If you’re reading this in early November, I have a question for you: how are those ad costs treating you right now?
Yeah, I thought so.
Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this—if you’ve been running ads in the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed your costs have gone absolutely mental. And it’s only going to get worse as we head deeper into Black Friday and Christmas territory.
So today, we need to talk about something that most ecommerce brands are getting completely wrong. And it’s costing them—literally—thousands of dollars every single month.
I’m talking about email marketing. But not the “spray and pray” kind where you send a newsletter once a month and hope for the best. I’m talking about strategic, automated, revenue-generating email marketing that works while you’re sleeping, walking the dog, or binge-watching your favourite Netflix series.
By the end of this article, you’re going to understand exactly why your current approach is leaving money on the table, and more importantly, what to do about it before you go broke!
Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Q4 ad costs.
If you’ve been in ecommerce for more than five minutes, you know that November and December are when ad costs go from “manageable” to “are you kidding me right now?”
It’s like watching a property auction in Sydney. Everyone’s bidding against each other, prices are climbing higher and higher, and even the “winner” ends up paying way more than the thing is actually worth.
Except in this case, you’re all fighting for the same eyeballs on Facebook and Instagram, and Meta is laughing all the way to the bank.
Here’s what’s happening: every single ecommerce brand on the planet is simultaneously throwing money at paid ads, desperately trying to capture their slice of the holiday shopping pie. And because everyone’s doing it at the same time, the cost per click, cost per acquisition—everything—just skyrockets.
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t run ads during Q4. If you’ve got products people want to buy for Christmas, absolutely you should be visible. But here’s the problem: if you’re relying solely on paid ads to drive your sales, you’re basically burning cash just to stay in the race.
And here’s the really frustrating part—and this is what I want you to really hear today—most brands are so obsessed with chasing new customers at these increasingly ridiculous acquisition costs that they completely neglect the goldmine sitting right in front of them.
I’m talking about their existing customer database.
Do your customers love you enough to stick around?
Let me ask you something, and I want you to actually think about this: when was the last time you looked at your new versus returning customer revenue split?
Like, actually pulled up the data and looked at it?
If you’re like most of the ecommerce founders I talk to, the answer is probably “um… never?” Or maybe “I think I looked at it once when I set up my store?”
And I get it. It’s not the sexy metric. New customer acquisition is exciting! It feels like growth! It feels like you’re building something!
But here’s the reality: you’re spending 80% of your time, energy, and budget trying to acquire new customers… while the customers who already bought from you, already liked what they got, and are already primed to buy again are just sitting there in your email database, being completely ignored.
It’s like throwing a massive party to meet new people while ignoring all your actual friends who are standing right there wanting to hang out with you. It makes no sense, right?
The Math of Loyalty
Okay, so let’s talk numbers for a second, because this is where it gets really interesting.
It costs between five to seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one. Five to seven times!
Think about that. If you’re spending, let’s say, $50 to acquire a new customer through paid ads right now—and honestly, if you’re only spending $50 in November, you’re doing pretty well—you could be spending less than $10 to get that same customer to buy from you again.
But it gets better. Existing customers don’t just cost less to convert—they also spend more per transaction. They’re more likely to buy full-price items instead of waiting for a discount. They’re more likely to add extra items to their cart. And they’re way more likely to become those passionate brand advocates who tell everyone about you.
Your customer database isn’t just a list of email addresses that you occasionally send a newsletter to. It’s literally money sitting in a bank account that you’re just not withdrawing from.
And the crazy thing is, most brands know this intellectually, but they’re not actually doing anything about it. They’re still throwing all their resources at new customer acquisition, wondering why their profit margins are so thin and why they’re on this constant hamster wheel of needing to spend more to make more.
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: “But Catherine, I do email marketing! I send emails to my list!”
Okay, great. Let me ask you this: what percentage of your revenue comes from email?
And I don’t mean the revenue from that one big promotional email you sent during your last sale. I mean consistently, month after month, what portion of your total revenue is being generated by your email marketing?
If it’s less than 25 to 30%, you’re leaving serious money on the table.
And here’s the other question: how much of that email revenue is coming from repeat purchases versus first-time buyers?
Because if you’re only using email to convert people who clicked on your ad, visited your site but didn’t buy, and then finally purchased after you sent them an email… sure, that’s better than nothing.
