Onboarding Email Examples: 25+ Sequences That Turn New Users Into Active, Engaged Customers
Onboarding emails achieve 50% higher open rates and 4x higher click-through rates than standard marketing emails. Yet 75% of users abandon products within the first week because brands fail to guide them to their first moment of value.
The difference between onboarding sequences that drive activation and those that lose users comes down to strategic guidance, timely education, and understanding that the first 7-14 days determine long-term retention and customer lifetime value.
I'm Chase Dimond, and over my career managing $200+ million in eCommerce email campaigns for 7-figure, 8-figure, and 9-figure brands, I've developed onboarding sequences that increase activation rates by 40-60% and customer lifetime value by 50-80%. The best onboarding emails don't just welcome users—they strategically guide them to success and habit formation.
In this comprehensive guide, I'll share 25+ onboarding email sequences that drive activation and retention, break down the psychology of effective onboarding, and show you how to create sequences that turn signups into loyal customers. Plus, I'll reveal how top brands use competitive intelligence tools like Inboox.ai to analyze competitor onboarding strategies and create experiences that outperform their market.
Table of Contents
What Makes Effective Onboarding Emails?
The Chase Dimond Onboarding Framework
SaaS Onboarding Email Examples
Ecommerce Onboarding Email Examples
App Onboarding Email Examples
Membership Onboarding Email Examples
Course and Education Onboarding Examples
Common Onboarding Mistakes
FAQ: Onboarding Email Best Practices
What Makes Effective Onboarding Emails?
Onboarding emails are strategic sequences designed to guide new users from signup to activation—their first meaningful experience of value. Unlike welcome emails (which simply greet), onboarding emails progressively teach, motivate, and guide users toward success.
The onboarding journey:
Welcome: Confirm signup, set expectations
Activation: Guide to first value moment
Education: Teach key features and capabilities
Habit formation: Encourage regular usage
Expansion: Introduce advanced features or upgrades
Why Onboarding Emails Are Critical
Impact on business metrics:
Activation rates: Good onboarding increases activation by 40-60%
Retention: Users who complete onboarding have 3-5x higher retention
Lifetime value: Properly onboarded users spend 50-80% more
Churn reduction: Onboarding reduces 30-day churn by 40-50%
Support costs: Clear onboarding reduces support tickets by 30-40%
Throughout my work with 7-figure, 8-figure, and 9-figure eCommerce brands, I've found that brands with strategic onboarding sequences see 2-3x higher customer lifetime value compared to those with basic welcome emails.
The Psychology of Effective Onboarding
Key psychological principles:
1. The Zeigarnik Effect: People remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones
Use progress indicators to encourage completion
Break onboarding into achievable steps
Celebrate milestone completions
2. The Endowed Progress Effect: Showing progress toward a goal motivates completion
"You're 30% complete" drives action
Pre-populate progress when possible
Visual progress bars increase completion
3. The Peak-End Rule: People judge experiences by peaks and endings
Create "aha moments" early in onboarding
End each email with a win
Design for memorable positive experiences
4. Commitment and Consistency: Small commitments lead to larger ones
Start with easy, quick wins
Build toward more involved actions
Each completed step increases likelihood of next
Chase's Onboarding Principle: "The goal of onboarding isn't education—it's activation. Get users to their first moment of value as quickly as possible, then teach them everything else. Value first, features second."
The Chase Dimond Onboarding Framework
After building onboarding sequences for dozens of high-growth brands, I've developed a systematic approach:
The 5-Phase Onboarding Email System
Phase 1: Immediate Welcome (0-15 minutes)
Confirm signup
Set expectations
Provide first quick win
Establish communication cadence
Phase 2: Activation (Day 1-3)
Guide to core feature/first value
Remove friction
Celebrate first success
Teach essential actions
Phase 3: Education (Day 4-7)
Introduce key features
Share use cases and examples
Address common questions
Build confidence
Phase 4: Habit Formation (Day 8-14)
Encourage regular usage
Share tips and best practices
Introduce power features
Reinforce value
Phase 5: Expansion (Day 15-30)
Introduce advanced capabilities
Upgrade prompts (if applicable)
Community/resource connections
Long-term success planning
The Chase Dimond Activation Rate Formula: Activation Rate = (Users Who Experience Value / Total Signups) × 100. Focus onboarding on maximizing this single metric. Everything else—features, education, tips—is secondary to getting users to experience core value.
