Birthday emails: how to automate them and what to write

A birthday email is an automated campaign that sends each contact wishes on their birthday or name day. It is one of the few messages people are genuinely happy to get. It sells nothing, it just pleases, and yet it makes customers remember your business. In Quanda you set it up once and it then goes out by itself, every day at the hour you choose. We will go through where to get the dates, how to set the wishes up in six steps, what to write and which mistakes to avoid.

Key takeaways

1. You set the campaign up in 6 steps and it is in the Professional and Enterprise plans.
2. All you need is the date of birth. Quanda fills in name days by itself from the first name.
3. The setup takes about half an hour and the wishes then run for years with no extra work.
4. Write personally, briefly and on behalf of a real person. The wishes should not be an advert.
5. Add a gift or a discount only where customers buy repeatedly.
6. A date of birth is personal data, collect it with a clear purpose.

In short: what it is, who it suits, which types there are and what can go wrong

• What it is: an automated email campaign that sends wishes on each contact's birthday or name day.
• Who it suits: any business that knows its customers by name. Online shops, services, car dealers, real estate agents and B2B.
• Which types there are: Birthday wishes (Date of birth field) and Name day wishes (Name day / anniversary field).
• What can go wrong: wishes that look like an advert, a wrong salutation or sending without a verified domain.

What has changed since publication: The article came out in February 2016 as "Send your customers automatic birthday wishes" and contained only a short video. In October 2026 we rewrote it into a detailed guide with a six step setup, name day wishes, sample wording, advice on gifts and GDPR and common mistakes.

What an automatic birthday email is

An automatic birthday email is an email campaign triggered by a date stored with the contact. It is not a one-off send. The campaign runs permanently and every day at the chosen hour compares today's date with the date of birth of all contacts in the selected group. Everyone whose date matches gets the wishes.

Quanda has two separate campaign types for this: Birthday wishes works with the Date of birth field, Name day wishes with the Name day / anniversary field. Otherwise they are set up in exactly the same way. Name days are celebrated in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and other countries, which makes them a second occasion to get in touch.

Why send customers birthday wishes

The wishes are personal and sell nothing. That is exactly why people open and read them. Campaigns of our customers, some of which have been running in Quanda for five years, show it:

Data as of October 2026.

The wishes are opened by roughly half to four fifths of recipients. The figures are after filtering out automatic opens from Apple Mail: Quanda recognises them and does not count more than 80% of them.

Reasons why the wishes pay off even without a discount:

• You are one of the few. Few businesses wish their customers a happy birthday. Those that remember are remembered.
• It builds a relationship without selling. Among offers and news comes an email that wants nothing. The recipient is then more likely to open your next offer.
• It keeps your database alive. The wishes go out all year, so you soon spot undeliverable addresses and contacts that no longer respond.
• It takes no work. You set it up once and it runs for years.

In B2B the wishes work just as well, they only need to be written on behalf of a specific person, not the company. A salesperson who wishes a client a happy birthday has a reason to get in touch even without a deal.

Where to get dates of birth and name days

You cannot send wishes without a date. Before you start, find out how many contacts have it filled in.

You usually get the date of birth:

• from a registration or order form on your website, in Quanda you just add a Date of birth field to the form,
• from a loyalty programme or a customer card,
• from your CRM, from which you get it into Quanda by import or by connecting the two,
• from existing customers, to whom you send a short email with a form, for example "May we wish you a happy birthday?".

You do not need to find out name days. A contact automation fills them in by itself from the first name. For new contacts set it to the event "a new contact was created", for existing ones to "an existing contact was edited" and then update the contacts in bulk, for example by export and a new import. Details are in the guide How to create and set up a birthday and name day email campaign.

GDPR: A date of birth is personal data. Collect it only with a clear purpose and tell people next to the form what you will use it for, for example "we will send you birthday wishes". State the purpose in your privacy policy too. Every email must contain an unsubscribe link, Quanda adds it automatically.

How to set up an automatic birthday email in 6 steps

1. Fill in your contacts' dates of birth by import, from a form or from your CRM. For name days, set up the contact automation that fills in the name day from the first name.
2. In Email campaigns choose Create new campaign, name it and click Create for the Birthday wishes or Name day wishes type.
3. Choose one or more contact tags whose contacts should receive the wishes.
4. Prepare the wishes with a salutation in the email editor and save them as a template.
5. Set the sender, run the spam test and send yourself a test email.
6. Switch the campaign to Ready to send and choose the day and hour of the first sending.

A few things that are not obvious from the steps:

• Tags decide the recipients. A tag only marks the group whose dates are checked every day. You can add and remove contacts even while the campaign runs, manually, by import or by an automation, for example after a form is submitted. Quanda excludes unsubscribed contacts by itself. More in Selecting recipients in a birthday and name day campaign.
• The sender can be the contact owner. Every customer then gets the wishes from their own salesperson. See Setting up mailing in a birthday and name day campaign.
• The hour applies permanently. If you choose 9:00, Quanda will check your contacts and send the wishes every day at nine.
• Statistics add up. They show the results of all wishes sent so far together, see Statistics in a birthday and name day campaign.

Birthday wishes and Name day wishes campaigns are in the Professional and Enterprise plans.

What to write in a birthday email

Good wishes are short, personal and want nothing. Stick to a few rules:

• Use the name. Insert a salutation from the contact field. Without it the email feels like a mass email, which it is.
• Have a person sign it. A name, a photo, perhaps a handwritten signature. Not "Your team".
• Be brief. Two to four sentences. The wishes are read on a phone.
• Write the subject line like a person. "Happy birthday, Emma!" works better than "Birthday wishes from XY Ltd".
• Images yes, but not instead of text. An email made of a single image passes spam filters worse and some email clients do not show it.

Three birthday email templates you can take over and adapt right away. Quanda fills in the highlighted salutation automatically from the contact details.

Wishes with a gift or without

A gift strengthens the wishes, but only where it makes sense.

If you add a gift, use a simple code or link and track how many people redeemed it. That is the best measure of the wishes' success.

Common mistakes

• Wishes as an advert. Three paragraphs of offers and one sentence of wishes. The recipient will notice.
• Missing or wrong salutation. Check how the salutation looks for contacts without a name, and check it in the test email too.
• Sender without a verified domain. Without a verified sending domain, sending is limited and the wishes may end up in spam.
• Outdated data. A date of birth typed in by hand with a mistake sends the wishes on the wrong day. Check your data from time to time.
• A forgotten campaign. Wishes from 2019 with the old logo and a discount that no longer applies. Read and update the wishes once a year.

Checklist before launch

• I know how many contacts have a date of birth filled in.
• For name days I have set up the contact automation that fills in the name day.
• The recipient tag is assigned to the right contacts.
• The wishes have a salutation, are short and signed by a specific person.
• The subject line sounds human and names the recipient.
• The sender has a verified sending domain.
• I have checked the test email on a computer and on a phone.
• The form where I collect dates of birth states the purpose.

In conclusion

An automatic birthday email is the simplest automation you can set up in email marketing and one of the most rewarding. Half an hour of work now means thousands of personal messages in the years to come. Start by finding out how many contacts have a date of birth filled in.

You will find more scenarios that work for you, from a welcome email to a second wave, in the article Email automation: 8 scenarios that work for you and in the free online course Automation in Quanda from A to Z. If you would like to set up the wishes with us, book a free consultation or write to us at support@onquanda.com.

Fingers crossed for you!