Say you want to send a personal welcome to every new subscriber, a gentle reminder to every shopper who leaves their cart behind, and a birthday greeting to each of your subscribers. Doing all of that by hand would eat up your entire day. This is exactly where automation comes in: you set it up once, and it sends the right message to the right person at the right moment — all while you are busy with something else.
In this guide we will cover the three most useful automations together:
Welcome Series
Greets every new subscriber the moment they join.
Abandoned Cart
Gently reminds shoppers who left items behind.
Birthday
Celebrates their special day with a small gift.
What Automation Really Is
An automation is a series of emails sent on their own, based on a trigger you define in advance. A trigger is an event: someone joining your list, abandoning their cart, or having a birthday. You design the flow once; the system sends the relevant email automatically every time that event happens.
The best part is that automations work around the clock and one-to-one. Whether you have a hundred subscribers or a hundred thousand, each one gets the right message at exactly the right time — even while you sleep.
1. Welcome Series
A subscriber is never more interested in you than the moment they have just joined your list. The welcome series makes the most of that interest. It kicks in automatically when someone new joins and usually consists of two to four emails:
- Email 1 (immediately): A warm welcome and a brief introduction to who you are.
- Email 2 (1–2 days later): Your most popular content or products.
- Email 3 (a few days later): A small incentive — a discount, free shipping, or a useful resource.
This series strengthens the first impression and turns a new subscriber from a silent name into an active reader — or customer.
Welcome emails usually get a higher open rate than any of your other campaigns. So craft that first message with care; the first impression is built right here.
2. Abandoned Cart
When a visitor adds a product to their cart and leaves without buying, you are actually very close to a sale. The abandoned cart automation is one of the most effective ways to win back these almost-completed sales.
A while after the customer leaves their cart (for example, first after 1 hour, then after 1 day), an automatic reminder goes out:
- Remind them of the cart items with images.
- Use a warm, helpful tone; do not pressure them.
- If needed, add a small incentive (a discount or free shipping) in the second email.
For e-commerce brands this is often the highest-return flow of all, because it speaks to an already-interested, ready-to-buy audience.
3. Birthdays and Special Days
People remember brands that make them feel special. The birthday automation creates exactly that feeling with very little effort.
On your subscriber birthday (or their membership anniversary), an automatic celebration message goes out — often with a small gift: a personal discount code or a little surprise. These emails get high open rates and build a warm bond with your brand. All you need is your subscribers birth date, which you can collect by adding it to your signup form.
How to Set Up Automation in Keysletter
The setup logic is the same for all three:
- Go to Automations and create a new automation.
- Choose a trigger (new subscriber, abandoned cart, birthday...).
- Add your emails and the wait times between them to the flow.
- Test the flow and activate it.
Once you activate it, you will not need to touch it again; the automation runs quietly in the background.
You do not have to set them all up at once. If you want to see the biggest impact fastest, start with the welcome series — it is the simplest to set up and the clearest to pay off.
Start Small, Grow Over Time
The beauty of automation is that once you set it up, it keeps working for good. So do not try to design perfect flows from the start. Set up a single automation first, look at its results over a few weeks, then add the second. Over time you will have a small team of automations working for you.