Welcome Emails That Wow: Crafting a High‑Converting Onboarding Series Introduction
What makes an ecommerce welcome email that wows? Here, we break down the contents of ecommerce emails that new subscribers want to see and offer sample flows to follow.
Email is eternal. Even 2026, email remains a top channel for engaging new customers. Industry benchmarks show welcome messages regularly achieve open rates over 50% and click rates near 15%, which is far higher than typical newsletters.
So why do welcome email series matter so much?
Shoppers who subscribe are in an intent‑rich moment. Up to 10% of new subscribers place an order after a high‑performing welcome email, and most conversions occur within 10 days of signup.
Backstroke helps ecommerce teams capitalize on this moment with automated, personalized onboarding journeys that convert faster and retain attention longer. Here, we break down what the modern welcome series should look like and how to build one that truly performs, step-by-step.
The Business Case: Why Welcome Emails Work So Well
Welcome emails punch far above their weight. And this performance gap is massive:
Welcome emails generate 320% more revenue per email than standard promos.
They drive 33% higher engagement than typical campaigns.
Average open rates sit around 69%, roughly 4X higher than other email types.
Click-through rates average around 14% (vs. ~2.7% for standard emails).
In other words: your audience is never more attentive than right after they sign up for your messages!
Understanding the Modern Ecommerce Email Subscriber
If you want welcome emails that wow, you have to understand what today’s subscribers actually want. Today’s consumers are conditioned for immediacy. Roughly 74% of people expect a welcome email immediately after subscribing, yet only about 57.7% of brands actually send one. That gap is pure opportunity.
Email personalization is table stakes.
Consumer expectations are quite high, when it comes to email personalization. McKinsey states that:
71% of U.S. consumers expect personalized interactions
76% feel frustrated when personalization is missing
And generic “Hi FirstName” messages don’t cut it anymore, when it comes to meeting the true level of personalization expected. Shoppers reward brands that tailor content, offers and timing to their behavior. With the right AI tools for email marketing, that’s pretty easy to achieve.
Frequency is a trust signal.
One of the fastest ways to lose a new subscriber? Having a bad cadence or sending too frequently. In fact, 51% of consumers unsubscribe because emails come too often, while 17% leave when content arrives more than once a week
Most research points to a healthy baseline of weekly or twice-monthly communication outside of triggered flows.
Why else do people subscribe?
Let’s not overcomplicate motivation. Many subscribers join for value, specifically to get savings or discounts. However, staying subscribed requires more than coupons. Modern consumers expect:
Relevant, timely content
Helpful education
Exclusive access
Personalized product recommendations
Anatomy of a High-Converting Welcome Series
Not all welcome flows are created equal. High performers share a few core traits listed below.
1. Emails must deliver the promised value immediately.
If your email list signup form promised:
a discount
free shipping
a guide
Or early access
. . . it must appear at the front and center in Email #1. This builds instant trust and reduces friction to first purchase. Plus, it delivers exactly what people signed up for, delivering a satisfying experience right away.
2. Dedicate each email to do one clear job.
Every message in the series should have a single primary objective:
Activate
Educate
Convert
Collect data
Multiple competing CTAs dilute performance and confuse new subscribers.
3. Always personalize beyond the first name.
Modern personalization uses intent signals to guide contents and offers. Consider the following when building out your messages, flows and personalized elements:
Signup source
Browsing behaviors
Category interests
Quiz responses
Dynamic content and AI that’s fed data from your CRM can automatically insert relevant products, content blocks and offers based on each subscriber’s behaviors.
4. Collect zero-party data early.
With its batch of fresh-faced subscribers, ready to engage with its contents, your welcome flow is the prime time to ask questions like the following:
What are you shopping for?
What styles do you like best?
What problems are you trying to solve with our products?
How much does seasonality impact shopping behaviors and habits?
When done well, this improves relevance for months (or years) to come, as you can incorporate your data-backed findings into future creative decision making. You can learn more about predictive analytics and how to use them in our guide Beyond Demographics: Advanced Segmentation for Email Personalization at Scale.
5. Use social proof to convey your brand story.
Trust is fragile early in the relationship. Strong welcome emails include:
Customer reviews and ratings: 92% of consumers trust recommendations from other people more than any other advertising source, so include reviews and high ratings throughout your sends.
User-generated content (UGC): Sites and campaigns using UGC see about 29% higher web conversions than those without it.
Founder stories and sharing your values: There are some directional signals that founder stories improve engagement and conversion, too. Welcome and nurture sequences that include a dedicated “brand story” or “meet the founder” email often see open rates in the 45–55% range, which is typically higher than standard promotional sends in the same programs.
6. Be thoughtful with offers and mix things up.
Of course, discounts work, but the most successful brands test a mix of the following types of offers, adapting them to audience segments as they learn which each prefers. Offer variety prevents engagement—and margin—erosion.
