Time-based sequences ignore actual user progress
Day 3 reminder emails sent to users who already completed setup look out of touch and damage trust.
SaaS onboarding emails triggered by what users actually do
Welcome emails, setup reminders, feature discovery and trial upgrade nudges — each fired by a real user event, not by a scheduled drip sequence.
Why scheduled drip sequences miss the mark for SaaS onboarding
Contact list sync creates latency and friction
Syncing new users to a marketing tool before you can send a welcome email adds delay and a dependency.
Plan and feature variants require complex branching
Free-plan onboarding differs from Pro-plan onboarding. Encoding this in a marketing automation journey is fragile.
No visibility into which email caused what action
Connecting an email send to a user action (first project created) requires custom tracking in marketing tools.
Event-driven onboarding: right email, right moment
Fire events from real user actions
user.signed_up, first_project.created, feature.activated — each fires the right onboarding email at the right moment.
Plan-aware from the start
Include the plan in the event payload. Rules route Free-plan users to simpler onboarding; Pro-plan users get richer activation content.
No contact list required
Recipient data comes from the event payload. No sync, no import, no delay.
Structured logs per user journey
See which onboarding events fired, which emails were sent and in what order — per user.
Onboarding events and the emails they trigger
user.signed_up Welcome email
First email after signup. Plan-specific CTA, brand-consistent tone, no marketing noise.
onboarding.setup_incomplete Setup reminder
Sent if the user has not completed a key setup step after a period. Fired by your backend when the condition is true.
onboarding.milestone_reached Feature discovery
Highlight an unused feature when the user reaches a natural milestone.
trial.ending_soon Trial upgrade nudge
Personalised upgrade CTA with remaining trial days and plan comparison.
first_project.created First value confirmation
Congratulate the user when they complete their first meaningful action.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I stop a follow-up email if the user already completed the action?
- Yes — but this requires your backend to not fire the follow-up event if the action is already complete. else.events sends when it receives an event; the decision to fire is in your application logic.
- Can onboarding emails be locale-specific?
- Yes. Include a locale field in your event payload. Rules route to the right language template automatically.
- How is this different from a drip campaign in a marketing tool?
- Drip campaigns are time-based and contact-list-driven. Event-driven onboarding emails fire when the user actually does something — or does not do something your backend detects. No sync, no delay, no irrelevant emails.
- What if I want to send a sequence — e.g. Day 1, Day 3, Day 7?
- Scheduled sequences are not a native else.events feature. Your backend can fire events on a schedule (e.g. via a cron job that checks user state) and else.events handles the email from there.
Onboarding emails that respond to what users actually do
Event-driven, plan-aware, no contact list. Start with your welcome email.
- Free during public beta
- Plan-aware routing via rules
- No contact list sync