But you’re still just using email as a band-aid for your acquisition funnel instead of using it for what it’s actually brilliant at: building customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases.
Double The Number Of Customers Who Buy From You
Alright, so let’s talk about the solution here, because I’m not just going to tell you what’s wrong without giving you a path forward.
The brands who are absolutely crushing it right now—the ones who aren’t stressed about ad costs, the ones who aren’t panicking about whether they’ll hit their revenue targets—they’ve built marketing systems that generate revenue automatically.
They’re not constantly feeding the ad spend beast. They’re not scrambling to create content every single day. They’re not lying awake at night wondering where next month’s sales are going to come from.
They’ve set up proper email marketing systems. And specifically, they’re using Klaviyo.
Now, I know I talk about Klaviyo a lot, and yes, we specialise in helping brands implement Klaviyo strategies, so you might think I’m biased. But here’s the thing: I recommend Klaviyo because it actually works.
It’s built specifically for ecommerce. It integrates with your store data. It allows you to segment your audience based on actual behaviour, not just demographic guesses. And most importantly, it enables you to set up automated flows that nurture relationships and drive purchases without you having to manually send every single email.
Let me give you a real example from one of our clients. They came to us about two months ago, and their email marketing was… let’s just say it was a bit of a mess. They had Klaviyo installed, but they weren’t really using it properly. They’d send the occasional promotional email, maybe a newsletter here and there, but there was no real strategy behind it.
Their revenue from email was sitting at about 17% of total revenue. Not terrible, but not great either. And almost all of that was coming from promotional emails they manually sent out—meaning if they didn’t sit down and write an email, no revenue was being generated from that channel.
Fast forward two months after implementing a proper Klaviyo strategy with us, and their revenue attributed to Klaviyo increased by 106%.
Let me say that again: 106% increase.
But here’s the really juicy part—and this is what I want you to pay attention to—25% of that revenue is now coming from automated flows.
That’s money being made while they’re doing literally anything else. Sleeping. Spending time with their family. Working on product development. Living their life.
And it’s not just about the revenue number. Their repeat customer rate has gone up. Their average order value has increased. And their customer lifetime value—the total amount a customer spends with them over the entire relationship—has significantly improved.
This is what happens when you stop obsessing over new customer acquisition and start building actual relationships with the customers you already have.
How Klaviyo Increases Your Advertising ROI
Now, here’s where this gets really interesting—and this is something most brands completely miss when they’re thinking about email marketing.
They think of email as just another revenue channel. Like, “Okay, we’ve got paid ads bringing in revenue, we’ve got organic social, we’ve got email, and they all contribute to the total.”
But that’s not how it actually works. Email marketing—when done properly—doesn’t just add revenue on top of your other channels. It fundamentally transforms the profitability of all your other marketing, especially your paid ads.
Let me walk you through the math, because once you see this, you’re going to look at your ad spend completely differently.
Let’s say you’re spending $50 to acquire a customer through paid ads right now. Pretty typical for Q4, maybe even on the conservative side depending on your industry.
That customer makes their first purchase—let’s say it’s $75. Great! You’ve got a 1.5x return on your ad spend. That feels… okay? Barely profitable once you factor in your product costs and overhead.
Maybe 15-20% of those customers come back and buy again at some point, so your customer lifetime value ends up being around $100, maybe $120 if you’re lucky.
So you spent $50, you made $120 over time. Not bad, but also not amazing. And it certainly doesn’t give you much room to scale your ad spend or survive expensive periods like we’re in right now.
This is where most brands get stuck. They’re looking at their paid ads thinking, “This is barely profitable. I can’t afford to spend more. I can’t scale.”
Now, let’s look at what happens when you implement a rock-solid Klaviyo strategy like our client did.
You’re still spending that same $50 to acquire the customer. They still make that same first purchase of $75.
But now, here’s what’s different:
Within a week, they receive a post-purchase email sequence that thanks them, educates them on getting the most out of their purchase, and suggests complementary products. They make a second purchase—$80.
A few weeks later, your browse abandonment flow catches them looking at products. They buy again—$65.
Three months down the track, your replenishment flow reminds them it’s time to reorder. Another $75.
Six months later, they haven’t been back in a while, so your win-back flow re-engages them with a compelling reason to return. They buy again—$90.
Add it all up: $75 + $80 + $65 + $75 + $90 = $385.
