Email Sequences That Convert: Five Automations Worth Building

Newsletters are optional. These five triggered sequences are not — they run without you and consistently outperform broadcast email.

Broadcast newsletters get most of the attention and produce most of the disappointment. The email that reliably makes money is triggered: sent because a specific person did a specific thing, at the moment that thing was on their mind.

1. Post-enquiry nurture

Someone asked for a quote and went quiet. Three emails over ten days: the answer to the question they did not ask, a comparable project with a number attached, and a low-friction offer to talk. Most businesses send one follow-up and stop, which is roughly where the response curve starts.

2. Abandoned cart or abandoned form

The highest-return automation in ecommerce, and it applies to service businesses too — a half-completed booking form is an abandoned cart. First message within an hour, second at 24 hours, third at 72 with a genuine reason to return.

3. Post-purchase onboarding

The window where churn is decided. Tell them what happens next, when, and who to contact. This sequence reduces support load and refund requests measurably, and it is the cheapest one to write because the content already exists in your team's replies.

4. Dormant customer reactivation

Segment by time since last purchase and by what they bought. A generic 'we miss you' converts poorly; 'your service is due, here is the same slot as last year' converts well.

5. Review and referral request

Triggered at the moment of delivery, not at month end. One ask, one link, no paragraph of preamble.

What gets you filtered

• Sending to purchased or scraped lists — the fastest route to a damaged sending domain.
• No authentication. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are mandatory for reliable delivery to major providers.
• Ignoring engagement decay. Stop mailing people who have not opened in six months; they actively hurt deliverability.
• Hiding the unsubscribe. A hard-to-find link converts unsubscribes into spam complaints, which cost far more.

• 1h / 24h / 72h abandoned sequence timing
• 3 touches minimum after an enquiry
• 6 months before suppressing an unengaged contact