If the first email a new subscriber gets is a sale announcement three weeks after they signed up, they may not remember why they joined. A welcome sequence fixes that by sending a few emails right after signup, automatically, to everyone who joins.
The three emails
The timing below is a simple default; adjust it once you see how people respond.
Email 1, straight away. Deliver what the signup form promised: a discount code, a size guide, early access. Add one sentence on what the store sells and who is behind it. One button: shop.
Email 2, two days later. Show three products: your bestseller, a good first purchase, and one that explains your range. A short line on each, not a catalogue.
Email 3, five to seven days later. Answer the question that most often stops people buying. Find it in your inbox and chat history: shipping times, returns, sizing, materials. If email 1 had a code, say it is still valid and when it runs out.
After that, the subscriber moves on to your regular newsletter.
Before you build anything
Write down three things: what the signup form promises, the most common question people ask before buying, and your three products. The three emails are mostly those answers, in that order.
Setting it up
In most email tools this is an automation (also called a workflow or flow) with a trigger and delays:
- Trigger: someone joins the newsletter list.
- Send email 1.
- Wait 2 days, then send email 2.
- Wait 3 to 5 days, then send email 3.
- Exit rule: stop the sequence as soon as the subscriber places an order.
The exit rule is easy to leave out, and it is the one that prevents the awkward "still thinking about it?" email after someone has already bought.
Which tool
If you want to stay inside Shopify, the Shopify Messaging app has welcome automation templates, including one that sends a discount email followed by brand emails and a reminder if no purchase is made. Omnisend has a pre-built Welcome workflow with the trigger, delays and exit conditions already set, and it is built specifically for ecommerce. Brevo has a Welcome message automation that starts when a contact joins a list, and connects to Shopify through its Brevo PushOwl app. Brevo is broader: it also sends transactional email and includes a sales CRM with pipelines, which helps if you sell services as well as products.
Checking it works
After a month, look at two numbers for each email: click rate and orders. If email 3 gets almost no clicks, the question it answers is probably not the one holding people back; take the next one from your inbox and try again.