You spent $50 to acquire that customer, and now they’re worth $385 to your business.
Your return on that ad spend just went from 1.5x to 7.7x.
You Just Increased Your ROI by 300%
Let me say that again: the exact same paid ad traffic, the exact same customer acquisition cost, but now you’re extracting nearly eight times more value from every dollar you spend on ads.
That’s not just “a bit better.” That’s a complete transformation of your business economics.
And here’s where it gets even better: when you know your customers are worth $385 instead of $120, you can now afford to spend up to $100 or even more to acquire them and still be highly profitable.
What does that mean?
It means you can outbid your competitors who are stuck thinking customers are only worth $120. They tap out at $60 cost per acquisition because they can’t afford more. You’re just getting started.
It means you can scale your ad spend aggressively because you’ve got the margin to do it.
It means you can test new creative, new audiences, new platforms without being as cost-constrained.
It means you can survive—and thrive—during expensive periods like Q4 when other brands are panicking about ad costs and pulling back their budgets.
Klaviyo = The Backbone Of Your eCommerce Sales Strategy
This is why I get so passionate about email marketing. It’s not just another channel that adds a bit of revenue here and there. It’s the foundation that makes everything else profitable.
Your paid ads aren’t really working or not working based on what they cost or what that first purchase is. They’re working or not working based on the lifetime value of the customers they bring in. And that lifetime value is almost entirely determined by what happens after the acquisition—which is where your email marketing comes in.
So when people ask me, “Should I invest in improving my email marketing or should I spend more on ads?” my answer is always: fix your email marketing first, because that’s what makes your ads actually profitable.
A rock-solid Klaviyo strategy can improve the profitability of your paid traffic by 300%, 400%, sometimes even more. It completely changes what you can afford to spend, where you can compete, and how you can scale.
This is why the brands that are winning right now aren’t necessarily the ones spending the most on ads or getting the cheapest clicks. They’re the ones who’ve built systems to maximise the value of every customer they acquire.
And it’s not just about the revenue number. Their repeat customer rate has gone up. Their average order value has increased. And their customer lifetime value—the total amount a customer spends with them over the entire relationship—has significantly improved.
This is what happens when you stop obsessing over new customer acquisition and start building actual relationships with the customers you already have.
Implementing a Rock Solid Klaviyo Strategy
Okay, so let’s get practical for a minute. I know some of you are listening to this thinking, “This sounds great, Catherine, but I have no idea where to even start.”
So let me break down the core components of what actually makes email marketing work for ecommerce.
First, you need to be capturing email addresses properly. And I don’t just mean having a pop-up that says “Sign up for 10% off.” I mean having multiple capture points throughout your customer journey that are actually compelling.
Think about it: if someone’s browsing your site, engaged with your content, maybe they’ve added something to their cart but haven’t checked out yet—these are all opportunities to capture their email address in exchange for value. Maybe that’s a discount, maybe it’s free shipping, maybe it’s early access to new products, maybe it’s just really valuable content. The point is, you need to be actively growing your list.
Second, you need proper segmentation. This is where most brands fall down. They treat their entire email list as one homogenous blob and send the same message to everyone.
But your first-time buyer needs different communication than your VIP customer who’s purchased from you ten times. Your customer who bought from the men’s collection doesn’t need to see emails about women’s products. Your customer who bought a high-ticket item is probably ready for different upsells than someone who only bought your entry-level product.
Klaviyo allows you to segment based on all of this behaviour, which means you can send the right message to the right person at the right time. And that’s when email marketing goes from “meh” to “money-printing machine.”
Third—and this is the big one—you need automated flows.
At minimum, you should have:
- A welcome series for new subscribers
- An abandoned cart flow for people who added items but didn’t complete checkout
- A post-purchase flow that thanks customers and sets them up for the next purchase
- A replenishment flow if you sell consumable products
- A win-back flow for customers who haven’t purchased in a while
These flows run automatically based on customer behaviour. You set them up once, and they work 24/7 generating revenue for you.
And the beautiful thing about these flows is they’re hitting people at exactly the moment they’re most receptive to hearing from you. Someone just bought from you? Perfect time to suggest complementary products. Someone abandoned their cart? Perfect time to remind them and maybe offer a small incentive to complete the purchase. Someone hasn’t bought in six months? Perfect time to re-engage them with a special offer or new product announcement.
