# Waitlist with confirmation email (/recipes/waitlist)

A waitlist is the simplest possible Plunk workflow: one tracked event from your app, one workflow that listens for it, one email.

## Setup

import {Step, Steps} from 'fumadocs-ui/components/steps';

<Steps>
  <Step>
    ### Create the confirmation template

    In **Templates → New template**, create a **Marketing** template. Use `{{variable}}` placeholders for anything you want to personalise from contact data:

    ```text
    Subject: You're on the list, {{firstName}}

    Hi {{firstName}}, thanks for joining the {{product}} waitlist.
    We'll let you know as soon as your spot opens up.
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step>
    ### Track the signup from your backend

    Call `POST /v1/track` when a user submits the form. Use a secret key (`sk_*`) — never call this from the browser.

    ```bash
    curl https://next-api.useplunk.com/v1/track \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_your_secret_key" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{
        "event": "waitlist.joined",
        "email": "ada@example.com",
        "data": { "firstName": "Ada", "product": "Beta" }
      }'
    ```

    This call upserts the contact (subscribed by default) and records `waitlist.joined` on them. Anything you put in `data` lands on the contact and is available as `{{firstName}}`, `{{product}}`, etc. in the template.

    <Callout title="Pick a stable event name" type="info">
      A workflow's trigger event **cannot be changed after the first execution**. Namespace it (`waitlist.joined`) rather than something generic you might want to reuse.
    </Callout>
  </Step>

  <Step>
    ### Create the workflow

    **Workflows → New workflow**:

    * **Trigger**: `EVENT` on `waitlist.joined`
    * Add a `SEND_EMAIL` step pointing at the template from step 1

    Enable the workflow. Workflows are created disabled — until the toggle is on, nothing fires.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Tagging signups for later

If you want to segment on waitlist signups later, add an `UPDATE_CONTACT` step before the email:

```json
{ "stage": "waitlist", "waitlistSource": "{{event.referrer}}" }
```

You can then build a [segment](/concepts/segments) of contacts where `stage == "waitlist"` to target with follow-up campaigns. This is cleaner than filtering on "ever fired `waitlist.joined`."

## What's next

<Cards>
  <Card title="Workflows" href="/concepts/workflows">
    Step types and trigger semantics.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Track event API" href="/api-reference/public-api/trackEvent">
    Full reference for `POST /v1/track`.
  </Card>
</Cards>