Drip campaigns are emails that arrive because of something a person did, on a clock that starts when they do it. Somebody signs up, buys, or goes quiet, and their own short series begins. A broadcast works the other way round, because one message goes to everybody at a time you picked. This article is about choosing between the two.
Both have a job, and most email programmes need the two of them. If you are still working out what email should do for the business, our plain guide to email marketing covers the ground underneath this article.
What drip campaigns actually are
Every one of them has three parts. There is a trigger, which is the thing a person did. There is an order, which is the emails and what each one says. Then there are the waits in between.
Change any of the three and you have a different campaign. Most of the thinking belongs in the trigger, since the trigger decides who ever sees the series at all.
The name comes from the pace. Emails drip out one at a time instead of landing in a single pour. Nothing about that is clever on its own. What makes drip campaigns useful is that each reader meets them at the same point in their own story, rather than in yours.
Broadcasts, and what they are good at
A broadcast is one send, to a group you choose, at a moment you choose. Newsletters, launch notes and event reminders all work this way, and they should.
Timing is the whole reason. Some messages only make sense on the day, because the sale opens, the venue moves, or the report lands. No trigger can see those coming, so a person has to press send. Our piece on newsletters people look forward to goes further into that half of the programme.
Broadcasts also keep a whole list warm, which a series cannot. Readers who joined two years ago still hear from you, while a sequence only speaks to whoever triggered it this week.
Drip campaigns and broadcasts, side by side
The differences look small on paper. In practice they change how you write, how you measure, and what tends to break.
| Question | Drip campaigns | Broadcasts |
|---|---|---|
| What starts it | Something the reader did | A date you chose |
| Who gets it | One person at a time | Everybody in the group |
| When it lands | When that person acts | The same hour for all |
| How often you write it | Once, then leave it alone | Every single time |
| Best at | Welcomes, recovery, follow up | News, offers, anything dated |
| Usual failure | It runs unread for months | It lands while nobody is ready |
When drip campaigns beat a broadcast
Reach for a sequence when the right moment is different for every reader.
- A welcome series, because day one falls on a different date for each subscriber.
- Onboarding, where each email follows a step somebody is working through.
- Recovery, once a basket or a form has sat unfinished for a day.
- Follow up after a purchase, since the useful advice depends on what they bought.
- Quiet contacts, who need a different tone from people who open everything.
All five share a shape. The event that makes the email relevant happens on a date you cannot predict, so no calendar can help you. That is the honest test for drip campaigns. If a date would do the job, send a broadcast and save yourself the build.
When a broadcast is the better answer
Use one when the news is the same for everybody, which covers more of the year than people expect. A price change, an event, a new opening. None of those wait for a reader to act.
Broadcasts are also the faster way to learn. Send to the list and you know within a day whether the subject line worked. A sequence answers the same question over weeks, because readers trickle into it a few at a time. So early on, while you are still finding the voice, a broadcast teaches you more per hour of writing.
The trigger is where drip campaigns fail
Most broken sequences fail at the entry rather than in the writing. The emails read fine. The wrong people receive them, or the right people receive them twice.
Write the trigger as a plain sentence before you build anything. Something like: somebody downloads the checklist and has never bought from us. Then write the exit the same way, because a sequence with no exit will keep selling to a customer who already paid.
Entry rules worth setting on day one
- One sequence per person at a time, so two never overlap in an inbox.
- A hold on anybody who ordered in the last few days.
- Exit on reply, if a human answers replies.
- Re-entry switched off unless you have a reason to allow it.
Those four rules prevent most of the embarrassing moments. Better still, they cost nothing to set while the campaign is small.
Segmentation decides who ever enters
A trigger is really a segment with a start time attached. The narrower the group, the more direct the writing can be, which is the argument our article on email segmentation makes at length.
Start with two or three groups you can describe in a sentence. New subscriber. First time buyer. Gone quiet since spring. Anything finer than that usually splits your attention before it splits your list.
How long to wait between emails
Match the gap to how fast the reader is moving. Somebody who left a basket an hour ago is still deciding, so a wait of three days throws the moment away. Somebody learning a craft can happily wait a week between lessons.
Usually the gaps widen as the sequence goes on. Tight at the start, while the reason for writing is fresh. Looser later, once the urgency has gone.
A worked example, with round numbers chosen to make the arithmetic easy rather than to describe a typical list. Say ten people enter a five email sequence every week. After a month it has sent about two hundred emails, and nobody wrote a word in that time. A single broadcast to four hundred readers sends four hundred in one evening. The sequence is quieter day to day, which is exactly why nobody notices when it breaks.
That quietness is the real risk. So put a note in the calendar to read every sequence end to end once a quarter, exactly as a subscriber would.
