SaaS Drip Campaigns: The Complete Guide

SaaS businesses have unique email needs. The subscription model means ongoing customer relationships, recurring revenue at stake, and lifecycle stages that general email platforms don't understand. Here's how to build drip campaigns that drive SaaS growth.

The SaaS Customer Lifecycle

Understanding lifecycle stages is fundamental to SaaS drip campaigns:

• Visitor: Browsing your site, not yet signed up
• Lead: Subscribed to content, not yet trialing
• Trial: Actively evaluating your product
• Customer: Paying subscriber
• Champion: Highly engaged, potential advocate
• At-risk: Showing signs of potential churn
• Churned: Cancelled or failed to renew

Each stage needs different messaging, different triggers, different goals.

Essential SaaS Drip Sequences

1. Trial Onboarding Sequence

Goal: Get trial users to their "aha moment" quickly

Trigger: Trial signup

Key elements:

• Welcome and quick start guidance
• Key feature introduction based on use case
• First success milestone acknowledgment
• Social proof from similar customers
• Objection handling (common concerns)

Timing: Front-loaded, with most emails in first half of trial

Example 14-day trial sequence:

• Day 0: Welcome + first step
• Day 1: Quick win tutorial
• Day 3: Core feature deep-dive
• Day 5: Case study or testimonial
• Day 8: Advanced tips (if engaged) or re-engagement (if not)
• Day 11: "Trial ending soon" reminder
• Day 14: Final conversion prompt

2. Trial Conversion Sequence

Goal: Convert trial users to paid customers

Trigger: Trial approaching expiration OR high engagement signals

Key elements:

• Value summary (what they'll lose access to)
• ROI calculator or value quantification
• Plan comparison and recommendation
• Urgency elements (trial expiring)
• Offer to extend trial or provide discount (use carefully)

Branch logic: Different approaches for high-engagement vs. low-engagement trials

3. Customer Onboarding Sequence

Goal: Ensure new customers achieve value and establish habits

Trigger: First payment/subscription activated

Key elements:

• Welcome to paid plan, next steps
• Feature unlocks (paid-only features)
• Best practices for their use case
• Integration recommendations
• Support resources introduction
• First success check-in

Timing: 4-6 emails over first 30 days

4. Feature Adoption Sequences

Goal: Drive adoption of specific features that correlate with retention

Trigger: User hasn't activated key feature after X days

Key elements:

• Feature introduction and value proposition
• Quick tutorial or walkthrough
• Examples of customers using this feature
• Prompt to try with guided first step

Important: Identify which features correlate with retention and focus there

5. Expansion/Upsell Sequence

Goal: Move customers to higher plans or add-ons

Trigger: Usage approaching plan limits OR high engagement OR usage patterns suggesting need

Key elements:

• Value acknowledgment (they're getting results)
• Growth opportunity framing
• Higher plan benefits for their situation
• Easy upgrade path

Timing: Based on behavioral signals, not fixed schedule

6. Churn Prevention Sequence

Goal: Re-engage at-risk customers before they cancel

Triggers:

• Decreased login frequency
• Reduced feature usage
• Low engagement with previous emails
• Health score decline

Key elements:

• Value reminder (what they've accomplished)
• New features they might have missed
• Success stories for inspiration
• Offer of help or consultation
• Survey to understand their situation

7. Cancellation Save Sequence

Goal: Retain customers who initiate cancellation

Trigger: Cancellation request submitted

Key elements:

• Acknowledgment and empathy
• Offer alternatives (pause, downgrade, discount)
• Address common cancellation reasons
• Final value proposition
• Graceful exit if they proceed

Timing: Quick responses, before cancellation processes

8. Win-Back Sequence

Goal: Re-acquire churned customers

Trigger: X days after churn

Key elements:

• "We miss you" with specific improvements since they left
• New features that might address their reason for leaving
• Special return offer
• Updated success stories

Timing: 30-90 days after churn, then periodic touches

SaaS-Specific Triggers

Billing Events

• Payment successful (reinforce value)
• Payment failed (recovery sequence)
• Renewal upcoming (prepare for continuation)
• Plan change (acknowledge and onboard to new tier)

Product Events

• Feature activation/deactivation
• Usage milestones
• Error encounters
• Integration connections

Engagement Signals

• High activity period
• Low activity period
• Team member invitations
• Admin actions

Metrics That Matter for SaaS

Beyond Opens and Clicks

Standard email metrics matter, but SaaS needs more:

• Trial-to-paid conversion rate: The core metric for trial sequences
• Time-to-conversion: How quickly trials convert
• Activation rate: Percentage reaching key milestones
• Feature adoption rates: Which features are being adopted
• Expansion revenue: Upsells driven by email
• Churn reduction: Impact of save campaigns
• MRR impact: Monthly recurring revenue attributed to campaigns

Cohort Analysis

Track how different signup cohorts perform through sequences:

• Do January trials convert differently than March trials?
• Do customers from different acquisition sources respond differently?
• How do different plan types perform in onboarding?

Integration Requirements

Effective SaaS drip campaigns require data from:

• Your product: Usage events, feature activation, engagement
• Payment processor: Subscription status, billing events, plan information
• Support platform: Ticket history, satisfaction scores
• CRM: Sales interactions, deal context

The challenge: Most email platforms require custom integration work to access this data.

Why Sequenzy for SaaS

Sequenzy was built specifically for SaaS drip campaigns. Key advantages:

• Native billing integration: Stripe, Paddle, and other payment providers connect natively. Trigger sequences on subscription events without custom code.
• MRR tracking: See how campaigns impact recurring revenue, not just clicks.
• AI sequence generation: Generate trial conversion, onboarding, and churn prevention sequences automatically based on your product.
• SaaS-specific triggers: Trial start, conversion, upgrade, downgrade, churn - all available as triggers out of the box.
• Affordable: $19/month starting price - a fraction of tools like Customer.io or Intercom.

For SaaS businesses serious about drip campaigns, Sequenzy removes the integration complexity that makes sophisticated sequences difficult to implement.