welcome-series

---
name: welcome-series
description: Writes the three emails a new subscriber gets in their first fortnight, with the timing, the footer, the unsubscribe plumbing and the exit rule all specified. Use when someone has just joined your list and currently receives nothing until the next campaign.
---

# The first three emails a new subscriber gets, written and ready to schedule

You give this your venue, what a new subscriber actually did to join (booked a table, bought a voucher, ticked a box at the till), and one thing you would like them to do next. You get back three finished emails with subject lines, preview text, body copy, send timing, a footer that carries every detail the law requires, and the rule that stops the sequence when they act. It is written so a manager can paste it into whatever the venue already uses and switch it on tonight.

## What it does

1. **Say what each of the three emails is for, in one sentence, before writing a word of copy.** Email one confirms what the person just did and tells them what they have signed up for. Email two gives them one useful thing with nothing asked in return. Email three asks for the one action you named, with a date attached. Writing the three purposes first stops the common failure, which is three emails that all say "we are lovely, come in" and differ only in the photograph. If you cannot write a distinct sentence for email two, you do not have a welcome series, you have a promotion, and it should be sent once.

2. **Send email one within minutes, and make it confirm the thing they actually did.** A welcome that arrives four days later lands on someone who has forgotten signing up, and a stranger's email is what a spam report looks like. Name the moment in the first line: "You ticked the box at the bar on Saturday night", "You booked table 12 for the 20th", "You bought a £50 voucher this morning". Then, in the same email, set the expectation. Yahoo's sender best practices put this as a requirement of a healthy list: "Set recipient expectations clearly when users subscribe. Let them know what mail to expect, how often it will be sent, and what it will look like." Two lines does it: what you send, how often, and who it comes from. "One email a month when the menu changes, plus the Christmas dates in October. From Sam, who runs the kitchen."

3. **Use email one to confirm the address as well as the person.** If the address has not already been confirmed by a click, this is where you do it. Yahoo again: "When users subscribe to your mailing list, send them an email asking them to click to confirm their opt-in. This will improve the experience for users (who won't sign up accidentally or get signed up maliciously) and for your list (which won't contain uninterested people, fake email addresses, or most robots)." Google's sender guidelines say it in six words: "Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them." A paper sheet from a busy Friday will contain misread handwriting, joke addresses and one address belonging to somebody who did not sign up, and every one of those damages the reputation that decides whether email three arrives at all.

4. **Build the footer once, and put everything in it that has to be there.** Four separate requirements land in the same six lines. PECR requires that "You must not disguise or conceal your identity, and you must provide a valid contact address so they can opt out or unsubscribe". CAP Code rule 10.7 puts it as marketing emails "must contain the marketer's full name... and a valid address; for example, an e-mail address or a SMS short code to which recipients can send opt-out requests". If you trade as a limited company, GOV.UK's guidance on stationery and promotional material requires business letters, order forms and websites to show "the company's registered number", "its registered office address", "where the company is registered (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland)" and "the fact that it's a limited company". And an unsubscribe link has to be there and has to be visible. Write the footer once, check it against those four, and reuse it in every email the business ever sends.

5. **Make the unsubscribe work at the plumbing level, not just visually.** Both large mailbox providers now require the header as well as the link. Google: "Marketing messages and subscribed messages must support one-click unsubscribe, and include a clearly visible unsubscribe link in the message body", implemented with `List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click` and a `List-Unsubscribe` header. Yahoo requires "a functioning list-unsubscribe header, which supports one-click unsubscribe for marketing and subscribed messages", a "clearly visible unsubscribe link in the email body", and says to "Honor unsubscribes within 2 days". Yahoo also says the unsubscribe process must not "require users to log in". Most hosted email tools do all of this for you; check it by sending yourself a test and looking for the unsubscribe control Gmail puts next to the sender name.

6. **Write email two so that it would still be worth opening if the venue were closed.** Send it three days after email one. One thing, genuinely useful, specific to the place: how to get the table by the window, the two dishes the kitchen would rather you ordered and why, the parking that is free after six, what actually happens at the quiz. No offer, no booking link above the fold, no "don't forget". The purpose is to be the email that gets opened, so that email three gets opened. If the only useful thing the venue can think of is a discount, that is a signal the welcome series is the wrong project and the menu is the right one.

7. **Put one ask in email three, with a date, and make it easy to say no to.** Send it seven to ten days after email two. Name the action ("book a table before the menu changes on the 30th", "come to the Tuesday quiz this week", "spend the voucher, it runs to March"), give one link, and give a real reason the date matters. Do not invent the deadline. CAP Code rule 8.22 is explicit that "Promoters must not claim that consumers must respond by a specified date or within a specified time if they need not", and rule 3.30 covers falsely stating that a product or its terms "will be available only for a limited time to deprive consumers of the time or opportunity to make an informed choice". If the menu genuinely changes on the 30th, say so. If it does not, use a different reason.

