Use the Welcome offer Automate template to offer a product as a subscription at a discounted price, and then automatically change the product, and price, for all recurring orders.

This guide explains how to set up a Welcome offer automated experience to provide customers with an introductory product at a discounted rate while seamlessly creating a subscription with a different product for recurring orders.

Before you start

• Automate is available to merchants on Recharge Pro or Custom plans. To learn more about eligibility and pricing, visit the Recharge Pricing page or contact a Recharge sales representative.

How it works

Use the Welcome offer automated experience to provide customers with one product upon their initial purchase and then switch to a different product for the remainder of their subscription.

The Welcome offer automated experience template uses the Conditional Branch node, where you select the product customers purchase to start the experience. When you add a branch to the template, a subscription node is assigned to each branch. The Subscription node defines the action in the experience, in this case, the swap to the recurring subscription product. Customers receive the recurring subscription product on every order until they cancel their subscription.

Example

A bookstore runs a monthly book club and provides a special welcome offer before customers start the regular subscription rotation. To enroll in the book club, customers can purchase one special edition book out of three options.

The bookstore uses the Welcome offer automated experience to sell the special edition books at a discounted price for the customer’s first order and then swaps their customers' subscription orders so that they receive the book club’s Book of the Month book every month.

Step 1 - Create your products in Shopify and add subscription plans

Create two products in Shopify: the welcome product, and the recurring subscription product.

Create the products in Shopify, and add a subscription plan to both in Recharge:

1. Log in to your Shopify admin and add the new products:
   • Welcome offer product: Create the welcome offer product with discounted pricing to encourage customers to signup.
   • Subscription product: The product that the customer receives on a recurring basis after finishing the trial.
2. Tip: To prevent customer confusion, Recharge recommends keeping the products unpublished in Shopify until you’ve activated the experience.
3. After creating the products in Shopify, navigate to your Recharge merchant admin and select Products from the Products menu.
4. Locate the new products from the product list, and add a subscription plan.

Step 2 - Create the experience

Create the Starter pack to refill swap automated experience in your Recharge merchant portal:

1. From the merchant portal, click Products and select Automate.
2. Select Create from template under Welcome offer, and click Get started!
3. Select Manage settings to add a title and a description.

You can now access the flow canvas and build the Welcome offer automated experience. This experience uses a standard template designed by Recharge. By default, you cannot change the Trigger and Smart loop nodes. See Flow nodes for more information on each node.

Step 3 - Configure the Conditional Branch node

Create multiple branches within an experience using the Conditional Branch node, and assign customers to specific branches based on the product they’re subscribed to. The default Welcome offer template has two branches, Branch 1 and Else:

• Branch 1: Uses the Line item condition to determine if the customer’s order contains the Welcome offer product. If the customer is subscribed to the specified product, they enter this branch, and Recharge applies the automated action.
• Else: If the customer’s order does not contain the specified product, they enter the Else branch, and Recharge does not apply the automated action.

You can use the default template and only configure Branch 1, or add additional branches if you offer multiple Welcome offers:

1. Select the Conditional Branch node on the flow canvas.
2. Click on the pencil icon next to Branch 1 to edit the branch.
3. Add a Branch name.
4. Select Line Item from the object dropdown menu.
5. Select Variant from the attribute dropdown menu.
6. Select Equals, Doesn’t equal, or Only equals from the operator dropdown menu.
7. Click + Add product to select the product that Recharge needs to look for when processing the order.
8. Search for the product, select it, and click Apply.
9. Click +Add branch and repeat the steps to add additional branches, or click Apply to save your configuration.

You should now have at least two branches configured on the template: one for customers who purchase the Welcome offer product and one for customers who do not.

Step 4 - Configure the Subscription node

The Subscription node determines what happens after Recharge processes the order.

Update the Subscription node to set swap the Welcome offer subscription to your standard recurring subscription:

1. Select the Subscription node on the flow canvas.
   Choose the Swap action to swap the Welcome offer product to the recurring subscription product on the customer’s next order.
2. Click +Add product to select the new subscription product. This is the product that customers are subscribed to on all recurring subscriptions.
3. Set the subscription properties, such as the order frequency, product price, quantity, and product and variant title. You can also add a frequency, order, or date-based delay to delay the charge date for the next recurring order, where the customer receives the new product for the first time.
4. Click Apply to save your node setup.

After configuring the Subscription node, Recharge will now swap the Welcome offer product to the subscription product on the customer's order when you activate the experience.

Optional - Add additional actions to the canvas

Review the list of additional nodes under Canvas actions to see how you can further customize the experience. For example, you can use the A/B test node to compare different products and determine which is most effective in reducing customer churn.

While these actions are not required, they can be beneficial. For example, using the Segment node and segmenting customers who enter a specific branch can help you monitor customer behavior and determine the effectiveness of the automated experience.

Step 5 - Set your products to active in Shopify

Update your products in Shopify so that customers can purchase the Welcome offer product, and receive the subscription product on future orders:

1. Set the product status to Active.
2. Set the Welcome product to available on your online store.

Step 6 - Save and test the automated experience

You can test the automated experience before activating it to ensure it works as intended:

1. Click Save in the top-right corner.
2. Click the three vertical dot menu and select Test flow.
3. Select your test customer from the Target customer menu. This customer must already be subscribed to the Welcome offer product.
4. Click Run flow and confirm that the flow performs as expected.

Step 7 - Activate the experience

Select Activate in the top right corner to enable the experience.

Once you activate the experience, Recharge will review all orders and apply the automated experience to eligible orders.

Considerations

Resources

Getting started

• Getting started with Automate

Additional template set-up instructions

• How to set up a Kit unpacking automated experience
• How to set up a Starter pack to refill swap automated experience
• How to set up an Ongoing sequence automated experience
• How to set up a Fixed sequence automated experience
• How to set up a Trial to subscription automated experience
• How to set up a Scheduled quarterly shipments experience