---
title: "Welcome Email Flow After a Gamified Signup"
description: "Build a welcome email flow for people who signed up through a game: prize delivery, personalised emails, consolation offers and a 5-email example flow."
url: https://scratcher.io/blog/welcome-email-flow-after-gamified-signup
language: en
---

# Welcome Email Flow After a Gamified Signup: Turning Players into Buyers

A game gets people to say yes. The welcome flow turns that yes into a first purchase. Here is a 5-email flow you can build in Klaviyo, Mailchimp or HubSpot.

Henrik Lund 7 min read April 7, 2026

![Welcome Email Flow After a Gamified Signup: Turning Players into Buyers](https://scratcher.io/img/containers/assets/blog/covers/welcome-email-flow-after-gamified-signup.webp/0888a425c7f3ea0461607aa96902fd22/welcome-email-flow-after-gamified-signup.webp)

Someone has just spun your wheel, left their email and said yes to your newsletter. What happens next decides whether they become a customer or an unopened name on a list. A good **welcome email flow** turns the energy of the game into a first purchase. This guide shows you how to build a welcome series for people who signed up through a gamified campaign, with an example flow you can copy into Klaviyo, Mailchimp or HubSpot.

## Why the first 72 hours matter

A new subscriber from a game is at their warmest right after they play. They know your brand, they may have just won something, and they are expecting to hear from you.

Wait a week, and the moment is gone. They may not remember signing up, and an email from a brand they do not recognise is easy to delete or mark as spam.

That is why the first few days should do three jobs:

1. **Deliver what you promised:** the prize, the code or the result.
2. **Introduce your brand:** who you are and why your emails are worth opening.
3. **Give a reason to buy now:** while the reward is fresh and still valid.

Our article [From lead to customer](https://scratcher.io/blog/from-lead-to-customer-turning-interest-into-action-with-gamification-marketing) covers the strategy behind this. Here we focus on the hands-on flow.

## Delivering the prize or code

The first email is the most important one. It should arrive within minutes.

- **Put the prize in the subject line:** "Your 15% code is inside" or "You won! Here's your gift card".
- **Make the code easy to copy** and show when it expires.
- **Link straight to the shop**, ideally with the code already applied if your shop supports it.
- **Explain how to redeem it in store**, if that is an option. A barcode on the phone is easier than typing a code at the till.

You can send this email from Scratcher or from your own email tool. With the Email module (included on Professional, or as an add-on), Scratcher sends prize emails with unique discount codes or barcodes automatically. Read more about [prize handling](https://scratcher.io/platform/prizes).

If you would rather send everything from your email tool, use our [integrations](https://scratcher.io/platform/integrations) to send the sign-up, together with the fields you map, such as the prize won, the coupon code and any quiz answers. Then you can build the email in your own template.

## Using game answers to personalise emails 2 and 3

Games are not just a way to collect emails. A [quiz](https://scratcher.io/blog/quiz-lead-generation), a [personality test](https://scratcher.io/blog/personality-test-marketing) or a product finder tells you what each person is interested in, and you can use that straight away.

- **Quiz result:** if someone's result was "the outdoor type", show outdoor products in email 2.
- **[Product finder](https://scratcher.io/platform/formats/product-finder):** send the recommended product again, with reviews and a reason to buy.
- **Poll or vote:** if they voted for a flavour, tell them when it is back in stock.
- **Prize choice:** if people picked a prize category, that is a strong signal of interest.

BON'A PARTE did this with an outfit game: people picked their favourite top, bottoms and shoes after signing up for the newsletter. Everyone who did not win received a voucher and a round-up of the products they had picked, and those emails had a [significantly higher open and contact rate](https://scratcher.io/customers/bona-parte-tries-personalised-and-product-related-gamification) than the brand's regular emails.

Toyota Denmark takes the same idea further. It uses quiz and survey answers to send personalised, behaviour-based emails, and around [35% of all Toyota sales in Denmark can be directly email-matched](https://scratcher.io/customers/how-toyota-built-a-first-party-data-engine-that-drives-sales-all-year) to the consented database built this way.