Onboarding Email Timing Strategy
Based on my $200+ million in campaigns, here's optimal timing:
Email frequency by phase:
Day 0 (signup): Immediate welcome
Day 1: Activation guidance
Day 2: Quick win reinforcement
Day 3: Feature introduction
Day 5: Use case education
Day 7: Progress check-in
Day 10: Advanced tips
Day 14: Milestone celebration
Day 21: Upgrade/expansion (if applicable)
Day 30: Long-term success planning
Frequency principle: More frequent early (when engagement is highest), less frequent later (as users gain independence).
SaaS Onboarding Email Examples
SaaS onboarding focuses on feature adoption and activation.
Example 1: The Immediate Welcome + First Action
Use case: SaaS product signup
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 1: Immediate (within 1-2 minutes)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome to [Product]!
Hi [First Name],
Thanks for signing up! Let's get you started.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR FIRST STEP (Takes 2 minutes):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ Your account is ready
→ [Complete your profile]
→ [Invite your team]
→ [Create your first project]
[Get Started Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT TO EXPECT:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Over the next 7 days, we'll help you:
• [Key benefit 1]
• [Key benefit 2]
• [Key benefit 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Need help? We're here.
[Link to support | Live chat]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Immediate delivery: Confirms signup, reduces anxiety
Clear first action: One specific next step
Quick win focus: "Takes 2 minutes" reduces friction
Sets expectations: What's coming next
Support visibility: Help is easy to access
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 60-70%
Click rate: 30-40%
First action completion: 25-35%
Key elements:
Simple checklist of initial actions
Time estimate (reduces overwhelm)
Clear CTA button
Support access
Example 2: The Activation Push (Day 1)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 2: Day 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[First Name], here's your quick win
You're 24 hours in! Let's get you your first result.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR QUICK WIN (5 minutes):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Core action that delivers immediate value]
[Visual/GIF showing exactly how to do it]
[Do This Now Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY THIS MATTERS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This is the single most important thing you can
do in [Product]. Once you do this, you'll
[specific benefit/outcome].
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEED A HAND?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Link to video tutorial]
[Link to help article]
[Book 15-min onboarding call]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Urgency without pressure: "24 hours in" creates momentum
Single focused action: No decision paralysis
Value-first messaging: Explains why, not just what
Visual guidance: Shows exactly how
Multiple support options: Video, docs, live help
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 50-60%
Click rate: 25-35%
Activation rate: 20-30%
Example 3: The Feature Education (Day 3)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 3: Day 3
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You've mastered [Feature 1]. Here's what's next.
Hi [First Name],
Great work! You've [completed activation action].
Now let's multiply your results.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3 POWER FEATURES TO TRY:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1️⃣ [Feature Name]
[One-line benefit]
[Try it →]
2️⃣ [Feature Name]
[One-line benefit]
[Try it →]
3️⃣ [Feature Name]
[One-line benefit]
[Try it →]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOW [CUSTOMER] USES [PRODUCT]:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Brief customer story/use case]
"[Testimonial quote]" - Customer Name
[Read Full Story →]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Celebrates progress: Acknowledges activation
Logical progression: Builds on what they learned
Feature benefits: Why, not just what
Social proof: Customer story provides context
Clear next actions: Multiple entry points
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 45-55%
Feature adoption: 15-25%
Example 4: The Progress Check-In (Day 7)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 4: Day 7
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Your first week with [Product]
Hi [First Name],
You've been with us for a week! Here's what
you've accomplished:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR PROGRESS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ [Completed action 1]
✓ [Completed action 2]
✓ [Completed action 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR RESULTS SO FAR:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Metric 1]: [Number]
[Metric 2]: [Number]
[Metric 3]: [Number]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
□ [Next recommended action]
□ [Next recommended action]
□ [Next recommended action]
[Continue Your Journey Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOW ARE WE DOING?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Quick question: How likely are you to recommend
[Product] to a colleague?
