How to Create Effective Welcome Emails in 2023: Examples, Tips, and Best Practices

Turning your website visitors into customers isn’t easy. That’s why it’s crucial to build relationships and trust with your new email subscribers from day one. When somebody subscribes to your newsletter or creates an account in your application more than half of them expect to receive a welcome email. This email confirms that the subscription was successful and includes important information relevant to them.

But there is more. Welcome emails are also beneficial for you.

Moreover welcome emails have the highest conversion potential. A study by Wordstream pointed out that welcome emails generated 320% more revenue on a per-email basis than any other type of marketing email. Due to the high open rate and click-through rate, it isn’t a surprising fact.

Building a great email sequence ensures the success of your campaigns and helps the customers make their purchase decisions. This email sequence always starts with a welcome email.

What is a Welcome email?

A welcome email is a very first email (after the double opt-in email) your new subscriber or customer receives. The purpose of your welcome email is to greet your new subscribers. Grabbing someone’s attention is more difficult than ever. Recipients receive so many emails each day that some emails get lost in the ether inevitable.

It gives you the chance to make a good first impression. Remember, you can do it only once. You must nail it.

Reflect on the brand’s personality and be consistent when it comes to tone and voice. You are representing the company here.

How to write your welcome email subject line?

Your welcome email subject lines can make or break your email marketing strategy. They’ll determine whether the recipients open and read your emails or not. Catchy newsletter subject lines help you decrease the number of unread emails. Most importantly, make sure you take your time coming up with great subject lines as they can make a huge difference.

1. Define your goal before designing your welcome email.

2. Define what action the recipients should take?

3. Define how long the subject line for welcome emails should be?

4. Use the 4U model to write compelling welcome email subject lines.

• Ultra-specific
• Urgent
• Useful
• Unique

5. Try personalization in your welcome email subject lines

6. Use emojis in subject lines with care

7. Avoid Spam filters

8. Don’t try to sell hard

18 Best Welcome Email subject lines

1. Welcome to ……….. Support 🙂 Please click the link below to create a password.
2. 3 days left to redeem your voucher⏰
3. You’re all set
4. Welcome to endless possibilities
5. You are on the list
6. Welcome to (name)! Enjoy 20% off your first purchase.
7. Welcome to our #AWESOME community!
8. Couldn’t be happier for you!
9. Don’t miss out (name), you only have 24 hrs left⏰
10. We’re happy to have you on board! Ready to get started?
11. We got a surprise for you. 10% OFF from your first order.
12. Welcome to our family, it’s good to see you.
13. Welcome and thank you.
14. We appreciate you so much!
15. Welcome to (name). We are so happy to have you.
16. Your account’s set up. Tell us what you want to hear about.
17. Now that you’re on the list..consider yourself official.
18. Hey there! It’s nice to meet you. We are stoked to join you on the adventures ahead

Welcome email sequences

You might think of one single email when we discuss welcome emails. If you do so, you miss out on a great opportunity!

The welcome email sequence is sent after the Opt-in email and before the regular email campaign. Its purpose is to educate the recipients and build trust.

Automated welcome email sequence example

I designed three different welcome email sequences for you. Of course, you can tailor the messages to your customers and business.

1. E-commerce welcome email series

1. Welcome email: Introduction, what the company does, and what the recipient can expect.
2. Welcome email: Follow us on social.
3. Welcome email: Shop now.
4. Welcome email: Read our blog.

2. Loyalty program welcome email series

1. Welcome email: Loyalty program, what it includes.
2. Welcome email: Follow us on social.
3. Welcome email: Discount Voucher.
4. Welcome email: If the voucher wasn’t used within a week, send a reminder to redeem it.

3. SaaS onboarding welcome email series

1. Welcome email: Introduce your software and include a value proposition.
2. Welcome email: How to get started with our tool.
3. Welcome email: Invite your colleagues and start collaborating.
4. Welcome email: Download our mobile app.
5. Welcome email: Join our Slack group community.

