Over a 12-month period, we increased one ecommerce brand's subscriber retention rate within Klaviyo by 105%. We did not introduce complex custom coding or buy expensive third-party tools to achieve it.
Most brands overcomplicate their retention strategy. They build dozens of bloated automations that break down, or they send the exact same generic campaign to everyone on their list. In my books, consistent retention comes down to executing the fundamentals properly and treating people differently based on whether they have actually handed over money.
The Baseline: Sticking to Core Automations
When we took over the account, the first step was cleaning up and launching the core automated flows. You do not need twenty different automations running at once. You need five or six essential flows dialed in completely before adding anything else.
We focused on setting up five primary automations:
- Welcome series
- Abandoned checkout
- Browse abandonment
- Post-purchase thank you
- Customer winback
Once those are running cleanly, everything else is just a cherry on top. If the core flows are weak, adding fancy multi-step branching further down the line will not fix your retention problem.
Splitting Every Flow by Purchase History
The single biggest structural change we made to their flows was introducing a trigger split based on purchase history. Every prospect and customer entered the same flows, but their journey differed immediately depending on whether their order count was zero or at least one.
For non-purchasers, the objective is simple: get the first product into their hands as fast as possible. In both the abandoned checkout and browse abandonment flows, non-purchasers received an immediate discount incentive to get them over the line.
For existing customers who abandoned a cart or browsed a product, we removed the discount entirely. We sent simple, clean product reminders and brand-focused copy without any price slashing. Giving away margin to someone who already trusts your brand is a mistake.
The 8-Second and 45-Second Form Strategy
Retention starts the moment a visitor arrives on your website. If your list growth strategy is flawed, you will spend twice as much effort trying to retain disengaged subscribers later on.
We introduced a two-tiered sign-up form system on their site to capture intent at the right time:
- Primary pop-up: Triggers after 8 seconds on site, offering a 15% discount code in exchange for an email address.
- Secondary flyout: Triggers after 45 seconds only if the visitor closes the initial pop-up.
The 45-second flyout gives hesitant shoppers a second chance to claim the incentive without having an aggressive modal block their screen again. It captured a significant portion of users who were initially annoyed by the first pop-up but changed their minds after browsing for a minute.
Campaign Segmentation Between Buyers and Non-Buyers
Automations do the heavy lifting in the background, but campaign sends drive the cadence of your revenue. We increased sending volume significantly, pairing regular broadcasts with smart resends to non-openers.
However, we never blasted the exact same message to the entire database. We split the campaign calendar between non-purchasers and existing customers.
Subscribers who had never bought received regular reminders about their welcome incentive, social proof, and reasons to make their first order. Existing customers received informational emails, product education, usage guides, and timely reminders to restock based on product lifecycles. When you stop pitching first-time buyer discounts to your VIPs, customer trust goes up.
Final Thoughts
A 105% increase in retention is not the result of a secret marketing hack. It comes down to capturing leads cleanly, splitting your automated flows so non-buyers get incentives while buyers get reminders, and keeping your campaign messaging relevant to purchase history.
Scale Your Retention Strategy
If you want our team to audit your current flows and build an automated retention system that protects your margins, take a look at our email automations service.