## Non-winners: the consolation offer

In most campaigns, most people do not win the main prize. How you treat them matters, because they are the majority of your new list.

- **Give everyone something small:** free shipping, a small discount or a gift with the next order.
- **Thank them for playing** and tell them about the next chance to win, if there is one.
- **Do not make them feel like losers.** "You didn't win this time" can still lead to "but here's something for you".

Consolation prizes can drive real sales. Lampeguru gave a discount code to every participant who did not win one of its Black Friday gift cards, and the campaign contributed to [six-digit revenue growth](https://scratcher.io/customers/lampeguru-uncovered-new-revenue-opportunities-during-black-friday) from both grand prizes and consolation codes. With the Email module, Scratcher can also send a separate email to people who did not win.

## An example welcome email flow (5 emails)

Here is a simple flow you can adapt. The timings are a starting point, not a rule.

**Email 1: Your prize (immediately)**

- Subject: "Here's your prize from \[brand\]"
- The prize or consolation code, expiry date and a button to the shop.
- One sentence about who you are.

**Email 2: Picked for you (day 1)**

- Products or content based on their game answers or result.
- If you have no answers, use your bestsellers.

**Email 3: Why people love us (day 3)**

- Reviews, your story, what makes your brand different.
- A soft reminder of the code.

**Email 4: Your code is about to expire (a day or two before expiry)**

- Short and direct. One product, one button.
- This email often does a lot of the selling, so do not skip it.

**Email 5: What to expect (day 7 to 10)**

- What your newsletter brings, how often you send, and how to update preferences.
- An invitation to follow you on social media or join your loyalty club.

**Branch for buyers:** as soon as someone buys, move them out of the flow and into your post-purchase flow. Nobody wants a "your code is expiring" email after they have already used it.

## Setting it up in Klaviyo, Mailchimp or HubSpot

The setup is similar in most email tools.

1. **Connect Scratcher to your tool.** Choose the integration, log in and pick which fields to send. New sign-ups then arrive with every participation.
2. **Add a list, tag or property for the campaign**, so you can trigger the flow only for people from this game.
3. **Create a flow triggered by that list, tag or property.** In Klaviyo and Mailchimp this is usually an automation started when someone joins a list or gets a tag; in HubSpot, a workflow based on a contact property or list membership.
4. **Use conditional splits** on game answers or prize to personalise emails 2 and 3.
5. **Add an exit condition** for people who place an order.
6. **Check for double sends.** If Scratcher sends the prize email, do not send it again from your email tool, and vice versa.
7. **Test with your own email address** before launch: play, win, lose and check every email.

If you use [double opt-in](https://scratcher.io/blog/double-opt-in), the flow should start when the subscriber confirms, not when they sign up.

## Metrics to watch

Track the flow as a whole, not just single emails.

- **Code redemption rate:** how many winners and non-winners used their code.
- **First purchase rate:** how many new subscribers bought within 30 days.
- **Revenue per subscriber** from the flow.
- **Open and click rates** for each email, to spot weak links.
- **Unsubscribe rate** in the first two weeks. A high rate can mean the wrong prize or the wrong promise.
- **Long-term activity:** how many are still subscribed and active after three or six months.

Rascals Brewing saw the effect in its regular newsletter: [33% of the orders from one newsletter came from people who had signed up through the Scratcher campaign](https://scratcher.io/customers/how-rascals-achieved-an-roi-of-259).

## Turn your next game into a welcome flow

A game gets people to say yes. The welcome flow turns that yes into a customer. Plan both at the same time: choose prizes you can deliver by email, ask a question or two you can use for personalisation, and have the flow ready before you launch.

[Try Scratcher free for 14 days](https://platform.scratcher.io/en/register) and connect your email tool in a few clicks, or [book a meeting](https://scratcher.io/book-a-meeting) and we will help you plan the campaign and the flow that follows it.

Henrik Lund

Co-founder, Scratcher

Henrik Lund co-founded Scratcher in Copenhagen in 2017 and has helped brands build interactive campaigns ever since.

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