Drip Campaign.

A drip campaign works like a timetable. It starts with a trigger, such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a lead magnet. Emails then follow at set intervals: a welcome the same day, a practical tip after three days, a case example after a week, an invitation to a conversation after two weeks. Each recipient moves through the series at their own pace, depending on when they joined.

A drip campaign should be distinguished from behaviour-based marketing automation. A classic drip series follows the clock, whatever the recipient does. Marketing automation reacts to behaviour: someone who visits the pricing page receives a different email from someone who only reads the blog. The line is blurred, because many drip series have simple exit rules such as 'stop the series as soon as an enquiry comes in'. For getting started, a time-based series is often the better choice because it is easy to build and to check.

Typical uses are welcome series after sign-up, follow-up after an e-book download, following up on a quote, onboarding new clients and reminders before a service or an appointment. Each email must be useful in its own right. A series that repeats the same offer five times leads to unsubscribes and harms your email deliverability.

In Switzerland, the same legal rules apply to promotional series as to any email marketing: as a rule you need consent (Unfair Competition Act, SR 241, Art. 3 para. 1 let. o), an identifiable sender and an easy unsubscribe. If an e-book download only promises delivery of the document, you should ask explicitly for consent to a subsequent promotional series, ideally with double opt-in. This is general guidance, not legal advice.