How to set up an email drip sequence in Stacks

A drip sequence is a series of emails that goes out on its own — a welcome series, a lead nurture, an onboarding flow — spaced over days. In Stacks you pick who enters (a new contact, or a tag you add), stack up the emails with a wait before each one, and hit Activate. From there Stacks sends them on schedule, only to people who've opted in, with a one-click unsubscribe on every message.

Before you start

• You'll build sequences from an email template. Each email in the series uses a reusable template for its body, so create at least one first under Email → Templates. If you have no templates, the builder will prompt you to make one.
• You need permission to manage email — admins and managers can create, edit and activate sequences. Team members and view-only users can see them, but the New, Edit and Activate buttons only show for admins and managers.
• Connect your email provider in Settings. A connected provider and running background jobs are required for delivery; check outcomes when messages do not arrive.
• Drips are marketing email, so Stacks only sends to contacts who are subscribed. Contacts whose status is not subscribed are skipped. A stored subscription status is not itself evidence of permission; review the source of imported or manually added contacts.

Step by step

1. Open Sequences. In Stacks, go to Email in the left menu and open Sequences. You'll see your list of sequences with each one's status, how many contacts are enrolled, and how many emails it has sent. Click + New Sequence.
2. Name it and choose who enters. Give the sequence a clear name (up to 150 characters), then set A contact enters this sequence when… — either A new contact is created or A tag is added to a contact. Pick the tag option and a small box appears where you can limit it to one specific tag (for example nurture) — or leave it blank to enter on any tag.
3. Add your emails. Each email row has three parts: a Wait N days box, a subject line, and a template to pick for the body. Set the wait to 0 for the first email if you want it to go out as soon as someone enters. Click + Add email to stack the next one, and set its wait — that wait counts from the previous email. You can add up to 12 emails, with waits of up to 365 days.
4. Create the sequence. Click Create sequence. Stacks saves it Paused on purpose, so nobody is enrolled until you've had a chance to read it through. You'll land on the edit screen.
5. Review, then activate. Check each subject and template, then click Activate. Stacks confirms "activated — new matches will be enrolled." From that moment, any contact that newly matches your trigger enters the sequence and starts receiving the emails on schedule.

Good to know

• Enrollment is forward-looking. A sequence enrolls contacts as they newly match — a contact is created, or the tag gets added — after you activate it. It doesn't blast your whole existing list. To pull an existing contact in, add the tag your sequence listens for.
• The first email can be instant. An email with a 0-day wait goes out as soon as a contact enters (in practice when the background worker processes the due step). Every email after that is measured from the one before it.
• Unsubscribes are handled for you. Every drip email carries a one-click unsubscribe link. Before each send, Stacks checks that the contact is still subscribed and not on your suppression list — if not, that email is skipped.
• Watch it work. The Sequences list and each sequence's header show Enrolled and emails sent counts, plus an Active / Paused badge, so you can see it running.
• Pause or edit anytime. Pausing stops new contacts from enrolling without losing your setup. Editing replaces the email steps, so it's cleanest to pause first, make changes, then activate again.
• Deleting stops delivery. Deleting a sequence removes it and stops enrolled contacts from receiving any more of its emails.

Frequently asked