Timing of the welcome email sequence

People are the most engaged when they signed up for a newsletter. You have a very short period of time to take advantage of it as the interest of these people will drop.

This is the reason why one single welcome email isn’t enough to keep subscribers engaged. You need an evil master plan to keep these people in the loop. This plan is the welcome email sequence itself.

Schedule at least 3 emails in your welcome email sequence and set additional triggered emails depending on the recipient’s actions.

1. Immediately – Welcome and thank you.

Goal: the introduction of the company and what the subscriber can expect.

Send the first welcome email immediately. Say hi and thank the recipient for the subscription. Give instructions if further actions are required to be taken.

Most welcome email subject lines include the word “welcome to” so the recipients can easily screen their email boxes.

Subject line examples:

• Welcome to The Company. Please, complete your profile.
• Welcome to The Company. Please, verify your account.
• Good decision. Welcome to our family. 🙂

2. In 12-28 hours – Follow on social media

Goal: Increase the number of followers on the company’s social media channels.

You can’t send emails to your recipients on a daily basis. They would most probably unsubscribe from your email list. However, social media is a great platform to communicate with followers every day without being annoying.

Subject line examples:

• Let’s hang out on social.
• Are you following us yet?
• Follow us on Facebook.

3. In one week – Send a voucher.

Goal: Activate the subscriber to purchase their first item.

Sending a voucher to a new subscriber is a nice gesture and will encourage shopping. Who doesn’t like a good deal?

Subject line examples:

• Pssst. We have a surprise for you.
• 10% OFF just for you

4. In two weeks – If the recipient didn’t redeem the voucher, send a reminder to use it.

Goal: Remind the subscriber to use their coupon.

People get distracted very often that’s why they need a little reminder every now and then. On the other hand, it’s also possible that subscribers weren’t ready to purchase a couple of weeks ago. Give it a try and see if they are ready now.

At this stage, you can use a countdown in your email to trigger a sense of urgency.

Subject line examples:

• ⏰ 1 week remains to redeem your voucher
• Hurry up James, only 24 hrs left to use your coupon

What format to use for Welcome Emails?

You can use either HTML welcome email template or a plain text template. Generally, marketers prefer to use HTML to create e-commerce welcome emails. Although the plain text emails are more personal, they are more difficult to track, plus they are less memorable and plainer, leaving almost no impact on the receiver.

HTML welcome email templates allow you to create clickable CTAs and track the performance of your welcome email campaign. They also let you design emails in a more creative way and help the recipients process the information easily.

What should a Welcome Email include?

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you must communicate your identity. It means that the email design ought to align with your brand image.

Use your brand logo and colors to make it clear who you are.

Your intention also should be obvious. Don’t overstuff your email with a bunch of offers. Less is more. Don’t confuse the readers.

Connect with your Audience and Personalize your Email Message

Make a great first impression. People crave attention. They want to feel like you actually care about them. Make them feel special.

Show appreciation and say thank you for subscribing. Use the word “You” instead of being too formal and starting your email with “Dear”.

You can even personalize your welcome email message by including some dynamic content and using the recipient’s first name in the email.

If it’s relevant, segment your list by gender, location, job title, etc., and tailor the message to them.

What new subscribers can expect

Saying “Hi there” isn’t enough. Besides greetings, you should also inform the recipient about how often they will receive emails and what these emails will be about. Your future emails can include news, discounts, promotions, or any other information and offer you deem important.

Leverage Social Media

Ask people to follow you on social media. You can’t send your customers emails too often. It would annoy them and they would unsubscribe eventually. Instead, encourage them to follow you on social media channels where you can keep them updated on a daily basis.

Check out this useful post to learn how you can create a link between your social media efforts and email marketing messages.

Drive people to your Online Store / Software or Application

Make the shopping experience seamless, if you have an e-commerce website. It’s more likely that if you provide a link to your website the recipients will check it out.

You can also do a little promotion here. List a few items at the end of your welcome email and link them to the relevant landing pages.

