Advanced Email Drip Campaigns: Branching Logic, Behavioural Triggers and Optimisation

Beyond Basic Drip Campaigns

A basic drip campaign sends a fixed sequence of emails on a fixed schedule: email 1 on day 0, email 2 on day 3, email 3 on day 7. Everyone receives the same emails in the same order regardless of behaviour.

Advanced drip campaigns adapt based on what the recipient does:

• Opens an email: the next email changes.
• Clicks a specific link: they enter a different branch.
• Visits a pricing page: they get accelerated to a sales-ready track.
• Does not engage for 14 days: they receive a re-engagement sequence.
• Downloads a resource: they receive related content, not a repeat of what they already have.

This guide covers how to build drip campaigns that respond to behaviour, branch based on intent signals and optimise over time.

Branching Logic

Decision points

A branching drip campaign uses decision points to route recipients into different paths:

Common decision points:

Branch structure

A typical branching campaign looks like a tree rather than a line:

Entry
  |
Email 1 (Introduction)
  |
[Opened?]
  |            \
Yes             No
  |              |
Email 2A       Email 2B
(Deep dive)    (Resend w/ new subject)
  |              |
[Clicked       [Opened?]
 pricing link?]  |        \
  |     \       Yes       No
Yes     No       |         |
  |      |    Email 3    Exit or
Email 3A Email 3B       re-engage
(Case    (More
study)   education)

Implementation in major platforms

Behavioural Triggers

Website behaviour triggers

Connect your email platform to website analytics (or use the platform's tracking pixel) to trigger emails based on website behaviour:

Email behaviour triggers

Product/app behaviour triggers

For SaaS and product companies:

Purchase behaviour triggers

For e-commerce and transactional businesses:

Multi-Track Nurturing

Track assignment

Instead of one drip campaign for everyone, create parallel tracks based on buyer characteristics:

Track transitions

Recipients should move between tracks based on behaviour:

Upgrade triggers (move to a faster track):

• Visit pricing page.
• Download bottom-of-funnel content (case study, buyer's guide).
• Engage with 3+ emails in a week.
• Reply to an email.
• Request a demo or consultation.

Downgrade triggers (move to a slower track):

• No engagement for 14+ days.
• Unsubscribe from specific content types but not all.
• Mark as "not ready" in a survey or form.

Exit triggers (leave all tracks):

• Become a customer (move to customer onboarding).
• Unsubscribe.
• Hard bounce.
• Explicitly not interested (reply or form response).

Engagement Scoring for Drip Campaigns

Scoring model

Assign points based on actions to determine engagement level and track assignment:

Score thresholds

Score decay

Engagement fades. A prospect who was highly engaged 6 months ago but has not interacted since is not sales-ready today. Implement score decay:

• Reduce the score by a fixed amount per week of inactivity.
• Set a floor (scores do not go below 0).
• Reset the decay clock on any new engagement.
• Different actions decay at different rates (a demo request stays relevant longer than an email open).

Dynamic Content

Conditional content blocks

Instead of separate emails for each segment, use conditional content blocks within a single email:

Subject: {{first_name}}, here's what's new

[HEADER - same for everyone]

[IF industry = "SaaS"]
  [SaaS-specific content block]
[ELSE IF industry = "Healthcare"]
  [Healthcare-specific content block]
[ELSE]
  [General content block]
[END IF]

[IF engagement_score > 25]
  [CTA: Book a demo]
[ELSE]
  [CTA: Download our guide]
[END IF]

[FOOTER - same for everyone]

Dynamic content variables

Optimisation

What to test

Measurement

Continuous improvement

1. Review drip performance monthly.
2. Identify the email with the highest drop-off (lowest open rate relative to the previous email).
3. Test a replacement for the weakest email.
4. Monitor branch distribution -- if 90% go one way, the branch may not be useful.
5. Check for cannibalisation (are drip emails competing with manual sales outreach?).
6. Retire sequences that have been running unchanged for 6+ months. Refresh content and test new approaches.

Contact Data for Drip Campaigns

Building the entry list

Drip campaigns are only as good as the contacts entering them:

1. Collect contacts from lead magnets, events, website forms and other sources.
2. Export and consolidate from all collection points.
3. Upload to Email Extractor to deduplicate across all sources.
4. Verify email addresses before entering contacts into the drip.
5. Enrich with company, title and industry data for segmentation and dynamic content.

Entry point variety

Different entry points feed different drip tracks:

Related Guides

• Email Drip Campaign Strategies
• Email Personalisation Techniques Advanced
• Email Cadence Optimisation
• Lead Scoring Models
• AB Testing Cold Emails