25 Inspiring Welcome Email Template Design Examples

When somebody subscribes to your newsletter or create an account in your application they expect to receive a welcome email. This email confirms that the subscription was successful and includes important information relevant to them.

But there is more. Welcome emails are also beneficial for you.

Welcome emails have the highest conversion potential. A study by Wordstream pointed out that welcome emails generated 320% more revenue on a per email basis than any other types of marketing emails. Due to the high open rate and click-through rate, it isn’t a surprising fact.

Building a great email sequence ensures the success of your campaigns and helps the customers make their purchase decisions. This email sequence always starts with a welcome email.

What is a Welcome Email, and Why is it Important?

A welcome email is the very first email (after the double opt-in email) your new subscriber or customer receives. The purpose of your welcome email is to greet your new subscribers.

It gives you the chance to make a good first impression. Remember, you can do it only once. You must nail it.

Reflect on the brand’s personality and be consistent when it comes to the tone and voice. You are representing the company here.

What format to use for Welcome Emails?

You can use either HTML welcome email template or plain text template. Generally, marketers prefer to use HTML to create e-commerce welcome emails. Although the plain text emails are more personal, they are more difficult to track, plus they are less memorable and more plain, leaving almost no impact on the receiver.

HTML welcome email templates allow you to create clickable CTAs and track the performance of your welcome email campaign. They also let you design emails in a more creative way and help the recipients process the information easily.

What should a Welcome Email include?

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you must communicate your identity. It means that the email design ought to align with your brand image.

Use your brand logo and colors to make it clear who you are.

Your intention also should be obvious. Don’t overstuff your email with a bunch of offers. Less is more. Don’t confuse the readers.

• Connect with your Audience and Personalize your Email Message

Make a great first impression. People crave attention. They want to feel like you actually care about them. Make them feel special.

Show appreciation and say thank you for subscribing. Use the word “You” instead of being too formal and starting your email with “Dear”.

You can even personalize your welcome email message by including some dynamic content and using the recipient’s first name in the email.

If it’s relevant, segment your list by gender, location, job title, etc. and tailor the message to them.

• What new subscribers can expect

Saying “Hi there” isn’t enough. Besides greetings, you should also inform the recipient about how often they will receive emails and what these emails will be about. Your future emails can include news, discounts, promotions or any other information and offer you deem important.

• Leverage Social Media

Ask people to follow you on social media. You can’t send your customers emails too often. It would annoy them and they would unsubscribe eventually. Instead, encourage them to follow you on social media channels where you can keep them updated on a daily basis.

Check out this useful post to learn how you can create a link between your social media efforts and email marketing messages.

• Drive people to your Online Store / Software or Application

Make the shopping experience seamless, if you have an ecommerce website. It’s more likely that if you provide a link to your website the recipients will check it out.

You can also do a little promotion here. List a few items at the end of your welcome email and link them to the relevant landing pages.

You can do the same if you are a SaaS company, looking to convert subscribers into users. Send your subscribers information about how and why they should use your application. This is the first step of a successful user onboarding journey, which will lead your subscriber to the “Aha” moment, after which they will turn into a paying user.

If you need to learn more about user onboarding for SaaS, check out this section of our Saas Conversion Funnel Guide.

When Should You Send Welcome Emails?

The answer is simple: Send your welcome email as soon as possible.

Try to send the welcome email as soon as someone confirms their email address.

New subscribers are ready to purchase or try out your application. They are eager to receive your email and take action.

Take advantage of this, and provide them with the necessary information, while making a great first impression. But be quick, people don’t like waiting too much.

Automate your email flow to maximize your email marketing efforts.

Setting an automated email workflow is simple. As soon as a subscription happens, your triggered email marketing campaign is put in motion and sends the scheduled emails to the new subscribers.

Here are some useful resources that you can check out to learn more about automated email campaigns, and how you can set up your own.

• How to Use Trigger Emails (+ 13 email campaign examples )
• 22 of the Best Automated E-commerce Email Template Examples
• How to Use Sequential Workflows Throughout Your Annual Email Marketing Cycle
• Transactional Email Best Practices (Illustrated with 29+ Examples)

How Long Should a Welcome Email Be?

A welcome email should be short and sweet; 50-150 words should be more than enough.
Aim to create a clear email design and place the most important information at the beginning of the email.

Make sure you don’t try to sell hard. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of welcome emails isn’t selling.