This is how you build a sustainable business that isn’t dependent on constantly spending more on ads to make more money. And this is how you transform those barely-profitable ad campaigns into highly profitable customer acquisition machines.
Segmentation = The Secret Sauce
Now, automated flows are brilliant, but they’re only half the equation. Let’s talk about the other half: your broadcast emails. These are the campaigns you manually send out—your newsletters, your promotional emails, your product launches, all of that.
And this is where I see so many brands absolutely shooting themselves in the foot, especially during peak promotional periods like November and December.
Here’s what usually happens: it’s Black Friday week, or it’s the lead-up to Christmas, and brands go into full panic mode. They start blasting their entire email list multiple times a day with “BUY NOW! 30% OFF! LAST CHANCE! SALE ENDS TONIGHT!”
And look, I get it. Everyone else is doing it, so you feel like you have to compete on discounts just to get noticed in the inbox.
But here’s the problem with this approach—actually, there are multiple problems.
Problem number one: you’re training your customers to only buy when there’s a discount.
If the only time you email your list is when you’re running a sale, what do you think happens? Your customers start waiting for the sales. They see your regular-priced products and think, “Nah, I’ll wait. They’ll have a sale in a couple of weeks.”
And then you’re stuck in this cycle where you have to keep discounting to generate revenue, which destroys your profit margins and devalues your brand.
Problem number two: and this is the part that most brands don’t actually sit down and calculate — the math of discounting is absolutely brutal, especially when you factor in the high ad costs we’re dealing with right now.
Let me break this down for you, because once you see these numbers, you’re going to think very differently about your discount strategy.
If you discount your products by just 10%— which seems pretty modest, right? — you need to sell 25% more volume just to make the same net profit.
Let me say that again: a 10% discount requires 25% more sales to break even on profit.
That’s not revenue. That’s profit. You’re working 25% harder to make the same amount of money.
Now, let’s add in the reality of Q4. Your ad costs right now aren’t what they were in March or July. They’re probably double. Maybe triple. Maybe even more depending on your industry and targeting.
So now you’re discounting by 10%, which means you need 25% more volume. But to get that volume, you’re paying 2-3x more per click, per acquisition.
Do the math. The amount of extra sales you need to generate just to maintain your profit margin increases drastically. You could need to sell 40%, 50%, even 60% more just to end up in the same place profit-wise.
Don’t Get Trapped By The Ego Metrics
And for what? So you can say you had a good Black Friday? So you can compete with every other brand throwing discounts around?
It’s exhausting. And frankly, it’s not a sustainable way to run a business.
But here’s where the strategy we’ve been talking about—using your email database smartly, building customer loyalty, focusing on repeat purchases—completely changes this equation.
When you’re selling to existing customers through strategic email marketing, your acquisition cost is dramatically lower. You’re not paying $50, $75, $100 to acquire a new customer through expensive Q4 ads.
You’re paying the cost of an email. Which is basically nothing compared to paid ads.
So even if you do run a promotion — and look, sometimes promotions make sense as part of a strategic plan — you can still remain profitable because you’re not layering high ad costs on top of the discount.
Plus, when you’re strategic about who gets what offer, you’re not giving unnecessary discounts to customers who would have bought anyway. Your VIPs might get early access or a special gift, not a massive discount. Your dormant customers might get a win-back offer. Your engaged subscribers might just need a compelling reason to buy now, which could be educational content about why your product is the perfect solution, not a discount code.
This is why focusing on your email database and customer retention isn’t just about “being nice” or “building relationships”—though those things matter too. It’s about fundamental business economics.
You simply cannot build a profitable, sustainable ecommerce business if you’re constantly discounting to compete for expensive new customers. The math doesn’t work.
But when you build a loyal customer base that buys from you repeatedly, at full price or with minimal discounting, and you’re reaching them through a low-cost channel like email? Now the math works beautifully.
Why Better Stories Beat Bigger Discounts
Problem number three: you’re sending the same message to everyone.
Think about this for a second. You’ve got someone on your list who bought from you three times in the last month. They clearly love your products. They’re already engaged. They’re already buying.
And then you’ve got someone else on your list who signed up six months ago, got your welcome discount, made one small purchase, and hasn’t been back since.
Do these two people need the same email? Do they need the same offer? Of course not!
