Your onboarding email says "welcome" but doesn't drive action
Your welcome email gets the highest open rate of any email you'll ever send. Make it count with one clear action.
When to use
Your welcome email has multiple CTAs or links and low engagement.
Hypothesis template
If we rewrite the welcome email with fill in: one specific CTA, first-action completion will increase by fill in: target% because focus drives action.
Method
The problem: Your welcome email says "Welcome to [Product]! Here are all the things you can do: ..." and lists 8 features. Users read it and do nothing.
How to do it:
- Your welcome email gets 50-80% open rate - the highest of any email
- Include ONE action: the single most important thing a new user should do
- Write 3 sentences max: what to do, why it matters, button to do it
- Remove all other links, features, and distractions
- Make the CTA button large and obvious
- Track: click rate, action completion rate, comparison to current welcome email
Key insight: Welcome emails with 1 CTA get 3x more clicks than those with 3+ CTAs. Every additional link dilutes the action you actually want.
Success metrics
- •Welcome email click rate
- •First action completion rate
- •Day 1 return rate
- •Click rate vs previous welcome email
Prerequisites
- An email template you can modify
- A clear #1 action for new users
- Analytics on email engagement
Common pitfalls
- •Including multiple links and CTAs
- •Writing too much text
- •Making the CTA generic ("Get Started" vs "Create your first experiment")
- •Not testing against the current version
Source: Campaign Monitor data. Emails with 1 CTA get 371% more clicks than those with multiple CTAs.
Suggested ICE scores
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