Stop Spending on Traffic. Fix Your Retention First.
Every week I audit email programmes for e-commerce brands. The pattern is almost always the same: the brand is spending £10,000–£50,000 per month on Google and Meta ads, and has a Klaviyo account with a single welcome email, no abandoned cart flow, and a disengaged list quietly destroying their sender reputation.
This is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. Without the retention infrastructure to convert and keep customers, every pound you spend on acquisition leaks straight out. Here are the six flows that need to be live before you scale ad spend.
1. Abandoned Cart Flow (Priority: Critical)
On average, 70% of shopping carts are abandoned. A properly built 3-email sequence recovers 15–22% of that lost revenue automatically, forever, with no ongoing effort.
- Email 1 – 1 hour after abandonment: Gentle reminder. No discount. Just the products, clean copy, high-converting layout.
- Email 2 – 24 hours after: Social proof. Customer reviews for the specific product. Limited stock messaging if applicable.
- Email 3 – 72 hours after: Final offer. Discount only for high-cart-value abandoners. Hard close with a clear expiry.
The most common mistake: offering a discount in Email 1. You are training customers to abandon carts on purpose to wait for the offer.
2. Welcome Series (Priority: Critical)
New subscribers are at peak interest the moment they join. Your welcome series is the most-opened email sequence you will ever send, with average open rates of 45–55% compared to 20–25% for regular campaigns. Most brands waste this with a single confirmation email. We build 5–7 email sequences that introduce the brand story, build trust through social proof, and convert subscribers into buyers within 7 days.
Key principle: Use a conditional split after email 2. Anyone who purchases exits the welcome series and enters the post-purchase flow. Never keep selling to someone who already bought.
3. Post-Purchase Flow (Priority: High)
The period immediately after purchase is when trust is highest and buyer’s remorse is sharpest. A post-purchase sequence that confirms the decision, delivers value through usage education, generates reviews, and cross-sells at the right moment is the single most effective way to increase repeat purchase rate. Brands we work with typically see a 28–34% increase in repeat purchase frequency after implementing this properly.
4. Browse Abandonment Flow (Priority: High)
Less intent than cart abandonment, but much higher volume. A 2–3 email sequence targeting visitors who viewed a product page but did not add to cart, surfacing the viewed products naturally and nudging towards the next visit without feeling intrusive.
5. Win-Back Flow (Priority: Medium)
Inactive subscribers destroy deliverability. Before suppressing them, a tiered win-back sequence recovers 5–12% of lapsed customers who are genuinely winnable. The key is segmenting by recency: 90-day lapsed subscribers need a very different approach to 180-day lapsed.
6. VIP Programme (Priority: Medium)
Your top 20% of customers generate 80% of your revenue. A VIP flow identifies and rewards your highest-value customers with early access and exclusive offers that build the kind of loyalty no discount can manufacture.
What Revenue Should Email Be Generating?
Industry best practice for a well-run e-commerce email programme is 25–45% of total revenue attributed to email. Most brands we inherit are at 6–12%. The gap is almost always explained by the same three things: no lifecycle flows, no segmentation, and poor deliverability. Build the flows first. Then scale the ads.