A day-based onboarding sequence sends identical mail to a user who has already hit their first moment of value and to one who has never logged in. Both get the same nudge on day three. One finds it redundant, the other finds it irrelevant.

Find your activation events

Before rewriting a single email, identify the two or three in-product actions that actually correlate with conversion. In most products it is a smaller and stranger set than the team expects, and it is rarely the feature marketing leads with.

Then branch on them

• Activated early: skip ahead to depth and expansion.
• Started but stalled: address the specific step they stopped at.
• Never started: one honest re-engagement, then stop.

The third branch is the one teams resist and the one that most improves deliverability. Continuing to mail someone who has never opened the product teaches inbox providers that your sending is not wanted.