[1-10 rating scale]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Progress celebration: Shows accomplishments
Data-driven: Quantifies their results
Forward-looking: Clear next steps
Feedback request: Gauges satisfaction early
Milestone recognition: Week marker feels significant
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 40-50%
NPS response rate: 20-30%
Next action completion: 15-20%
Example 5: The Upgrade Prompt (Day 14-21)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 5: Day 14-21 (for freemium/trial)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You're crushing it. Ready to unlock more?
Hi [First Name],
You've [achieved result] in just two weeks.
Imagine what you could do with [Pro features]...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOU'VE ALREADY:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ [Accomplishment 1]
✓ [Accomplishment 2]
✓ [Accomplishment 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
UPGRADE TO UNLOCK:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🚀 [Premium feature 1] - [Benefit]
🚀 [Premium feature 2] - [Benefit]
🚀 [Premium feature 3] - [Benefit]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SPECIAL OFFER:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Upgrade in the next 48 hours and save 20%
$XX/month → $XX/month
[Upgrade Now Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NOT READY YET?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
That's okay! Here are more ways to maximize
your free plan:
[Link to tips]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Celebrates success: Acknowledges their wins first
Aspirational framing: "Imagine what you could do"
Clear value add: What unlocking provides
Time-limited offer: Creates urgency
Respectful alternative: Option to stay on free plan
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 35-45%
Upgrade rate: 5-12% (varies by product/pricing)
Ecommerce Onboarding Email Examples
Ecommerce onboarding focuses on first purchase and repeat behavior.
Example 6: The Welcome + Discount Delivery
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 1: Immediate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome to [Brand]! Here's 15% off 🎉
Hi [First Name],
Thanks for joining our community!
Here's your welcome gift:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
15% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER
CODE: WELCOME15
[Shop Now Button]
Expires in 7 days
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
START HERE:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BESTSELLERS:
[Product 1] [Product 2] [Product 3]
[Image] [Image] [Image]
Name Name Name
$XX $XX $XX
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
[Shop] [Shop] [Shop]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM US:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 Free shipping on orders $[X]+
⭐ Exclusive subscriber sales
🎁 Birthday month discount
💡 Style tips and inspiration
We email 2-3x per week
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Immediate incentive: Discount delivered as promised
Featured products: Removes choice paralysis
Social proof: Star ratings reduce risk
Value preview: What subscribers get
Time limit: Creates urgency
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 55-65%
First purchase rate: 15-25%
Example 7: The Brand Story (Day 2)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 2: Day 2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This is why we started [Brand]
Hi [First Name],
Before you shop, I wanted to share our story...
[Founder photo]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OUR MISSION:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[2-3 paragraphs of authentic brand origin story
- the problem they saw
- why they started the company
- what makes them different]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "[Testimonial quote]"
- Customer Name
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "[Testimonial quote]"
- Customer Name
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "[Testimonial quote]"
- Customer Name
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HAVEN'T USED YOUR DISCOUNT?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Your WELCOME15 code expires in 5 days.
[Shop Now Button]
Thanks for joining us,
[Founder Name]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Emotional connection: Story builds brand affinity
Personal touch: Founder message feels authentic
Social proof: Multiple testimonials build trust
Gentle reminder: Discount mention without pressure
Human element: Real person behind brand
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 45-55%
Click rate: 10-15%
Purchase rate: 8-12%
Example 8: The Educational Value (Day 4)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 3: Day 4
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
How to get the most from [Product Category]
Hi [First Name],
Since you're interested in [product category],
here are 5 tips to maximize your results:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5 EXPERT TIPS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. [Actionable tip with brief explanation]
2. [Actionable tip with brief explanation]
3. [Actionable tip with brief explanation]
4. [Actionable tip with brief explanation]
5. [Actionable tip with brief explanation]
[Read Full Guide →]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Based on what you're interested in:
[Product 1] [Product 2]
[Relevant recommendations]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Your WELCOME15 discount expires tomorrow!
