A drip campaign is a series of automated emails you send to subscribers on your email list based on their actions or a set schedule. With these emails, also known as flow series, you attract new leads, keep your existing customers engaged, and boost sales.
An automated welcome series is a good example of a drip campaign. When a new subscriber joins your email list, they receive the first email that introduces your brand. In the days that follow, they receive additional emails as part of the welcome series—a second email after 3 days, for example, and another after a week.
How to set up your drip campaign
Here’s how to get your drip campaign up and running in a few steps:
1. Define your goal
Consider what you want to achieve with your drip campaign. For example, your goal could be to attract new customers, promote a particular product or service, or nurture relationships with existing customers.
Your goal is the core of your drip campaign—it helps you identify the target audience and create relevant and engaging content.
2. Pinpoint your target audience
Audience segmentation ensures your drip campaigns are personalized and relevant. It involves dividing your audience into specific groups, or segments, based on information like:
- Past behavior, such as browsing activity and purchase history
- Communication preferences, such as email, SMS, or both
- Characteristics, such as age, location, or lifetime value
3. Choose a trigger
A trigger is what sets your drip campaigns in motion. In most cases, it’s an action your target audience takes on your website, but it can also be a specific date, such as their birthday or the anniversary of their first purchase.
Here are some actions to choose from as your drip campaign triggers:
- Signing up for or unsubscribing from your newsletter, service, or podcast
- Placing an order on your website
- Abandoning a shopping cart
- Signing up for an event or webinar
- Not purchasing from your website for a while
- Downloading an e-book or other material from your website
Your trigger needs to align with your goal and target audience. For example, if your goal is to nurture relationships with existing customers, creating an account on your website isn’t the right trigger because they already have an account.
4. Create your email content
You can either write your emails from scratch or rely on your marketing automation tool’s features to create them. Advanced tools like Klaviyo offer pre-built email templates based on data-supported best practices to simplify the process, along with other convenient features to drive success.
5. Monitor and adjust as necessary
Your job doesn’t end once you launch your drip campaign—you need to track how your emails are performing and make adjustments on the fly.
Even if your drip campaign is performing as intended, it may not age well. Optimize the content of your emails on an ongoing basis to ensure they’re engaging subscribers.
3 benefits of drip campaigns
Here are a few reasons to include drip campaigns in your email marketing efforts:
1. They save time
Drip campaigns are massive time-savers—once you automate them, the emails go out independently. Since they work with zero involvement on your end, you’re free to focus on higher-value tasks.
2. They attract leads and nurture customer relationships
Drip campaigns help you move potential customers down the sales funnel and forge stronger relationships with existing ones, so they’re a good choice for every stage of the customer journey.
You can use them for:
- Convincing potential leads that your company’s the right fit for them
- Reactivating dormant customers
- Informing or reminding current customers about special offers or new features
- Recommending products to your customers
3. They’re personalized
Because drip campaigns are triggered by specific customer actions, they’re inherently tailored to recipients’ behavior and interests.
For example, if your audience shows interest in a particular product, your drip campaign might include recommendations for similar products they may enjoy.
How to make the most of your drip campaigns
To create and manage drip campaigns with ease, you need a quality marketing automation platform like Klaviyo. The platform offers features for managing every phase of your drip campaigns, such as:
- Segmentation: Categorize your audience based on predictive analysis, shopping behavior, or other criterion.
- Flows: Use smart automation and deep personalization to create messages that appeal to your audience. Choose from 60+ premade templates to trigger flows based on any user action.
- Reporting: Track key metrics to monitor the performance of your drip campaigns and make adjustments as necessary.
- Klaviyo AI: Use AI to understand your customers, create effective emails for drip campaigns, make smarter decisions, and save time.
Ready to launch your first drip campaign? Sign up for Klaviyo to start building automations that resonate with your audience.