Email Campaign Mistakes

Retention Isn’t Sexy - Until You’re Broke Brands chase growth. But when the faucet turns off and the market tightens, email becomes your backbone. So why do we treat it as a short-term fix rather than a long-term asset? I hear this conversation replayed to me all the time from CRM and Brand Managers: Their Manager: Targets are down. Budget’s gone. Just send more emails. CRM: We already sent one this week with a promo. Manager: Send another. Bigger discount. CRM: Unsubscribes were high last time… Manager: Send to everyone — even non-engagers. Add urgency. And so it begins. 📉 Deliverability drops. 📉 Clicks tank. 📉 Unsubscribes rise. 📉 The database - your only owned audience - starts eroding. But the revenue target stays the same. This is what happens when you treat email like a faucet you can turn on and off — instead of a system you build and respect. 💡 Want to break the cycle? Here’s how smart brands avoid the spiral: 1. Build an acquisition engine, even when times are good. Don’t just chase sales. Chase subscribers, on all channels, not just site pop-ups. If 2% of traffic buys, aim for 20% to subscribe. That’s your future revenue. 2. Agree on discounting guardrails. Not every campaign needs a percentage off, even if times are tough. Consider other conversion tools like: - loyalty perks - free gifts - tiered basket incentives - competitions - outlet-style categories 3. Treat non-converters as humans, not dead weight. Reduce frequency, but stay visible. Try to understand why they’re lapsing e.g gift buyers? Promo-only? Seasonal? 4. Use peak trading to re-acquire, not just sell. Black Friday can re-engage lapsed customers. But the follow-up can’t be more noise. Build a new journey. Reset the relationship. 5. Track long-term metrics. Not just revenue-per-send. Show your management week on week how these are growing: -LTV - Repeat purchase rate - AOV - Site visit frequency from consumers on your database 6. Invest in content, not just campaigns. Nurture a community. Give them reasons to stay subscribed. Boost engagement before you ask for a sale. Remember nobkdy going to buy daily and weekly, you need more to keep them engage. Think weekly style tips, news Roundup, podcast drops, games, polls etc Email can be your safety net — but only if you protect the list, grow it intentionally, and stop burning it out with knee-jerk sends. Want to find out our playbook for growing your subscriber base rapidly. (like how we grew out base to 17m). DM me. Build it right. Because when things get tough, it’s your email list that keeps the lights on.

I've audited 100s of Klaviyo accounts. Here are the 30 biggest mistakes they make... 1. Focusing on signup rate instead of signup-to-conversion rate. 2. Sending the same discount to both prospects and existing customers. 3. Neglecting the first 72 hours of the welcome flow where most conversions happen. 4. Creating welcome flows with 10+ emails when most purchases happen in the first 48 hours. 5. Forgetting that email's job is to get the click, not make the sale. 6. Not excluding contacts who are in key customer journey flows from campaigns. 7. Ignoring deliverability issues until they're already in the spam folder. 8. Failing to set up proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. 9. Over-segmenting their list which restricts revenue potential. 10.Not testing different offers in abandoned checkout flows. 11. Sending the same messaging to first-time buyers and loyal customers. 12. Focusing on open rates instead of total clicks and revenue. 13. Using the same popup behavior on every page regardless of visitor intent. 14. Not optimizing emails for mobile devices when 70% of users view them there. 15. Keeping CTAs below the fold where they're less likely to be seen. 16. Failing to optimize emails for dark mode. 17. Creating emails that get clipped because they're too large. 18. Not using dynamic discount codes to track redemption rates. 19. Lacking knowledge of unit economics when creating offers. 20. Sending too many sales emails and not enough educational content. 21. Ignoring post-purchase product education that drives adoption. 22. Not building flows that cover the entire customer lifecycle. 23. Focusing on vanity metrics instead of cash flow and profitability. 24. Sending campaigns to lists instead of segments. 25. Conditioning customers to expect discounts by always offering them. 26. Not separating prospects from customers in flows. 27. Focusing on company journey instead of customer journey in copy. 28. Not testing different offers for abandoned checkout flows. 29. Ignoring the power of direct mail for re-engaging lapsed customers. 30. Failing to use zero party data to personalize welcome flows. The biggest mistake of all? Thinking email marketing is about sending emails, when it's really about understanding your customers and driving profitable growth.

