How to Build a Welcome Email Series for a Small E-commerce Store

What a welcome email series is (and why it’s worth doing first)

A welcome series is a sequence of emails that starts automatically when someone signs up, usually through a form on your site or a sign-up pop-up. Instead of waiting for your next newsletter, each new subscriber gets a planned introduction to your store on their own timeline.

For a small store, it’s usually the best first email automation to build, for three reasons:

1. It runs per person. It works from your very first subscriber. You don’t need a big list for it to be useful.
2. The timing is natural. People just asked to hear from you. A prompt, relevant email is expected, not intrusive.
3. You write it once. A good welcome series can run for months with only small updates, while newsletters need new content every time.

It’s also where people decide whether your emails are worth opening. A clear, useful first few messages set the tone for everything you send after.

Before you write: three decisions

1. What did you promise at sign-up? If your sign-up banner says “10% off your first order,” the first email must deliver that code, clearly and immediately. If it says “early access to new arrivals,” explain how that will work. Every promise on the sign-up form is a commitment the series has to keep.

2. Where do people sign up? List every place an email address enters your list: a footer form, a pop-up banner with an email sign-up form, a contact form. Your welcome series should start from the sign-up points, not from forms where people asked a support question.

3. What does success look like? For most stores, it’s a subscriber coming back to the site and, eventually, placing a first order. Decide this now, because it determines where the series ends and what you measure.

The four-email structure

Four emails over roughly ten days is a good starting shape for a small store. It’s long enough to introduce your shop properly and short enough that subscribers move on to your regular emails while they still remember signing up.

The point of the branches is that nobody gets an email that ignores what they already did. People who opened the welcome email get new content; people who missed it get a second chance at the first message. People who came back to the site don’t get a reminder they don’t need.

Email 1: The welcome

Send it immediately. This is the email most likely to be opened, so put the important things at the top.

1. Thank them for signing up, in one line.
2. Deliver the promise. If it’s a discount code, show the code in large text, state any minimum order or expiry date, and link straight to the shop.
3. Say what to expect: what you’ll send and roughly how often.
4. One short line about who you are: what you sell and what makes it different.
5. One main button. Resist the urge to link to every category.

Subject: Welcome to [Store] — here's your 10% code

Hi there,

Thanks for joining us. As promised, here's 10% off your first order:

    WELCOME10
    (Valid for 14 days. Minimum order $30.)

We make [short description of your products]. Every few weeks
we'll email you about new arrivals, restocks and the occasional
member-only offer. That's it.

[ Shop now ]

— [Your name], [Store]

Email 2: Popular products (for people who opened)

People who opened the welcome email are paying attention. Use the second email to help them choose. Best sellers are a safe bet because they reduce the risk of a first purchase: if other people liked it, it’s probably a good place to start.

1. Pick three products, not twelve. For each one, give a photo, a one-line reason people like it, and a link.
2. Add one detail that answers a common doubt: sizing, materials, delivery time or how returns work.
3. Remind them of the welcome code near the end, with the expiry date.

Email 2b: The resend (for people who didn’t open)

An unopened welcome email often just got buried. Resending the same core message with a different subject line gives it a second chance without asking the subscriber to read anything new. Change the subject, keep the code and the main button, and shorten the body if you can.

Subject: Your 10% code is still waiting

Hi there,

Just in case our first email got lost — here's your welcome code:

    WELCOME10   (valid until [date])

[ Use my code ]

Email 3: The reminder (only for people who haven’t come back)

About a week later, check whether each subscriber has returned to your site. If they have, they’re already engaged, and you can end the welcome series and let your regular emails take over. If they haven’t, send one more message.

1. Lead with the most practical reason to buy now: the code expiring, the free shipping threshold, or an easy returns policy.
2. Answer the most common question you get from first-time customers.
3. Keep it short. This is a nudge, not a catalog.

After this email, the welcome series ends. Don’t keep sending discount reminders; it trains subscribers to wait for a deal.

Building the series as an automated journey

Most email tools that support automation describe a sequence as a set of connected parts: a trigger that starts it, steps that wait or send, and branches that split people based on what they did. Here’s the four-email structure written that way. It’s the same flow marketingLABO shows as an example on its journeys section.

1. Trigger: the sign-up form is submitted.
2. Send email: Email 1, the welcome.
3. Wait: 3 days.
4. Branch — opened? Yes: send Email 2 (popular products). No: send Email 2b (resend with a new subject).
5. Wait: 7 days.
6. Branch — came back to the site? Yes: end at the goal. No: send Email 3 (reminder), then end.

A few details make this work smoothly:

Put a wait before every branch. A branch on “opened” or “came back” checks what happened. If it runs the moment after an email is sent, almost nobody will have had time to open it. The wait gives people time to act before the check.

Send at a sensible hour. If your tool lets a wait end at a set time of day (for example, “3 days later at 9:00”), use it, so later emails don’t arrive in the middle of the night just because someone signed up at midnight. Remember that your subscribers may be in different time zones.

Use tags to mark progress. Adding a tag such as “welcome-done” or “clicked-welcome” when someone reaches a point in the series makes it easy to find those contacts later.

End explicitly. Mark the “came back” path as a goal and the end of the reminder path as an exit. That way your reports show how many people reached the outcome you care about, not just how many emails were sent.

Other branches worth knowing about

Once the basic series is running, you can refine it with other branch types. Use them sparingly; every branch is another path to write and maintain.

Clicks and return visits are generally stronger signals than opens, because they require a deliberate action. If you have to choose one branch for an important decision, prefer those.