8. **Do not hide marketing inside a service message.** A booking confirmation, a reminder of the time, a note that the card payment failed: those are service messages and they sit outside the marketing rules. The moment you add an offer they stop being service messages. The ICO's example is a mobile company telling a customer they are near their data limit, which is a service message, and the same message with "we have a special data offer just for you" added, which "would be direct marketing". Keep the two apart in the welcome series: email one may confirm and set expectations, and any offer belongs in email three, which goes only to people on a marketing route.

9. **Write the exit rule, the suppression rule and the send times, then test on a phone.** Exit: if they take the action in email three, or book, stop the sequence and do not send the remaining emails. Suppression: if they unsubscribe at any point, stop immediately and add them to the do-not-contact list. Send times: pick two, one mid-morning and one early evening, and keep them the same for every subscriber so that a problem is visible. Then send all three to a Gmail address, a Yahoo or Outlook address and one you can open on an actual phone, and read them there. Hospitality customers read on a phone in a queue, and a welcome email with a headline that wraps to four lines has already failed before anyone gets to the copy.

## Then it checks

1. Each of the three emails has a written one-sentence purpose, and no two purposes are the same.
2. Email one names the specific thing the person did to join and states what will be sent and how often, in words a stranger would understand.
3. The footer on every email carries the sender's full name, a valid contact address for opt-out requests, a visible unsubscribe link, and, where the business is a limited company, the registered number, registered office address, country of registration and the word Limited or Ltd.
4. A test send to a real Gmail account shows the one-click unsubscribe control beside the sender name, and clicking it removes the address without a login.
5. No date, deadline, limit or scarcity claim appears in any of the three emails that the owner cannot point to a real reason for, and no email contains a figure, a percentage or a claim the owner has not confirmed.
6. The sequence has a written exit rule and a written suppression rule, and all three emails have been opened and read on a phone at the width the customer will actually see.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is. If email two is signed by the chef, the chef has to have seen it.
- Never send the welcome series to an address that is not on a lawful route, and never use it to warm up an inherited list. A welcome email to someone who did not subscribe is the message most likely to be reported as spam, and one bad send poisons the sending reputation for every later email to every other customer.
- Never invent a deadline to create urgency. A false closing date is a specific breach of the advertising code, and in a small town the customer who turns up on the 31st and finds the menu unchanged tells more people than the email reached.
- Never put a price, an allergen statement or a nutritional claim in a welcome email without checking it against what the kitchen is actually serving that week. An email is a written statement that outlives the menu it was copied from.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own menu, prices and terms, and for their accountant or solicitor to check where it states a price, a term or a company detail. It drafts copy against published guidance; it is not advice on your compliance or your contracts.

## Built from
- Yahoo, "Sender Best Practices", Sender Hub, https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/, no publication date shown on the page, though it notes enforcement of the requirements "Beginning in February 2024", read 14 September 2026: the expectation-setting wording in step 2, the confirmation email in step 3, and the unsubscribe requirements and two-day honouring in step 5.
- Google, "Email sender guidelines", Gmail Help, https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126, no publication date shown on the page; its own change table lists "Use a TLS connection for transmitting email" as added Dec. 2023, read 14 September 2026: address confirmation in step 3, and the one-click unsubscribe headers and visible link in step 5.
- Information Commissioner's Office, "Electronic mail marketing", Guide to PECR, https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guide-to-pecr/electronic-and-telephone-marketing/electronic-mail-marketing/, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the identity and valid contact address requirement in the footer at step 4.
- Information Commissioner's Office, "Identify direct marketing", https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/direct-marketing-guidance/identify-direct-marketing/, latest update shown 20 August 2025, read 14 September 2026: the service message definition and the data-limit example that shapes step 8.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 10 rule 10.7 and Section 3 rules 3.30 and 8.22, https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/10.html, https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html and https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/08.html, no publication date shown on the pages, read 14 September 2026: the full name and valid address requirement in step 4, and the ban on invented deadlines in step 7.
- GOV.UK, "Running a limited company: your responsibilities - Signs, stationery and promotional material", https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited-company/signs-stationery-and-promotional-material, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the four company details that go in the footer at step 4.

# welcome-series

## You are given
A folder from one UK hospitality business holding: the copy for the three welcome emails as drafted, with the one sentence purpose of each; the venue's trading name, contact address for opt-out requests, and, where it is a limited company, the registered name, registered number, registered office address and country of registration; the joining actions the series is triggered by, such as a table booking, a voucher purchase or a ticked box at the till; the subscriber list with the route each address sits on and the date it was collected; the suppression or do-not-contact list; any deadline used in email three together with the real reason the owner has given for it; and the send times the owner has chosen. Column names differ between files and dates are in mixed formats.

## Produce
Write into a `./welcome-series-output/` folder. Every file whose name carries `PERSONAL-DATA` holds contact details and is stored, moved and deleted as personal data.

