I’ve been in a LOT of Klaviyos, ConvertKits, and Mailchimps.
Even a couple of HubSpots, Attentives, and ActiveCampaigns.
One of the first things I look at is email sequences… and always find the same set of fundamental issues.
You’d be surprised at some of the simple things even 9-figure brands are missing (like a $100M+ meal kit brand whose Abandoned Checkout Flow was short and confusing, or a big-time performance medicine company that lacked a Post-Purchase Sequence).
Good for me. Means I have work to do. Not so good for the brand, because it means they’ve been losing out on easy money.
To that end…
Here are 9 mistakes I see most often with automated email sequences and what to do about them.
1. Stopping Too Soon
One of the most glaring mistakes I notice in client accounts is that their sequences end too soon.
For example, I often see Abandoned Cart and Checkout flows stop after 2-3 emails.
What if a customer misses the first few emails? They could miss the whole sequence.
They don’t get much of a reason to buy, either.
All they hear is “hey, come get your cart!” without having their hesitations addressed or learning more about the benefits.
Or how about Post-Purchase Sequences that offer nothing after delivery confirmation? The brand goes silent when the customer may need help — whether with their current product or with figuring out what to buy next.
More emails means more opportunities to address hesitations, tell stories, build trust, and make the ask.
(Also, to minimize the risk of missing the entire flow.)
All of that translates into more sales and more loyalty.
2. Failing to Give Each Email a Clear, Focused Purpose
Every email in a flow should have one job.
When a single email tries to do multiple things at once, they dilute each message…
Confusing the reader and hurting overall conversions.
For example, an Abandoned Checkout flow may have a separate email for each of the following:
- Remind them of their order
- Explain the brand’s story
- Overcome a specific objection
- Demonstrate social proof (often to target specific objections as well)
- Address several FAQs
- Drive urgency
Six emails, and each one accomplishes some aim. Each will speak to a different slice of our audience.
Thus, we cast a wide net while keeping each email targeted.
Imagine trying to do just 3 of these in one email. The reader would be all over the place.
A clear purpose shapes everything — the angle, the structure, the CTA, the length.
Without it, you’re just filling a slot in the sequence rather than moving the reader somewhere.
One caveat:
Some flows may have emails appear to do multiple things. For example, the Post-Purchase Sequence’s delivery confirmation email may:
- Confirm their order
- Let them know what to expect
- Point them to free resources on your website
- Soft-link back to the store
However, the real purpose of this email is “onboarding the customer.” That just happens to involve multiple tasks.
3. Getting the Cadence Wrong
Cadence mistakes cut both ways.
Emails spaced too far apart lose momentum, especially early in the flow.
The reader forgets what they were interested in, why they signed up, or what they left in their cart. By the time your third email arrives four days later, they’ve moved on.
Emails spaced too close together feel aggressive. The reader may feel overwhelmed or get annoyed and unsubscribe instead of continuing to read.
All that said…
Cadence is contextual to each email sequence.
Abandoned Cart flows, for example, are time-sensitive. Firing that off after enough time for the customer to have abandoned, and keeping time delays no longer than 1 day, often works well.
Post-Purchase Onboarding sequences have more breathing room.
Customers are waiting for their orders to arrive or going about their lives with their new products.
These emails enhance the experience instead of driving urgency to close a sale. Hence, longer time delays between emails.
There’s no universal rule here.
The flow type, product, brand voice, and audience all factor in.
But the guiding principle is straightforward:
Match the cadence to the context.
4. Improper Subscriber Filtering
Fail to filter your flows properly, and your customers could, at best, get some strange/irrelevant messaging that doesn’t guide them toward the desired action.
At worst, they get overwhelmed, confused, or annoyed and subscribe.
For example, Abandoned Browse emails sound strange to someone who reached checkout with the product they viewed (or worse, placed their order).
Another example I often see is people placing an order in a sales-driven flow… yet still getting that flow’s emails.
A Replenishment Flow that continues to urge the customer to buy — after they placed their refill order.
Setting up the right filters (and triple-checking/testing them) cleans this up.
This goes for broadcasts, too.
A subscriber mid-flow should often be excluded from campaign sends, or, at minimum, the timing should be considered.
Otherwise, they get hit with too many emails (potentially close together) and stop paying as much attention to the email sequence (which is driving the reader toward a specific goal, hence its priority over broadcasts).
So I often exclude ANYONE who is in ANY sequence from ALL broadcasts, except for:
- Promo announcements/last calls
- Major updates everyone should know
Let the Abandoned Cart flow recover carts. Let the Welcome Sequence bring in new leads. Keep everything clean and separate for a cohesive customer experience.
5. Writing Generic Copy
Automated flows — especially transactional ones (like Cart Abandonment and Post-Purchase) — tend to get the lowest-effort copy.
“You left something behind” and “We haven’t seen you in a while” aren’t enough here. That could be any brand.
Such generic copy signals to the reader that you don’t know them well, nor do you care to.
Knowing your audience and where they’re at in their journey is key here.
A brand new subscriber (with 0 purchase history) who just abandoned checkout is in a completely different headspace than someone who bought three months ago and hasn’t come back.
Generic copy treats them the same.
Yes, even the “your order is confirmed/shipped/delivered” stuff can tackle objections, reinforce the brand, or even just be “fun.”
