[leephillips]

I disagree with the premise of the article:

“Every SaaS company must start their onboarding sequences with a welcome message that is sent when a user joins the platform. This is a must by now, since everyone who signs up will expect some sort of confirmation of their transaction.”

These emails invariably waste my time. They repeat what the website already told me when I signed up. If I sign up for your SaaS, I expect your site to tell me what I need to know about what I can and should do next. I don’t want an email.

[marcosdumay]

Hum... As an example of what the article calls "everyone", I do expect that email.

I will not read it, just mark it read and archive. It is not the contents that are important, what is important is that your email is set correctly, and receiving the service's emails without problems. So, any future issue can be solved over email.

[wenc]

I agree with this. The welcome or confirmation email is a transactional email -- I don't really read it (I usually mark as read too -- takes 1 sec), but I expect it to be there.

(This is distinct from an onboarding email. I don't need onboarding emails. Some site combine confirmation + onboarding into a single email -- that's ok with me.)

It's a searchable historical record that I once signed up for something under a certain username. Also, it's important for password recovery and such (not a best practice to be sure, but not all sites support 2FA).

[leephillips]

You have a point there. But haven't they already sent you the confirmation email?

[marcosdumay]

I think the article's author didn't even think about separated onboarding and confirmation emails. He's just stating that you can use the confirmation one for onboarding too.

I have seen those separated emails. I agree that they add nothing, and I imagine their conversion is much lower than a single email (they don't bother me, I'll just ignore another message). I do agree that onboarding is best done on-channel, but adding an extra link on the email you are sending anyway can only help.

[coder543]

The welcome email in this context is the confirmation email.

[pier25]

I agree. I hate those messages. All the info to use a tool should be in the tool itself. Period.

"UI is like a joke, if you have to explain it, it doesn't work"

[EamonnMR]

When you need to track down your username months later it's nice to have that confirmation you can find later. It does not hurt to give your customers a searchable database of transactions and such.

[toast0]

Yeah, I don't think it needs to be long and full of salesy stuff, though.

Thank you for signing up for Foo, the best place to do Bar. Your username is X. You can login at URL, and contact us at email, support page, or phone number. Our mailing address, just in case.

oktnxbye

[subroutine]

I also don't want an email.

Not because of the 1 confirmation/onboarding email you (the SaaS) just sent me, but because you simply can't help yourself. You and I both know more shiit is coming very soon.

But I get it. If I provide an email address and don't get a confirmation email within 8 seconds I assume that either (1) I made a typo or (2) your platform is running on some bargain-barrel servers (and frankly I'm questioning my decision to sign up - i mean what kind of operation...).

Anyway, I found an easy solution to this annoyance (I think we all have): Create an email account dedicated to SaaS sign-ups.

[duxup]

Amen. It's just marketing bullet points / emotional statements about the product and so on.

I just signed up. I want to use the thing, give me some tips to get started and do something productive quickly, not a link burred under marketing, straight up spell them out in the email.

[Izkata]

Some sort of email is absolutely necessary though. Preferably confirmation before creating the account, but I know of several that do this instead of confirmation - because someone else used my email address.

[leephillips]

Yes, the conventional pattern seems to be a short email confirming your address and your intention to sign up, followed by the longer “onboarding” email after you confirm. Some commenters here are saying that these are the same thing and that I’m wrong. But it’s the onboarding email that I’m saying is superfluous, not the confirmation email.