How to Come Up with the Best Welcome Email Subject Lines?

Writing a welcome email template for new customers starts with crafting a subject line.

It’s true that welcome emails usually have good open rates, reaching on average over 50%, which makes them 86% more effective than other types of marketing emails. (source)

However, welcome email subject lines should still be engaging as they also reflect your brand voice.

You don’t need to overcomplicate welcome email subject lines. The reader will most likely open it anyway.

Most brands play it safe and create a simple subject line, such as “Welcome to [brand]”. You can stick to this line too.

Welcome Email Subject Lines Inspiration

If you want to be a little more creative, here are some fun welcome email subject lines you can get inspired by.

• Welcome to…
• Let’s get to know each other …
• Hi (name). Nice to meet you!
• Welcome to … (discount inside)
• Welcome Gift 🎁
• This was a good decision.
• You’re in. Welcome to…

If you need more subject line ideas, check out this article.

Don’t forget to do an A/B Test for your welcome email subject line. You can create a test to determine which email subject line works best (meaning, which email subject line gets you the most open rates). Then use that one for future welcome email messages.

How to Create a Good Welcome Email

Creating a good email design is not easy, especially if you don’t have a flexible drag and drop editor.

There are so many technical and rendering issues that marketers shouldn’t have to deal with, such as, but not limited to:

• Mobile responsive email templates: You need to make sure that your email template is mobile friendly since more than 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices.
• Email templates that are compatible with all email clients: You also need to figure out a way to make your HTML email code compatible with every email client, even Outlook.

That’s why the best solution is to use a professional email template builder that will help design a beautiful HTML email in a couple of minutes, because of it’s highly flexible drag and drop editor.

There are many great email template builders that you can use for free.

Create your welcome email templates that render perfectly on all devices, using our flexible email editor,for free!

Welcome Email Best Practices

Before you kick off your welcome email campaign, think about your goals first. Do you want the recipients to complete their profile? Do you want them to start using your product? Why did the recipient subscribe? What do they expect?

Depending on these goals create an actionable welcome email strategy.

Choose the best CTA

First thing first. Decide what actions the recipients should take and then create a call to action supporting this goal.

Here are some call to action texts you can use:

• Discover More
• Shop New Arrival
• Book Now
• Explore
• Read Our Latest Blog Post
• Use Coupon code
• Complete Profile

Don’t forget to choose a good CTA color and the right size of the button. Most importantly, insert the proper link to the CTA button.

Here is a neative example from brand we all think should make the best marketing: HelloBar. Their product is awesome and they have a smart welcome email workflow, but they use a gray CTA in their first letter. I would’ve test it with a different (any) color.

Learn how to insert a link to a button in an email template.

Create a Welcome Email series

Email series helps you build a logical onboarding flow. All you need to do is to decide what the most important message is.

For example, the first email can include a discount coupon whereas the second email encourages the recipients to read the blog.

Another welcome email sequence example can be used for SaaS products. Welcome your users in the first email and educate them about your product in the second one.

Segment your Email List

You can use several tactics to get someone’s email address and grow your email list. You might obtain your email because they subscribed to your newsletter, purchased something in your online store or participated in a competition.

The point is, you need to handle these people differently. Create a different list for each segment to be able to send more personalized and targeted messages to them.

• New subscriber: newbie who hasn’t bought anything yet and hasn’t received any emails either.
• First-time purchase: they don’t receive emails from you but they are existing customers.

Create Automated Welcome Email Campaigns

We touched on automated campaigns earlier.

Automated emails are sent when certain actions trigger them. This trigger can be an opened or unopened email or a click. For example, you can send a coupon when someone engages with a certain link. You can also follow up with a reminder email.

The automated workflow helps you send out the right email to the right person at the right time. In the meantime, you can work on something else. So these workflows save time, money, and efforts.

25 Amazing Welcome Email Design Examples & Inspiration

Great welcome messages invite the recipients into your world. Be a nice host and treat your customers like your friends. Add a personal touch to your welcoming emails.

If are short on time, or simply can’t be bothered to create a welcome email from scratch, you can edit one of our ready to use welcome email templates. Browse through the template gallery, select and edit the templates to match your brand and goals with the flexible drag and drop editor.

We also have collaborative features that allow teams to work together while designing and approving emails. All you need to do is invite your colleagues to your workspace and assign different roles to each one, according to their role and responsibilities.

