Drip campaign
Funnel strategyAlso called: drip sequence, autoresponder, drip mode
A drip campaign delivers a pre-written series of messages on a fixed schedule after a contact enters it, so everyone receives the same messages in the same order relative to their own start date rather than on a shared calendar date.
Drip is the opposite of broadcast. A broadcast goes to a list at 10am on Tuesday; a drip goes to each person on their own day three, whenever their day three happens to fall. That relative timing is what makes onboarding, trials and post-purchase follow-up work at all.
Confusingly, the same word also names a throughput control: releasing contacts into a flow in batches rather than all at once. A list import of 40,000 people hitting a sending domain in one minute is a deliverability incident; the same import released 200 at a time every ten minutes is a Tuesday.
Both senses matter and they compose. The sequence is relative-timed; the entry into it is rate-limited.
How it works in FrazzleCRM
- ✓Relative timing is the default: a Wait step of 3 days means three days after that contact reached it, in the company timezone or the contact's own.
- ✓The throughput sense is a real step type — Drip Mode, configured with a batch size and an interval. Contacts queue at it and are released in shared batches, one batch per interval.
- ✓A send window on the automation queues email and SMS to the next open slot, so an overnight drip does not text anyone at 3am.
- ✓Both are visible on the map as their own nodes, so nobody has to open settings to find out why 200 people moved and 39,800 did not.
Where teams get this wrong
Putting a Drip Mode step after the first email rather than before it defeats the point — the whole import still gets emailed at once, and only the second message is throttled.
Common questions
What is the difference between a drip campaign and a newsletter?
A drip is relative to each contact's entry date and is written once. A newsletter is absolute — everyone receives it at the same moment — and is written fresh each time.
How fast should I drip a large import?
Slow enough that your sending domain's reputation survives it. On a cold or newly warmed domain, batches in the low hundreds per hour are ordinary; established domains tolerate far more.
See it on a real map
Free templates where this shows up as an actual node. Clone one and the diagram runs as the automation.
Newsletter Welcome Series
Three emails that set expectations, prove the value, and mark who is actually reading.
CoachingCourse Student Onboarding
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E-commerceProduct Launch Runway
Waitlist, runway, cart open, deadline close — the whole launch on one canvas.
Related terms
Nurture sequence
A nurture sequence is a scheduled series of emails or texts sent to a lead who is not ready to buy, designed to keep the relationship alive and move them toward a specific next action — usually a call, a demo or a first purchase.
Wait step
A wait step pauses a contact's run inside an automation until a condition is met — a duration elapsing, a clock time arriving, a date field coming due, an appointment approaching, or an event happening — then continues from where it left off.
Send window
A send window restricts the days and hours during which an automation may send, holding messages that come due outside it until the next open slot — so a sequence started at midnight does not text anybody at midnight.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC
SPF, DKIM and DMARC are DNS records that prove your email really comes from your domain: SPF lists who may send for you, DKIM cryptographically signs each message, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when a message fails those checks — and publishes reports on who is trying.
Or browse all 24 terms — grouped by what part of the funnel they belong to.
Draw it once, and it runs
In FrazzleCRM the funnel map IS the automation — every node you draw is a real step, and every step you edit redraws the map. Free plan, no credit card.
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