Send a Custom Welcome Email Using Ghost

Posted on February 2nd, 2025

The onboarding process plays a key role in building an engaged audience, and a welcome email is an excellent way to begin. A thoughtful welcome message can make new members feel appreciated right from the start. By connecting your Ghost site with Zapier, you can automate this process so every new member gets a personalized welcome email effortlessly.

This guide will show you how to link your Ghost site to Zapier and set up automatic emails. You’ll see how this connection helps keep your new members informed and excited about being part of your community. Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Use Our Template

To make things easier for you, we’ve made a welcome email Zap template that you can use. The guide below explains how this template works and shares some tips on how to make it even better.

Step 2: Create a New Zap

Sign in to Zapier and start a new Zap.

Step 3: Create the Trigger

Whenever someone new joins our Ghost site, we want to send them a welcome email. This means that a new signup should trigger the Zapier integration, so we’ll select Ghost as the Trigger app.

Next, select “Member Created” as the Trigger event and then click Continue.

Step 4: Connect Your Ghost Site

Click on Sign in to link your Ghost site. Zapier will ask for permission to access it. (If you’ve connected your site before, just select it and click Continue.)

To connect to Ghost, Zapier needs an Admin API Key and Admin API URL. You can find this information by logging into your Ghost site and going to Settings → Integrations → Zapier.

Copy the Admin API Key and API URL into Zapier, then click Yes, Continue.

Click Continue and test your trigger. It will show data about your latest member signup, which we’ll use in the next step. Now, let’s go to the Action!

Step 5: Create the Action

An Action is what occurs after the integration is triggered. In this case, we’ll use Zapier’s built-in email service to send the welcome message.

In the Action editor, select Email by Zapier and choose Send outbound email as the event. Then, click Continue.

Step 6: Set Up the Action

For each form field, you can either use the dynamic data from your Ghost member or enter your own text. The To, Subject, and Body fields are required.

In the To field, select your Ghost member’s email from the dropdown menu provided by Zapier. This ensures the email goes to the new member who just signed up.

Now it’s time to get creative with the subject line. There are many ways to approach this, but it should be clear and straightforward, like “Thanks for subscribing to our publication!” (We’ve added some tips on writing effective welcome emails below.)

The last required field is the email body, where you can be even more creative. Zapier lets you use plain text or HTML, and you can also include data from your Ghost member.

For this guide, we’ll use plain text. Here are two important things to keep in mind:

  • Make sure to set the Force Linebreaks option to True. This will ensure that the message is divided into paragraphs as you arranged in the email body.
  • Use simple HTML to add links.<a href=”https://yoururl.com”>the linked text</a>

Once you fill in the required fields, our Action will look like this:

And here’s how it appears in the inbox:

Other helpful fields are From Name and Reply To. From Name decides the sender’s name that shows up in your member’s inbox, while Reply To sets an email address where the member can send replies.

Step 7: Publish the Zap

Your Zap is now fully set up. Click Continue. If you test the Action, keep in mind that Zapier will send an email to the address from your latest Ghost member. If you want to see what the email looks like, use your own email in the To field. Once you’re satisfied, switch it back to the Ghost member’s email.

The last step is to click Publish Zap to make it active. Now, whenever a new member signs up, they’ll get your welcome email.

Bonus: Set Up an Email Sequence

You can use the method above to create a full automated email sequence. With Zapier’s Delay action, you can send a series of emails at different times: a welcome email immediately, a survey request five days later, and a special offer one month after that. In Zapier, set up the sequence by adding a Delay followed by another email. Keep repeating this for each email you want to send.

Keep in mind that while you can send a welcome email with Zapier’s free plan, creating an email sequence requires a paid plan.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to connect your Ghost site to Zapier and set up a system to send personalized welcome emails to new members. This welcome message is important for your publication’s onboarding process, helping to engage new members from the very beginning. It can also be a great way to turn free memberships into paid ones by creating a positive first impression and a sense of belonging.

By automating this process, you save time and make sure each new member feels appreciated and well-informed.

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