But most brands are hitting both of these people—and everyone in between—with the exact same “50% OFF EVERYTHING” message.
Your VIP customer who was probably going to buy anyway just got trained to wait for a discount. And your dormant customer? Well, they’re so overwhelmed by promotional emails from every brand they’ve ever heard of that yours just gets lost in the noise.
So what’s the alternative?
Segmentation. Strategic messaging. And—this is going to sound controversial, but stay with me—not always leading with discounts.
Let me tell you what we’ve been seeing with our clients all year. The emails that have performed the best, that have driven the most revenue, that have gotten the highest engagement… they’re not the discount-heavy “BUY NOW OR MISS OUT” emails.
They’re the value-add emails. The educational ones. The storytelling ones. The “here’s how to use our product” or “here’s the story behind this product” or “here’s how to solve this problem you’re probably having” emails.
Why? Because these emails are actually interesting. They’re not just noise. They’re not trying to shout louder than every other brand in the inbox. They’re providing value, building trust, and strengthening the relationship.
And here’s the thing: when you send valuable, educational, engaging content, people actually buy. Not because you’re waving a 50% discount in their face, but because you’ve reminded them why they liked your brand in the first place, or you’ve shown them something new, or you’ve helped them solve a problem.
Does this mean you never run promotions?
Of course not. Especially during Q4, there are certain times when running a promotion makes total sense. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day—these are culturally established shopping moments when people expect deals.
But here’s how to approach it strategically:
First, segment your list. Don’t send your Black Friday offer to everyone. Send different messages to different segments.
Your VIP customers? Maybe they get early access with a slightly smaller discount, or free shipping, or a special gift with purchase. You’re making them feel special, not just throwing a discount at them.
Your engaged subscribers who haven’t purchased yet? They might need that bigger discount to take the leap. Give it to them.
Your one-time buyers who haven’t been back? Maybe they get a “we miss you” message with a compelling offer to come back.
Your recent purchasers? Maybe they don’t get the promotional email at all. Instead, they get an educational email about how to get the most out of their purchase, or a spotlight on complementary products that would enhance what they already bought.
See the difference? You’re being strategic. You’re treating different customers differently based on their relationship with your brand. And you’re protecting your profit margins by not giving unnecessary discounts to people who don’t need them.
Second, diversify your content angles. Don’t make every email about “buy this thing.”
During November and December, yes, you’re going to send promotional emails. But you should also be sending:
- Gift guides that help people solve their shopping problems
- Behind-the-scenes content about your business, your makers, your process
- Customer stories and testimonials that show social proof
- Educational content about your product category
- Values-based messaging about what your brand stands for
These emails serve multiple purposes. They keep your brand top-of-mind without being salesy. They build trust and deepen relationships. They give people reasons to open your emails beyond “is there a discount code in here?”
And here’s the kicker: they often drive just as much revenue as promotional emails, but without training your customers to expect discounts and without destroying your profit margins.
We had a client earlier this year who was sceptical about this. They were used to sending promotional emails pretty much exclusively, and they were nervous about sending “educational” content because they didn’t think it would drive sales.
But we convinced them to test it. We sent an email that was purely educational—how to care for their specific type of product, how to get the most life out of it, common mistakes people make. No discount. No urgent call-to-action. Just genuinely helpful information with soft product links woven throughout.
That email drove more revenue than their previous promotional email. People replied saying how helpful it was. Engagement went through the roof. And here’s what really matters: it didn’t train anyone to expect a discount. It just reminded people that this brand is helpful, knowledgeable, and worth paying attention to.
And because they weren’t discounting? Their profit margin on those sales was significantly higher.
Avoid The ‘Spray & Pray’ Email Method
Third, think about your email frequency strategically. During peak promotional periods, everyone cranks up their email frequency. And yes, you probably should be emailing more in November and December than you do in, say, March.
But more doesn’t mean “blast everyone every single day with the same message.”
It means being strategic about who you’re emailing, when, and with what message. Maybe your VIP segment gets four emails a week because they’re highly engaged and they want to hear from you. Maybe your less-engaged segment gets two emails a week because you don’t want to overwhelm them.
And within those emails, you’re varying the content. Promotional. Educational. Storytelling. Social proof. Gift guides. Value-add. Not just “BUY BUY BUY” on repeat.
