Template

Onboarding email template

One email per step of the setup, sent only to the people who have not done that step yet. The condition matters more than the copy.

Your Product <[email protected]>

to [email protected]

Your data is in. Here is the part people miss

Two minutes, and the weekly summary starts working.

Your Product

The part people miss

You connected a source on Tuesday, so the dashboard is populated. The step almost everybody skips is the second one: telling us which four numbers you actually care about.

Until you do, the weekly summary sends you everything, and everything is the same as nothing.

Done: source connected

Next: pick your four metrics

Then: the Monday summary starts

Pick your metrics

If you are not sure which ones to pick, reply with what your team asks about on Mondays and we will set them up for you.

Alex, Your Product

Your Product Inc, 1 Example Street
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A worked example of the blueprint below. The brand, the names and the numbers are placeholders; the structure is the part to copy.

The blueprint

Rebuild it anywhere

Subject lines (5 options)

Your data is in. Here is the part people missshown above
Step two: pick your four metrics
One setting away from the Monday summary
You are halfway set up
The step almost everybody skips

When it fires

Trigger: Fires on a tag your backend adds when a setup step completes, so the sequence advances on what somebody did rather than on how long ago they signed up.
Timing: One to two days between steps, and the first one no sooner than a day after the welcome. Five emails in five days is a sequence people mute.
Conditions: Before each step, check whether the account has already completed it. If it has, skip that email and move to the next. This single condition is what separates an onboarding sequence from a timed newsletter, and it is the one most often left out.
If the account has completed every step, end the sequence early rather than sending the remaining emails. A finished sequence should stop on its own.
If nothing has been completed by the third email, change the ask: stop sending steps and send one email offering to set it up with them.

The body, block by block

What they already did
Name the step they completed, with a date if you have one. It proves the email is about their account rather than a broadcast, which is the difference between an onboarding sequence and a newsletter about your product.
The one step left
A single next action per email. An onboarding sequence works because each email carries one step, so the reader is never choosing between two things you want.
What it unlocks
The concrete consequence of doing it, not the abstract benefit. "The Monday summary starts" is a consequence. "Get more value from the product" is not.
Progress, visibly
Three lines showing done, next, then. A sequence that shows position converts better than one that does not, because a reader who knows they are two thirds of the way through will finish.
One button, into the step
Deep link to the exact screen, not the dashboard. Every screen between the click and the step is a place to be interrupted.
An escape hatch
Offer to do it for them, or offer the answer to the question the step actually asks. Most people who stall at a configuration step are stalled on a decision, not on the clicking.

The rest of the sequence

Day 1, if the first step is not done
The setup step from the welcome email, asked once more, with the effort estimate.
Subject Two minutes to connect your first source
Day 3, once the first step is done
The email above. The configuration step people skip.
Subject Your data is in. Here is the part people miss
Day 6
The habit step: the thing that makes the product part of a week rather than a one-off. Usually a schedule, an alert, or an invitation.
Subject Make it show up without you
Day 10, only if steps one to three are done
The team step. Sent last on purpose: nobody invites a colleague to a product they have not got working yet.
Subject Worth showing someone else?
Day 14, only if nothing has been completed
The offer of help. One question, no steps, no button. This is the branch, not the continuation.
Subject Did you get stuck somewhere?

When to use it

For any product where the gap between signing up and getting value involves more than one action. If your product is useful the moment somebody logs in, a welcome email is the whole sequence, and adding four more is teaching a new account to ignore you.

The design is one step per email, gated on whether that step is done. Written that way, the sequence is short for a fast starter and long for somebody who stalls, which is the correct behaviour and is invisible to both. Written as five timed emails with no conditions, it sends the same five to everybody, so the person who finished setup on day one gets four emails telling them to do things they have already done. That is the version most products ship, and it is why onboarding sequences get a reputation for annoying customers.

This page is the template. The narrative version, with the reasoning behind each step and the full seven-email variant, is in the article linked below.

What kills this email

Sequencing on days instead of on what was done
A timed sequence cannot tell the difference between somebody who finished setup and somebody who never started. Both get the same five emails, and the first group learns that your mail does not know anything about them.
One email per feature instead of one per step
Onboarding is the path to the product working, not a tour of everything in it. Features that are not on that path belong in a later sequence, after the product is part of somebody's week.
Asking for the team invitation too early
Nobody invites a colleague to a product they have not got working. Asked on day one it converts badly and costs you the one action per email you were allowed; asked on day ten it converts because there is something to show.
A sequence with no ending
If every account gets all five emails regardless, the sequence is a campaign. End it when the steps are done, and branch to a different email when nothing has been done at all, because those two accounts need opposite things.

When not to send it

Do not run it alongside a separate feature-announcement campaign to the same accounts. A new account receiving onboarding steps and launch emails in the same week gets two different instructions about what to do next, and does neither.

Do not send the remaining steps to somebody who has finished setup. If your tool cannot check completion before each send, run a shorter sequence rather than an unconditional one.

Read Customer Onboarding Emails: The SaaS Sequence and 7 Templates

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