What Is a Drip Campaign? Examples and When to Use One

A drip campaign is a series of emails sent automatically — on a schedule or triggered by an action — instead of one message blasted to everyone at once. Build it once, and it works for every contact who enters it.

Drip campaign vs broadcast

A broadcast goes to your whole audience at a single moment: a newsletter, an announcement. A drip campaign meets each contact on their own timeline — the emails "drip" out step by step from the moment that person qualifies. Broadcasts are for news; drips are for processes that repeat.

Common drip campaign examples

Welcome series: a few emails that introduce your product and set expectations for new subscribers. Onboarding: guide new users to their first win, step by step — see customer onboarding. Lead nurture: educate a lead who is not ready to buy until they are — see lead nurturing. Re-engagement: a win-back sequence for contacts who have gone quiet.

When to use a drip

Reach for a drip whenever the same sequence should happen for many people at different times: someone signs up, someone starts a trial, someone downloads a guide. If you find yourself sending the same few emails by hand over and over, that is a drip waiting to be built.

Time-based vs behavior-based drips

Simple drips run on a fixed schedule (day 0, day 2, day 5). Better drips branch on behavior — skip the setup reminder if the user already finished setup, or escalate if they went quiet. Behavior-based drips feel less like a machine and more like relevant, timely help.

Keep drips honest

A drip is still email your recipient has to want. Keep each step useful, respect unsubscribes and your suppression list, and end sequences that are not landing rather than dripping forever.

Zeluto builds time- and behavior-based drips as multi-step journeys triggered by signup, engagement, score, and CRM events — see journeys & automation.