Birthday and anniversary emails are a powerful way to make subscribers feel valued. Celebrating their special day or milestone helps strengthen customer relationships, while including a discount or coupon for their birthday or anniversary boosts the chances of increasing revenue. These emails tend to have higher transaction rates and revenue per email, making them a win-win for both you and your customers.

Before you start

Make sure you have saved your customers' birthday or anniversary details as a contact attribute in your Brevo account.

If not, you can collect and save this information in several ways, such as using a sign-up form or a plugin. To learn more, check our dedicated article How can I add my contacts to Brevo?.

Why send birthday and anniversary emails?

Birthday and anniversary emails are sent to celebrate a customer's special day or milestone. While they highlight the occasion, their main goal is to improve customer retention and encourage recipients to return and make a purchase on your website.

Expand the accordions below to learn what to include in birthday and anniversary emails and when to send them:

📩 What to include in birthday and anniversary emails?

Birthday and anniversary emails should feel friendly, warm, and engaging. To make your message memorable, try these tips:

• Create curiosity in the subject line by including a mystery offer to encourage opens.
• Personalize your offer by giving a discount or coupon based on the customer’s preferences.
• Suggest helpful products and guide customers with relevant recommendations.
• Use attractive design to make your email visually appealing so it stands out on their special day.

⏱️ When is the right time to send birthday and anniversary emails?

You can choose to send the email either before or on your customers' actual birthday or anniversary. If you're including a discount or coupon, sending it a few weeks early gives recipients time to use the offer. Consider sending a reminder a few days after their birthday to let them know how much time remains before the deal expires.

You can easily choose when to send your birthday or anniversary email when setting up your automation: On the same day The email will be sent on the actual birthday or anniversary. After the date attribute occurs The email will be sent X days/weeks/months after the actual birthday or anniversary. Before the date attribute occurs The email will be sent X days/weeks/months before the actual birthday or anniversary.

Select the pre-built automation

Brevo offers a pre-built automation that you can use to send a follow-up email to contacts who perform an action on your website. In this example, we’ll create a simple birthday automation. Two weeks before a contact’s birthday, we’ll send them a birthday email with a coupon code. 

1. Go to Automations > Workflows.
2. Click Create an automation.
3. Select the Anniversary date pre-built automation.
4. Under Email template language, select the language in which the default templates in this automation will be generated. 
5. Click Create automation.

You will now be automatically guided through a series of two steps to create your automation.

Step 1/2: Define when your contacts will receive your email

Here, you'll specify the date attribute where your contacts' birth dates or anniversary dates are stored. This attribute determines when the email will be sent. You can choose to schedule it before, on, or after the specified date.

1. From the Date attribute dropdown, select the date attribute where your contacts' birth dates or anniversary dates are stored.
2. From the When should contacts enter? dropdown, select whether you want to send the email before, on, or after the specified date. In our example, we'll choose to send the email two weeks in advance.
   
3. (Optional) If you choose to send the email before or after the specified date, indicate the number of days, weeks, or months in advance or after the date.
   
4. (Optional) Next to Contact filters, click Add filter to determine which contacts will receive your email based on contact attributes, email activity, subscription status, website engagement, and more.
   
   
   ➡️  For example

   To ensure your birthday emails are sent only to contacts who have consented to receive marketing messages, you can filter contacts using the following criteria: "OPT-IN" OR "DOUBLE_OPT-IN".

5. (Optional) Edit the Contact entry time to define when contacts with matching dates and filter criteria will enter the automation each day.
   
   
   ➡️  For example

   If you set the time to 10:00 AM, contacts will enter the automation and receive the birthday email at 10:00 AM on the specified date.

6. Click Save.

Step 2/2: Send the birthday or anniversary email

Design and configure the birthday or anniversary email that will be sent to your contacts. To learn more about sending emails from an automation, check our dedicated article Send an email from an automation.

1. Under the email preview, click Edit.
   
2. Customize the template to fit your needs:
   • Use the drag-and-drop email editor to modify the layout, text, images, and other content.
   • Include contact or event data to personalize the email with details such as the customer's first name.
   • (Optional) Use a coupon code to offer a personalized discount to your customer.

   • (Optional) Create and send product recommendations with product feeds to dynamically display best-sellers or related products based on the customer’s recent purchases.

     ✅ Plan availability

     Coupon codes and Product feeds are only available on the Professional and Enterprise plans. For more information, check our pricing page or talk to one of our sales experts.

3. Click Preview & test to check personalized details and layout. To learn more, check our dedicated article Preview and test your email.
4. Click Use this design in automation to save your changes and return to the automation editor.
5. Configure the settings of your email template:
   • Event data
   • Subject line and preview text
   • Sender email address and name
   • Additional settings (email sending time, reply-to address, tags, attachment, profile update form, unsubscribe form, etc.)
6. Click Save.

Activate the automation

Once everything is set up, you can activate the automation:

1. Click Activate automation.
2. To automatically send your email every year, activate the Allow contact re-entry after exit option.
3. Click Activate automation.
   

Your automation is now active. Customers will start entering it and receiving your birthday or anniversary email.

⏭️ What's next?

• Send an automated welcome email to new contacts
• Send an automated email after a contact interacts with an email campaign
• Send an automated abandoned cart email to recover lost sales

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.

If you’re looking for help with a project using Brevo, we can match you with the right certified Brevo Agency partner.