[Shop Now]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Value first: Education before selling
Actionable content: Practical tips users can apply
Product relevance: Recommendations based on interest
Urgency escalation: Discount expiring tomorrow
Expert positioning: Builds brand authority
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 40-50%
Click rate: 12-18%
Purchase rate: 6-10%
Example 9: The Social Proof Showcase (Day 6)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 4: Day 6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Join 10,000+ happy customers
Hi [First Name],
You're in good company. Here's what customers
are saying about [Brand]:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
REAL CUSTOMER REVIEWS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Customer photo]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"[Detailed testimonial about specific benefit]"
- Customer Name, Verified Buyer
[Customer photo]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"[Testimonial]"
- Customer Name, Verified Buyer
[Customer photo]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"[Testimonial]"
- Customer Name, Verified Buyer
[Read 1,000+ More Reviews →]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BEST SELLERS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What customers love most:
[Top 3 products with ratings]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
READY TO JOIN THEM?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Use code NEWCUSTOMER for 10% off
(Since your WELCOME15 expired)
[Shop Bestsellers Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Overwhelming social proof: Multiple testimonials
Real customers: Photos increase authenticity
Specific benefits: Not generic praise
Bestseller validation: What others buy
New offer: Gives discount-expired users another chance
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 35-45%
Purchase rate: 5-9%
App Onboarding Email Examples
App onboarding drives downloads and active usage.
Example 10: The App Download Push
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 1: Immediate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome to [App]! Download now.
Hi [First Name],
Your account is ready. Download the app to
get started:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DOWNLOAD THE APP:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[iOS App Store Button]
[Google Play Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📱 [Key feature 1]
📱 [Key feature 2]
📱 [Key feature 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GET A HEAD START:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Complete these steps today:
✓ Download the app
✓ Enable notifications
✓ [Complete first key action]
[Download Now Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Clear primary action: Download app
Benefit focus: Why download
Checklist approach: Breaks down onboarding
Platform options: iOS and Android
Quick start guidance: What to do first
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 60-70%
Download rate: 20-30%
Example 11: The First Action Completion (Day 1)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 2: Day 1 (if app downloaded)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[First Name], complete your first [action]
You downloaded the app! Now let's get you
your first win.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR FIRST [ACTION] (2 minutes):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Step-by-step guidance]
[Screenshot or GIF]
1. [Step 1]
2. [Step 2]
3. [Step 3]
[Open App Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Explanation of value this action provides]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEED HELP?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Video tutorial]
[Help center]
[In-app chat]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Conditional send: Only to app downloaders
Specific first action: No ambiguity
Visual guidance: Screenshots/GIFs show how
Time estimate: "2 minutes" reduces friction
Value explanation: Why this matters
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 50-60%
First action completion: 30-40%
Membership Onboarding Email Examples
Membership onboarding focuses on engagement and renewal.
Example 12: The Benefits Showcase
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 1: Immediate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome! Here's everything included in your
[Membership Level] membership
Hi [First Name],
You're officially a [Brand] member! Here's what
you get:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR MEMBER BENEFITS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ [Benefit 1 with description]
✓ [Benefit 2 with description]
✓ [Benefit 3 with description]
✓ [Benefit 4 with description]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
START USING YOUR BENEFITS TODAY:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Quick action 1] → [Link]
[Quick action 2] → [Link]
[Quick action 3] → [Link]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MEMBER PORTAL:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Access everything in one place:
[Access Portal Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Comprehensive benefits list: Shows full value
Action-oriented: Specific things to do
Portal access: Central hub for everything
Immediate value delivery: Can use benefits today
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 65-75%
Portal access rate: 40-50%
Benefit usage: 25-35%
Course and Education Onboarding Examples
Course onboarding drives completion and results.
