If youβre not using drip campaigns yet, youβre leaving conversions on the table. When done right, drip email campaigns can be an extremely effective way to nurture your leads and convert them into customers. In this ultimate guide, we’ll show you everything you need to know about setting up and running a successful drip email campaign.
What is a drip campaign?
A drip campaign is an automated series of messages sent on a schedule or after specific actions. Theyβre often used for lead nurturing.
By structure, an email drip campaign is a series of messages that are automatically sent to a contact at predetermined intervals.
They can be used to:Β
- Welcome new subscribers
- Promote special offers
- Keep your audience engaged with your brand
- Remind about upcoming events
- Provide helpful information or tips
The interval can be based on:
- Time (e.g. send an email every day for 7 days).
- Actions taken (e.g. send an email 3 days after someone signs up for your list, signs up for a free trial, or makes a purchase).
The ideal drip email campaign is seamless, clearly planned and automated. It takes resources to prepare and implement, but if successful, all the effort pays off.
Drip emails vs other types of email campaigns
| Item | Goal | Trigger | Duration | Personalization |
| Drip campaign | Nurture to action | Time + behavior | Fixed series | High |
| Autoresponder | One-off reply | Single event | Single email | Low |
| Newsletter | Broad updates | Calendar | Ongoing | Medium |
| Lifecycle flow | End-to-end journey | Multi-event | Ongoing, branching | High |
Why use drip email marketing
There are many reasons why you would want to use a drip email campaign in your business. Here are just a few of them:
- Automation. Once you set up a drip email campaign, the emails will be sent automatically at the preset intervals. This frees up your time to focus on other areas of your business.
- Increased engagement. Drip email campaigns keep your audience engaged with your brand by sending them timely and relevant emails.
- Improved conversions. Drip email campaigns can improve your conversion rates by nurturing your leads and building a relationship with them before they’re ready to buy.
- Segmentation. To run a successful drip campaign, you have to segment your list into smaller groups. This allows you to send more personalized messages to each group based on their specific interests, needs, and preferences. Segmentation is key to a successful drip campaign.
- Increased ROI. With the increased engagement and improved conversions, you can expect to see a higher return on investment from your email marketing strategy.
Drip campaign use cases
Let’s get down to business by analyzing some of the most popular types of emails for drip campaigns.
Welcome emails
A welcome email is an obligatory part of any email campaign. The welcome message is the most opened of all email types (83.63% vs. 39.64%).Β According to the same statistics, welcome emails have high click rates compared to other promotional mailings.
You can tell the newcomer everything they need to know about your business. Considering that welcome emails have such steep open and click-through rates, you have to take advantage of this. In welcomes, set clear next steps, i.e., tell the subscriber directly what to do next and where to go by including additional links to your website in the email for further engagement.
Essential elements of a welcome email are an introduction (a couple of lines about the company), a brief description of the opportunities it offers, and an announcement of the next newsletter.
The welcome email from Birchbox below is a good example. In it, the company provides tips on how to make the most out of your subscription:
Onboarding
An onboarding series is a chain of automated emails that introduces a new user to the basic features of a service or system. Using onboarding emails, you can achieve a higher level of new user engagement and convert them into customers faster.
Grammarly’s email showed how their service could be used in various ways.
Onboarding emails are important messages that your customers receive after they sign up for your product, software, or service. They serve as a way to educate your customers about what they can do with your product, and how it can benefit them.
Abandoned cart emails
Around 69.8% of shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes their purchase. This could be for a variety of reasons, such as changing their mind, forgetting about the purchase, or having doubts.Β
The GILT store does a great job of enticing customers with large photos, clear discounts, appropriate email fonts, and minimal text. This automatic drip message makes it easy for the customer to make a decision and complete the purchase.
Cart recovery works best as a short series (e.g., 2-3 abandoned cart emails rather than just one). Emails that come in a series are 63% more likely to be successful than a single email.
Post-purchase messages
Now that you have your cart abandoners completing their purchase, what’s next? This is a great opportunity to send a βThank youβ email to show your appreciation, but that’s not all! There are still ways to engage with customers, get feedback, and recommend other products. Bellroy’s post-purchase drip campaign is a great example of this.
Also, post-purchase drip messages can include emails of recommendation. These messages are based on buying habits: frequent visits to the same section, repetitive site searches, just made purchases.
