October Retention Newsie 2

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.

This Week’s Inbox Rundown

• Pocket Permission = $10.6K Added Revenue

• Finding The Why Behind The Revenue Drop

• What’s happening at The Email Marketers

Finding The Why Behind The Revenue Drop

Email revenue is down 20% month-over-month.

The usual suspects are seasonality or a dip in ad spend. Most teams stop there, accepting the dip as a cost of doing business.

But we recently flipped the script with our first strategy-only client at TEM.

The initial story looked simple, but a deeper diagnosis showed the problem wasn’t where everyone was looking.

Here is the 3-step process we used to trace the real leak.

Step 1: Isolate The Variable.

First, we compared the channel-specific drop to the store-wide numbers.

• Store revenue = 7.3% down.

• Email revenue = 20% down.

What this means:

• Total store rev decrease can contribute to email rev decrease.

• But the email rev decrease is much larger.

• Further email investigation is needed.

Step 2: Use Historical Data To Invalidate Excuses.

The next assumption was seasonality. People gear up for BFCM, so October sales dip. It’s a clean narrative.

We checked the last two years of data. In both prior years, September revenue had increased over August. The historical pattern contradicted the seasonality excuse, forcing us to look deeper at the mechanics of the account.

Step 3: Trace The Leak From Output to Input.

The revenue drop was the output. And we had to trace it back to the source.

• Symptom: Flow revenue was down 26%.

• First Question: Why? Flow deliveries were down 20%. Fewer people were entering automated sequences.

• Second Question: Why? Net new subscribers were down 40%. The email list itself was growing slower.

But no changes to the pop-up or welcome flow were made… So here’s what we have so far:

• Store and email rev are down.

• Fewer net new subscribers.

See what’s happening here? Acquisition changed.

(Which was confirmed when we ran this past their ad agency)

Traffic quantity/quality slipped, starving capture → starving flows → starving revenue.

Conclusion?

Stop treating symptoms and start tracing the leak to its source.

If you need help finding the gaps in your retention data, book a quick call with our CEO here.

See what D2C brands are saying about The Email Marketers

Pocket Permission = $10.6K Added Revenue

In 2025, many brands have their email pop-ups set up like this:

Get 10% off → enter your email → welcome email with discount.

Then some brands go one step further by asking for their mobile number. 

GREAT! Now you can do SMS marketing!

(the most underrated marketing channel right now)

But what if they clicked out before entering their number? Or worse, you’re not capturing mobile numbers anywhere…

Here’s a quick win you can implement on Monday morning.

It’s what we’re calling “Pocket Permission” 😎

Okay, okay… We’re still workshopping the name, but here are the results for a bev brand we implemented this for. 

That’s $10.6K in attributed revenue that could’ve been lost. 

All you have to do is set up an SMS only pop-up for your known email-only segment.

This doesn't fire on the first visit. Instead, it triggers on a follow-up session, identifying repeat interest and offering a clear value exchange—like a new discount—to capture their SMS consent.

As soon as they sign up, you send a discount directly to their mobile. And if you’ve tested SMS, you know how crazy the conversion rates are right now.

That’s it! Simple, but it works.

We love using Alia for pop-ups. If you’re interested in a possible discounted rate, reply to this email so we can set you up with them.

Just some snippets of what's happening at The Email Marketers.