1. `email-1-<venue-slug>.md`, `email-2-<venue-slug>.md`, `email-3-<venue-slug>.md` - one draft per file, each with headed blocks in exactly this order: `Purpose`, `Send trigger`, `Send delay`, `Subject line`, `Preview text`, `Body`, `Footer`, `Signed by`, `Exit condition`. Body copy is the supplied draft, unchanged. Any block with nothing supplied is left empty and listed in `gaps.md`.
2. `footer.txt` - the single footer used in all three emails, built only from the supplied business details. Any detail not supplied appears as `[TO CONFIRM]`.
3. `footer-check.csv` with these columns in this order: `requirement`, `value_used`, `source_file`, `present`. Rows in exactly this order: `Sender full name`, `Valid contact address for opt-out requests`, `Visible unsubscribe link`, `Registered company name`, `Registered number`, `Registered office address`, `Country of registration`, `The word Limited or Ltd`. `present` is `yes`, `no` or `not a limited company`.
4. `sequence-schedule.csv` with columns: `email_no`, `purpose_one_sentence`, `send_trigger`, `delay_from_previous`, `send_time`, `exit_condition`, `suppression_condition`, `contains_an_offer`. `contains_an_offer` is `yes` or `no`, and it must be `no` for emails one and two.
5. `eligible-PERSONAL-DATA.csv` with columns: `email_lower`, `first_name`, `joining_action`, `date_joined`, `route`, `address_confirmed`, `source_file`, `source_row`. `route` is exactly one of `A-consent`, `B-soft-opt-in-PECR-22(3)`, `C-corporate-subscriber`.
6. `excluded-PERSONAL-DATA.csv` with the same columns plus `reason`. `reason` is exactly one of `no recorded lawful basis`, `route not recorded`, `address not confirmed`, `on the suppression list`, `address malformed`, `duplicate`, `joining action not recorded`, `carried over from another business or site`.
7. `deadlines-used.csv` with columns: `email_no`, `deadline_text_verbatim`, `date_it_resolves_to`, `weekday_it_falls_on`, `reason_supplied_by_the_owner`, `source_file`. Any row with an empty reason is listed in `gaps.md` and its deadline is removed from the draft, leaving the sentence blank rather than rewritten.
8. `claims-and-figures.csv` with columns: `email_no`, `text_verbatim`, `type`, `source_file`, `confirmed_by_owner`. `type` is exactly one of `price`, `date`, `allergen statement`, `nutritional claim`, `number`, `availability`.
9. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of every `[TO CONFIRM]`, every empty block, every deadline with no reason, every figure with no source, every subscriber row that could not be placed, and every email whose purpose sentence duplicates another's.

## Rules
- Codex writes drafts to files only. Never send an email. Never connect to an email platform's API, a marketing service, a booking system or any sending service to send, schedule, queue, automate or import. Never add anybody to a list, an audience, a segment or an automation anywhere.
- Never scrape, guess, construct, correct or complete an email address. Every address is read from a supplied file and carries its `source_file` and `source_row`.
- Anybody without a recorded consent or lawful basis in the supplied data goes in `excluded-PERSONAL-DATA.csv` with the reason set, and never into `eligible-PERSONAL-DATA.csv`. The two files must partition the input: every distinct address appears in exactly one of them, and the counts must sum to the distinct address count.
- Never write the copy. The three drafts are the owner's supplied copy, placed into the file structure unchanged. Never rewrite a sentence, never add a line and never improve a subject line.
- Never invent a deadline, a price, an allergen statement, a nutritional claim, a figure or a percentage. A deadline with no supplied reason is removed and the sentence left blank.
- Never put an offer, a discount or a booking incentive into email one or email two. Where the supplied copy contains one, leave it in place, mark `contains_an_offer` as `yes` and list it in `gaps.md` rather than editing it out.
- Never sign an email in a named person's name unless the input says who it is from, and never attribute copy to a person who has not been recorded as having seen it.
- Never carry an address from one business, site or brand to another, and never use the series to warm up an inherited list.
- Every figure, date and business detail must trace to a supplied input file named in the row.
- Use British English, £ and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own menu, prices and terms, and for their accountant or solicitor to check any price, term or company detail. It drafts copy against supplied guidance and is not advice on compliance or contracts, and nothing in this folder has been sent.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, the three purpose sentences and whether any two match, the distinct address count with the eligible and excluded counts and the sum check stated explicitly, the breakdown of `excluded-PERSONAL-DATA.csv` by reason, every row of `footer-check.csv` with `present` set to `no`, every deadline with the weekday it resolves to and whether a reason was supplied, every row where `contains_an_offer` is `yes` for emails one or two, the count of `[TO CONFIRM]` placeholders, and the `gaps.md` item count. State plainly that no email was sent and no platform was contacted.