Welcome series: the first emails a company sends a new subscriber
Type an email address into a pop-up and a sequence starts: a welcome, a code, a story, a reminder that the code runs out. Each brand writes its own.
New subscriber, signed up Mon 09:00
- Mon 09:01Welcome to Harbour10% off your first order, code HELLO10
- Tue 09:00Why we started HarbourA letter from the founder, no code
- Thu 18:30Your 10% ends SundayThe code again, and “we’ll remind you on Sunday”
- Sun 23:59No last-chance emailPromised on Thursday. Nothing arrived by midnight
Harbour is an invented brand. Each time is when the email reached the inbox.
A welcome series is the set of automated emails, and sometimes texts, a company sends a new subscriber in the days after they sign up, starting with a welcome message that often carries a first-order code. It is the first thing a new customer receives, so CRM teams compare their own with competitors’ email by email.
On this page
What a welcome series holds
A welcome series is a triggered flow, which starts when someone subscribes with no marketer pressing send. Klaviyo’s guide Getting started with flows gives it as its first example, a flow triggered when someone subscribes to a newsletter. The emails that follow are each brand’s own choice.
- The welcome: sent within minutes, often with a code for the first order.
- The story: who the brand is, its best sellers, its reviews.
- The nudge: a reminder that the code expires.
- The split: a different path for people who have already bought.
- Texts: a parallel series for subscribers who also gave a phone number.
Why CRM teams and agencies study welcome series
The welcome series is the first impression a brand makes in the inbox, and it is where many brands put their first-order code. A CRM lead compares their own with competitors’ to see who sends first, how deep the opening discount goes and how many emails follow before it stops. Retention agencies open a pitch with a prospect’s own welcome series, as a new subscriber received it, because a missing or late email is easy to picture.
How a welcome series is collected
By hand, someone signs up to each brand with a spare inbox and logs every email with its time and code, then waits days for the series to finish. An email archive helps when the brand is already on its list.
Obsession collects what companies show only to customers, step by step: their screens, emails and texts, member prices, trial limits, quotes and cancel offers, each dated with a screenshot. Teams and AI agents look up any company through the API or MCP, and a company not yet covered is added on request. For a welcome series, that means every email and text from the first welcome to the last, each with the time it arrived after the sign-up. Each is kept raw with its sender checked, so a code, a late send or an email that never came is on file.
There is no set number. Brands send anything from a single welcome email to a series over several weeks, and the timing is each brand’s choice.
A welcome email is the first message after sign-up. A welcome series is that email plus everything the brand sends a new subscriber in the days that follow.
Leak checks for retention agenciesSources
In the order the page cites them. Every page was read on 11 Nov 2026.