An email drip that reads behaviour instead of watching the clock: it branches on whether the previous email was actually opened, resends to non-openers under a new subject line, and converges without duplicating a single step.
Results at a Glance
A standard email drip fires on a timer. Everyone receives the same sequence at the same pace whether they opened the last message or never saw it, which means the least engaged contacts end up receiving the most email. That is exactly backwards, and it is how sending reputations get damaged.
This was built as a reusable pattern rather than a one-off: the workflow reads whether the previous email was actually opened and routes the contact on that, so engagement decides what happens next instead of the clock.
Behaviour-driven sequences are easy to describe and awkward to build, because every branch tends to drag a duplicate copy of the rest of the sequence behind it.
Timer-based drips punish the disengaged
Send on a schedule and the people ignoring you receive exactly as much email as the people reading you, which is the fastest route to a spam complaint.
Unopened is not uninterested
An email that was never opened usually lost to a subject line or an inbox tab. Treating that as a no throws away contacts who never saw the offer.
Branches make workflows sprawl
The obvious build gives each branch its own copy of the remaining sequence, so every later change has to be made twice and they drift apart.
The challenge was real, and it was costing time, money, and client experience.
After the welcome email the workflow checks the open event. Openers wait two days and receive the next value email, because an engaged contact can be given room. Non-openers wait a single day and get the same email resent under a different subject line, on the reasoning that an unopened email is usually a subject-line or inbox-placement problem rather than a rejection.
Both branches then converge on a “Go To” action instead of each carrying its own copy of everything that follows. That keeps the workflow flat: adding a step later means editing it once rather than once per branch, and the whole pattern travels between accounts as a snapshot rather than being rebuilt each time.
The solution was designed from the ground up to fit this exact business.
Decided what each behaviour should mean before building any of it.
A real open event splits the path, not an assumption or a timer.
Non-openers get the same email under a new subject line a day later.
Both branches rejoin one tail, so nothing downstream is duplicated.
Each tool chosen specifically for reliability, integration depth, and ease of use for the client.
Workflow engine, conditions and Go To actions.
The channel, with opens as the branching signal.
Packaged so the pattern deploys to another account.
A drip where engagement sets the pace, packaged so it can be deployed again rather than rebuilt.
Opened and not opened, from a real event.
A new subject line rather than a lost contact.
One tail, edited once, thanks to Go To.
Send me the brief, a Figma file, a reference site or a rough outline, and you'll have a fixed quote with a delivery date within 24 hours.