6. Weak or Missing CTAs
Every email is a chance to prompt your audience to take action that benefits them and you.
Yet a copy mistake I often see, even in well-written flow emails, is a weak or missing CTA.
Weak CTAs are things like:
- Shop Now
- Click Here
- Learn More
These work (especially as button copy), but using them for everything gets old and boring. It also may fail to give customers a reason to act.
For example, in an Abandoned Browse, don’t say “shop now.” Say “Return to the item you were viewing.”
See? Not mega-creative. But more relevant and informative.
How about an email in your Welcome Flow pushing toward your hero product?
Say you’re a coffee brand.
Instead of “buy now” it could be “Warm up with XYZ flavor (our best seller)”.
As for missing CTAs…
There are two reasons this happens:
- The brand is afraid to sell (such as being scared to sell early on in the Welcome Sequence)
- The email is NOT a sales email, so the brand doesn’t realize they need a different CTA
Any email that can push a product should get a CTA to that product.
But what about NON-sales emails?
There’s plenty that subscribers can do besides purchase:
- Reply
- Take a survey
- Leave a review
- Check out free content (blog posts, free eBook, etc.)
- Forward the email to someone else
A Post-Purchase flow, for example, may have a check-in email where you encourage replies without selling.
Or there may be a “quick-start guide” email in that sequence. Give the instructions in the email, but urge them to reply or check out FAQs if they have any more questions.
Get fun and creative. Tailor it to your brand voice, customer journey stage, action, etc…
But always, ALWAYS make sure the CTA is clear rather than confusing.
Ultimately…
If the reader finishes your email and doesn’t know what to do next, they do nothing.
That’s, at best, a waste of a send every time the automation fires.
7. Not Personalizing/Tailoring
Sending the same emails to everyone in a sequence is step 1. At least you have the sequence.
But a lack of personalization leaves plenty of money on the table. Best-case scenario sans personalization is the copy works, but doesn’t feel as personal to the recipient.
For example, say you run a supplement company. Customer A buys a fat-burning aid. Customer B buys a mass gainer formula.
Sending the same Post-Purchase Flow “thank-you” email to both makes little sense.
Customer A’s messaging should get them excited to burn more fat and talk about getting lean. Customer B’s should focus more on getting big and strong.
Another example is Abandoned Cart flows.
A brand new person who gets to the end without buying is unsure if the product/brand is right for them and may need a discount to get them over the edge.
A three-time repeat customer? They trust you more. They’re more open to buying.
They don’t need a discount (that’ll devalue your products to give out discounts too often), and their objections may be more specific to that product OR how it pairs with other products.
Personalization doesn’t have to mean complex branching logic or an advanced tech stack.
Even simple segmentation — first-time buyer versus returning customer, product category purchased, how they opted in — makes flows feel more relevant and less like mass communication.
The reader should feel like the email was written for someone in their situation.
(PS: If you have a big list and want to get more hidden money out of it, this AI personalization software’s great. It lets you tag and categorize leads into sub-audiences via surveys, then AI-generate landing page copy, emails, etc. tailored to each one.)
8. No Coherent Narrative Across the Sequence
An email sequence is a sequence, not a random collection of individual emails. The flow should feel like a coherent whole with a throughline…
Like it’s taking the reader somewhere — from where they are now to where you want them to be.
Thus, each email should stand on its own, yet not feel isolated.
Almost like each email is a chapter in a book.
Read them individually, and they make sense. Read them in order, and they build toward something larger.
For instance, the Replenishment Flow’s throughline often centers on the importance of consistency.
With each email, you build a case for regularly reordering and using the product. Each email works as a self-contained piece (one might contain testimonials, for example), but plays a role in the larger sequence.
9. Setting and Forgetting Entirely
Flows are “set and forget” to a large degree, but you can’t abandon them forever.
Things change. Your brand evolves; you launch new products; you update or discontinue existing offers; new tech comes along; deliverability changes occur; a new audience segment emerges; and so on.
Information can become out of date. Links, images, and other technical elements can break, too.
Auditing your sequences regularly (I recommend monthly) helps you catch all of this — broken links/images, out-of-date copy, incorrect offers, etc.
It also surfaces new opportunities, like:
- Products to feature
- New angles to try
- Underperforming emails worth a rewrite
- New branches to add
Beyond routine maintenance, major promotional events require their own one-off adjustments.
Before any major event, go through your relevant flows, update the offer details and language where needed, and revert afterward.
This is one of the first things I do with clients before a major promotional period, and Black Friday is a prime example.
For example, a subscriber who abandons cart during Black Friday should get sale-relevant messaging and the correct offers. Standard evergreen copy + a generic discount would sound weird.
Once it’s over, revert it to normal and return to routine audits to ensure things run smoothly.
Fix Your Flows, Fix Your Money
Most of the mistakes here aren’t hard to fix.
Add a few emails, give each a clear job (while keeping the flow coherent), filter properly, nail the cadence, write strong copy, and urge an action in every email.
Add some personalization where relevant, and don’t forget to audit in case updates or fixes are needed.
Now there’s one more mistake we didn’t cover…
And that would be LACKING the most critical flows.
If you’re still building out your core sequences, my free guide breaks down the 10 email automations every brand should have running — abandonment, retention, welcome, and more.
⇒ Get your free copy and learn the 10 sequences now
What To Do Next
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