We have listed the examples below that you can use as an inspiration.

1. Tattly – YAY!

Type of welcome: Thank you

Source: Pinterest

This casual welcome email template design by Tattly clearly shows excitement. The design is playful, saying “YAY” everywhere implies a laid-back attitude.

Tattly gave a 20% discount to the newbies which is a clever and efficient way to turn the recipients into customers. By using the code “Welcome20”, conversion can be easily tracked.

The email also included three different products that the recipients could view. This method helps you discover the customer’s preferences.

Encouraging customers to use the hashtag #tattly is also a great idea to build a community and increase brand awareness.

2. Karen Millen – Five reasons we know you’ll love us

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

Karen Millen’s welcome email design is elegant and clear. The model is in the center. The reader can easily identify herself with this women.

Let’s have a look at the welcome message itself. It says Karen Millen gives advice for today’s confident woman. The brand wants to inspire and strengthen its customers’ self-esteem. This type of attitude always works and makes customers more loyal to the brand.

The email points out why the customer will love them. They highlighted the benefits of the subscription by using this clear email layout. The customer might feel they just joined an exclusive club.

3. Cult Beauty – Welcome to the cult

Type of welcome: Offer

Source: Pinterest

Miranda Kerr says hello to you in this welcome email. Photos build trust with the customers so it’s a good idea to use a headshot in your emails.

This email doesn’t contain a text-heavy message, therefore, the words Free Worldwide Shipping are more visible.

If you offer free shipping, make sure you also include it in your welcome email. When customers rationalize their shopping habits, they prefer to avoid additional costs. One of the main reasons for abandoned carts is the shipping fee itself.

4. Funfit – Good old envelope

Type of welcome: Thank you + Get started

Source: Pinterest

This e-commerce welcome email design template is so charming and effective thanks to the envelope. Nowadays we send more electronic letters than traditional ones, probably that’s why I like it.

The most important pieces of information are on the envelope itself. And because it attracts the eye, the main message gets delivered effectively.

5. Spotify – Welcome to Premium

Type of welcome: Get started

Source: Pinterest

Bubbly colors, great design. If you aim to create a similar email design, consider using matching colors as well.

This welcome email from Spotify is a great example for SaaS companies. Many of them were built on a Freemium model so converting free users into paying ones is a big deal.

Spotify listed the extra features that premium users can use. They also provided the links to listen to music on the user’s device.

6. Starbucks – We’re glad you are here

Type of welcome: Just saying hello

Source: Pinterest

This welcome email template is really creative despite the simple image. Starbucks is famous for personalizing their drinks by writing the customer’s name on the cup.

In this case, they chose to write the word “Welcome” on the cup and say “We’re glad you’re here”. The recipients feel like they arrived home, where familiar friends were waiting for them.

Notice that the email was divided into 3 parts. The first includes the welcome message, the second part is about the customer’s profile and the third one is encouraging social activity.

Use dividers to create a modern, easily digestible content. As for the colors, if you use two colors you will also be on the safe side.

7. Ace&Tate – Nice to meet you

Type of welcome: Just saying hello + Offer (free shipping)

Source: Pinterest

This black and white greeting email sample from Ace&Tate is so cool, you start to feel like buying some.

They offered a home try-on option which reduces the purchasing risk. Great idea. Not to mention the free shipping both ways.

The Ace&Tate guide also helps the customer to find the one. Gamification at its best.

8. Munchery – Welcome to Munchery

Type of welcome: Just saying hello

Source: Pinterest

This piece by Munchery is a great welcome email for catering services. Yummy food, that’s what a restaurant must include in the emails.

This example shows colors have an impact on our perception of food. Get a professional photographer to take photos of your mouthwatering food and show off your expertise.

If you have an app, encourage customers to place their next order by downloading it.

9. Handy – Download the Handy App

Type of welcome: Just saying hello

Source: Pinterest

Handy’s first CTA in their welcome email was: “Download the app”. They encourage the user to get the app to activate the user.

Handy used different colors for different services which makes it easy to distinguish. They also divided its content into three pieces. Each piece has a different Call to Action.

A link to their help center was also included which can be quite handy.

10. Steven Alan – Welcome

Type of welcome: Offer

Source: Pinterest

This e-commerce welcome email template design has a refreshing style. If you are a creative one, dare to be different.

Steven Alan also offered free shipping over $250. You might be better off if you highlight this piece of information a bit more than this example shows.

