Filip | Retention for CPG

LTV and retention optimization for CPG & subscription brands
📈 Increasing LTV by 15% in 90 days
Founder at Optimail

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

Tbh I find it funny when I see all these email agency guys who are absolutely convinced their little email marketing service is irreplaceable by AI

“But it’s a job for multiple people”

“But AI produces generic output”

“But AI can’t do strategy”

We landed a client recently who as soon as we started working together, redesigned and optimized ALL his email flows with Claude in ONE afternoon

We wanted to do it for him but he told us he wanted to do it himself just for fun, to see what he could do

The scary part: the flows looked VERY good and optimized. They looked like they were made by a pro email agency, yet he had 0 experience with email marketing, he was just a very curious person

He did that in one afternoon with Claude

Now imagine how much a traditional email agency would charge for that and how many days, or probably weeks it would take them to deliver this service

More and more young eCom founders are experimenting with AI and realizing email marketing on its own is not the rocket science some people would like to picture it as

“But why are you saying this, you’re an email guy?”

Yes and no

We do have clients we do email marketing only for and these are mostly OTP clients. There’s no retention here and tbh there isn’t much science here either

Set up your core flows, optimize the popup and send a few campaigns per week and you’ll be at 30-40% Klaviyo attributed revenue in 1-2 months

Everybody and their grandma knows how to send 3-4 pretty email campaigns per week with the optimized above-the-fold section bla bla…

Yet I still see a bunch of email guys here flexing their campaign designs and metrics as if it was 2021, when building a basic email in the Klaviyo builder and “generating” revenue was rocket science

I started seeing where email marketing was heading more than a year ago. I saw it would eventually become a super commoditized service that everyone and their grandma would provide so I started leaning more towards CPG subscriptions

I saw a big gap in retention for CPG subscription brands and that these brands needed real help growing their LTV

“But every email agency is calling themselves a retention expert these days”

Yes, but I decided to ACTUALLY invest in myself and my knowledge

That meant swallowing my ego and admitting to myself I knew almost 0 about real retention, even though I had claimed to be a retention expert for more than a year

So decided to reach out to the number 1 retention expert for CPG subscriptions in the world: Thomas Lalas - @lalasretention

A guy who wrote Retention Economics - the best book on CPG retention by far, and if you still haven’t read it, go do it right now.

Thomas became my mentor. First my personal mentor, then my team’s mentor.

On my first call with Thomas, he brought me back to earth when he told me 90% of what I was doing for my CPG clients had NOTHING to do with real retention

He even face palmed a few times when I was explaining to him how we do “retention” for our clients (will never forget that, it hurt a little bit…)

Funny, because I had the word “retention” in my Linkedin headline the entire time and was presenting myself as a retention expert, like 90% of today’s email agencies do

It took me months of calls with Thomas, analyzing data and testing stuff with existing and new clients to actually master retention for subscription-based CPG brands

Eventually my agency, along with one other agency, became the only 2 agencies in the world certified on retention by him personally

(And most recently, Thomas selected my agency and this other agency as his exclusive retention agency partners!)

That was the moment I actually started considering us a real retention agency

One of the first things you have to realize is that real retention often has NOTHING to do with sending email campaigns or setting up the welcome flow

Or sending any kind of emails at all

There are so many factors, and that’s why these days we work almost exclusively with CPG subscription brands. It’s a science of its own

Do we still send emails?

Of course we do. It’s still one of the biggest parts of our work

We do everything a typical email agency does + much more

The biggest thing that changed is how we approach our clients and the KPIs we follow

We often don’t do things that might make our agency look better, because we know they’re not the best for the client’s retention long term

It also means missing out on a certain type of client who wants to hear certain things from you, even though deep down you know they’re fairy tales and complete BS (like email attributed revenue…)

Do we still have non-CPG clients?

Yes, a few, but we charge them much less. Simply because there’s much less strategy involved and essentially 0 retention to do

Questions?

Listening

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

But I was just discussing this with a client the other day:

The fact an email looks AI and "generic" doesn't mean it won't convert equally well as a super fancy email with cute copy created by human

We've been testing some fully AI-generated emails for a few clients lately and though some people would immediately tell it's AI, we haven't seen a decrease in coversions or click rates. And one of the clients is even much more satisfied with the new AI design

The only issue I see with AI emails is that a lot of clients wouldn't improve them but in reality they would probably convert equally well as long as they follow email design best practices

But I think that's going to change in the next 3-6 months, I think we will be able to create beautiful, on-brand emails with the click of a button

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

the issue is we have no idea how it would convert

It could convert equally well as an email created by a pro agency with fancy Figma elements

Just because it looks super basic doesn't mean it wouldn't convert equally well, even better. Something basic converts better than advanced. I've seen everything in this space

Lately we've been testing AI email designs for some of our clients and we essentially see 0 difference in conversions compared to emails made by our human copywriters and designers

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@andrew_jennings I agree 100% with you

Smaller brands will use AI more, bigger brands will still be willing to pay a premium price for a premium service

The battle will become fierce upmarket

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@EmailMarketking Imagine not playing GTA eight hours a day for the first few days after buying it

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

You’ll notice a pattern among anti-AI social warriors in digital marketing:

1. They’ll say anything created with AI “looks AI”, even when it doesn't. But they only say that if they know it’s AI and that's usually because the author of the post specifies it

2. They assume that just because something is AI, it will necessarily convert worse than non-AI, simply because that makes sense in their head

3. They’re usually broke

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

You’ll notice a pattern among anti-AI social warriors in digital marketing:

First - they’ll say anything created with AI “looks AI.” But they only say that if they know it’s AI and that's usually because the author of the post says so

Second - they assume that just because something is AI, it will necessarily convert worse than non-AI, simply because that makes sense in their head

Third - they’re usually broke.

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@Nutri3ntD3ns3 @emaildeepdive Hahaha if you didn’t know it was AI you would never say that

I am an email marketer and there is 0 indication for me to think that this is AI

Even if what you were saying is true (which isn’t) none of the people that would receive the emails would notice it’s AI

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

Imagine working with a supplement brand that has a 73% 30-day repurchase rate

That’s the definition of a DAMN good & sticky product

Product built for retention

Something you see super rarely in the supplement niche

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@umzrs Gotta pump up that Klaviyo dashboard

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@lalasretention 100% agree. Was just explaining the other day to a client that even though it sounds counter-intuitive at first, we actually don't do retention for our most loyal customers, but for those in the middle

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@diegogarzam @emaildeepdive Are you selling to agencies? That’s the only way how I see LI work for you

It’s absolutely dead for eCom founders

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@leondwolf I wanted to not sound racist but I forgot we’re on X

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@calumnolan_ @EmailMarketking Already at 97 followers from 68 you mentioned

In 2 days

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

I love email bros who think that an email will necessarily convert worse because it has generic design and copy

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@EricRausch You need to test RE: vs without RE:

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

"10 000 active subscribers" is literally the most expensive lie in subscription CPG

Active doesn't mean paid. Active means "hasn't clicked cancel yet"

That number includes:
-the serial skipper who hasn't paid you since March
-the guy who paused 4 times and forgot you exist
-the lady who doesn't know she's subscribed and is about to file a chargeback

All of them padding your retention rate

Your subscription platform's main job is to retain you as their customer, not your customers

The only metric that doesn't lie: did they pay you again, and when?

Open Shopify. Look at repurchase rate by month.

Those numbers will look much less impressive but at least they don't lie

[Filip | Retention for CPG @FilipPintaric99]

@EmailEngineers You need to read Retention Economics by @lalasretention