{"id":262941,"date":"2026-11-04T11:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T10:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/?post_type=blog&p=262941"},"modified":"2026-11-04T11:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T10:16:16","slug":"the-welcome-journey-the-most-important-email-campaign-youll-ever-send","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/blog\/the-welcome-journey-the-most-important-email-campaign-youll-ever-send","title":{"rendered":"The welcome journey \u2013 the most important email campaign you\u2019ll ever send?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good first impression is so important. We\u2019ve all grown up with the quote \u201cYou only have one chance to make a first impression\u201d<\/em> drummed into our heads from an early age.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

And with good cause, within the first 7 seconds of meeting someone the first impression is set and it then becomes difficult to change if that impression was negative. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same is true in the digital world, this is when an effective welcome journey campaign can make all the difference in building a strong relationship with a customer.   <\/p>\n

In fact, email is uncannily similar to a first impression in terms of speed of decision making. Most customers, who open an email, will spend only 8 seconds \u201creading\u201d<\/em> the content.   <\/p>\n

But the good news is that 74% of customers expect to receive a welcome email immediately after subscribing. This is a golden opportunity; a subscriber waiting and willing to open an email from you. Heaven!   <\/p>\n

And the stats back it up with hive.co<\/em> reporting open rates as high as 91.43%, click through rates of 26.90% and read rates 42% higher than the average email.   <\/p>\n

Alongside an abandon basket programme, a welcome journey campaign is a must for your marketing automation strategy!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

And it is a journey<\/h2>\n

You have a captive audience, wanting to hear all about what you can offer them \u2013 so a series of emails as part of a welcome journey is far more effective than sending a single email thanking them for signing up.   <\/p>\n

At Spotler, we\u2019ve found that a minimum of three emails in a welcome journey offers the most value to both customer and brand. Each email in the journey should be informative, clear and have a specific action. If you put too many actions into the one welcome email, you\u2019ll end up missing out.   <\/p>\n

Your overall objective for a welcome journey should be that of a value exchange with the customer. They have shown intent on using your brand, you must nurture this intent into a long lasting relationship.<\/p>\n

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The first message has to be unique<\/h2>\n

A generic welcome email will not cut it. For effective journey\u2019s, the first email will need to acknowledge how they signed up in the first place.   <\/p>\n

Did they sign-up during the checkout process during their first purchase, did they sign up only using their email address from a newsletter overlay box or did they register but not purchase?   <\/p>\n

Each of these unique entrances needs a personalised message in return. For example, how to make a poor first impression is sending a welcome email offering 5% off your first purchase when your first interaction was already making a first purchase. It has happened to me and it\u2019s not a nice feeling!   <\/p>\n

Bonus tip, ensure your tech stack is fully aligned in regard to welcome journeys.   <\/p>\n

Again, I\u2019ve had experiences where I\u2019ve signed up to a website and received a (very badly formatted) registration system generated email about my account set-up from the CMS platform, an out-of-date (branded) welcome email from one ESP provider and then the correct welcome email from another marketing automation provider \u2013 all within the space of 30 minutes.   <\/p>\n

It’s fair to say that brand did not leave a good first impression but one that has stayed with me for years!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Make it more than just a warm welcome<\/h2>\n

Welcome journeys offer you the luxury of engaging customers when they\u2019ll be most receptive. If the customer has made their first purchase, you can prove you \u2018get them\u2019<\/em> via customer-driven personalisation, which in turn, will give a great first impression.   <\/p>\n

For example, if they purchased a waterproof coat, why not serve a lifestyle hero image of people wearing that coat in the wet countryside with a welcome line referring the product name.   <\/p>\n

If you have any content marketing on the topic of care for and re-waterproofing coats then now is the time to include that article into this welcome email.   <\/p>\n

For these customers, your first welcome email\u2019s objective is to solidify your relationship, promoting your brand, your expert knowledge, values and what you stand for.   <\/p>\n

Highlighting add-on services and offers your brand offers that may go under the radar on first visit to the website are a useful addition here too.<\/p>\n

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There will never be a better time than now to ask for preferences<\/h2>\n

However, if someone has only provided their email address, now is the time to encourage that first purchase and collect some more information about them to populate your single customer view.   <\/p>\n

Many brands like to offer a discount for providing an email address in the first email as part of an acquisition strategy. However, try mixing it up with A\/B testing.   <\/p>\n

Offering a discount in the second email once a customer has completed a preference centre as the incentive to provide more personal details can result in longer term benefits.   <\/p>\n

Using this preference centre data to effectively personalise and segment your new prospect in regular campaigns will result in higher engagement rates and ultimately conversion.   <\/p>\n

“I occasionally purchase hiking gear from a brand who’s main focus is mountain biking. Now I receive lots of irrelevant product emails about biking which makes me consider unsubscribing.<\/p>\n

If during their welcome journey emails they’d profiled my preferences and kept their emails campaigns on the topic I’m interested in then I would have a stronger relationship with the brand than I currently do and would potentially have purchased more from them via email.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Encourage your customer to interact with your brand<\/h2>\n

If your brand has apps, social media presence, VIP style subscriptions offers then the final email in the welcome journey is ideal to encourage downloads, follows and sign ups.   <\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re in the lucky position of having many of your customers already purchased during the welcome journey then there\u2019s no harm in injecting some cross-sell or up-sell products into the mix with a bonus fourth welcome journey email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

74% of customers expect to receive a welcome email immediately after subscribing. This is a golden opportunity; is your welcome journey up to the task?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":265186,"template":"","cat_product":[3133,3130],"cat_industry":[],"cat_topic":[1002],"class_list":["post-262941","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cat_product-spotler-activate","cat_product-spotler-mail","cat_topic-email-marketing-en-gb"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/262941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/262941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265194,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/262941\/revisions\/265194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cat_product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_product?post=262941"},{"taxonomy":"cat_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_industry?post=262941"},{"taxonomy":"cat_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_topic?post=262941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}