The Welcome Journey Template lets you configure an automated sequence that nurtures new leads and delivers relevant content to recent subscribers without manual intervention. The workflow is designed to engage contacts during the initial period after they join a list, which supports stronger relationship-building and more consistent outcomes across campaigns.
Using journey automation reduces the manual effort required to communicate with new subscribers at scale. A properly configured welcome journey sets clear expectations with new contacts during the onboarding period, which can also reduce unsubscribe activity during this phase.
This template is used to create a journey that sends a series of introductory emails to new subscribers.
Usage Scenario
Use this template when you want an automated method for sending a sequence of welcome emails to new subscribers. These emails introduce your business, establish a connection with the contact, and help subscribers understand how to use your products or services.
Prerequisites
Before you configure a welcome journey, confirm that you have:
Setting Up a Welcome Journey Template
Implementing a Welcome Journey using the template requires two steps. In the first step, you configure the journey's settings. In the second step, you configure the trigger and assign content to each email.
1. From the Journey Selection page, choose the Welcome widget.
2. From the dialog box that opens, click Create.
3. In step 1 (Settings for Welcome Journey), enter a name for the journey in the Journey Name field. Optionally, enter a date and time in the End Date and End Time fields. If you set these fields, the journey becomes inactive at the specified date and time.
4. Optionally, select the Enable Journey checkbox to activate the journey immediately upon creation. If you select this checkbox, you must include all required content before saving, since the journey becomes active as soon as you save it. Furthermore, you can select the Retrigger Journey checkbox to allow contacts who have already completed the journey to re-enter it if they match the trigger criteria again. Click Next to proceed to step 2.
5. In step 2 (Setup for Welcome Journey), enter the sender's name in the From Name field and the sender's email address in the From Email Address field. These values populate as the default sender information for each email in the journey, and you can change them later within each Send Email action in the journey builder.
Tip: The domain of the “From Email Address” is, by default, your account’s sending domain and appears within each email section of a journey. You can modify your existing sending domain by clicking on the “Send Email” action widget of the journey builder.
6. Set up the trigger by selecting one or more contact lists from the Select List drop-down list. The trigger determines when a contact enters the journey. For a welcome journey, the trigger event occurs when a contact is added to any of the selected lists for the first time.
Important: You must select at least one contact list to define the trigger before proceeding.
7. In the Set Up Content section, assign content to each of the three emails sent by the journey. Select content for each email using the corresponding Select Content drop-down list:
- For Email 1: Introduction, select content that introduces your business and services.
- For Email 2: Expectations, select content that sets clear expectations for subscribers.
- For Email 3: Benefits, select content that describes how your business can help the subscriber.
The following table describes the purpose of each email in the sequence:
Email | Purpose |
|---|
Email 1: Introduction | Introduces the contact to your brand, sets expectations, and explains what to expect from future emails. This email is not intended for promotional content. |
Email 2: Expectations | Shows subscribers what to expect from being on the list. Include representative content to demonstrate ongoing value. |
Email 3: Benefits | Explains what distinguishes your company and why the subscriber should continue receiving your emails. |
Note: The delay between each email in the sequence is 1 day.
8. Click Finish to create the journey.
9. The journey template has been set up. You can access its journey flow (canvas workspace) from the index page by clicking the journey name or the Edit Journey Builder option in the Actions dropdown menu.
10. You will be redirected to the journey canvas, wherein you can customize or redesign the flow that the system created on your behalf. To learn more about developing a journey flow schematic, refer to our Creating Journeys article.
