Solid advice from an email legend!
Prepare to bookmark this week’s email, {{name|friends}}.
Before we get into who our guest author (and legend) is, you’ll notice this email is a follow-up to last week’s Email Advice in Your Inbox, where we dove into why your welcome sequence matters.
Today, however, we’ve coordinated this guest feature to speak about the “how”.
And buckle up, because this is solid advice!
Back to our esteemed guest…
Meet Simon Harper, renowned email mastermind, multi-newsletter operator, WordPress/ WooCommerce expert, super dad, entrepreneur, and, honestly, someone we consider a close friend (despite living a world away).
Simon’s been at this game longer than most, and not only does he know his stuff, he lives it in the way he helps clients and the email world beyond that.
When the opportunity finally arose to have him share his knowledge, we grabbed that with both hands (and then some) because we’re all about value here, and today, he’ll be serving that up in spades!
So let’s not keep you in anticipation any longer.
Time to welcome your audience in style!
Welcome Sequences can be Awesome!
(But, how do you actually build one?)
If you're reading this, chances are you already know your welcome sequence matters.
Maybe Des convinced you in Vol. 66 of “Email Advice in Your Inbox”. Maybe you've known for a while but haven't quite got around to it. Maybe you have one, but you're not entirely sure it's doing what it's supposed to.
Either way, this is the practical bit. No more convincing, and no more “why”.
Just a clear, actionable framework for building a welcome sequence that works.
Whether you're starting from scratch or rebuilding something that's been running on autopilot for too long.
Let's go👇
Step 1: Define the Purpose before writing a single word
Every welcome sequence needs a defined purpose before anything else.
You might have different goals, but the baseline is always the same:
Welcome new subscribers.
Introduce your brand.
Set expectations.
Begin a real relationship.
From there, add a secondary goal “if” your business needs one:
Getting a first click.
Surfacing your best content.
Or moving subscribers toward a product or offer.
A sequence without a defined purpose is just a series of emails.
Know your purpose first.
Step 2: Honour what brought them here
Whatever brought someone to your list: a lead magnet, a newsletter, a product, a specific promise, your welcome sequence needs to reflect that immediately.
The first email should feel like a natural continuation of the signup experience. If your form promised one thing and your emails deliver something different, trust can drop fast and can be hard to recover.
💡 This also directly affects deliverability. Welcome sequences that feel relevant get opened. And strong engagement in those first few days can carry disproportionate weight in how inbox providers treat your future sends.
The connection between relevance and deliverability is one of the most underappreciated dynamics in email.
If deliverability is still a problem after that, check the basics: sender reputation, list hygiene, and make sure your domain is properly authenticated (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
Even the best sequence struggles if the technical foundation isn't solid
Step 3: Map the journey before you touch your platform
For most brands and audiences, three to five emails is the right place to begin:
Email 1 - Welcome and confirm what they signed up for. Send this immediately to maximise engagement.
Email 2 - Your brand story. Who you are, why you started this, what makes you different, and why it's worth staying subscribed.
Email 3 - Your single best piece of content, your most useful resources, or your clearest next steps.
Email 4 - A product, offer, or deeper education if it's relevant to the relationship you're building.
Email 5 - A reply prompt, a preference question, or a soft conversion. Something that invites a genuine response and signals there's a real person on the other end.
🧠 Not every sequence needs all five; match the length to the relationship, not to a rigid framework.
And one rule applies across every email in the sequence: “One email, one purpose.”
Define the main message, the single action you want the reader to take, and why this email belongs at this point in the relationship.
Emails that try to do too much usually do nothing particularly well.
Step 4: Use a simple structure as your starting point
You can run the auction until you feel bids have topped out, or you can run it for a set amount of time.
The work of running an auction is easy and even fun.
It mainly consists of:
Thanking bidders
Introducing occasional new bonuses to make the bidding run higher
Keeping it exciting and entertaining for everyone
It doesn’t have to be complicated to work.
Step 5: Test it properly before it goes live
I’m going to make an educated guess that step gets skipped more than any other.
And it's the one that can cause the most problems.
Before your sequence reaches a real subscriber, walk through the entire flow with test data. Make sure to test:
Triggers fire correctly.
Delays work as expected.
Every link goes where it should.
Personalisation renders properly.
Subscribers are entering and exiting at the right points.
A welcome sequence that misbehaves on day one can be hard to recover from.
Fifteen minutes of testing saves a lot of headaches.
Once it's live, check it daily for the first few days 🚨
Confirm subscribers are moving through the sequence correctly and that nothing is stalling, duplicating, or firing out of order.
Real sends often surface small issues that testing missed.
Step 6: Review it regularly
A review is not set-and-forget.
Schedule regular reviews and track the numbers that tell you whether the sequence is actually working:
Open rates,
Click rates,
Replies,
Unsubscribes,
Drop-off by email,
And always: is it achieving the original goal you defined in Step 1?
As a baseline, most welcome sequences achieve average open rates of 50 to 60%, click rates of 15 to 25%, and unsubscribe rates below 2%.
Those statistics vary by industry, but you can use them as a reference point for how your sequence stacks up.
When something isn't working, fix the weakest point first, and use A/B testing to validate your changes rather than guessing:
Low opens - Subject lines or send timing need attention.
Low clicks - Calls to action are competing or unclear.
Unsubscribe spikes - Content doesn't match what subscribers expected at signup.
Drop-off after a specific email - That email is the weak link in the chain.
It’s easier than you think once you get into it.
One final thought
Des made the case for why your welcome sequence matters more than you think, and this newsletter gives you a clear process for building one that delivers on that potential.
Your framework above isn't complicated.
But doing it intentionally, testing it properly, and reviewing it regularly puts you ahead of the majority of senders who either have nothing or have something running quietly in the background that nobody has looked at in months.
Go and read your own welcome email today. Then ask yourself honestly: “Does it earn the next open?”
If the answer is anything other than a confident “yes”, now you know what to do. 😉
Before you go!
Make sure you sign up for Simon’s brilliant emails about email, so hit the link below and show some love (while learning heaps)
Until next time, friend.
Simon 👋
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Okay, that’s two solid weeks of solid welcome email advice!
What’s next?
If you have any feedback or knowledge to share, click here! Oh, and please share this email with your friends and colleagues if you think they’ll find value over here.
Your feedback only makes us better.
Your friend in email,
Des
