Every Email Marketing Workflow You Should Be Running (And What to Connect It To)

Most brands have three email marketing workflows live and call it automation. A welcome series, an abandoned cart flow, and a monthly newsletter. That’s not a programme, that’s a starting point.

Omnisend’s own analysis of more than 20 billion emails found that automated emails drove 37% of all email-generated sales while making up just 2% of total volume. The leverage sits almost entirely in the workflows most teams never build. This is a working list (there are more we use, but it would be overkill for this article), organised by where the customer actually is in the buying process, with the other channels worth wiring into each one.

Acquisition and the first handshake

Everything starts the moment someone hands over their email address. What you send in the first 48 hours sets the tone for every email after it, and Klaviyo’s own lifecycle guide treats the welcome flow as the highest-leverage starting point for exactly that reason, alongside its own benchmark data on it.

• Welcome series. Confirms the subscription, delivers the promised incentive, and sets expectations for what’s coming next.
• Double opt-in confirmation. Protects deliverability and confirms the subscriber actually wants to be there.
• Lead magnet delivery. Sends the ebook, checklist or discount code the second someone asks for it, no delay.
• Preference centre prompt. Asks new subscribers what they want to hear about, so segmentation starts on day one instead of six months later.
• Social follow invitation. Cross-promotes your Instagram or LinkedIn presence while attention is highest, right after signup.

Nurturing people who aren’t ready yet

This is where most consumer brands go quiet, and most B2B teams get lazy. 😅

A prospect who isn’t ready to buy today, though you might consider it, isn’t a dead lead but a lead on a longer timeline, and the workflow’s job is to stay useful until the timing changes.

For B2B specifically, this stage lives or dies on a documented handoff: marketing owns the lead until it crosses an agreed threshold, then sales takes it, with the engagement history attached so the rep isn’t starting cold.

• Educational drip sequence. Teaches rather than pitches, building trust before you ask for anything.
• Content engagement nurture. Follows up on a specific asset someone downloaded with the logical next piece of content.
• Webinar or event follow-up. Splits attendees from no-shows and sends each group a different next step.
• Lead scoring and MQL nurture. Tracks behaviour against a points threshold and moves the lead automatically once it’s crossed.
• Sales handoff notification. Alerts a rep the moment a lead becomes sales-ready, with the engagement history attached.
• Comparison or objection-handling sequence. Addresses the specific hesitation a prospect’s behaviour suggests they have.

Catching purchase intent before it disappears

This is the stage with the clearest, best-documented ROI in email marketing, and it’s also the stage most brands under-build.

Omnisend’s data shows welcome, cart abandonment and browse abandonment emails together account for 87% of all automated order revenue. If you only build three flows, build these.

• Cart abandonment. The highest-converting flow most brands have, recovering intent you already paid to acquire.
• Browse abandonment. Re-engages someone who viewed a product but never added it to cart.
• Search abandonment. Follows up on-site search terms that never led to a product view.
• Price drop alert. Notifies a browser or wishlister the moment the item they looked at gets cheaper.
• Back in stock. One of the highest-converting automated emails available, because the audience is already sold.
• Free trial expiring. Pushes SaaS trial users toward conversion before access lapses.
• Quote or cart reminder with incentive. A time-limited nudge for high-consideration purchases like B2B quotes or big-ticket items.

This is also where cross-channel timing earns its keep. Escalate a cart abandonment to SMS a few hours after the email if the item is genuinely time-sensitive, and sync your abandoners into a retargeting ad audience so the product follows them across channels rather than just the inbox.

The moment after someone buys

Post-purchase gets treated as an afterthought by teams still chasing the next sale, which is a mistake.

This stage sets return rates, review volume and whether the customer buys again.

• Order and shipping confirmation. Transactional, expected, and a genuine cross-sell opportunity most brands waste.
• Onboarding or product education series. Reduces returns and support tickets by teaching people how to actually use what they bought.
• Review or user-generated content request. Timed to land after the product’s been used, not the day it ships.
• Cross-sell and upsell sequence. Recommends complementary products based on the specific item purchased.
• Delivery and satisfaction check-in. Catches a problem before it becomes a chargeback or a one-star review.

Keeping customers instead of re-acquiring them

Retention is cheaper than acquisition, and it’s also where behavioural triggers matter more than a calendar. A subscription box and a pair of trainers have completely different replenishment cycles, and the workflow needs to know the difference.

• Replenishment reminder. Timed to typical usage cycles for consumable products, before the customer runs out.
• Loyalty programme updates. Points balances, tier progress, and expiring rewards.
• Anniversary and birthday offers. Consistently among the highest average order value emails you can send.
• VIP or top-tier customer flow. Early access and exclusive offers for your highest lifetime value segment.
• Subscription renewal reminder. Gives a customer the chance to adjust before an automatic charge, which cuts complaints and chargebacks.

Bringing back the ones who’ve gone quiet

Every list has subscribers who stopped opening months ago. Ignoring them hurts your sender reputation. Emailing them like nothing’s wrong hurts your reputation more. This stage needs its own honest tone.

• Re-engagement or win-back sequence. Acknowledges the silence directly and offers a genuine reason to come back.
• Feedback or exit survey. Asks why before you lose them, and feeds the answer back into your product or messaging.
• Sunset and list-cleaning flow. Removes chronically unengaged addresses to protect deliverability for everyone else.
• Last-chance offer. A final, clearly-labelled attempt before you stop emailing someone altogether.

Turning customers into advocates

The cheapest customer you’ll ever acquire is the one referred by an existing customer. This stage is chronically under-built because it doesn’t feel urgent, right up until a competitor builds it first.

• Referral programme invitation. Asks satisfied customers to invite people they know, with a clear incentive on both sides.
• Review request escalation. Follows up non-responders through a second channel, like an SMS nudge a week later.
• NPS or satisfaction survey follow-up. Routes detractors to support and promoters to a review or referral ask.
• Community or advocate programme invite. Moves your best customers into a closer relationship with the brand, ambassador programmes, private groups, early access panels.

The full map, with cross-channel connections

Put together, that’s more than two dozen workflows across seven stages, and most of them benefit from at least one other channel plugged in alongside email. The table below lays out the full set, with the trigger and the channel connection worth building for each one.

Where this actually breaks

None of this works if you build all twenty-something flows in a month and walk away.

Automation amplifies whatever process sits underneath it, so a badly segmented list just gets a faster, more elaborate way of annoying people. Start with the flows that touch the highest-intent moments, cart and browse abandonment first, then post-purchase, then work outward. Add a channel to a flow only once the email version is actually working, not as a way to compensate for a flow that isn’t. And build an exit trigger into every single one of these.

Nothing damages trust faster than a cart abandonment email arriving after someone’s already checked out, or a win-back offer landing on a customer you never lost in the first place.