Learn / Automations

How to set up a welcome series

Three emails over a week: what this is, the best thing you have written, and what to expect. Spaced so it does not read as a dump.

The workflow

1. 1Send email: no campaign chosen yet
2. 2Delay: 2 days, held to 09:00 their time
3. 3Send email: no campaign chosen yet
4. 4Delay: 4 days, held to 09:00 their time
5. 5Send email: no campaign chosen yet
6. 6Exit flow

Before you start

Three emails over a week, each with one job: what this is, the best thing you have written, and what to expect. The spacing matters more than the copy. Sending all three in two days reads as a dump and gets unsubscribes from people who would have stayed; spacing them over a month means the second arrives after they have forgotten you.

You will need: a list, three campaigns.

How to set it up

1. 1Choose the Welcome series template and set the trigger to your signup list.
2. 2Assign a campaign to each of the three send steps.
3. 3Adjust the waits if you publish more often than weekly. Two days and four days suits most newsletters.
4. 4Leave the local-hour hold at 9am unless you have a reason. It stops the second email landing at 3am for somebody who signed up at 3am.
5. 5Activate.

What goes wrong

• Leaving a send step with no campaign assigned. The flow will run and that step will do nothing, which looks like the automation is broken when it is doing exactly what it was told.
• Writing all three on the same afternoon. The second email is the one people skip, so it should be your best existing piece rather than something written to fill a slot.