Include a healthy mix of the following to ensure subscribers don't get as easily fatigued:
% off discounts
free shipping
gifts with purchase
loyalty points
early access
7. Design for the small screen.
Over half of all total emails sent daily are opened on mobile devices. Ensuring mobile-optimization is no longer a best practice, but the standard. If you need to catch up with competitors who are designing emails in a mobile-first way, read our full guide Creating Mobile‑Friendly Email Designs: A How-To Guide for E‑Commerce Marketers.
Timing & Cadence: How Many Emails and When?
How long should your welcome series be?
Most successful welcome sequences include 3–5 emails, though many brands run 4–6+ messages. While there’s no perfect number of messages to send, as every brand and subscriber segment sees greater success in different cadences. However, building and continuously refining multi-email sequences generally result in 90% more orders than single welcome blasts.
What are the best practices surrounding email timing?
A great starter sequence could look like the following.
Email 1: Send immediately, within minutes of when a person signs up.
Email 2: Wait to send a second message 1–2 days later.
Email 3–4: Space these 3–4 days apart from one another, so you’re not hitting peoples’ inboxes on back-to-back days.
Reminder emails: Send one more message 10-14 days after signup or near your offer’s expiration
One often-missed tactic is pausing other campaigns while the welcome series runs. As you bring people into your email list, ensure that they’re only being hit with messages within your welcome sequence. This prevents fatigue and protects deliverability during your most sensitive, relationship-building phase.
Offers and Incentives: Discounts vs. Free Shipping
“What offer will wow my new subscribers?” This is one of the biggest strategic questions to face when building welcome flows.
Thanks to Amazon, free shipping expectations are sky-high, with up to 80% of consumers outright expecting it. Unexpected shipping costs can be a big dissatisfier as well. They are the #1 cause of cart abandonment today.
If you can’t offer flat-out free shipping, discounts still drive conversions. Simply adding a special offer to a welcome email can boost its revenue by 30%. Beyond the deal itself, there are ways to highlight its benefits or game-ify your messages, to draw more attention and engagement from subscribers.
The winning play is to offer variety in your discounts and deals, learning what works best for you. Hybrid offers—combining a discount and free shipping—are the ultimate power move, if you can swing it. When balanced correctly, a small discount (like 10% off) plus free shipping over $X can protect margins while boosting your average order value and conversion rates.
Sample Onboarding Series: Email Topics & Timing
As you can tell, welcome sequences are a balance of art and science. If you’re building out your first attempt at a welcome sequence—or building a new one from scratch—simply getting started, recording your results and testing/adapting messaging is 100% the right step to take.
With that in mind, below are three proven frameworks you can use and adapt to your brand’s messages to new subscribers.
Sample Welcome Email Sequence #1: 3-Email Quick-Start Flow
Need a few messages to connect with high-intent shoppers right away? This is your best bet.
Email 1 (Day 0): Welcome & Instant Gratification
Deliver the promised incentive at the top of your email
Reinforce your value prop
Show off your bestselling products
Keep just one single CTA, such as Shop Now or Score My Discount
Include links to your socials, so new subscribers can learn about you there.
Email 2 (Day 2): Brand Story & Social Proof
Take an opportunity to slightly shift away from a pure discount focus. Share your brand’s mission, values or origin story.
Highlight reviews and UGC, especially regarding the products related to those your subscriber ordered, if possible.
If you lean into the more more/less sales side of your brand, also lean into a soft CTA, like Explore our Story or Keep Up With Us on TikTok.
Email 3 (Day 5–7): Personalize & Nurture
This is a golden opportunity to personalize contents as subscribers move out of your welcome flow. You can include an interactive element, such as a preference quiz, to better serve them via emails in the future.
Include dynamic product recommendations, based on website activity or purchase history.
You can also offer secondary incentive, loyalty points or a loyalty program, if you have them.
Sample Welcome Email Sequence #2: 5-Email Comprehensive Flow
If you have a massive inventory or offer a wide variety of products, consider adding a couple more steps to your welcome email sequence. You likely have large or complex catalogs to share about anyway.
Immediately (Day 0): Double Opt-In
Confirm subscription and protect deliverability: This step filters out fake, mistyped or low-intent addresses. This improves engagement quality and protects your sender reputation with inbox providers, a critical notion in the era of the AI inbox. In your flow, it acts as a list hygiene mechanism before the true welcome and reward emails begin.
Email 1 (Day 1): Reward Delivery
Just as in the previous flow, send your discount or gift immediately, highlighting it at the top of your message.
Add a clear expiration date, if this is a limited time offer.
Email 2 (Day 4–6): Brand & Values
Take an opportunity to discuss your mission.
Try to tie your mission to product categories, as well. For example, if you sell wool sweaters from Ireland and your founder’s grandmother immigrated from there, take the opportunity to share that special story! This will create an emotional connection to your brand.
Homepage or About page CTAs can keep the story going.
Email 3 (Day 8–10): Gather Preferences
Use this opportunity to collect data on subscribers, so you can further personalize experiences for them.