11. ASOS – Oh, hey there

Type of welcome: Offer

Source: Pinterest

When I saw this e-commerce welcome email design the first time, I felt like the girl talked to me. It feels so personal.

Asos tells what the recipient can expect now that they are on board. They also say they’ll throw surprises just because the customer is awesome. Great communication.

The yellow color draws the eye to a 10% discount coupon offered to the students. Yellow is a special one. Our eyes see it faster than the other colors that’s why it’s so great to draw attention.

Asos included a whopping seven social media channels in this welcome email. Don´t worry, you don’t need to register every single social media channel. Use the ones that are relevant to your business only.

12. Aritzia – We’d love to tell you a little more about us

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

Aritzia took their time to introduce the brand first.

I like the funny comment: Customer Service is our middle name (What can we say? Our parents were progressive.) Follow this great example and sprinkle your email with personality. xo Alitzia

13. Lyft – Nice to have you onboard

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

Carsharing is about people. Lyft used a photo of two women to place ourselves in the situation. As soon they greet the reader they use the “Take a Ride” CTA to encourage using the service.

The image of a smartphone shows what the users can expect when choosing a vehicle. Lyft also summarizes the process and helps rationalize the purchase decision. “Rides cost 30% less than a cab on average”.

The “Take a ride” appears at the bottom of the email once again.

Follow this practice and insert CTAs at the beginning and at the bottom of the email to increase the conversion rate.

14. Welcome to the world’s travel search engine

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Really Good Emails

Skyscanner positioned itself as a search engine in this welcome email. When people use aggregators, they just want to find what they are looking for and move on. That’s why Skyscanner listed the benefits of logging in.

Skyscanner used the golden three parts rule as well. They continued to break down these parts into further three pieces.

15. Gogobot – Your next adventure awaits. We’re thrilled to have you!

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

Gogobot included some adventures in their welcome emails. Depending on the recipient’s interest they can navigate to different category pages right away. They also made it easy to join interest-specific groups such as Budget Travelers.

If you have a community, make sure you help people find one another.

16. Moo – A warm, wondrous welcome

Type of welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

The exciting color combination is truly attention-grabbing. Pure masterpiece. Designers should indeed go the extra mile when creating emails.

Moo is using a very interesting approach. They say, together they will make great stuff for the customer’s business. From now on they are the part of the team.

17. Glossier – Hi! This will be fun.

Type of welcome: Just saying hello

Source: Pinterest

I love this email with the cheeky girl saying “This will be fun”. Everything is so cheerful about this email.

Glossier also used emojis to wave which gives an extra cuteness to this email. 🙂 I bet the reader will jump to Instagram after that.

18. Warby Parker – You’re all signed up

Type of welcome: Get started + Video / GIF 

Source: Pinterest

This email by Warby Parker is a piece of art combined with a GIF. It has everything: dancing people, the globe and the ice cream.

They also mention the CSR activity that makes Warby Parker even more likable.

Get inspired and learn more about animated emails with these 30 inspiring examples.

19. Stampsy – Get started with a few simple steps

Type of Welcome: Get Started

Source: Pinterest

Stampy starts its onboarding process by giving a to-do list. They assigned different colors to different visuals and used the same colors for the hyperlinks in the text.

The white space highlights the main points nicely.

20. Asana – Welcome Series 1/2

Type of Welcome: Get Started

Asana also starts the onboarding flow as soon as they send out the welcome email.

Their CTA encourages the recipients to go to Asana and create their very first task. This method helps to activate users and build a habit.

21. Asana – Welcome Series 2/2

Type of Welcome: Educating the user 

Source: Really Good Emails

SaaS businesses need to make sure their users aren’t just activated but active users. Learning to use software takes time and requires your help. Asana encourages project creation and gives an example of using the product.

22. Storehouse – Verify Account

Type of Welcome: Subscription Confirmation

Source: Really Good Emails

Storehouse used the full name in the greeting email. They also outlined what Storehouse is about and encouraged Matthew to share his story.

This email verification template was used as a welcome email. If your policy requires double opt-in you can merge the confirmation email and welcome emails. Important note: to comply with SPAM laws we advise everybody to use double opt-in only.

23. Virgin America – Welcome Aboard. We’ll be in touch.

Type of Welcome: Just Saying Hello

Source: Really Good Emails

The first thing we notice is the hand in the center. It means love in the American Sign Language. Nice thought, I must say.

