A drip campaign is a series of emails written in advance and sent automatically to each person on a set schedule after something happens, usually signing up. Each contact starts at email one on their own date and receives the rest at fixed intervals, such as day 0, day 3 and day 7. The name comes from the way information is released a little at a time.
Drip campaigns are good at teaching and nurturing. An online course can introduce one lesson per email. A software product can show one feature at a time to new trial users. A B2B consultancy can send a short case study every week to a new enquiry. Because everyone gets the same carefully planned sequence, it is easy to improve one email at a time based on results.
A pure drip campaign doesn’t react to what people do, which is its main limitation. Someone who already bought keeps receiving “Have you tried us yet?”, and someone who clicked eagerly on the first email waits a week for the next. Adding a goal that stops the sequence after a conversion, and one or two branches based on clicks, turns a basic drip into a more responsive automation without making it complicated.
Timing should follow the reader’s needs rather than a habit. Space emails closer together right after sign-up, when interest is highest, and further apart later. Check the drop-off at each step: if most people stop opening at email four, the sequence is probably too long or that email isn’t useful.
A Bhubaneswar accounting software company sends new trial users a five-email drip over two weeks: getting started, creating a GST invoice, connecting a bank account, inviting the accountant, and a reminder before the trial ends. Users who upgrade early leave the sequence.
MailNesto builds drip campaigns on its automation canvas, with waits, goals that stop the sequence once someone converts, and recipes such as a three-email Welcome series to start from.