# Email lifecycle Human Guide

## What This Is For
Plan, build, and run lifecycle email programs through the Hyper MCP — welcome / onboarding, nurture, re-engagement, win-back, and abandoned-cart sequences across whichever provider fits. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for email marketing: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Email lifecycle agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for email lifecycle.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Email lifecycle guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **Hyper MCP installed and connected.** [https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp](https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp)
- **At least one of these providers** connected at [https://app.hyperfx.ai/apps](https://app.hyperfx.ai/apps):
- **Klaviyo** — ecommerce, Shopify-heavy lists, behavioral triggers off purchase / browse data
- **Resend** — product-led / SaaS / dev tools, transactional + lifecycle on the same domain
- **Beehiiv** — newsletters, paid-tier subscriptions, content-driven lists
- **Gmail** — small / personal lists, founder-mode broadcasts, ops emails
- **Always start with the audience, not the email.** A welcome flow with no opt-in source is unsendable. A win-back with no inactivity definition is unsendable. Define the audience first; the copy is downstream.
- **One purpose per sequence.** A "welcome + onboarding + product education + first purchase nudge" mega-flow is brittle and impossible to measure. Split into separate flows wired together.
- **Honor unsubscribes globally, not per-list.** When a profile unsubscribes, suppress them across every flow in the workspace — not just the one they unsubscribed from. All four providers expose this; it's not optional.
- **Stay under provider rate limits.** Especially for `resend_send_broadcast` (large blast → throttled), `gmail_messages_send` (~500/day soft cap), and `klaviyo_send_campaign` (account-tier dependent).
- **Trigger** — The event that puts a profile into this flow. Examples: "signed up for the newsletter", "made first purchase", "abandoned cart with > $50 value", "no order in 90 days".
- **Audience filter** — Beyond the trigger, who qualifies. ("Newsletter signup, but only US-based". "Abandoned cart, but only first-time visitors.")

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Out of scope — defer to other skills, Requirements, Provider selection, Tool surface, Critical rules, Workflow, Phase 1 — Define the lifecycle program, Phase 2 — Pick the sequence pattern, Phase 3 — Build the audience, Phase 4 — Draft the sequence.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- **Suppression rules** — Who should *never* get this flow even if they hit the trigger. (Existing customers shouldn't get the new-customer welcome. Recent purchasers shouldn't get the win-back.)
- **Personalization tokens** — Use whatever the provider exposes (`{{first_name}}`, `{{event.product_name}}`, `{{custom_field.plan_tier}}`). Never use a token without a fallback (`{{first_name|"there"}}`).
- **Broadcasts are throttled.** A 100k-recipient broadcast does not send all in one minute — Resend paces it. Don't chain a `resend_send_broadcast` call into a "wait 60s and check inbox" workflow.
- **Posts are content, not flows.** A "post" is a newsletter issue. Multi-touch sequences are *automations*, not chained posts. Don't try to model a welcome flow as 5 sequential posts.
- Highest-engagement window in the entire lifecycle. People who just signed up *want* to hear from you. Don't waste it.
- | 2 — The one thing | +2 | Get them to take the *single most important* first action. (Set up integration, add first product to cart, complete profile.) |
- **Skipping email 1 because the signup form already showed a confirmation.** A confirmation page is not a welcome email. People don't keep the page open.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Email lifecycle human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the hyperfx-ai/marketing-skills skill entry for `email-lifecycle`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Email Lifecycle

End-to-end lifecycle email — pick the right provider for the job, build the audience, draft the sequence, launch, and measure. Cross-provider patterns at the top; provider-specific tool calls below.

## Out of scope — defer to other skills

| Request | Send them to |
| --- | --- |
| Cold outbound to people who haven't opted in | `cold-email-outreach` |
| Generating images for email creatives | `image-generation` |
| Generating ad creatives that run alongside the lifecycle program | `ad-creative-generation` |
| SEO research / blog content for the newsletter | `seo-research` |

## Requirements

- **Hyper MCP installed and connected.** [https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp](https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp)
- **At least one of these providers** connected at [https://app.hyperfx.ai/apps](https://app.hyperfx.ai/apps):
  - **Klaviyo** — ecommerce, Shopify-heavy lists, behavioral triggers off purchase / browse data
  - **Resend** — product-led / SaaS / dev tools, transactional + lifecycle on the same domain
  - **Beehiiv** — newsletters, paid-tier subscriptions, content-driven lists
  - **Gmail** — small / personal lists, founder-mode broadcasts, ops emails

If none of those tool prefixes (`klaviyo_*`, `resend_*`, `beehiiv_*`, `gmail_*`) appear in the agent's tool list, stop and tell the user to enable the Hyper MCP and connect the provider they intend to use.

