Oh Dear email examples

Of the 40 emails, 85% are account notifications, and each of these concerns ellisonstudio.com going down, recovering, or responding too slowly. The brand's onboarding emails are a small group on top of that, and the trial-related emails appear only near the end of the run.

Every email sent on signup day (day 0) is an alert or a welcome message, and the alerts move between down, recovered and down again within the same day. Later in the run, the next onboarding email arrives on day 6 and the trial notice on day 7.

The subject lines are short and closely similar. Most name the monitored domain and then state its status, as in "ellisonstudio.com seems down!" and "ellisonstudio.com has recovered". Slowdowns and recoveries from slowdowns use the same construction with "ellisonstudio.com is responding too slowly." and "ellisonstudio.com is responding quickly again."

Because the status appears in the subject line, a recipient can tell what happened without opening the email. Leading with the object of the message and placing the status right after it is a pattern worth noting.

Most of the alerts carry a single call to action, usually a link to the full report, and many also explain how to silence the alert or adjust notification settings. Giving the recipient the report and a control in the same message keeps the next step clear.

The onboarding emails are written in a personal tone. The co-founder's welcome, "What brought you here?", asks a question rather than listing features. The trial notice, "Your trial account will expire soon.", asks how the product is working for the recipient and offers a way to keep monitoring, which reads as a conversation rather than a hard sales push.