) to identify any requested recipes. Display the results with each recipe title as a clickable link.
- Include a 2–3-line summary of the recipes in the email, staying within the word limit.
- Organize content for clarity and scannability.
- Avoid these words, their variations and these special characters in the content: `Unlock`, `—`, `Revolutionize`, `Seamless`.

• In this prompt, all the REPLACE_WITH_… tokens are placeholders that you can swap with real data fields when the email is generated (like the subscriber’s first name, or the transcript of their conversation with the recipe finder AI).
• The prompt basically tells the AI to greet the person by name, thank them for using the form, then list out the specific recipes the AI found for them, each with a link.
• It also guides the AI on tone and length. After inserting a prompt like the above, you can use the preview/test feature with a sample subscriber. This lets you see exactly what email content the AI would produce; super useful for catching any weird phrasing or too-long subject lines.
• You can tweak a few words in the prompt to better match your brand voice, then saved the AI Email Writer step once you are happy with the output.

Add a “Send Email” step.

Now that the journey can generate content, the next step is to actually send it out.

• Below the AI step, click the + again and choose a Send an Email step.
• When prompted to select an email template, choose the template you prepared for this campaign (the one that includes a spot for the AI-written text).
• For this journey, you can choose the template you copied earlier, which is already formatted and contains variables for the AI content output.
• Leave the “Send during business hours only” option unchecked. In this example, we want the email to go out immediately whenever someone saves recipes, even if it’s 8 PM on a Friday.
• Use the email preview to confirm that you’ve selected the correct template and that the AI variable merge tags are in place.

If everything looks good, click Save on this email step.

Test and launch your journey.

Perfect! Now you can spend some time testing different scenarios by clicking the Test button at the top of the Automated Journey canvas. For example, you can test with or without a first name, or with different recipes requested, to be confident everything works as expected.

Once you’re satisfied, turn on (activate) the journey.

At this point, you’ve successfully built an automated AI recipe finder email journey that runs itself. Whenever a reader engages with your AI Recipe Finder and saves recipes, they’ll get a tailored email without you lifting a finger.