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

• How To Fight Back Against Tariffs

• A Case Study To 10X Your Click Rate

• TEM Love Box (Spotlight Emails)

Tariffs Are Coming... Is Your Customer Loyalty Strong Enough?

By now, you know that tariffs are much more than just headlines. And for most brands in the D2C space, this means facing a harsh reality: absorb costs or hike prices...

If you're choosing the latter, your customer loyalty is on shaky ground, especially if built purely on being the cheapest option. When that $50 favorite suddenly costs $60, customers start looking elsewhere.

While you can't control global trade conditions, you can control the strength of your customer bonds.

So our suggestion? Focus on building a loyalty program that creates exclusive experiences. Take a page from Starbucks, where their rewards program accounted for 53% of in-store spending.

Starbucks-Style Tips for Retention

• Tiered Rewards: Map spending to perks (e.g. 2–3 orders = free shipping; 4–6 = free mystery gift).

• Personalized Reminders: Leverage SMS to alert customers about their reward balances, timed around their repurchase cycle.

• Member-Only Challenges: Launch monthly “bonus-point quests” with exclusive badges and extra points.

What D2C Brands Are Saying About The Email Marketers

MrBeast’s Feastables Email Strategy

Besides SMS being one of our biggest plays in 2025 at The Email Marketers, interactive emails are coming in at a close second.

Not because it looks cool in emails, but because it actually improves engagement, which improves retention rates.

Mr. Beast's Feastables brand shows a great example of this, where one of their emails (using Spellbound.io) got 2M total clicks from 200K subs.

The even more impressive numbers:

+100% higher click rate (vs their 180-day average)
+200% higher CVR (vs their 180-day average)

Here's how they did it:

Joseph Siegel, the Director of Retention for Feastables, said they “survey their customers at nearly every interaction.” Based on this data collection, they segmented their email list, personalized and optimized their content, and promoted specific products.

Examples:

Click Challenge: First 5 to click 500× win 50% off; everyone else gets 10%. 2 million clicks later, deliverability skyrocketed.

Trivia Quest: 21,000 players, 14% conversion, highest-revenue email of the summer.

Briefcase Hunt: 20 briefcases, one hidden discount—fans click till they find it.

Why it works:

✅ Deliverability boost: Clicks = inbox trust
✅ Affinity: Interactive play breeds brand loyalty
✅ Habit: “Email = fun” becomes an expectation

If you're interested in getting interactive emails implemented for your brand, book a free call with us to talk about specific strategies for your brand.

Book My Free Strategy Call →

Batch and blast emails are tempting, but when that's all your customers see, they don't find much value in your emails. So, for this week, we're showcasing how to add some value into the mix with 2 examples we did for our clients.

Tap to view entire design!

We opened the doors to The Retention Lab - your plug-and-play blueprint for teaching your in-house team agency-level retention marketing strategies that actually move the needle.

Check Out The Retention Lab →

Our D2C Tariff Survival Guide is live - packed with tactical supply-chain pivots, margin-protection plays, and retention-first moves to safeguard your profits when the tariffs hit.

Download the Tariff Survival Guide →