/bond

Lifecycle Email Drip Reference

Purpose: Design trigger-based, behavior-branched email drip covering the full user lifecycle — onboarding (Day 0-30), activation reminders, milestone celebrations, dormancy triggers, and winback. Each email has segment filter, trigger, content goal, CTA, suppression rule. Includes deliverability and consent compliance.

Scope Boundary

• bond lifecycle-email: Full lifecycle email drip design (this document).
• bond reengagement (elsewhere): Dormant re-engagement tactics. Lifecycle includes but is broader than re-engagement.
• bond winback (elsewhere): Cancelled/long-dormant recovery. Lifecycle is active-user nurture; winback is recovery.
• Prose notification (elsewhere): Copy authoring per email. Lifecycle designs the plan; Prose writes the words.
• relay (elsewhere): Email delivery infrastructure.
• Pulse (elsewhere): Funnel / open / click metrics.
• Growth (elsewhere): Acquisition and top-of-funnel nurture.
• Cloak / Canon[regulatory] (elsewhere): GDPR / CAN-SPAM / CASL / APPI compliance.

Lifecycle Stages

Signup  →  Onboarding  →  Activation  →  Habit  →  Power User  →  Churn Risk  →  Winback
  0           0-30d          7-30d       30d+       60d+            signals      cancelled

Each stage has its own email drip purpose:

Email Contract per Touch

Each email specifies:

### Email: [internal name]
- **Trigger**: [event / time / behavior condition]
- **Segment filter**: [who gets this]
- **Suppression rule**: [who does not get this]
- **Content goal**: [1 sentence — what mindset change]
- **Subject**: [subject line ≤ 50 chars]
- **Preheader**: [preheader ≤ 100 chars]
- **Primary CTA**: [verb-led, 2-4 words]
- **Secondary action**: [optional, text link]
- **Send time window**: [local time + day of week]
- **Max frequency**: [cap across all lifecycle email]
- **Exit condition**: [when user removed from this drip]

Onboarding Drip Template (Day 0-30)

Rule: if user activates between D1-D7, drop them off the "stuck" branch and move to the activated branch.

Behavior Branching

Drip paths split based on events:

        signup_completed
              │
              ▼
         welcome D0
              │
      ┌───────┴───────┐
      ▼ activated     ▼ not activated by D1
 activated drip      stuck drip (D1, D3, D7 stuck messages)
      │               │
      ▼ activates?    ▼
  continue in       merges back if activated
  activated drip    otherwise → dormancy drip

At any point, a user can flow between drips based on events. A mature lifecycle engine tracks user state and routes accordingly.

Suppression Rules

A user receives an email only if ALL these pass:

• Has valid email (not bounced hard).
• Not on global suppression / complaint list.
• Opted in (per channel + per jurisdiction).
• Email frequency < cap (usually ≤ 3 per week).
• Not currently in an active support ticket (for marketing emails).
• Email type aligned with user's channel preference.
• Not in quiet hours (by timezone).

Frequency Cap

Exceeding caps → skip lower-priority email or defer to next send window.

Deliverability Contract

Required infrastructure:

• SPF record set for sending domain.
• DKIM signing enabled.
• DMARC policy published (at minimum p=none with reporting, preferably p=quarantine or p=reject).
• BIMI (optional but growing — visual trust signal).
• Warm-up: new sending domain ramped over 2-4 weeks.
• Feedback loops: Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo postmaster tools integrated.
• List hygiene: remove hard bounces immediately; soft-bounce threshold (3 consecutive → suppress).
• Complaint rate: keep < 0.1% (Gmail aggressive threshold).
• Engagement signal: low engagement → send less frequently to preserve sender reputation.

Consent Compliance

Coordinate with Cloak (privacy engineering) and Canon[regulatory] (regulatory audit) for regulated regions.

Metrics per Drip

Reserve a 5-10% holdout group (no lifecycle emails) to measure incrementality.

Output Template

## Lifecycle Email Drip: [Audience]

### Lifecycle Stage Coverage
- [x] Welcome
- [x] Onboarding (D0-30)
- [x] Activation reminder
- [ ] Habit reinforcement
- [ ] Churn risk save
- [x] Post-cancel confirm

### Drip Table
| # | Day/Trigger | Segment | Suppression | Subject | Primary CTA | Exit condition |
|---|-------------|---------|-------------|---------|-------------|----------------|
| 1 | D0 | new signup | hard-bounce | "..." | "..." | signup completed |
| 2 | D1 activated=false | stuck | ... | ... | ... | activates or D7 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

### Branching Logic
- [ ] Activated users route to habit drip
- [ ] Non-activated users route through stuck drip
- [ ] Churn-risk signals trigger save drip
- [ ] Cancelled users exit lifecycle, enter winback cohort

### Compliance
- [ ] SPF/DKIM/DMARC configured
- [ ] Unsubscribe ≤ 10 bus days
- [ ] Physical address in footer (CAN-SPAM)
- [ ] Opt-in verified for EU/Canada/Japan
- [ ] Channel preferences respected

### Frequency Caps
- Marketing emails / week: 2-3
- Total emails / day: 4
- Per trigger / week: 1

### Holdout / Measurement
- **Holdout size**: [% of cohort, typically 5-10%]
- **Primary metric**: [activation / retention / revenue — with uplift target]
- **Measurement window**: [days]

### Handoffs
- Prose `notification`: copy each email (subject + preheader + body + CTA)
- relay: delivery, tracking, bounce handling
- Pulse: drip-level funnel + primary metric
- Experiment: A/B test copy, subject lines, timing
- Cloak / Canon[regulatory]: regulatory review for launched regions
- Scaffold: domain + DNS setup

Anti-Patterns

Deliverable Contract

When lifecycle-email completes, emit:

• Lifecycle stage coverage checklist.
• Drip table (day × segment × suppression × subject × CTA × exit).
• Branching logic (how users flow between drips).
• Compliance checklist per jurisdiction.
• Frequency caps and quiet-hours rule.
• Holdout plan for incrementality measurement.
• Metrics per drip with targets.
• Handoffs: Prose, relay, Pulse, Experiment, Cloak/Canon[regulatory], Scaffold.

References

• Customer.io, Braze, Iterable, HubSpot — lifecycle marketing platforms
• CAN-SPAM / GDPR / CASL / APPI / LGPD regulatory references
• Mailchimp / Litmus — subject line and preheader benchmarks
• Google / Microsoft / Yahoo postmaster tools
• MarketingSherpa / Campaign Monitor — industry benchmark reports
• Sean Ellis — Hacking Growth (lifecycle email examples)
• Reforge — Lifecycle Marketing course