Top 10 Automated Emails to Inspire Your Email Marketing Strategy

You’ve realized the benefits of email marketing automation and are ready to send automated emails.

Perfect!

Now you’re wondering – what emails to send?

From welcome emails to lead nurturing sequences, here are 10 examples of automated email workflows to help you kickstart your email marketing strategy.

Let’s delve in.

1. Welcome emails to create first impressions

A welcome email is the first interaction a new client or decision-maker has with your business. It’s your chance to make a great first impression.

In fact, welcome emails generate 4x more opens and 5x more clicks than standard bulk emails. That’s a massive opportunity to kick off your relationship on the right note.

A well-crafted welcome email should:

• Thank the user for signing up.
• Set expectations about what they’ll receive.
• Share helpful resources or onboarding content.
• Include a strong call-to-action (CTA).

Note: If your onboarding process is comprehensive, you can use an automated sequence of 2-4 welcome emails. Just ensure it’s not redundant and focus on enhancing user experience.

Here’s a welcome email example from Rocketbots.

2. Newsletters to bring authority

An email newsletter is a recurring email sent to subscribers to share updates, insights, resources, promotions, and curated content.

It’s a powerful tool for building relationships, staying top-of-mind, and driving consistent engagement with your audience. Research shows that newsletters get an impressive average open rate of 27.9%.

Use email automation to:

• Schedule weekly or monthly sends.
• Pull in content dynamically from your blog or product feed.
• Personalize based on audience interests using email list segmentation.

Here’s a newsletter example by project management platform Asana.

3. Deals and offers to encourage purchases

Everyone loves a good offer—and automated emails make it easy to deliver the right deals at the right time.

With a marketing email platform, you can:

• Automatically send discounts to new subscribers or free users.
• Trigger limited-time offers based on browsing or cart behavior.
• Re-engage users with exclusive discount coupons.

Keep in mind that personalization is key. Instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, personalize the emails by displaying product recommendations tailored to recipients’ demographics and behavior. Moreover, 72% of consumers say they only engage with brand messaging tailored to their interests.

Here’s an example of a discount offer email by Grammarly.

4. Product updates to increase adoption

Keeping your clients informed about new features, improvements, or product changes is crucial.

Product update emails can:

• Announce new launches.
• Highlight improvements to drive usage.
• Provide education around features users haven’t explored yet.

Using automated emails ensures that updates go to the right decision-makers at the right time. This keeps your users informed, reduces support queries, and increases product adoption.

Here’s a product email example by Layers, a design community platform.

5. Lead nurturing to guide prospects through the B2B funnel

Lead nurturing flows are a staple of strategic B2B email marketing. They guide your prospects from interest to decision by delivering value over time.

Examples of automated lead nurturing emails:

• Educational content based on the funnel stage
• Case studies or testimonials
• Product comparison guides

With a structured email marketing strategy and a good email automation platform, you can keep your brand top-of-mind and move leads closer to conversion.

Here’s an example of a lead nurturing email by Litmus.

6. Re-engagement emails to win back dormant accounts

Every list has inactive users. Re-engagement emails help you win them back before they permanently leave.

Great re-engagement emails include:

• “We miss you” messages with a small incentive
• Personalized recommendations or content recaps
• A simple question: “Still want to hear from us?”

According to Return Path, 45% of recipients who receive re-engagement emails read subsequent messages. These campaigns help clean your list, reduce spam complaints, and improve deliverability.

Here’s an example of a re-engagement email by Animoto.

7. Surveys to gather critical feedback

Collecting customer feedback is essential to improve your offering—and automation makes it effortless.

Set up automated survey emails that:

• Trigger after a purchase or key milestone.
• Ask about product satisfaction or customer experience.
• Feed responses into your analytics or CRM.

Surveys show that 77% of clients favor providers that proactively seek and act on feedback (Microsoft). It makes feedback emails one of the most underrated yet powerful examples of email automation.

Here’s an example of a survey email by Slack.

8. Guides and tutorials to educate clients and decision-makers

Education builds trust—and emails are a great way to deliver helpful content in bite-sized chunks.

Automate:

• Onboarding guides for new users
• Tutorials based on actions or inactivity
• Content series that help users get more value from your product

These flows are not only useful for onboarding, but they also reduce customer support tickets. For SaaS and digital products, it’s a key part of improving user retention and lifetime value.

Here’s an example of an onboarding guide email by Adalo.

9. Milestones to celebrate achievements

Milestone emails help celebrate key moments with your clients and make them feel valued.

Popular automated milestone emails:

• Birthday or anniversary greetings with a special offer
• “You’ve been with us for 1 year!” messages
• Purchase or usage milestones (“You’ve placed 5 orders!”)

Research from Experian found that birthday emails have a 179% higher click rate than promotional emails. With a good email marketing platform, you can automate these celebrations effortlessly.

Here’s an example of a milestone email by Semrush.

10. Plan renewal reminder to safeguard recurring revenue

For subscription-based businesses, reminding users about upcoming renewals is a simple yet powerful way to reduce churn and boost retention.

Automated renewal reminder emails can:

• Notify customers when their plan is about to renew.
• Highlight the value they’ve received so far.
• Offer an upgrade or cross-sell opportunity.
• Provide easy options to manage or cancel their subscription.

These reminders build trust by being transparent about billing, while also nudging customers to stay engaged with your product. They also reduce the likelihood of surprise charges leading to cancellations or disputes.

Here’s a friendly annual payment reminder email from Help Scout.

11. Payment failed email to recover lost revenue

Failed payments are inevitable, but they don’t have to mean lost customers. An automated payment failure email helps you recover revenue and maintain customer relationships.

A good payment failed email should:

• Clearly explain the issue (expired card, insufficient funds, etc.).
• Provide an easy way to update payment details.
• Reassure customers that their account will be restored once resolved.
• Use urgency (“Your subscription will pause in 3 days”) to encourage quick action.

Here’s an example of a payment failed email by Squarespace.

Wrap up: Bring your email strategy to life

These email automation examples are just the beginning. Start with the ones that match your business goals, and expand from there. With the right email automation platform, these flows can be launched in days—not weeks.

eGrowthEngine makes it easy to build, personalize, and track your automated emails—all in one place. From welcome sequences to re-engagement flows, we give you the tools to run smarter, faster campaigns.