Drip campaign
A drip campaign is a pre-built sequence of automated emails sent to a contact over time, either on a fixed schedule or triggered by specific behaviours or milestones. The ‘drip’ metaphor refers to the gradual, consistent delivery of information rather than a single flood. Each email in the sequence is designed to build on the last, moving the recipient progressively toward a goal: completing an onboarding process, learning about a product, converting from trial to paid, or progressing from lead to sales-ready opportunity. The sequence is defined in advance but responds to the individual recipient’s progress through it.
Drip campaigns differ from broadcast emails in their automation and personalisation. Where a broadcast email goes to everyone on a list at the same time, a drip campaign starts for each contact when they take a trigger action, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a guide, or starting a free trial. Two contacts who both triggered the same drip campaign on different dates will receive the same sequence of emails but on their own individual timeline relative to their start date.
For B2B marketers, drip campaigns are among the highest-value automation assets because they allow you to deliver a consistent, well-designed education and nurture experience to every new lead, at scale, without manual intervention. A well-built onboarding drip, a lead nurture sequence, or a trial-to-paid conversion series can run continuously, improving over time as you refine individual emails based on performance data. The upfront investment in planning and writing the sequence pays dividends for as long as the campaign runs.
What is the difference between a drip campaign and an email newsletter?
A newsletter is typically a broadcast send: one email goes to all subscribers at the same time, usually on a regular schedule (weekly, monthly). A drip campaign is personalised and triggered: each recipient starts their own version of the sequence when they take a specific action, and the timing of each email is relative to their individual start point, not a fixed calendar date. Newsletters are good for ongoing audience engagement; drip campaigns are designed to move individual contacts toward a specific outcome.
How many emails should a drip campaign have?
It depends on the goal and the complexity of what you are trying to accomplish. A simple welcome sequence might be three to five emails over two weeks. A product onboarding sequence could be eight to twelve emails over thirty days. A lead nurture campaign for a long B2B sales cycle might span ten to twenty emails over several months. The right number is whatever it takes to move a contact from where they start to where you want them to go, without so much frequency that it feels overwhelming.
How do you measure the success of a drip campaign?
Track metrics at both the sequence level and the individual email level. Sequence-level metrics include the completion rate (what percentage of contacts reach the final email), the goal conversion rate (what percentage achieve the intended outcome, such as booking a demo or completing onboarding), and unsubscribe rate by sequence. Individual email metrics include open rate, click rate, and reply rate. Identifying which specific emails in the sequence have low engagement is where to focus optimisation effort first.