## Provider selection

The wrong provider is the most common reason a lifecycle program fails. Pick first.

| You are… | Use | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| An ecommerce / DTC brand on Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce | **Klaviyo** | Native ecom event listeners (Placed Order, Started Checkout, Browsed Product), mature flow editor, tight Shopify sync. |
| A SaaS / dev tool / API product sending product + lifecycle on the same domain | **Resend** | Same API for transactional + marketing, audience management, broadcasts, automation runs. Excellent deliverability for product mail. |
| Running a content-led newsletter (free + paid tiers) | **Beehiiv** | Built around the newsletter-as-product model — segments, automations, paid tiers, referral program, post stats. |
| Running a small ops list (≤500 contacts), founder-mode broadcasts | **Gmail** | Zero new infra, label-based segmentation, easy templating. Don't scale beyond ~500 — see [`cold-email-outreach`](../cold-email-outreach) for sender deliverability if you do. |

You can run more than one. The pattern is: Klaviyo for marketing, Resend for transactional + product onboarding (when the brand also runs ecom). Or Beehiiv for the newsletter and Resend for the product. Decide once per program, not per email.

## Tool surface

| Phase | Klaviyo | Resend | Beehiiv | Gmail |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Audience setup | `klaviyo_create_list`, `klaviyo_add_member_to_list`, `klaviyo_create_segment`, `klaviyo_create_profile`, `klaviyo_update_profile` | `resend_create_audience`, `resend_create_contact`, `resend_list_contacts`, `resend_update_contact` | `beehiiv_create_subscription`, `beehiiv_create_segment`, `beehiiv_add_tags`, `beehiiv_list_subscriptions` | `gmail_labels_create`, `gmail_labels_add`, `gmail_labels_remove` |
| Sequence build | `klaviyo_create_campaign`, `klaviyo_update_campaign_message` | `resend_create_automation`, `resend_update_automation`, `resend_get_automation` | `beehiiv_create_post`, `beehiiv_list_automations`, `beehiiv_add_to_automation` | `gmail_drafts_create`, `gmail_drafts_update` |
| Send / launch | `klaviyo_send_campaign`, `klaviyo_get_campaign_send_job` | `resend_send_email`, `resend_send_broadcast` | `beehiiv_create_post` (publish), `beehiiv_update_post` | `gmail_messages_send`, `gmail_drafts_send` |
| Measure | `klaviyo_get_metrics`, `klaviyo_get_metric`, `klaviyo_get_campaign` | `resend_list_automation_runs`, `resend_get_automation_run` | `beehiiv_get_post_stats`, `beehiiv_get_subscription` | `gmail_messages_list` |

Full per-provider mechanics, gotchas, and concrete tool-call examples in [`references/provider-mechanics.md`](./references/provider-mechanics.md).

## Critical rules

1. **Pick the provider before writing copy.** The mechanics of how a flow gets triggered, how a segment gets defined, and what data you can personalize against differ enough that "we'll figure out the provider later" wastes a day.
2. **Always start with the audience, not the email.** A welcome flow with no opt-in source is unsendable. A win-back with no inactivity definition is unsendable. Define the audience first; the copy is downstream.
3. **One purpose per sequence.** A "welcome + onboarding + product education + first purchase nudge" mega-flow is brittle and impossible to measure. Split into separate flows wired together.
4. **Honor unsubscribes globally, not per-list.** When a profile unsubscribes, suppress them across every flow in the workspace — not just the one they unsubscribed from. All four providers expose this; it's not optional.
5. **Test sends with a real seed inbox before going live.** Every provider supports a test send. Do not launch a 10-email sequence to a 50,000-person list without seeing every email render in Gmail / Outlook / Apple Mail / mobile.
6. **Stay under provider rate limits.** Especially for `resend_send_broadcast` (large blast → throttled), `gmail_messages_send` (~500/day soft cap), and `klaviyo_send_campaign` (account-tier dependent).
7. **Track conversion metric, not opens.** Apple Mail Privacy Protection makes open rates ~useless on iOS. Configure conversion events at the provider level (Klaviyo metrics, Resend automation completion, Beehiiv segment transitions) and report on those.

## Workflow

### Phase 1 — Define the lifecycle program

Get the user to commit to:

1. **Trigger** — The event that puts a profile into this flow. Examples: "signed up for the newsletter", "made first purchase", "abandoned cart with > $50 value", "no order in 90 days".
2. **Audience filter** — Beyond the trigger, who qualifies. ("Newsletter signup, but only US-based". "Abandoned cart, but only first-time visitors.")
3. **Goal** — One concrete outcome the flow drives toward. Not "engage them more". Concrete: "first purchase within 14 days", "activate the integration within 7 days", "upgrade to paid within 30 days".
4. **Success metric** — Conversion rate to goal. Open and click are diagnostic, not goal metrics.
5. **Suppression rules** — Who should *never* get this flow even if they hit the trigger. (Existing customers shouldn't get the new-customer welcome. Recent purchasers shouldn't get the win-back.)

If the user can't answer the trigger or the goal, the flow isn't ready to build.

### Phase 2 — Pick the sequence pattern

Five patterns cover ~95% of lifecycle work. See [`references/sequence-patterns.md`](./references/sequence-patterns.md) for full templates with copy, timing, and provider-specific notes.

| Pattern | Trigger | Typical length | Goal |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Welcome / onboarding** | List signup | 3–5 emails over 7–10 days | First conversion (purchase, activation, paid signup) |
| **Nurture** | Lead magnet download, content opt-in | 4–7 emails over 3–6 weeks | Product-qualified action |