This approach does a few things: it keeps your emails interesting so people actually open them. It protects your deliverability because you’re not triggering spam filters with constant promotional content. And it maintains your brand value and profit margins instead of training everyone to only see you as the “discount brand.”
This Is How You Increase Customer Loyalty
Look, I know this might feel like more work than just writing one promotional email and hitting send to everyone. And in the short term, it is more work upfront.
But here’s what happens when you approach broadcast emails this way:
Your open rates go up because people actually want to read your emails.
Your unsubscribe rates go down because you’re not annoying people with irrelevant content.
Your revenue per email goes up because you’re sending the right message to the right person.
Your profit margins stay healthy because you’re not constantly discounting, and when you do discount, you’re doing it strategically for people who actually need that incentive.
And most importantly, you build a brand that people actually care about, not just a store they visit when there’s a sale on.
This is especially critical in 2025 and beyond because the inbox is only getting more crowded. AI is making it easier than ever to churn out mediocre content at scale. Everyone’s got ChatGPT writing their emails now, and it shows—everything sounds the same, feels the same, is the same generic promotional nonsense.
The brands that are going to win are the ones that actually sound like humans, that provide real value, that understand their audience well enough to send relevant, personalised messages, and that protect their profit margins by being strategic rather than just following what everyone else is doing.
Klaviyo makes this possible because you’ve got all the data right there. You can see who’s engaged, who’s not, what people have bought, what they’re interested in. You can use that data to create segments and send targeted messages that actually resonate.
But you have to actually use it. You can’t just have Klaviyo installed and then send the same “blast to everyone with a discount” emails you were sending before. That’s like buying a sports car and only ever driving it in first gear.
It’s Never Too Late To Start (Or Improve) Your Email Game!
Now, I know I wrote this in early November. At which point many of you are no doubt thinking, “Catherine, this all sounds great, but it’s a bit late to be rebuilding my email strategy now, isn’t it? I mean, Christmas is coming, Black Friday is around the corner…”
And I want to push back on that a bit.
Yes, ad costs are sky-high right now. But you know what that means? Every single visitor to your store right now is incredibly valuable.
If you’re spending $50, $75, $100 to get someone to click on your ad and visit your store, and then you’re not capturing their email address, not following up with them properly, not nurturing them into becoming a repeat buyer… that is just wasteful.
The brands who are setting themselves up now — even in the chaos of Q4 — are the ones who are going to be printing money in 2026 while their competitors are still trying to figure out why their “New Year Sale” emails aren’t converting.
Because here’s the thing about Q4: yes, it’s busy and chaotic, but it’s also when you’re getting the most traffic and the most buyers you’ll see all year. If you can convert those people properly and set up systems to keep them engaged, you’re not just maximising Q4 revenue — you’re building the foundation for a much more profitable 2026.
Think about it: instead of starting January in a slump, scrambling to figure out how you’re going to rebuild momentum after the holiday rush, you’ll have automated systems continuing to generate revenue from all those customers you acquired during the busy season.
And because you’ve been strategic about not over-discounting and not training everyone to expect sales, you can maintain healthy margins into the new year instead of starting 2026 with another discount cycle because that’s what your customers now expect.
No more “January slump.” No more anxiety about where next month’s sales are coming from. No more profit margins being destroyed by constant discounting. Just consistent, predictable revenue from a loyal customer base that knows and trusts you.
That’s the difference between businesses that scale sustainably and businesses that are constantly on the hustle-and-crash rollercoaster.
The First Steps To Implementation
Alright, so let’s talk about what this actually looks like in practice, because I don’t want you to finish this episode feeling overwhelmed or thinking, “This sounds great but I have no idea how to implement it.”
If you’re sitting there right now thinking, “Okay, Catherine, you’ve convinced me. Email marketing is important. I need to focus on customer loyalty. I need to be more strategic with my campaigns. I need to stop destroying my profit margins with unnecessary discounts. And I need to understand that email marketing is what makes my paid ads actually profitable. But what do I actually do?”
Here’s what I want you to do:
First, go look at your numbers. Pull up your analytics and actually look at your new versus returning customer revenue split. What percentage of your revenue is coming from new customers versus people who’ve bought from you before?
If more than 70-80% of your revenue is coming from new customers, that’s a red flag. It means you’re working way too hard and spending way too much to acquire customers that you’re not successfully retaining.