You can do the same if you are a SaaS company, looking to convert subscribers into users. Send your subscribers information about how and why they should use your application. This is the first step of a successful user onboarding journey, which will lead your subscriber to the “Aha” moment, after which they will turn into a paying user.

If you need to learn more about user onboarding for SaaS, check out this section of our Saas Conversion Funnel Guide.

When Should You Send Welcome Emails?

The answer is simple: Send your welcome email as soon as possible.

Try to send the welcome email as soon as someone confirms their email address. New subscribers are ready to purchase or try out your application. They are eager to receive your email and take action.

Take advantage of this, and provide them with the necessary information, while making a great first impression. However, be quick, people don’t like waiting too much. Automate your email flow to maximize your email marketing efforts.

Setting up an automated email workflow is simple. As soon as a subscription happens, your triggered email marketing campaign is put in motion and sends the scheduled emails to the new subscribers.

Here are some useful resources that you can check out to learn more about automated email campaigns, and how you can set up your own.

• How to Use Trigger Emails (+ 13 email campaign examples )

• 22 of the Best Automated E-commerce Email Template Examples

• How to Use Sequential Workflows Throughout Your Annual Email Marketing Cycle

• Transactional Email Best Practices (Illustrated with 29+ Examples)

How Long Should a Welcome Email Be?

A welcome email should be short and sweet; 50-150 words should be more than enough. Aim to create a clear email design and place the most important information at the beginning of the email.

Make sure you don’t try to sell hard. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of welcome emails isn’t selling.

How to create an effective Welcome Email?

Creating a good email design is not easy, especially if you don’t have a flexible drag-and-drop editor.

There are so many technical and rendering issues that marketers shouldn’t have to deal with, such as, but not limited to:

• Mobile responsive email templates: You need to make sure that your email template is mobile-friendly since more than 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices.
• Email templates that are compatible with all email clients: You also need to figure out a way to make your HTML email code compatible with every email client, even Outlook.

That’s why the best solution is to use a professional email template builder that will help design a beautiful HTML email in a couple of minutes, because of its highly flexible drag-and-drop editor. There are many great email template builders that you can use for free.

Create your welcome email templates that render perfectly on all devices, using our flexible email editor,for free!

Welcome Email Best Practices

Before you kick off your welcome email campaign, think about your goals first. Do you want the recipients to complete their profiles? Do you want them to start using your product? Why did the recipient subscribe? What do they expect?

Depending on these goals create an actionable welcome email strategy.

Choose the best CTA

First thing first. Decide what actions the recipients should take and then create a call to action supporting this goal.

Here are some call-to-action texts you can use:

• Discover More
• Shop New Arrival
• Book Now
• Explore
• Read Our Latest Blog Post
• Use Coupon code
• Complete Profile

Don’t forget to choose a good CTA color and the right size of button. Most importantly, insert the proper link to the CTA button.

Here is a negative example from a -brand we all think should make the best marketing: HelloBar. Their product is awesome and they have a smart welcome email workflow, but they use a gray CTA in their first letter. I would’ve tested it with a different color.

Learn how to insert a link to a button in an email template.

Create a Welcome Email series

Email series helps you build a logical onboarding flow. All you need to do is to decide what the most important message is.

For example, the first email can include a discount coupon whereas the second email encourages the recipients to read the blog.

Another welcome email sequence example can be used for SaaS products. Most importantly, welcome your users in the first email and educate them about your product in the second one.

Segment your Email List

You can use several tactics to get someone’s email address and grow your email list. You might obtain your email because they subscribed to your newsletter, purchased something in your online store, or participated in a competition.

The point is, you need to handle these people differently. Create a different list for each segment to be able to send more personalized and targeted messages to them.

• New subscriber: newbie who hasn’t bought anything yet and hasn’t received any emails either.
• First-time purchase: they don’t receive emails from you but they are existing customers.

Create Automated Welcome Email Campaigns

We touched on automated campaigns earlier. Automated emails are sent when certain actions trigger them. This trigger can be an opened or unopened email or a click. For example, you can send a coupon when someone engages with a certain link. You can also follow up with a reminder email.

