Welcome Email Automation

Learn how to welcome your new subscribers using Welcome Automation

Ira avatar
Written by Ira
Updated over a week ago

In this article, we'd like to explain what is 'Welcome automation' and why you need it. When new visitors come to your website for the first time and subscribe to your newsletters by providing an email address or phone number, they show interest in your offerings and open a marketing opportunity for you. Sending a welcome email is your chance to make an outstanding first impression, introduce yourself, and learn more about your contacts.

Contents

Before you begin

When can Welcome automation be triggered?

Welcome automation is triggered when the customer opts in to receive your marketing. There are many ways for your contacts to subscribe, but not all will trigger your Welcome automation.

Let's look into different ways welcome automation can be triggered:

  • Signup to the form created in Omnisend triggers Welcome automation;

  • Signup to third-party form integrated with Omnisend (such as Justuno, Intercom, etc.) starts Welcome automation;

  • Adding a checkmark to the checkout page doesn't trigger Welcome automation (e.g., a contact can subscribe on the checkout and later fill out the Signup form, a welcome email won't be sent in this scenario);

  • Creating an account in your store doesn't trigger the Welcome automation since these customers must provide the opt-in record;

  • Uploaded from the file or added manually won't trigger the Welcome automation;

  • If you add the 'newsletter' tag to a customer contact in Shopify and set its status to 'subscribed,' it will also automatically trigger the Welcome Automation process.

  • You can also use APUI to send a flag sendWelcomeEmail: true while creating new contacts. Please refer to our API documentation for more details.

You may also find an alternative solution and send the email even if the Welcome workflow is not triggered. If you find the property that uniquely defines contacts being added manually (for example, if they all were assigned the same tag or have the same custom property), you can trigger Segment-based automation for them.

πŸ’‘ Using Signup forms, you may collect personal data or information about the products your customers prefer and use it to send targeted and engaging content.

Automation setup

To create the Welcome workflow, proceed to the Automations tab β†’ click on the Create workflow button and pick one of the suggestions for the Welcome automation.

You can set the workflow here with 1 or 3 emails similarly. Despite your preset, you can change the workflow structure, add more or remove some of the messages.

Automation trigger settings

The default trigger in the Welcome automation is set to Signup, meaning that any customers subscribing to your Signup form will enter the sequence. If you'd like the Welcome email to be sent only to customers that have signed up via a specific Signup form (for example, offering a 10% discount), you can specify that form or a couple of Sign up forms in the trigger rule settings:

πŸ’‘ Setting up filters on a specific will exclude sending to contacts that subscribe via the footer form

Third-party forms will trigger the workflow with the trigger set to any Form (i.e., Form is any). If you wish to send different Welcome workflows to the customers subscribing to one of the forms created with 3rd party app, you can use the tag or any other unique property to set up Segment-based automation.

Audience filter

You may also target your automation based on your customers' Profile data (Country, Gender, Tag, etc.) and their belonging to a specific Segment.

Important! Segment-based audience filter adds overhead to the system. Therefore, when possible, it is better to avoid using it.

Exit conditions

Welcome automation has the default cancellation trigger set to Order is Placed, meaning that the customer exits after getting all messages or placing the order. However, you may also cancel the flow under certain conditions, for example, when the customer purchases a particular product or abandons a cart in your store.

Frequency

If you choose not to trigger the workflow for contacts who have already been in this automation, the same customer won't be able to trigger this sequence within a specific time (or at any time). It is recommended to turn on this feature if you recognize that some of your customers unsubscribe and subscribe again to get a discount and repeat that multiple times. Select anytime, and nobody can get your Welcome email with the discount code twice.

Conditional Split

With the Conditional Split block, you may send different messages based on the form or any other data your customers provided. Adding a few basic questions to the Signup form is an excellent way to collect more information about your customers and get to know them better.

Important! Segment-based split adds a little overhead to the system.

Delay

The delay block can be added to any automation stage and set to any value from immediately to several months. While the first message is better to be sent immediately, the delays for the second and third messages should be longer.

Content of the message

You may add Email, SMS, and Push Notification messages to your Welcome sequence. Once the block is added, you will need to provide all the details, including the sender's email address, name, etc. If some data is missing, you will see the warning message: 'Missing email information' or 'Missing SMS information.'

Once you have provided all the details, you may start editing the content of the message.

In the template provided in the platform, we recommend adding the Discount Content block, offering a unique discount code to every new subscriber (for Shopify) and a single code (for other platforms).

In your Welcome sequence, you should not only greet your customers and offer the discount, educate them, tell them about your business and the messages you will be sending, offer them to add your email to their contacts list, etc. To increase the chances of landing your emails in the primary inbox, reduce the image-to-text ratio, provide more details, and increase your credibility.

πŸ’¬ Find more recommendations on the Welcome automation setup Blog articles:

Welcome workflow alternatives

If you just discovered that not all contacts added to your store would trigger the Welcome automation, don't worry β€” we have a few hacks for you. We recommend replacing the default trigger with the Contact entering the Segment. In that case, you can select the parameter or the property defining when the automation should be triggered.

For example, if you wish to trigger the flow for all subscribers, you can create a Segment of Subscribed contacts and use it as a trigger filter in the automation settings. Just make sure to disable the default one.

If 3rd party application that you integrated with Omnisend doesn't trigger the Welcome workflow, you may use the property that will be unique for that integration. For example, we can use the custom property that Loyalty Lion is passing and trigger the workflow when subscribed contact with this property is added to Omnisend.

FAQ

How can I send Welcome automation to my existing customers? You can save the content of the Welcome sequence as a template and use it in the Email Campaign that can be sent to your current subscribers.

How can I trigger Welcome automation when the order is placed? The native Welcome automation cannot be triggered for the customers subscribing to the checkout. Alternatively, you may set up the segment of subscribers without the opt-in date (customers subscribing to the signup form have the opt-in date assigned). Remember that the customer may trigger many other emails, including Order Confirmation, Shipping Confirmation, Order Follow-up, etc.

Will the customer enter the Welcome workflow again if he unsubscribes and subscribes again? Yes, such contacts will still trigger the Welcome workflow based on the 'Signup' trigger. So, if you want to avoid this, use the Frequency feature.

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