Second, look at your email marketing metrics. What percentage of your total revenue is being attributed to email? And of that, how much is coming from automated flows versus one-off promotional emails you manually send?
If you’re below 25% total revenue from email, and if most of that is from manual sends rather than automated flows, you’ve got a huge opportunity sitting there.
Third, calculate your actual customer lifetime value. Not what you hope it is, but what the data shows it actually is. Then think about what it could be if you had proper email flows nurturing those customers into repeat purchases. This will change how you think about what you can afford to spend on customer acquisition.
Fourth, look at your broadcast email performance. Are you segmenting at all, or are you sending everything to everyone? What types of emails get the best engagement and drive the most revenue? Is it always the discount emails, or are your educational and value-add emails performing better than you realised?
And fifth—and this is important—actually calculate what discounting is costing you. Look at a recent promotion you ran. Calculate how much extra volume you needed to sell to maintain your profit margin after the discount. Then factor in your ad costs during that period. The numbers might shock you.
Sixth, and this is where we can help: book a strategy session with us.
Now, I know this sounds like a sales pitch, but hear me out. When you book a strategy session with us, we actually sit down and review your current email marketing performance and your customer revenue split together. We uncover exactly where the leaks are in your bucket and show you the revenue opportunity that’s sitting there waiting to be captured.
This isn’t a generic “here’s what everyone should do” conversation. This is specific to your business, your numbers, your opportunities. We’ll look at your segmentation strategy—or lack thereof. We’ll review your flows. We’ll talk about your broadcast email approach and how to make it more strategic. We’ll calculate your actual customer lifetime value and show you what’s possible. And we’ll talk about your promotional strategy and how to remain profitable even during peak discount season.
We’re offering a handful of spots for these sessions specifically to help brands maximise what’s left of this year while setting up a strong foundation for next year.
And look, full transparency: this strategic review session is something we normally charge $297 for. But we’re offering it for free right now because we genuinely want to help ecommerce brands stop leaving money on the table and start building something sustainable and profitable.
After the session, if it makes sense for us to work together on implementing a proper Klaviyo strategy, great. We can talk about what that looks like. But if not, you still walk away with clarity on exactly where your opportunities are and what you should be focusing on.
No pressure. No BS. Just honest insights into where you could be making more money with less stress and better profit margins.
So if you’re serious about transforming your email marketing from “meh” to “money-printing machine,” and if you’re serious about building a loyal customer base that keeps coming back instead of constantly chasing new customers at ridiculous acquisition costs and destroying your profit margins with discounts you don’t need to give…
Don’t sleep on this opportunity.
Head here to book your strategy session. We’ll look at your numbers together, I’ll show you exactly what’s possible, and we’ll create a plan to make it happen.
Alright, let’s wrap this up.
Key Takeaways From This Article
One: Ad costs are high and they’re going to stay high through the holiday season. If you’re only relying on paid ads to drive revenue, you’re on an expensive hamster wheel that’s not sustainable.
Two: Most brands are obsessed with new customer acquisition and completely neglecting their existing customer database. This is backwards. Your existing customers are easier to sell to, spend more, and cost less to convert.
Three: Email marketing isn’t just another revenue channel—it’s the foundation that makes your paid ads actually profitable. A rock-solid Klaviyo strategy can improve the profitability of your paid traffic by 300-400% by dramatically increasing customer lifetime value.
Four: The math of discounting is brutal. A 10% discount requires 25% more volume to maintain the same profit, and when you add in high Q4 ad costs, that number gets even worse. You’re working exponentially harder to make the same money—or less.
Five: Email marketing—done properly with strategic automation and smart broadcast campaigns—is how you build a sustainable, profitable ecommerce business that’s not dependent on constantly spending more on ads or giving away your margins in discounts.
Six: Stop blasting your entire list with discount-heavy promotional emails. Segment your audience, diversify your content angles, and lead with value instead of always leading with discounts. Your profit margins will thank you.
Seven: It’s not too late to set this up, even in Q4. In fact, Q4 is the perfect time because you’re getting more traffic and more buyers than any other time of year. Every customer you acquire now is an opportunity to build that profitable, long-term relationship.
And eight: If you want help figuring out where your opportunities are and how to capture them, book a strategy session with us. We’ll review your numbers together and show you exactly what’s possible.
