Email Automation Flows: Welcome, Birthday and Re-engagement

Email automation means sending prepared emails automatically when a person takes an action or a date arrives. Once a flow is set up, it runs again with the same care for every new subscriber or customer. For most businesses the starter set is three flows: welcome, birthday or special date, and re-engagement for people who have not interacted for a long time.

How does email automation work?

Every flow has five parts:

• Trigger: the event that starts the flow, such as signing up for the newsletter, creating an account, a first order, a birthday, or no email being opened for a certain period.
• Condition: the rule that filters who enters the flow, for example only people with marketing consent, or only people who have not bought in the last 6 months.
• Wait: the time between emails.
• Action: the email sent, a tag added or a task opened in the CRM.
• Exit rule: when the person leaves the flow. Making sure someone who has just bought does not get a "we miss you" email depends on this rule.

The mistake we see most often is forgetting the exit rule. If the same person enters the welcome flow, the campaign newsletter and a cart reminder in the same week, automation annoys instead of helping. That is why you should plan flows not one by one but together with the total number of emails a person will receive each week.

Before you start: consent rules

Automated sending does not remove consent rules. The rules below are those of Turkey; if you email people in other countries, check the law that applies there.

Under Article 6 of Turkey's Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce, commercial electronic messages may be sent to recipients only with their prior consent. The same article makes two important distinctions:

• If a person has given their details so that you can contact them, no separate consent is needed for messages about changes to, use of or maintenance of the goods or services they bought. Post-purchase usage tips can fall into this category.
• Commercial messages may be sent to tradespeople and merchants without prior consent; however, as Turkey's Ministry of Trade points out, once a merchant or tradesperson has used their right to refuse, you can no longer send them messages without consent.

Article 8 of the law gives recipients the right to refuse at any time without giving a reason; it must be easy and free to send the refusal, and sending must stop within three business days of the request arriving. Consent and refusal records are managed through the Message Management System (İYS), set up under the Ministry of Trade's authorisation.

The practical consequence for automation: a birthday email that includes a discount is a commercial message and should go only to people who have given consent. The same rule applies if you put a promotion in the welcome email. Make sure the "consented" field in your automation tool matches the İYS record; a mismatch between the two systems can quietly lead to sending to people without consent. When you are unsure, get legal advice.

How do you build a welcome flow?

The welcome email goes out at the moment the person remembers you best, which makes it the most valuable part of any flow. The first email should go out right after sign-up and do three things: confirm the sign-up worked, explain how often and what kind of emails will follow, and show one next step.

A typical welcome flow has three emails:

1. Immediately: welcome, what to expect and a single call to action (browse the catalogue, download the first guide).
2. A few days later: what makes your brand different, your most popular product or service, answers to customer questions.
3. Within a week: a clear invitation to a first purchase or a first meeting.

If the person buys or books in the meantime, they should leave the flow and move to the customer flow. For B2B businesses, the third email works better with an offer of a demo, a discovery call or a sample file instead of a discount.

How do you set up a birthday or special-date flow?

The birthday email is the simplest example of personalisation, but the data collection side needs care. If the day and month are enough for the campaign, do not ask for the birth year; not collecting data you do not need makes it easier to keep the person's trust and to meet your personal data obligations.

Watch three details when you build the flow. First, timing: send the email on the morning of the birthday or a few days before, and if there is a gift or discount, state clearly how long it can be used. Second, repetition: nobody should receive two birthday messages in the same year. Third, alternative dates: for people who do not want to share their birthday, a membership anniversary does the same job.

How does a re-engagement flow work?

People who have not interacted with your emails for a long time drag down your results and weaken deliverability for as long as they stay on the list. What counts as "a long time" depends on your buying cycle: three months for a product people buy often, a year for an annual service.

A re-engagement flow is usually two or three emails: first a light "we miss you" reminder, then content or an offer that gives value, and finally the question "do you want to keep receiving these emails?" Remove people who do not respond to the last email from your marketing sends. This clean-up step looks like shrinking, but given the spam-rate thresholds of providers such as Gmail, it is necessary for the health of your list.

Which extra flows do e-commerce stores need?

E-commerce stores add these to the basic three flows:

• Abandoned cart: a reminder to a registered customer who added products to the cart but did not complete payment. The marketing consent rule applies here too.
• Post-purchase: shipping information, usage tips, care instructions and a review request.
• Replenishment reminder: for products that run out within a certain time, a reminder based on the average usage period.

Deliverability: do your emails reach the inbox?

Google requires everyone who sends email to Gmail accounts to authenticate with SPF or DKIM and to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3 per cent. Senders of 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail accounts need all three of SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and one-click unsubscribe is mandatory for marketing messages. Messages that do not meet these rules may land in spam or be rejected. Have your domain's records checked before you launch automation.

How should you measure automation?

Do not rely on open rates as much as you used to. When Apple's Mail Privacy Protection is on, the sender cannot see whether the person opened the email, so open data can be misleading, especially on lists with many iPhone users. Judge flows by clicks, conversions (sales, appointments, forms) and unsubscribe rate. To answer "what would have happened without this flow?", the most reliable method is to leave a small control group out of the flow.

In short: a setup checklist

• Every flow has its trigger, condition and exit rule written down
• Flows with commercial content go only to people with consent, and the consent field matches İYS
• Every email has an easy, free way to unsubscribe
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on the domain have been checked
• The total number of emails per person per week is capped
• There is a re-engagement and removal rule for inactive contacts
• Success is measured by clicks and conversions, not open rate

If you want to set up your email and SMS flows together with consent management, take a look at our email and SMS marketing service, or get in touch to discuss your own situation.