Developer Experience: EmailsJanuary 26th, 2017Cristiano Betta8 minute read

While looking at the developer onboarding of Twilio, Stripe, Pusher and SendGrid I noticed certain design patterns that were common across all of them. This article is the first in a series where I'll take a deeper look at specific parts of developer onboarding and how companies implement them differently.

In this first installment I'll look at the emails that are sent to developers when they sign up. Often these are part of a larger campaign of a trickle of emails, so I specifically focus on any emails sent on the same day as I signed up.

Overview

The following are some of the core elements that seem to be present across the 4 companies I've reviewed so far.

Observations

Further down I show every email I received, but before that I want to summarize some of the most interesting observations that I made.

Timeline

Everyone but Stripe sent me 2 emails on the first day. Mostly they consisted of a confirmation email to confirm my email address, and a information heavy email with some content as to how to proceed next.

Pusher interestingly sent me the emails both at the same time, while SendGrid (an email company) took 2.5 hours to send me the second email.

Senders

From the 3 companies that sent me more than one email (Twilio, Pusher, SendGrid) only Twilio used a consistent from address and name.

The most come email addresses seem to be a variation of [company]team@ and support@.

Content-Type

Obviously SendGrid send me some beautiful HTML emails. Interestingly (as far as I can tell) the emails were HTML only, and not a multi part email with a text fallback. They probably have very good reasons to do so, as they are the email experts.

Pusher and Stripe just sent plain text emails.

Twilio also sent me 2 HTML emails but in this case they did have plain text backups.

Length

Another observation is that all emails except for Twilio's fit on my screen completely. In comparison to the other companies the emails that Twilio sends are MASSIVE. I have to admit they are awesome, they contain full GIFs showcasing what the product does, and are full of useful links on how to use their product in real life.

Lack of personalization

One final observation was the surprising lack of personalization. Only one email mentions me by name, and only one other email seems to have been catered to any other infirmation I provided on signup.

Only the first email I received from Twilio seems to be catered to the use case I chose on sign up (messaging, not voice).

SendGrid

The emails

Subject: Welcome To SendGrid! Confirm Your Email

From: SendGrid Support <support@sendgrid.com>

Received: 15:19

Subject: Before You Press Send...

From: SendGrid <sendgridteam@sendgrid.com>

Received: 17:55 (over 2.5 hours later)

Insights

Pusher

The emails

Subject: [Pusher] Please verify your email address

From: Pusher <support@pusher.com>

Received: 16:30

Subject: Pusher quick start guide

From: The Pusher Team <team@pusher.com>

Received: 16:30 (0 minutes later)

Insights

Stripe

The email

Subject: Confirm your Stripe email address!

From: Stripe <support@stripe.com>

Insights

Twilio

The emails

Subject: Your Twilio Account: Getting Started

From: Team Twilio <teamtwilio@twilio.com>

Received: 15:52

Subject: Twilio SMS free trial tips

From: Team Twilio <teamtwilio@twilio.com>

Received: 16:22 (30 minutes later)

Insights