The automated workflow helps you send out the right email to the right person at the right time. In the meantime, you can work on something else. So these workflows save time, money, and effort.

25 Best Welcome Email Examples

Great welcome messages invite the recipients into your world. Be a nice host and treat your customers like your friends. Add a personal touch to your welcoming emails.

If are short on time, or simply can’t be bothered to create a welcome email from scratch, you can edit one of our ready-to-use welcome email templates. Browse through the template gallery, and select and edit the templates to match your brand and goals with the flexible drag-and-drop editor.

We also have collaborative features that allow teams to work together while designing and approving emails. All you need to do is invite your colleagues to your workspace and assign different roles to each one, according to their roles and responsibilities.

We have listed the examples below that you can use as inspiration.

1. Rare Beauty

Welcome to Rare Beauty

In your welcome email, you can share the story of your company with your new consumers, therefore they can get to know you better. In this example, we get the whole background of why the brand was created and what was the inspiration behind it. The brand wants to inspire and strengthen its customers’ self-esteem. This type of attitude always works and makes customers more loyal to the brand.

2. The Ordinary.

Welcome to The Ordinary.

This welcome email design is simple and clear. The brand says thank you to its new subscriber at the very beginning of the email. They also offer some help for those who aren’t 100% which product they should buy in the meantime.

3. Abercrombie & Fitch

Now that you’re on the list..

In this email, Abercrombie & Fitch gave their customers 10% off as a welcome gift. They are trying to motivate the subscribers to make their first purchase. This email doesn’t contain a text-heavy message, therefore, the words “10% off Entire Purchase” is more visible.

4. Funfit

Good old envelope

This e-commerce welcome email design template is so charming and effective thanks to the envelope. Nowadays we send more electronic letters than traditional ones, probably that’s why I like it.

The most critical pieces of information are on the envelope itself. And because it attracts the eye, the main message gets delivered effectively.

Source: Pinterest

5. Spotify

Welcome to Premium

Bubbly colors, and great design. If you aim to create a similar email design, consider using matching colors as well. This welcome email from Spotify is a great example of a SaaS company. Many of them were built on a Freemium model so converting free users into paying ones is a big deal. Spotify listed the extra features that premium users can use. They also provided links to listen to music on the user’s device.

Source: Pinterest

6. Starbucks

We’re glad you are here

This welcome email template is really creative despite the simple image. Starbucks is famous for personalizing its drinks by writing the customer’s name on the cup. In this case, they chose to write the word “Welcome” on the cup and say “We’re glad you’re here”. The recipients feel like they arrived home, where familiar friends were waiting for them.

Notice that the email was divided into 3 parts. The first includes the welcome message, the second part is about the customer’s profile, and the third one is encouraging social activity.

Use dividers to create modern, easily digestible content. As for the colors, if you use two colors you will also be on the safe side.

Source: Pinterest

7. Ace&Tate

Hey insider

This simple greeting email sample from Ace&Tate is so cool, you start to feel like buying some. They offered a home try-on option which reduces the purchasing risk. Great idea.

Not to mention the free shipping both ways. If you offer free shipping, make sure you also include it in your welcome email. When customers rationalize their shopping habits, they prefer to avoid additional costs. One of the main reasons for abandoned carts is the shipping fee itself.

8. Munchery

Welcome to Munchery

This piece by Munchery is a great welcome email for catering services. Yummy food, that’s what a restaurant must include in the emails. This example shows colors have an impact on our perception of food. Get a professional photographer to take photos of your mouthwatering food and show off your expertise.

If you have an app, encourage customers to place their next order by downloading it.

Source: Pinterest

9. Handy

Download the Handy App

Handy’s first CTA in their welcome email was: “Download the app”. They encourage the user to get the app to activate the user. Handy used different colors for different services which makes it easy to distinguish.

They also divided its content into three pieces. Each piece has a different Call to Action. A link to their help center was also included which can be quite handy.