Recommendation emails can include product cards, coupons, and trends. For example, if you buy a coffee machine online, the store might send a coupon for fresh beans or filters because it knows you already have one. In a follow-up to Bellroy’s email campaign, they offer a selection of products based on a previously purchased product.
Re-engagement
The goal of re-engagement emails is to get your clients back into the fold and turn them from inactive to newly interested, engaged customers. This can be done in a number of ways, from a casual “Hey, what’s up?” to a more formal invitation. Whatever method works best for your business, make sure your drip message has some sort of promotion with benefits so people want to interact with you again.
Confirmation emails
The sale is closed, and the user has made a purchase. But the drip work isn’t over yet. If you sell tickets for airplanes, trains, theaters, and movies, or rent hotel rooms, remind the person of their purchase the day before the event (check-in, trip, event).
You should send a “Thank you”, tell them about the product features, and suggest similar products. Confirmation emails are important because they let customers know that their order has been received and is being processed. This helps to provide peace of mind and avoid any confusion or frustration.
Promotional messages
Sales are a great way to increase interactions. A drip campaign can help you keep track of your promos and offer deals that are too good to pass up. By offering occasional discounts and sales, you can entice even the most skeptical of customers. Free trials, promo codes, and temporary markdowns are all great ways to enhance interest.
Below is an example of a limited offer that is hard to get past:
Lead nurture
To increase sales, it is helpful to encourage customers to purchase items. However, some customers may drop off. One solution to this problem is to use a series of lead nurturing emails to reduce the number of people who drop off.Β
When someone takes an interest in your product or service, it is the perfect opportunity to reach out to them with more information. This could involve sending them additional information about your products or services, or providing helpful tips related to what they’ve already purchased.Β
Sending emails that are strictly promotional can sometimes turn people off and make them less likely to engage with your content. Instead, add in your lead nurturing email some value and usefulness.Β
For example, Framebridge includes helpful tips and guides in their email content. This provides value to the reader and nurtures leads:
It is important to keep in contact with your clients and nurture your leads to make sales. This requires more than just a couple of emails, but rather a consistent stream of communication.
Product information/educational
To make your product in demand and useful for people, provide them with all the necessary information about it. Here, drip messages can include information about what exactly their purchased item will do for them; how to use your product or service better. Any educational tools such as textbooks or tips that can help maximize the user experience are great material for a drip email campaign.
Dossier does an excellent job with its drip email:
Competitive emails
With a clever email drip campaign that compares your product to your competitor’s product, you can generate interest and conversions from potential customers. This is also an opportunity to offer promotions or discounts.
It’s easy to see how Moo can make superiority claims even without naming competitors.Β The message highlights all the great features of their product and its high quality:
Unsubscribe emails
If a customer removes themselves from an email list or subscription service, don’t just let them go. In addition to the classic “We’re sorry we’re breaking up”, you can add links to the company’s social media pages. Maybe the user isn’t bored with you. Maybe they just don’t use email and want to interact with you on Facebook or Twitter. In addition to asking what inspired their decision, you can provide special offers or incentives that will get people back on board again.
Pros and cons of drip email campaign strategies
Automated drip campaigns offer a number of advantages in terms of efficiency. These have been discussed in detail above. However, it is also worth considering the potential drawbacks of this marketing strategy. Let’s compare the pros and cons of drip marketing.
| Pros π | Cons π |
| Automates email workflows and saves time once set up. | Takes planning β setup and sequencing require effort. |
| Sends timely, personalized messages that match user actions. | Risks of sounding robotic if messages arenβt customized. |
| Improves engagement and conversions through consistent touchpoints. | Needs accurate segmentation and clean subscriber data. |
| Boosts ROI over time with low ongoing costs. | Requires testing and updates to stay effective. |
How to set up a drip email campaign
When planning a drip email marketing campaign, keep the following tips in mind for the best chance of success:Β
1. Choose your trigger
Your drip campaign can be based on any number of interactions. Think about what makes the most sense for your business. For example, if you’re a B2B company, you might want to create a drip campaign that’s triggered when a user downloads a white paper from your website. If you’re a B2C company, you might want to create a drip campaign that’s triggered when a user adds an item to their cart on your website.
Other triggers may be:Β
- Visit a specific website page
- Form submissionΒ
- Click a linkΒ
It’s important to think about the user journey when you create a drip campaign. What action do you want your users to take? And what information or resources do they need to take that action? Once you have a clear understanding of the user journey, you can start to map out your drip campaign.