Where 99% of brands go wrong 👇 They treat email like a broadcast tool. When you stop running it like one, the results scale. Most DTC brands are sitting on their highest-margin channel and treating it like a newsletter. That trap is easy to fall into. And it's all because they are skipping the 5 email fundamentals: 1️⃣ List segmentation Sending to everyone is sending to no one. Tighten your segments, and your revenue per send goes up. 👉 Action: Segment by purchase history, engagement tier, and lifecycle stage. Suppress unengaged subscribers before your next send. 2️⃣ Subject lines Your subject line is inbox ad creative. Test it like one.  One variable at a time. Under 50 characters. Treat it as seriously as your best-performing paid hook. 👉 Action: Pick your next send. Write three subject line variants: one curiosity, one urgency, one specific. Test them and read the signal. 3️⃣ Send cadence Inconsistent sending trains your list to ignore you, and signals to inbox providers that you are not trustworthy. You need to build a consistent email rhythm. Then repeat and protect it. 👉 Action: Set a send schedule this week and treat it like a non-negotiable. 4️⃣ Customer journey mapping A welcome flow and a promo calendar are not a lifecycle program You need to map every meaningful customer moment. Post-purchase. Win-back. Cross-sell. Loyalty. Then build content around each one. 👉 Action: Audit your current flows. Identify the first gap after the welcome sequence and build one new trigger-based flow this month. 5️⃣ Content personalization Personalization means sending content that matches where the customer actually is in their relationship with your brand. E.g. A customer who just bought running shoes should get a follow-up about care, accessories, or their next run. 👉 Action: Take your next campaign and create two versions based on purchase history. Compare the results. We put all 5 of these to work with Branded Bills. They came to us with an inconsistent sending strategy and customers who weren't coming back after their first purchase. So, we followed this exact list:  ✅ Tightened segmentation. (Step 1) ✅ Refined subject lines. (Step 2) ✅ Built a consistent sending cadence. (Step 3) ✅ Mapped the full customer journey. (Step 4) ✅ Tailored content to specific audiences. (Step 5) The result: Email revenue up 102% year over year. Conversion rate up 59%. Email traffic up 15% after the segmentation changes alone. Same list. Different system. Very different outcomes. The brands that scale on email are not doing anything exotic. They are just doing the fundamentals well and doing them consistently. Which of these 5 is the biggest gap in your program right now? If you're doing $5M or more and want to know what your email program should look like, my DMs are open. ♻️ Repost to help DTC brands stop leaving revenue on the table. And follow me, Jacob Rokeach, for more on DTC growth strategy and lifecycle marketing.

Collecting zero-party data is trendy. Actually using it is surprisingly rare. Most DTC brands have caught on to the "Quiz" and "Pop-up" trend over the last two years. They’re asking about your fitness goals, your skin type, or how you drink your coffee. But for most of them, that data just sits in a graveyard on the customer profile. They have the "gold," but they’re still sending the same generic weekly blast to everyone. If you’ve spent the time to ask your customers who they are, you owe it to them (and your revenue number) to actually change the experience. Here are some examples for how you stop "hoarding" data and start using it: 1️⃣ The "Split" Welcome Flow: Stop sending one welcome sequence. Use a conditional split. If a subscriber told you they’re "Lactose Intolerant" in your quiz, your first email shouldn't feature your best-selling whey protein. It’s a total disconnect. 2️⃣ The "Dietary" Filter: If a customer explicitly told you they are Gluten-Free, they should be excluded from campaigns featuring wheat-based products. You aren't just "saving a click"—you're showing them you actually listen. 3️⃣ The "Gift vs. Self" Toggle: This is the most underutilized insight. The way you talk to a husband buying a gift for his wife is 180° different from how you talk to a loyalist shopping for themselves. One needs "Social Proof" and "Gift Guides," the other needs "Refill Reminders." 4️⃣ The "Workout Habit" Pivot: If your quiz identifies a user as a "Late Night Trainer," your abandoned cart flow shouldn't talk about "Morning Energy." It should talk about "Recovery while you sleep." One data point, two totally different psychological hooks. 5️⃣ The "Skin Concern" Filter: If a customer tells you their primary goal is "Anti-Aging," don't clutter their inbox with "Acne Treatment" launches. Use that attribute to filter your product launch segments so they only see what is relevant to their specific vanity or health concern. ...And the list goes on. Personalization doesn't mean you need a 50-person creative team. It just means using 2–3 key "choice" moments to stop treating your list like a faceless crowd. If you’re going to ask the question, you have to be prepared to provide the answer. Is your zero-party data actually driving your flows, or is it just sitting in a Klaviyo property gathering dust?