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
- At least one of these providers connected at https://app.hyperfx.ai/integrations:
- 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 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_create_label, gmail_add_labels, gmail_remove_labels |
| 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_create_draft, gmail_update_draft |
| Send / launch | klaviyo_send_campaign, klaviyo_get_campaign_send_job | resend_send_email, resend_send_broadcast | beehiiv_create_post (publish), beehiiv_update_post | gmail_send_message, gmail_send_draft |
| 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_list_messages |
Full per-provider mechanics, gotchas, and concrete tool-call examples in references/provider-mechanics.md.
Critical rules
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Stay under provider rate limits. Especially for
resend_send_broadcast(large blast → throttled),gmail_send_message(~500/day soft cap), andklaviyo_send_campaign(account-tier dependent). - 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:
- 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.")
- 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".
- Success metric — Conversion rate to goal. Open and click are diagnostic, not goal metrics.
- 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 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 |
| Abandoned cart (ecom only) | Started Checkout, no Placed Order | 2–3 emails over 24–72 hours | Complete the purchase |
| Re-engagement | Lapsed activity (e.g., no opens in 60d, no purchase in 90d) | 2–3 emails over 7–14 days | Re-open / re-engage |
| Win-back | Lapsed customer (no purchase in 180d+) | 2–3 emails over 14–21 days | Repeat purchase |
Phase 3 — Build the audience
Audience setup is provider-specific. Examples for the most common case (welcome flow):
Klaviyo — create the list, then a flow trigger on "Subscribed to List":
klaviyo_create_list(list_name="newsletter-2026")
# triggers + flows are configured in Klaviyo UI; the API surface here is
# for adding profiles, building segments, and sending one-off campaigns.
Resend — create an audience, then an automation