By creating customer surveys or by using data from previous purchases, you can offer more personalized content regarding sizes or interests.
You can also use this opportunity to ask for your subscriber’s birthday, promising a special gift for their special day.
Take the opportunity to quickly explain the personalization value—aka why you’re asking for this information. (We’d love to know more about you, so we can better serve you!)
Email 4 (Day 12–14): Personalized Recommendations
Use what you’ve learned about your subscriber. Include a dynamic product feed within this message to remind them of items they may have previously checked out or have interest in.
If their signup offer is about to expire, add a countdown reminder. This is a motivator, showing that if they don’t use it, they’ll lost it.
Sample Welcome Email Sequence #2: 6-Email Educational/Nurture Flow
High-consideration products—often items with higher price points—need healthier spacing between sends. That’s because these purchases involve more research and trust-building. With trust in mind, this flow intentionally includes more breathing room between sends to avoid fatigue.
Email 1 (Day 0): Welcome & Resource Guide
Offer a light incentive to get started. Over the next several emails, we’ll be building trust, so use this opportunity to connect with the consumer, rather than hard sell.
You can take this opportunity to set expectations for future emails. Tell people what to expect and let them know what to look out for from your email program.
Email 2 (Day 4–6): Brand Values & Social Proof
This is where you can establish your mission and credibility, leaning into your stellar reviews and excellent UGC.
Take this opportunity to show how happy your customer community is with your products and services.
Email 3 (Day 9–11): Product Education
Create and showcase some how-to content, especially if your products are complex or investment pieces. For example, if you sell fragrances, tell the story behind your top-selling perfume, including notes on its scent and wearability.
Show off more UGC, particularly from long-term and loyal customers.
Email 4 (Day 14): Preference Collection
This is your opportunity to gather data, similar to Email 3 in the previous cadence.
Email 5 (Day 21): Offer Email
It’s been a while since you sent to this subscriber segment. Take the opportunity to send a time-limited discount or special offer to keep them interested.
Address any common objections (price points, shipping, guarantees) that people may have against your products.
Email 6 (Day 30): Follow-up & Community Invitation
If you have a loyalty program, introduce new subscribers to it.
If they’re colder, that’s ok! You can keep them warm and interested by inviting them to follow your social channels.
Offer support resources, if relevant, to help subscribers better understand your products and brand.
Why do longer email sequences work?
Month-long email sequences respect inbox fatigue signals and avoid overwhelming new subscribers too quickly. Its expanded spacing better matches longer consideration cycles, giving prospects time to research, compare and build confidence before making a purchase decision.
By prioritizing education and value early on, this welcome email sequence builds trust before pushing for conversion. It also aligns with recommended weekly-ish sending cadence best practices, helping maintain engagement while protecting deliverability and long-term list health.
How Backstroke Enables High-Performing Welcome Series
Even the smartest welcome strategy falls flat without the right execution engine behind it. Backstroke was built specifically to help ecommerce teams operationalize sophisticated email journeys, while learning from subscribers without adding manual work or complexity. From the first send to long-term optimization, the platform ensures every new subscriber gets the right message at the right moment, driving 31% more revenue per send.
Automation and AI that act in real time
Backstroke removes the guesswork from welcome timing and delivery. Instead of relying on rigid schedules, the platform uses automation, AI and predictive creative to respond to actual subscriber behavior. Now, brands can:
Optimize email content—from subject lines to email body creative—using AI-driven insights
Personalize offers dynamically by audience cluster
Continuously improve performance without manual intervention
The result is an ecommerce email marketing program that feels timely and intentional.
Dynamic personalization goes far beyond {{FirstName}}
Modern subscribers expect relevance, and Backstroke makes it scalable. Its dynamic content blocks allow marketers to tailor each message based on what customers actually care about. Teams can easily:
Insert real-time product feeds
Personalize content based on preference data
Adapt messaging to browsing and purchase behavior
Automatically update content as new signals come in
Real-world impact: ThirdLove
A great example of this in action is Backstroke’s work with ThirdLove. By leaning into personalized content—including fit-specific recommendations and behavior-driven messaging—the brand was able to deliver more relevant email experiences with predictive creative templates. This resulted in:
Revenue per recipient increased by 25%.
Placed order rate rose by 16%.
Click rate improved by 23%.
And we drove stronger engagement, more meaningful customer experiences and improved downstream conversion performance.
Ready to Make a Great First Impression?
First impressions in the inbox matter more than ever. With welcome emails delivering dramatically higher engagement and revenue than standard campaigns, the onboarding experience can’t be an afterthought.
The brands winning today are the ones that:
Respect subscriber frequency preferences
Personalize beyond surface level
Deliver value immediately
Nurture before they sell
And continuously test and optimize
Multi-email welcome flows consistently outperform one-off blasts because they build trust, tell your story and guide subscribers toward that critical first purchase. With Backstroke’s automation, AI personalization and lifecycle analytics, ecommerce marketers can turn the welcome moment into a long-term growth engine.