What to put inside drip campaigns
One idea per email, and one thing to do next. That is most of the craft.
The first email carries the weight, since it arrives while the reason is still fresh. Say what they did, say what happens next, and give them the one link that matters. Later emails can add proof, answer an objection, or show the thing in use.
Write them as a set rather than one at a time. Read the whole sequence aloud in order, because repetition that hides in a draft becomes obvious when four emails sit together.
Measuring drip campaigns
You judge a broadcast on one send. You judge a sequence on the journey, which needs a different set of numbers.
Ask three things. How many people enter each week? How many reach the last email? And how many do the thing the sequence exists for? Entry is the one everybody forgets, because a sequence nobody enters still looks healthy in a report.
Open counts can drift for reasons that have nothing to do with your writing, so treat them as a hint rather than a verdict. Replies, clicks and orders are the honest signals for drip campaigns.
When not to build drip campaigns
If the list is tiny, do not bother yet. Ten new contacts a month do not need a machine, because one person can write to ten people properly.
Skip them, too, while the offer changes every fortnight. An automated sequence describing last month's service is worse than silence. Until the story settles, send by hand and keep the flexibility.
And if nobody has answered the question of what happens after a reader replies, fix that first. A sequence that raises interest with no one to catch it simply annoys people faster.
Getting your first drip campaigns live
Start with one sequence, not five. The welcome is usually the right one, because everybody joins the list at some point and the trigger is obvious. Our guide to a welcome email series covers what belongs in each message.
Build it, watch it for a month, and fix what the numbers show. Then add the next one. The order that suits most businesses, and the reasoning behind it, sits in our piece on what to automate first.
Two working drip campaigns beat eight half finished ones, in the same way that one good broadcast a month beats four rushed ones. The point of automation is not volume. It is that the right email reaches the reader at the moment it makes sense.
Frequently asked questions
What are drip campaigns in email marketing?
Drip campaigns are short sequences of emails that start when a reader does something, such as joining a list or leaving a basket behind. Every person moves through the same emails on their own clock. That is the difference from a broadcast, which goes to a whole group at one chosen moment. Once you build the sequence, it runs without anybody pressing send.
How are drip campaigns different from a newsletter?
A newsletter is a broadcast. You write it, choose who receives it, and send it on a date that suits you. Drip campaigns work the other way round, because the reader's own action decides when each email lands. Newsletters keep a whole list warm, while a sequence speaks to one person at the point they acted. Most programmes need both.
How many emails should a sequence have?
Enough to finish the job and no more. Three or four often covers a welcome, while onboarding may run longer because it follows real steps somebody is working through. Write the last email first, then work backwards to the opening one. If an email exists only to keep the schedule ticking, cut it and close the gap.
How long should the gaps between emails be?
Long enough that the next email still makes sense, and no longer. Work backwards from the decision the reader is weighing up, because a basket left an hour ago and a course studied over a month move at different speeds. Then send the sequence to yourself and read it at the real pace. A gap that looked tidy in the builder often feels either pushy or forgotten once it lands in a genuine inbox.
Do drip campaigns need expensive software?
Check your own plan rather than assuming either way. Sending on a trigger is a normal thing to ask an email tool for, but which plan includes it varies between tools and it changes over time. So open the account you already pay for and try to build a two email sequence before you buy anything new. If nobody on your team can reach the feature without help, the price is not really the problem.
Can somebody sit in two sequences at once?
Yes, and that is how a reader ends up with four emails in one morning. Look in your tool for a setting that holds each person in one sequence at a time, then add an exit for anybody who buys or replies. Names for those settings vary, so search the help pages for the tool you actually use. Then subscribe yourself with a spare address and walk the whole thing through as a new reader would.
How do I know if a sequence is working?
Give it enough entries to mean anything first. A sequence that ten people have seen tells you almost nothing, so wait until a few months of readers have gone through it before you rewrite anything. Then compare the whole journey against doing the same job by hand. If the emails produce fewer replies or orders than one person writing individually, the automation is buying you time rather than results, which is still a fair reason to keep it.
Are drip campaigns worth it for a small list?
Not until the same message is worth sending more than once. Automation pays for itself through repetition, so a list that adds a handful of contacts a month rarely justifies the build. Writing to those people yourself teaches you what the sequence should eventually say. Drip campaigns then become a way to stop retyping an email you have already written by hand, which is the point where they start saving real time.
What is the most common mistake with drip campaigns?
Leaving them running with nobody reading them. A sequence sends quietly, so a broken link or an out of date offer can sit in it for months. The second most common fault is a missing exit, which lets drip campaigns keep selling to a customer who already bought. Read yours end to end once a quarter.