Source: Pinterest

10. Steven Alan

Welcome

This e-commerce welcome email template design has a refreshing style. If you are a creative one, dare to be different. Steven Alan also offered free shipping for over $250. You might be better off if you highlight this piece of information a bit more than this example shows.

Source: Pinterest

11. ASOS

Oh, hey there

Asos tells what the recipient can expect now that they are on board. They give the reasons why it is good to shop on their side. Great communication.

You don’t need to get every single email from them, they offer you to choose the ones that are relevant to you.

12. Aritzia

We’d love to tell you a little more about us

Aritzia took the time to introduce the brand first. I like the funny comment: Customer Service is our middle name (What can we say? Our parents were progressive.) Follow this great example and sprinkle your email with personality. xo Alitzia

Source: Pinterest

13. Lyft

Welcome to Lyft, (name). Hop in.

Carsharing is about people. Lyft used a photo of women getting into the car, therefore it takes us into a real situation. First, they greet the reader with “we’ll get you there” in the first paragraph. As a result of this, the company gets closer to the customer. Further, at the bottom of the email, they repeated themselves again saying “Your safety comes first. Always”.  These sentences will make the users feel safer in every way, it is a good start to building trust and relationships.

After all, they also let the readers know what they are doing differently than competitors, for example, they can help you get a ride, but also help you take public transportation.

14. Skyscanner

Welcome to the world’s travel search engine

Skyscanner positioned itself as a search engine in this welcome email. When people use aggregators, they just want to find what they are looking for and move on. That’s why Skyscanner listed the benefits of logging in.

15. Gogobot

Your next adventure awaits. We’re thrilled to have you!

Gogobot included some adventures in their welcome emails. Depending on the recipient’s interest they can navigate to different category pages right away. They also made it easy to join interest-specific groups such as Budget Travelers.

If you have a community, make sure you help people find one another.

Source: Pinterest

16. Moo

A warm, wondrous welcome

The exciting color combination is truly attention-grabbing. Pure masterpiece. Designers should indeed go the extra mile when creating emails.

Moo is using a very interesting approach. They say, together they will make great stuff for the customer’s business. From now on they are part of the team.

Source: Pinterest

17. Glossier

Hi! This will be fun.

I love this email with the cheeky girl saying “This will be fun”. Everything is so cheerful about this email. Glossier also used emojis to wave which gives an extra cuteness to this email. 🙂 I bet the reader will jump to Instagram after that.

Source: Pinterest

18. Warby Parker

You’re all signed up

This email by Warby Parker is a piece of art combined with a GIF. It has everything: dancing people, the globe, and ice cream. They also mention the CSR activity that makes Warby Parker even more likable. Get inspired and learn more about animated emails with these 30 inspiring examples.

Source: Pinterest

19. Stampsy

Get started with a few simple steps

Stampy starts its onboarding process by giving a to-do list. They assigned different colors to different visuals and used the same colors for the hyperlinks in the text.

The white space highlights the main points nicely.

Source: Pinterest

20. Asana

Welcome Series 1/2

Asana also starts the onboarding flow as soon as they send out the welcome email. Their CTA encourages the recipients to go to Asana and create their very first task. This method helps to activate users and build a habit.

21. Asana

Welcome Series 2/2

SaaS businesses need to make sure their users aren’t just activated but active users. Learning to use software takes time and requires your help. Asana encourages project creation and gives an example of using the product.

Source: Really Good Emails

22. Storehouse

Verify Account

Storehouse used the full name in the greeting email. They also outlined what Storehouse is about and encouraged Matthew to share his story.

This email verification template was used as a welcome email. If your policy requires double opt-in you can merge the confirmation email and welcome emails. Important note: to comply with SPAM laws we advise everybody to use double opt-in only.

Source: Really Good Emails

23. The North Face

Welcome Aboard. We’ll be in touch.

If you want to make a good first impression, you can follow the path of The North Face. They choose a simple design with a beautiful visual, where the people use the company’s products. In this welcome email, they didn’t lead the subscribers to make a purchase, the goal of this email was to get the attention of the readers and to build a good relationship with the brand.