Just like a captain, Virgin America greeted the recipients by saying “Welcome Aboard”. They also named their CTA “Grab a Seat” that absolutely nailed it.

Well, I’m not saying that you should use the same phrases unless you have an airline but you can use the same approach. Tailor your message to your industry if you can.

24. SpiritJS – SpiritJS will be released as soon as possible

Type of Welcome: What to expect

Source: Really Good Emails

SpiritJS was still under construction, yet they wanted to make sure they keep updating their users.

SpiritJS used storytelling to explain what users can expect. Their little ghost creature adds a creative and fun touch to the email.

You can also start building your mailing list and relationships even if you are still building your product.

25.Google Adwords – Congratulations! You’ve successfully signed up!

At last but not least, here is plain text like – very minimalistic HTML – welcome email from Google. Google listed a number of steps to activate the account. The embedded links and educational material all help the customer navigate and use the software properly.

Notice that it’s more difficult to screen plain text emails and it’s a little bit dry as well.

Welcome Email Case Study – Chamaileon

In this last section, we would like to share with you our own experience with you.

At first, we didn’t have a welcome email in our onboarding email sequence. We had a lot of users signing up but not so many engagements in the app. After a few months, we wanted to increase the number of returning users (Retention of AARRR pirate metrics) by engaging more of them and showing them the main features of Chamaileon software.

Have you ever received a Welcome email?

Imagine you are reading a blog post, and a pop up appears offering a free trial of a new email marketing tool? You think: ”Why not? It’s free!”

But then when you start to use the app, you realize that you have no idea what it is actually for.

Is it an ESP? An automation software? An email testing tool?

I’m sure something similar has happened to you before, and that’s why we decided that the right time for a welcome email is right after user registration.

It is the best time to show to the new users what the software is about.

You may think this is the same thing every company does. Yes, it is. We came up with the need for a welcome email from our data. We had to confess to ourselves, that in this case, our software is similar to any other in the industry, and it needs a welcome email — even if we refused to admit it in the beginning.

Chamaileon’s Welcome Email

The following email template was made in our software with the email template builder.

It was pretty easy to create since Chamaileon has a highly flexible drag and drop editor. We created the email accordingly to most of the best practices used in this article and just made a few changes so it would match our brand and the needs of our own users.

We made an A/B test with the A version showing three features without guidance and the B version with steps on what to do next in the app, plus a feature list.

Version A 

Version A got an 11% click rate. It’s a pretty solid percentage, considering the software industry hates getting emails since they create tons of emails themselves.

It’s like selling vegetables to grocery owners. Helps a lot that the email renders perfectly on all devices and email clients, which has a positive effect on the CTR %.

How did we do it in Chamaileon so that it looks good on both desktop and mobile?

In our email template builder, there is an option to show or hide on mobile and/or desktop. So you can create sections that you want to show only on mobile and the ones you want to show only on the desktop version.

If you want to improve your click rates, you can redesign your email in Chamaileon and see how much difference does the mobile-friendly design makes. You can register here for free.

Here is how the version A looks like.

Source: Chamaileon

The email template matches our brand colors, shows all the features, has prominent CTAs, and it has a warm welcome greeting: the image that says: Hello.
You can see the click rate is not bad, but we still want to improve upon it. We decided that we should also show steps on what to do once someone logged into the application because only showing the features were not enough.

Version B

We made the following B version, which has a 15% click rate.

Check out the results.

And here is what the email looks like.

Source: Chamaileon

As you can see, the focus is on one button and one action in the upper part. It’s much easier when the readers see a higher priority, a noticeable button to click rather than a choice of three similar ones.

At the end of the month, we measured the % of active users and it increased by 24.6% and most actives by 38.4% with one single email.

Note: If you still haven’t found an example or a template that you want to use in your campaigns, you can take a look at our email template collection with already predesigned welcome email templates.

Access the collection here for free in our app.

The Takeaway

Welcome emails are essential to make a great first impression and build trust with your customers.

New subscribers made up their mind and most likely they are ready to buy your product. That’s why nailing your welcome email is necessary to convert these leads into customers.

Consider creating a welcome series to educate your customers about your product. A single welcome message won’t be as successful as a well-thought-out welcome email sequence. It’ll result in a higher engagement rate and ROI. It’s a win-win both for you and your customers.