Writing tips that apply to every email

1. Subject lines describe the email. “Your 10% code is inside” beats a clever line that hides what’s in the message. It’s also what the law expects, as covered below.
2. One email, one job. If an email is trying to do three things, split it or cut two of them.
3. Write like a person. Sign emails with a real name if you can. Small stores have an advantage here; use it.
4. Make it readable on a phone. Short paragraphs, a large button, and images that still make sense if they don’t load.
5. Match the site. If an email mentions a code, threshold or policy, make sure the site and checkout say exactly the same thing.
6. Check every link. Send each email to yourself and click everything before you turn the journey on.

The legal basics: what every welcome email needs

Welcome emails that promote products are commercial email. The rules below are a summary of official guidance, not legal advice. Check the sources for your situation.

CAN-SPAM (United States). The FTC’s compliance guide lists the main requirements. The ones that affect how you write a welcome series:

1. Header information must be accurate and identify who sent the message.
2. Subject lines must not be deceptive; they must reflect the content of the message.
3. The message must be identified as an ad. The FTC says you have flexibility in how, but the disclosure must be clear and noticeable.
4. Include a valid physical postal address.
5. Tell recipients clearly how to opt out of future marketing email from you.
6. Honor opt-out requests within 10 business days. Your opt-out mechanism must be able to process requests for at least 30 days after you send the message, and you can’t require anything beyond an email address or ask people to do more than reply to an email or visit a single web page.
7. Once someone opts out, you can’t sell or transfer their address, except to a company helping you comply with the law.

The FTC also notes that each separate email in violation can be subject to penalties of up to $53,088, that the law makes no exception for business-to-business email, and that you remain responsible even if you hire another company to handle your email.

GDPR (European Union). If you have subscribers in the EU, the European Data Protection Board’s guide for small businesses explains that consent must be freely given, informed, specific and unambiguous; that it must be a clear affirmative action, without pre-ticked boxes and separate from general terms; that people must be able to withdraw it as easily as they gave it; and that you must be able to demonstrate consent was given. The guide notes that for marketing, the legal basis may be consent or, depending on the circumstances, legitimate interest.

Gmail’s sender guidelines. Google asks all senders to set up SPF or DKIM authentication for their sending domain and to keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Senders of 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail accounts also need SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and marketing messages must support one-click unsubscribe with a clearly visible unsubscribe link in the body. Ask your email provider or domain host how authentication is set up for your sending domain.

For a welcome series, the practical checklist is short: honest subject lines, your postal address and an unsubscribe link in every email, and nobody receives the rest of the series after they unsubscribe.

Measuring your welcome series

Look at the series as a whole, not email by email. Useful questions:

Change one thing at a time and give it a couple of weeks. If you change the subject line, the wait time and the offer all at once, you won’t know which one made the difference.

Common mistakes

1. Delaying the first email. If someone signed up for a code, they want it now. Send email 1 immediately.
2. Branching without a wait. The check runs before anyone has had a chance to act, so everyone ends up in the “no” path.
3. Discounting in every email. One offer, clearly delivered and reminded once, is enough.
4. Forgetting people who already came back. A “we miss you” email to someone who browsed yesterday looks careless.
5. Starting the series from the wrong form. People who asked a support question didn’t sign up for marketing.
6. Never reviewing it. Products sell out and codes expire. Put a monthly check in your calendar.

Building it in marketingLABO

In marketingLABO, automated email sequences are called journeys, and they’re part of the Standard plan (see the pricing section). A journey can start from a form submission, a site visit, people who haven’t visited in a while, or contacts you pick. Steps include wait, send email, add or remove tags, and goal or exit. Branches include opened or didn’t open, clicked or didn’t click, came back to the site or didn’t, viewed a page or didn’t, and email known or unknown. Waits can be set in minutes or hours, or as a number of days later at a set time. There’s a template for follow-up emails after a form submission, so you don’t have to start from a blank canvas.

Each journey shows daily figures for the audience, sends, opens and clicks, and which stage each person is at. People who unsubscribe don’t receive the remaining emails in the journey.

To collect sign-ups in the first place, you can use the form builder or a pop-up banner with an email sign-up form, targeted with conditions such as first-time visitors or a scroll depth. The Light plan includes email newsletters with open and click tracking, but not journeys.

What it doesn’t do: marketingLABO is not connected to your e-commerce platform, so a journey can’t start from an order, and emails can’t include cart contents or purchase history. Branches work from email activity and pages viewed on your site. If you need order-triggered emails, such as a post-purchase sequence, that belongs in your store platform’s own email tools.

For a broader look at how tracking, segments and triggered messages fit together, read What Is Marketing Automation? A Plain-English Guide for Small Online Stores. When you’re ready to try it, you can sign up free and upgrade from Plan in the dashboard.

FAQ

How many emails should a welcome series have?
Three or four is a good starting point for a small store. Fewer can feel abrupt; many more tends to run into your regular newsletters.

Should the welcome series include a discount?
Only if you promised one at sign-up, or if discounts are already part of how you sell. A clear introduction and helpful product picks can work just as well, and they don’t train people to wait for a code.

Should new subscribers also get my regular newsletter during the series?
It’s usually cleaner to let the welcome series finish first, so new subscribers don’t get two emails from you on the same day. How you arrange this depends on your tool.

What if someone buys during the series?
Ideally they stop receiving purchase nudges. If your email tool can’t see orders, keep the later emails useful for buyers too (care tips, sizing, how returns work) rather than pure discount reminders, so a recent customer isn’t put off.

How often should I update the series?
Review it monthly: check that products are in stock, codes are valid and links work. Rewrite an email when its numbers drop or your offer changes.

Sources

FTC, “CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business”: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

European Data Protection Board, “Process personal data lawfully” (data protection guide for small business): https://www.edpb.europa.eu/sme/be-compliant/process-personal-data-lawfully_en

Google Workspace Admin Help, “Email sender guidelines”: https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126