• by Jess Nelson , July 26, 2016

Email marketers should favor a welcome email series as opposed to a singular welcome email, according to a new study from Listrak that correlates multiple welcome emails with increased email engagement and revenue. 

Listrak tracked the email marketing campaigns of the top 1000 retail companies, per Internet Retailer, to analyze the optimal way for retailers to greet new email subscribers. 

The retail marketing technology company discovered that brands generate more email-based revenue when they send a welcome email series as opposed to a singular welcome email or no welcome email at all. 

In addition, retail companies that send their first email in real-time alongside a promotion code or discount generate the most sales. Half of the top-performing retail brands sent their first welcome email immediately, according to the study.

When comparing 50 of the top companies, Listrak’s analysis pointed to a majority of top-performing companies sending more than one welcome email. Sixty-four percent of top performers sent a welcome email series consisting of three emails, while 18% sent a series of two emails.

Furthermore, 86% of the top performers included a discount in their first welcome email. 

Prompt email welcome emails are even more critical, considering that 45% of first-time buys from new email subscribers happen within the first day of signing up for an email newsletter and 92.5% of first-time purchases are places within a week of subscribing to an email list, according to the Listrak study. 

Multi-step welcome emails are a powerful opportunity for generating email-based revenue, but it would seem that its popularity has not spread beyond the retail industry.

 A recent study by GetResponse, an email marketing and automation company, polled 1800 email marketers and found that just 26% use a multi-step welcome email series.