December Retention Newsie 1

Welcome to The Retention Newsie by The Email Marketers, the retention-building experts for 7-9 figure ecom brands.

Every month, we bring you the best case studies, trending news, and tips for retaining more customers while turning them into raving fans and increasing revenue.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday is officially in the rearview mirror.

If you’re anything like us, you’re probably taking a deep breath, staring at a very full inbox, and wondering, “Okay... so how did we actually do?”

We’re writing to you today with some interesting data we aggregated across our BFCM portfolio.

Our goal isn't to give you an agency highlight reel. Honestly, that doesn't help you. It’s far more valuable to have real, unpolished data to benchmark your business against so you can plan the rest of the year and your 2026 strategy effectively.

Here is the raw truth of what we saw.

BFCM Data Recap: 2024 vs. 2025

Note: This is a YoY recap (outliers removed to give you a realistic average).

1️⃣ The Macro View

Adobe reported "record-breaking" BFCM spending. But if you dig into Salesforce data, the story is different:

• Order volume was down 1% YoY

• The average selling price was up 7%

The Reality: Revenue rose because prices rose, not because demand surged. Overall performance was soft, despite the headlines.

Even more telling is how people paid (data via Adam Cochran):

• 95% of purchases were financed (credit cards).

• 67% won’t pay it off within 30 days.

• $1B+ spent on BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later).

The Takeaway: Consumers bought... but they stretched to do it. The US customer doesn't have a lot of disposable income lying around right now.

2️⃣ Portfolio Performance (Nov 1–Dec 2 ’24 vs. Nov 1–Dec 3 ’25)

• Store Revenue: –6%

• Email+SMS Attributed Revenue: +17%

• Retention Share: 33.8% → 42.1%

• AOV: +4.9% (pricing-driven)

The Reality: After removing the massive outliers, average store revenue softened. Retention channels (Email + SMS) were tasked with making up the gap, and they carried significantly more weight this year.

3️⃣ SMS vs. Email Performance

• Email Deliveries: +34% | Revenue: –1.6% | Rev per Email: –12.8%

• SMS Deliveries: +96% | Revenue: +219% | Rev per SMS: +62%

The Reality: Email volume scaled up, but efficiency went down. Just "sending more" isn't the silver bullet anymore.

The Opportunity: SMS is exponential right now. Brands are waking up to it. Who knows how long this lasts before regulations tighten, but right now? It's the MVP.

4️⃣ Repeat vs. New Customers

• First-time Revenue: 57% → 53.7%

• Repeat Revenue: 42.7% → 46.3%

The Reality: Weak paid momentum earlier in the year (likely due to inventory issues/tariffs causing brands to pull back on ad spend) meant a smaller "new" customer base to market to. Retention had to do the heavy lifting.

5️⃣ Engagement Signals

• Open Rate: 46.7% → 53.7% (Take with a grain of salt)

• Click Rate: –32.1%

• Conversion Rate: –5.9%

The Reality: People are looking (opens are up), but they are hesitant to act. Click rates dropped across the board. Shoppers are window shopping heavily but pulling the trigger less often.

6️⃣ List Growth

• List Growth: –7.9%

The Reality: Even with better pop-ups, list growth stagnated because top-of-funnel ad spend slowed down earlier in the year.

7️⃣ The Silver Lining: LTV

• LTV(30): Trending around +20% YoY.

The Reality: This is the metric we’re watching. The cohort looks healthier, not just more expensive. Profits are built on LTV.

We can't change the numbers, but we can control how we monetize those customers now during the holiday season.

We put together a massive resource… This includes 26 post-BFCM strategies from 26 DTC leaders.

Inside you’ll find:

• Post-purchase Flows: Capitalize on those who already trust you.

• Multichannel Strategy Tips: Moving from paid to owned.

• Segmentation Sage-dom: Exact segments to target for net-new revenue.

• Demystifying Discounting: How to handle pricing now that the big sale is done.

Based on the data above, here is your cheat sheet for the coming year:

1. SMS is not optional. Build it now before deliverability changes hit.

2. Email needs surgical segmentation. Blasting is losing effectiveness. We need to reach people better, not just more often.

3. Flows > Campaigns. Behavior-based flows are becoming more critical as general campaign effectiveness dips.

4. Build offers around LTV. Stop obsessing over Day-1 revenue.

5. Treat list growth like a performance channel. You cannot start growing your list in October and expect a miracle in November. It’s a 365-day job.

6. Q2/Q3 momentum determines Q4 success. BFCM cannot fix weak acquisition from earlier in the year.

7. Have a plan for your November buyers. You just acquired (or reactivated) a cohort. Do you have a solid plan to cross-sell them for the holidays? Are you ready for the "New Year, New Me" trend?

If you want to look at the data together… Our CEO, Melanie Balke is happy to jump on a call and talk through what our team would deploy for a brand like yours in 2026.