Your welcome campaign is a chance to build trust, to educate & to support your buyer.
By asking the right questions, you can personalise your CX & deliver even greater value. You have one chance to impress.
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What you need to know
- While the terms “Welcome Campaign” and “Onboarding Campaign” are sometimes used interchangeably, they differ in meaningful ways. Our focus this month was the “Welcome Campaign”.
- You will need to determine who qualifies to go through your welcome campaign. It’s generally not as simple as adding all new contacts in Eloqua to the Welcome campaign.
Access our expertise to speed your Welcome or Onboarding campaign build time
If you’d like help with any of the aspects covered in this blog post, please get in touch with Marketing Cube Support or email Derek directly.
Mapping your customers’ journey is a critical step in determining the content & messaging of your welcome campaign
The commercial value of the welcome campaign is maximised by its precise timing. The first email must be sent immediately upon subscription.
This urgency is essential because 74% of new subscribers expect an instantaneous welcome*, capturing the prospect during the brief window when their engagement and intent are at their absolute peak.
*SOURCE: This stat comes from Klaviyo, a B2C marketing platform. It’s clear that the people you and I talk to, those typically in a high-value buying decision process, are also consumers. Expectations from their consumer experience are overlapping with their business experiences.
A welcome campaign sets the stage for future engagement, builds brand trust and educates your buyer
Welcome Email Best Practices:
Making a Great First Impression
- Send welcomes immediately
- Use a marketing-appropriate sender name.
- Use a high-value call-to-action
- Keep your copy and design focussed
- Use a welcome email series
- Send different welcomes based on the acquisition source
- Craft user-friendly welcomes
- QA and optimise your welcomes often
- Seasonally update your welcomes
Are you familiar with BIMI?
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an emerging email specification that allows businesses to display their verified brand logo next to their messages in recipients’ inboxes.
It leverages robust email authentication protocols—specifically, DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) — to verify the sender’s identity.
For the logo to appear in supported inboxes like Gmail and Yahoo, the email must pass authentication checks.
Have you considered trying a ‘Sender Name‘ Extension Strategy?
Sender name extensions (like adding “Clearance” or “Sale” to your sender name) can significantly boost engagement, but they require careful implementation.
Seasonal Campaigns
- YourBrand | Back to School
- YourBrand | Subscription Name
- YourBrand – Cyber Monday
- YourBrand Cyber Days
- YourBrand Holiday
Relationship based
- YourBrand, Executive’sName
- YourBrand | Spokesperson’sName
- YourBrand – Salesperson
- Salesperson from YourBrand
Keep these factors in mind:
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Mind the Length: If your existing brand name is already long (15+ characters), extensions may not fit effectively in most inboxes. Consider dropping corporate designators (e.g., “LLC,” “Ltd.”) to free up characters.
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Prioritise Recognition: Shortening your brand name (e.g., “Duluth Trading Company” to “Duluth”) can make room for extensions, but ensure you don’t compromise sender recognition, which is paramount.
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Always Test: Even with a short brand name, A/B test different extensions to see which ones resonate best with your subscribers.
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Boost Branding with BIMI: Extensions can slightly dilute brand-name focus. Combat this by implementing BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) to display your logo next to your from name, strengthening recognition and deliverability.
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Don’t Overuse: Use extensions selectively. Oracle research shows brands use them on an average of only 34% of their campaigns to maximise their impact and avoid diminishing returns.
Have you noticed we have a Sender Name strategy in place?
If you’re a regular subscriber to our Eloqua User Group, you may have noticed how User Group emails appear in your inbox.
This screengrab shows where you can adjust the Sender Name in the Eloqua Email Design Editor.
As mentioned above, take care not to remove your company name.
Remember, it’s referred to as an “Extension strategy”.
The quality & recency of your data will determine how well you can personalise your welcome campaign
- You can only personalise your welcome campaign based on what you know. This means you need to be clear on the entry points you have in place. i.e. how many forms are actively capturing net-new contacts? What about your CRM – how many new contacts reach Eloqua each day?
- Dynamic Content and Field Merges are the two primary ways you will personalise your welcome campaign. These are both driven by profile (Contact) data and Custom Object data.
- Consider using a Program and the Contact Washing Machine app to help you normalise your data. It’s the little things, a person may enter their name as “james”, but you would rather greet them as “James” propercase vs. lowercase.
Oracle Labs Release 25D (November 2025) | Zoom App enhancements
Zoom clients have two choices when considering integration between Zoom and Eloqua.
If you’re a Zoom Meetings & Webinar client, either app is suitable.
If you’re a Zoom Events client, you will need to use the Zoom App at this stage.
There are other considerations that should be explored based on your CX goals, data requirements and more.
Zoom App – Register Action
- Intelligent Field Detection: The Zoom app now automatically identifies default, required, and custom registration fields, including optional questions in Zoom webinar and meeting forms, with enhanced accuracy.
- Real-Time Mapping Support: During integration setup, the app offers clear guidance on mapping fields to Eloqua, alerting users to any required fields that are missing or need attention.
- Dynamic Mapping Alerts: Users are notified proactively of changes to Zoom registration forms (e.g., addition or removal of required questions), ensuring Eloqua mappings stay up to date.
- Simplified Field Management: Mapping custom questions and additional fields is now more intuitive, minimising the risk of unmapped or incorrectly mapped data.
- Seamless Data Integration: Ensures smooth transfer of registration and attendee data from Zoom to Eloqua, enhancing segmentation, campaign automation, and follow-up processes.
The Oracle Labs Zoom App caters for Zoom Meetings and Zoom Webinars only. We understand the Eloqua Product Marketing team we should see the ability to incorporate Zoom Events in 2026.
There are multiple ways you can use the Oracle Labs Zoom Register Action element on the campaign canvas. In the example above, a Segment feeds directly into the element. If you use an Eloqua Landing Page & Form to capture Zoom registrations, you could use the Form Processing Step – Add To Campaign to add registrants to this canvas.
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The post Why your data is critical when creating a memorable welcome campaign first appeared on Marketing Cube | Connected Capability.
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