An email flow is an automated sequence triggered by a person's behavior or by a date. Once it is set up, it runs for every subscriber or customer who meets the trigger, without you sending anything by hand.
Flows differ from campaigns. A campaign is a one-off email sent to a list at a chosen time, such as a sale announcement; a flow is sent to one person at the right moment for them. These are the core flows for a store:
- Welcome series: introduces the brand to new subscribers.
- Abandoned cart and browse abandonment: brings back shoppers who left.
- Post-purchase: thanks the buyer, helps them use the product and asks for a review.
- Win-back: reaches customers who haven't ordered in a while.
Because they reach people when interest is highest, flows tend to earn well for the effort they take, and they keep working in the background. Set up the core flows before you spend time on frequent campaigns.
Common mistakes: one generic flow for everyone, flows that never get updated, and flows that keep pushing a first-order offer to people who already bought. In SellWinners, Shop Emails shows which campaign types a brand relies on and how often it sends.