Example 13: The Course Welcome + Access
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 1: Immediate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Your [Course Name] journey starts now
Hi [First Name],
Welcome to [Course Name]! You're about to
[course outcome/transformation].
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ACCESS YOUR COURSE:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Login: [Email]
Password: [Set your password]
[Access Course Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR COURSE ROADMAP:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 Module 1: [Title] - [Duration]
📚 Module 2: [Title] - [Duration]
📚 Module 3: [Title] - [Duration]
📚 Module 4: [Title] - [Duration]
Total: [X] hours of content
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
START HERE:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Watch the welcome video (5 min)
[Watch Now →]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT YOU'LL ACHIEVE:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
✓ [Learning outcome 1]
✓ [Learning outcome 2]
✓ [Learning outcome 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
JOIN THE COMMUNITY:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Connect with other students:
[Facebook Group] | [Slack Channel] | [Forum]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Immediate access: Login info provided
Clear roadmap: What to expect
First small win: 5-minute welcome video
Outcome focus: What they'll achieve
Community connection: Peer support
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 70-80%
First login rate: 50-60%
Welcome video completion: 40-50%
Example 14: The Progress Celebration (After Module 1)
Email sequence:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EMAIL 2: After completing Module 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎉 You completed Module 1!
Hi [First Name],
Amazing work! You've completed the first module.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR PROGRESS:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Progress bar: 25% complete]
✓ Module 1 - Completed
→ Module 2 - Up next
Module 3
Module 4
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ [Key concept 1]
✓ [Key concept 2]
✓ [Key concept 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
READY FOR MODULE 2?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In Module 2, you'll learn:
• [Topic 1]
• [Topic 2]
• [Topic 3]
[Continue to Module 2 Button]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUICK TIP:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Actionable tip related to Module 1 content]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What makes it effective:
Celebrates achievement: Recognizes progress
Visual progress: Shows completion percentage
Preview next: What's coming
Momentum building: Encourages continuation
Reinforcement: Quick tip applies learning
Performance benchmarks:
Open rate: 60-70%
Module 2 start rate: 45-55%
Common Onboarding Mistakes
After analyzing thousands of onboarding sequences through Inboox.ai, here are the most common mistakes:
Mistake 1: Too Much, Too Fast
The mistake: Overwhelming users with everything at once
Why it fails:
Information overload
Decision paralysis
Abandonment
Low activation
The fix:
Progressive disclosure
One primary action per email
Spread onboarding over 7-30 days
Focus on activation first, features second
Impact: Focused onboarding increases activation by 40-60%.
Mistake 2: Feature-Focused Instead of Value-Focused
The mistake: Explaining features without showing value
Why it fails:
Users don't care about features
They want outcomes
Feature lists don't motivate
Misses emotional connection
The fix:
Lead with benefits and outcomes
"You'll be able to..." not "The product has..."
Show results, not capabilities
Use case focus
Chase's Value-First Rule: "Users don't buy features, they buy better versions of themselves. Show them who they'll become, not what buttons to click."
Mistake 3: No Clear Activation Moment
The mistake: No defined "success" moment in onboarding
Why it fails:
Users don't know if they're succeeding
No clear goal to work toward
Can't measure onboarding effectiveness
No celebration of wins
The fix:
Define activation (core value moment)
Guide users explicitly to that moment
Celebrate when they reach it
Measure % of users who activate
Activation examples:
SaaS: Create first project/report
Ecommerce: Complete first purchase
App: Complete core action 3x
Course: Complete Module 1
Mistake 4: Generic, One-Size-Fits-All
The mistake: Same onboarding for all user types
Why it fails:
Different users have different needs
Generic feels impersonal
Lower relevance
Reduced engagement
The fix:
Segment by user type/goal
Personalize onboarding path
Ask about use case during signup
Adapt sequence based on behavior
Segmentation options:
By role/job title
By use case
By industry
By goal
Mistake 5: No Progress Indicators
The mistake: Users don't know where they are in onboarding
Why it fails:
No sense of progress
Feels endless
No motivation to complete
Higher drop-off
The fix:
Visual progress bars
Checklist of steps
"You're X% complete" messaging
Celebrate milestones
Impact: Progress indicators increase onboarding completion by 30-40%.