2. Define your audience
To create an effective drip marketing campaign, you need to know your target audience’s goals and pain points. One way of researching this is by creating customer personas that include information on demographics as well other relevant facts. These can be used to find out what sort of activity and content would most benefit them.
3. Design and write copy for each email
The next step in a drip marketing campaign is to create content for each email. Think about what you want to share, and how long your email sequence will be. Remember that each email in your sequence should offer something of value to the recipient.
Email design is more than just making it look good. A well-designed message can help you reach your business objectives by optimizing every metric from clicks to conversions. So don’t underestimate the power of design.
4. Launch, test and see the results
Because drip campaigns are automated, tools like Selzy make setup and iteration easy. These services make it easy to set up and manage your drip marketing campaign, and they provide a wide range of customization options to fit your specific needs.
When you automate your drip campaign, it’s important to monitor the results and make changes as needed to optimize the campaign. Just because it’s automated doesn’t mean you can set it and forget it.
How to do drip campaigns with Selzy?
- Set up an integration with your CRM, website, or app.
- From your main dashboard, go to Scenarios β Triggered.
- Click New scenario or choose a pre-built automation template.
- Drag the API Trigger block from the Triggers category onto the editor workspace.
- Add steps to your campaign and attach the corresponding emails.
- Save and launch your campaign β done!
For more details, check out our dedicated guide: How to use API triggers to automate emails with dynamic content?
How to measure the performance of email drip campaigns
When measuring the effectiveness of a drip campaign, it is important to focus on metrics beyond just open rates and clicks. Instead, focus on the value of your email list, the activity of your subscribers, and your engagement rate. This will give you a more complete picture of how successful your campaign has been.
Your email list is the foundation of your drip campaign, so it is important to make sure that it is healthy and active. Check your bounce rate and unsubscribe rate to ensure that people are still interested in receiving your emails. Also, take a look at the activity of your subscribers to see how engaged they are with your content.
Finally, your engagement rate is a good indicator of how well your drip campaign is performing.
Most marketing automation tools allow you to track campaign analytics. This includes data such as email open rates, link clicks, and replies. Selzy also allows you to monitor your recipients’ engagement. This way, you can see how well your campaigns are performing and make necessary adjustments.
Best email drip campaign examples
Let’s take a look at an example of a drip campaign from Grammarly. This short series of emails will give you inspiration for your own drip messages.Β
An example of what you could include in your emails sequence is shown below. This will help prepare your new prospect for the purchase.
The first email is a friendly welcome and introduction to the benefits of subscribing:
Next comes a series of two onboarding emails that explain the features of the service, as well as let you know about your progress in using it:
Next comes a promotional message, which reveals the possibilities of different package plans with a hint of upgrading your account:
The next two emails (sent two days apart) are directly pushing you to buy a premium package, offering you a nice discount:
Finally, after you buy a subscription, you get a confirmation email from the company:
When you plan your email drip campaign, remember that your contacts may read all of the emails in the series. Keep this in mind when determining the content and tone of each email. It may take a few emails before the recipient takes the desired action, so make sure that each email builds upon the previous one.
FAQ about drip campaigns
What is a drip email campaign?
A drip email campaign is an automated series of messages sent to subscribers at predetermined intervals. These emails can be triggered by time or user actions such as sign-ups, purchases, or form submissions, helping you stay connected with your audience and guide them through the sales funnel.
Why should I use drip campaigns?
Drip campaigns save time through automation, increase engagement, improve conversions, and boost ROI. They also help you segment your audience and deliver personalized messages based on subscribersβ interests, actions, or behaviors, building stronger customer relationships over time.
What types of emails can I include in a drip campaign?
You can include welcome emails, onboarding sequences, abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase follow-ups, re-engagement emails, confirmation messages, and promotional offers. Each type serves a specific purpose in maintaining contact with subscribers and moving them closer to purchase or reactivation.
What are the pros and cons of drip campaigns?
Pros: Automated delivery, higher engagement, better segmentation, and improved ROI.
Cons: Require planning, ongoing optimization, and well-segmented data to stay relevant and effective.
How do I set up a drip email campaign?
Plan your campaign by defining triggers (like sign-ups or purchases), identifying your audience, and designing a sequence of messages. Then, write an email copy for each stage, automate sending with an email platform like Selzy, test the campaign, and track results to optimize performance.
How can I measure drip campaign performance?
Focus on engagement metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribes. Also monitor overall activity β how many contacts complete your email sequence and how effectively your messages convert leads into customers.
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