24. SpiritJS

SpiritJS will be released as soon as possible

SpiritJS was still under construction, yet they wanted to make sure they keep updating their users. SpiritJS used storytelling to explain what users can expect. Their little ghost creature adds a creative and fun touch to the email. You can also start building your mailing list and relationships even if you are still building your product.

Source: Really Good Emails

25. Google Adwords

Congratulations! You’ve successfully signed up!

At last but not least, here is plain text like – very minimalistic HTML – welcome email from Google. Google listed a number of steps to activate the account. The embedded links and educational material all help the customer navigate and use the software properly.

Notice that it’s more difficult to screen plain text emails and it’s a little bit dry as well.

Welcome Email Case Study from Chamaileon

In this last section, we would like to share with you our own experience with you.

At first, we didn’t have a welcome email in our onboarding email sequence. We had a lot of users signing up but not so many engagements in the app. After a few months, we wanted to increase the number of returning users (Retention of AARRR pirate metrics) by engaging more of them and showing them the main features of Chamaileon software.

Have you ever received a Welcome email?

Imagine you are reading a blog post, and a pop-up appears offering a free trial of a new email marketing tool. You think: ”Why not? It’s free!”

But then when you start to use the app, you realize that you have no idea what it is actually for.

Is it an ESP? An automation software? An email testing tool?

I’m sure something similar has happened to you before, and that’s why we decided that the right time for a welcome email is right after user registration. It is the best time to show new users what the software is about.

You may think this is the same thing every company does. Yes, it is. We came up with the need for a welcome email from our data. We had to confess to ourselves, that in this case, our software is similar to any other in the industry, and it needs a welcome email — even if we refused to admit it in the beginning.

Chamaileon’s Welcome Email

The following email template was made in our software with the email template builder.

It was pretty easy to create since Chamaileon has a highly flexible drag-and-drop editor. We created the email accordingly to most of the best practices used in this article and just made a few changes so it would match our brand and the needs of our own users. For instance, we made an A/B test with the A version showing three features without guidance and the B version with steps on what to do next in the app, plus a feature list.

Version A 

Version A got an 11% click rate. It’s a pretty solid percentage, considering the software industry hates getting emails since they create tons of emails themselves.

It’s like selling vegetables to grocery owners. Helps a lot that the email renders perfectly on all devices and email clients, which has a positive effect on the CTR %.

How did we do it in Chamaileon so that it looks good on both desktop and mobile?

In our email template builder, there is an option to show or hide on mobile and/or desktop. So you can create sections that you want to show only on mobile and the ones you want to show only on the desktop version.

If you want to improve your click rates, you can redesign your email in Chamaileon and see how much difference the mobile-friendly design makes. You can register here for free.

Here is how the version A looks like.

Source: Chamaileon

The email template matches our brand colors, shows all the features, has prominent CTAs and has a warm welcome greeting: the image that says: Hello.
You can see the click rate is not bad, however, we still want to improve upon it. We decided that we should also show steps on what to do once someone logged into the application because only showing the features was not enough.

Version B

We made the following B version, which has a 15% click rate.

Check out the results.

And here is what the email looks like.

Source: Chamaileon

As you can see, the focus is on one button and one action in the upper part. It’s much easier when the readers see a higher priority, for instance, a noticeable button to click rather than a choice of three similar ones.

At the end of the month, we measured the % of active users and it increased by 24.6% and most activities by 38.4% with one single email.

Note: If you still haven’t found an example or a template that you want to use in your campaigns, you can take a look at our email template collection with already predesigned welcome email templates.

Access the collection here for free in our app.

The Takeaway

In conclusion, welcome emails are essential to make a great first impression and building trust with your customers. New subscribers made up their minds and most likely they are ready to buy your product. That’s why nailing your welcome email is necessary to convert these leads into customers.

Consider creating a welcome series to educate your customers about your product. In other words, a single welcome message won’t be as successful as a well-thought-out welcome email sequence. It’ll result in a higher engagement rate and ROI. Therefore it is a win-win both for you and your customers.