Mistake 6: Ignoring Non-Engagers
The mistake: No follow-up for users who don't activate
Why it fails:
Misses recovery opportunity
Users slip away quietly
No feedback on why they left
Lost revenue
The fix:
Monitor activation rate
Send re-engagement email at Day 3-5 if no activity
Ask what's blocking them
Offer help/support
Provide alternative path
Re-engagement email example:
Subject: Having trouble getting started?
Hi [First Name],
I noticed you haven't [activated yet].
What's blocking you?
→ Not sure where to start?
→ Technical issues?
→ Not what you expected?
Hit reply and let me know. I'm here to help.
[Founder/Team Name]
Analyzing Competitor Onboarding
Want to see how competitors onboard users? Use Inboox.ai to analyze competitor onboarding sequences.
Inboox.ai allows you to sign up for competitor products and track their complete onboarding sequence. This gives you:
Full onboarding email flow
Timing and frequency patterns
Activation strategies
Feature education approaches
Upgrade/monetization tactics
Re-engagement strategies
I recommend using Inboox.ai to analyze 10-15 competitor onboarding sequences to identify:
Best practices in your industry
Onboarding length (how many emails, over how many days)
Activation focus (what action they push toward)
Content balance (education vs. action vs. promotion)
Opportunities to differentiate
For more onboarding strategies, subscribe to my email marketing newsletter where I break down winning onboarding sequences.
FAQ: Onboarding Email Best Practices
What's the difference between welcome emails and onboarding emails?
Welcome emails:
Single email (or short 2-3 email sequence)
Greets new subscribers
Delivers promised incentive
Sets expectations
Goal: Make good first impression
Onboarding emails:
Longer sequence (5-15+ emails over 7-30 days)
Guides users to activation and success
Progressive feature education
Habit formation focus
Goal: Drive activation and retention
Key difference: Welcome emails greet. Onboarding emails guide to value.
Overlap: First onboarding email is often the welcome email.
How long should an onboarding sequence be?
Optimal length varies by complexity:
Simple products (ecommerce, simple apps):
3-5 emails
Over 7-10 days
Focus on first purchase/core action
Medium complexity (most SaaS, memberships):
5-8 emails
Over 14-21 days
Focus on activation + key features
Complex products (enterprise SaaS, comprehensive courses):
8-15+ emails
Over 30-60 days
Focus on progressive mastery
Chase's Length Principle: "Onboarding should last until the user can succeed independently. Not shorter (they're lost). Not longer (they're annoyed)."
Timing rule: More frequent early (when engagement is highest), less frequent later.
What's the most important email in an onboarding sequence?
Email #2 (Day 1 activation push) is most critical.
Why:
Engagement is still very high
User hasn't formed opinions yet
Momentum from signup is strong
This is your best chance to activate
What it should do:
Guide to ONE specific activation action
Show them exactly how (visual/video)
Explain why this action matters
Make it as easy as possible
Performance data: Users who take activation action in first 24-48 hours have 3-5x higher long-term retention.
Second most important: The immediate welcome (Email #1). Sets tone and expectations.
How do I measure onboarding success?
Key onboarding metrics:
Primary metric: Activation rate
Formula: (Users who complete core action / Total signups) × 100
Goal: 30-50% (varies by product)
Most important metric to optimize
Supporting metrics:
Email open rates (should be 45-65%)
Click-through rates (should be 20-40% early emails)
Time to activation (how many days to first value)
Onboarding completion rate
Day 7, 14, 30 retention
Support ticket volume (lower = better onboarding)
Long-term metrics:
30-day retention rate
Upgrade/conversion rate (for freemium/trial)
Customer lifetime value
NPS score
Chase's Onboarding Measurement: "Activation rate is the north star. Everything else is a supporting metric. Optimize for activation first, then retention."
Should I send onboarding emails to everyone or segment?
