Create drip marketing campaigns for SaaS

Business Benefits

Target specific users to boost engagement.


Open your email marketing platform and create a new drip campaign.

Pick your audience: the more specific you can be, the more tailored and personalized your offer and the copy can be.

Build your audience according to your chosen criteria. For example, you may wish to highlight the cost saving benefits of your SaaS product to startups because they tend to be cost focused, whereas if you were targeting Fortune 500 companies you may highlight the seamless integration or time-saving aspects. Consider targeting users based on action rather than demographic, like:

  • Blog subscribers.
  • First-purchase customers.
  • Lead magnet downloaders.
  • App downloaders.
  • Trial users.

Decide on your objective for the campaign.

  • Are you trying to raise awareness?
  • Are you giving them a special offer?
  • Are you looking to drive sales or generate sales calls?

Other objectives include:

  • Customer upsell or cross-sell.
  • User onboarding.
  • Lead nurturing.
  • Improve customer experience.
  • Build a sales pitch.
  • Free to paid trial conversion.

Create your email content focusing on the objectives you decided.

If you want to have several emails in this drip, create copy in each subsequent email that provides new value or new information. If you are promoting a special offer, increase the urgency or scarcity in each subsequent email in the drip.

Set up a trigger that sets off the campaign, like a signup, download, or subscription lapse.

A trigger specifies what needs to happen for a contact be entered into the drip. Your email platform will have specific instructions on setting up triggers.

Include a suppression criterion that stops a user from triggering and entering the flow multiple times. When you create the trigger, there will be an option that allows you to remove anybody who has been in the drip previously.

Create time delays between emails within the drip.

Allow at least 24 hours between emails.

Monitor the KPIs on all emails in the campaign and adjust it as your metrics dictate.

As a rough guide, if your open rates are poor, you should look at your subject line, send time, target group, and your sender reputation.

If your click rate is poor, look at:

  • Your call to actions: Are they compelling enough?
  • The offer or subject of the email: Is it relevant and enticing enough?
  • Your target segment: Are you targeting the right people with the right offer?

Other KPIs to monitor include unsubscribe rate, bounce rate, and spam complaints.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T15:45:26Z

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For a 5 message drip sequence, is there a general rule of thumb as to how many actions we should expect trial users to take per email?

Dumb question, but a higher up has put a QR code in email #5

Is this always a bad idea or are there SaaS specific cases where a QR code in an email might possibly make sense.

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Hi Wayne, welcome to the playbook community.

Great question. I faced this question recently when doing a drip sequence and i asked @ognjen_boskovic our growth lead.

He mentioned based on his ecperience that the more links you have the less likely someone is to click through.

I would focus on one key action per email. And seriously consider adding more and the potential of diminishing returns.

Regarding the QR code i would look into UX and whether this is somehow more effective than just a link?

What will the user do with the QR code?

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Thank you Hesh! This was helpful.

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