Email frequency: how often to send lifecycle and marketing email
Send lifecycle email when something happens in your product, and marketing email on the schedule people signed up for. This guide gives a starting cadence for each type, the numbers that tell you to slow down, and how to space emails in Loops.
How often to send each email
For most SaaS products, start here: three or four onboarding emails in the first week, one product update a month, a newsletter on the schedule you promised at signup, and a short re-engagement sequence only for users who went quiet in the last two months. Transactional email has no cadence. It goes out when the user does something.
Count per person, not per campaign. Here is the first week for a new user of Acme, a made-up product.
This guide covers how often to send. For the day and hour, see best time to send email.
Cadence by email type
Onboarding, the first week. Send the welcome email at signup, then one every two or three days, each asking for one next step. Stop as soon as the user finishes setup. The Loops onboarding completion recipe waits 3 days and only nudges people who haven’t finished.
Product updates, monthly. One email a month with the two or three changes that matter most. The Loops product update recipe says a second email in a month is fine if that’s how often you ship. Send it to people who used your product in the last 30 days.
Newsletters, the schedule you promised. Weekly and monthly both work. Keep the frequency people signed up for. Yahoo’s sender guidelines say not to start sending daily email to subscribers of a weekly or monthly list.
Re-engagement, three emails over about 10 days. Start when a user goes quiet, 14 to 60 days after their last real action, and stop the moment they come back. Past 60 days, stop emailing them. The Loops churn risk recipe caps the window there because mailing long-dormant users hurts your sender reputation. More in churn prevention emails.
Transactional, no cadence. Receipts, password resets, and login codes go out every time the user’s action happens, and they still reach people who unsubscribed from marketing. Keep promotions out of them. See transactional email.
One month for one user
Here is the same user’s whole first month.
Signs you’re sending too often
Spam complaints and unsubscribes tell you a send went too far. Check them for each email, and again for a week of sends to the same people.
Spam complaints. Gmail asks senders to keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.1% and never let it reach 0.3%. 0.1% is one report per 1,000 emails, and 0.3% is three. Above 0.3%, Gmail stops offering bulk senders delivery help until the rate stays under it for 7 days in a row. Yahoo’s limit is also 0.3%. Gmail doesn’t report complaints back to Loops, so set up Google Postmaster Tools to see yours.
Unsubscribes. Neither Gmail nor Yahoo sets an unsubscribe rate limit. Both require one-click unsubscribe from bulk senders and ask you to honor it within 2 days. Use your own baseline: Loops shows unsubscribes for each campaign and workflow email, so if they jump after you add a send, the new send is the likely cause.
When Loops receives a spam complaint, it suppresses the contact. After that they get nothing from you, transactional email included.
How to space emails in Loops
Timers set the gaps inside a workflow. Put a Timer between two emails. A workflow can have as many timers as you need.
Audience filters stop emails people no longer need. Set a filter to All following nodes and Loops checks it before every later email. A user who finishes setup leaves onboarding before the next one.
Campaign filters keep broadcasts out of busy inboxes. Your app already knows who is in their first week. Write it to a contact property, such as inOnboarding, and filter the newsletter to leave those contacts out. Send product updates to an active segment like isActive30d from the active users recipe.
Lists let people choose. Make a mailing list for each topic people opt into, such as Newsletter and Product updates, and send each campaign to its list. Every marketing email from Loops links to a Preference Center, so someone who wants less can turn off one topic instead of unsubscribing from everything. Keep lists for those topics. A state like trial or churn risk belongs in a contact property.
Common questions
What is email cadence?
Email cadence is the rhythm of your sends: how many emails one person gets and how far apart they land. Frequency is the count, such as four emails a month. Cadence adds the spacing, such as an onboarding email every two or three days.
How often should a SaaS company send marketing emails?
Start with one product update a month and a newsletter weekly or monthly, on the schedule people signed up for. Add lifecycle email only when something happens in the product, such as a signup or a user going quiet. Watch spam complaints and unsubscribes before you send more.
How many onboarding emails should I send?
Three or four in the first week is a good start: a welcome email at signup, then one every two or three days, each about one step. Stop the sequence as soon as the user finishes setup.
What spam complaint rate is too high?
Gmail asks senders to stay below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%, as measured in Google Postmaster Tools. Yahoo’s limit is 0.3%. At 0.1%, that’s one spam report for every 1,000 emails.
Do transactional emails count toward email frequency?
No. Receipts, password resets, and login codes go out when the user acts, and people expect them. In Loops they also reach contacts who unsubscribed from marketing. Keep promotions out of them.
How do I space emails out in Loops?
Timers set the gaps inside a workflow. Audience filters set to All following nodes remove people who no longer need the next email. Campaign filters leave out contacts who are already in a sequence, and mailing lists let contacts choose the topics they get.