Start with one sequence for all, then segment as you scale.
Phase 1: MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Single onboarding sequence for everyone
Covers core activation path
3-5 emails
Phase 2: Segmentation
Segment by user type/role/goal
Different paths for different needs
Personalized content
Phase 3: Behavioral triggers
Different emails based on actions taken
Skip emails for completed actions
Re-engagement for non-engagers
Common segments:
By role (CEO vs. individual contributor)
By use case (personal vs. business)
By industry (healthcare vs. retail)
By goal (stated during signup)
Impact: Segmented onboarding can increase activation by 20-40% vs. generic.
How often should I send onboarding emails?
Frequency strategy:
Days 0-3 (High frequency):
Day 0: Immediate welcome
Day 1: Activation push
Day 2: Quick win reinforcement
Day 3: Feature introduction
Days 4-14 (Medium frequency):
Every 2-3 days
Feature education
Use case examples
Progress check-ins
Days 15-30 (Low frequency):
Every 5-7 days
Advanced features
Upgrade prompts
Long-term success
Why front-load?
Engagement is highest early
Users need most help initially
Activation window is narrow
Momentum from signup fades quickly
Warning: Don't overwhelm. Even in high-frequency phase, limit to 1 email per day maximum.
What makes a great onboarding email?
Great onboarding emails have these characteristics:
✅ Single focused action: One clear next step ✅ Value-first messaging: Why, not just what ✅ Visual guidance: Screenshots/GIFs/videos ✅ Progress indicators: "You're X% complete" ✅ Time estimates: "Takes 2 minutes" ✅ Support accessibility: Easy to get help ✅ Celebrates wins: Acknowledges progress ✅ Builds confidence: "You can do this" tone
Great onboarding email formula:
Acknowledge Progress + Show Value + Guide to One Action + Make It Easy + Offer Support = Great Onboarding Email
Chase's Onboarding Email Test: "Could a user complete the desired action based solely on this email, without accessing the product? If yes, you've created a great onboarding email."
Key Takeaways: Onboarding Email Success
Essential principles for high-performing onboarding sequences:
✅ Activation is everything: Get users to first value ASAP
✅ One action per email: No decision paralysis
✅ Value before features: Benefits over capabilities
✅ Progressive disclosure: Spread learning over time
✅ Celebrate progress: Acknowledge every win
✅ Front-load frequency: More emails early when engagement is high
✅ Support visibility: Make help easy to access
✅ Measure activation: Optimize for users reaching first value
Final Thoughts
Onboarding emails are your highest-leverage opportunity to drive activation, retention, and long-term customer value. Yet most brands send generic welcome emails and wonder why users abandon in the first week.
The onboarding strategies I've shared have helped brands increase activation rates by 40-60%, improve 30-day retention by 50-80%, and drive millions in additional lifetime value. These are the same approaches behind $200+ million in managed campaigns for 7-figure, 8-figure, and 9-figure brands.
The brands that win with onboarding are those that:
Focus on activation: Guide users to first value immediately
Simplify ruthlessly: One clear action per email
Lead with value: Benefits over features
Measure religiously: Track activation rate obsessively
Support proactively: Make help easy to find
Learn from the best: Use Inboox.ai for competitive intelligence
Ready to build onboarding that drives activation? Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly onboarding strategies, sequence breakdowns, and optimization tactics.
And if you want to see how competitors onboard users and identify opportunities to improve your own sequences, check out Inboox.ai—it's the competitive intelligence tool I use to analyze onboarding flows and benchmark against top performers.
Now go build onboarding sequences that turn signups into active, successful, loyal customers. Every new user is an opportunity—make sure they experience your value before they walk away.
About Chase Dimond
Chase Dimond is an email marketing expert who has managed over $200+ million in eCommerce email campaigns for 7-figure, 8-figure, and 9-figure brands. He specializes in building onboarding sequences that maximize activation rates, drive retention, and increase customer lifetime value. Subscribe to his newsletter for weekly onboarding strategies and email marketing insights.
