Latest / The Retention Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Email, SMS, and Loyalty for Repeat Customers / How a Pet Food Brand Uses SMS to Recover Lapsed Customers
Transcript
- Lucas: So we talk a lot on this show about acquiring new subscribers and turning one-time buyers into repeat customers. But there's a question I hear from retention marketers all the time: what do you do about the customers who already left? Luna: Right — the lapsed segment. Everyone has them. The question is whether you can win them back without spending more than they're worth. Lucas: Exactly. And today I want to look at a campaign from a pet food brand called PetPlate. They sell fresh, human-grade dog food on a subscription model. And they had a problem a lot of subscription brands have: customers who order three or four times, then just stop. Luna: So what did they try? Lucas: They ran an SMS reactivation campaign targeted at customers who hadn't ordered in 90 days or more. And they didn't just blast the same message to everyone. They segmented based on how many times the customer had ordered before. Luna: That makes sense. A customer who ordered twice is in a different place than one who ordered twelve times. Lucas: Exactly. For customers who had ordered 1 to 3 times, they sent a message that focused on what the pet was missing — something like 'Buddy misses his favorite meals. Here's 25% off your next order.' For customers who had ordered 4 or more times, the message was framed more around loyalty: 'You've been one of our favorite customers. Come back and get 25% off.' Luna: Interesting — so the copy itself changed based on the relationship depth. Lucas: Right. And they used a two-message sequence. The first message went out on a Tuesday morning. If the customer didn't click within 48 hours, they got a follow-up on Thursday afternoon with a slightly different angle. Luna: Two messages — was that aggressive for a reactivation campaign? Lucas: It can be, but they kept the second message soft. It was something like 'We don't want to be pushy, but your pup's bowl isn't the same without us. The 25% off is still there if you want it.' They also included a clear opt-out link in both messages. Luna: And what were the results? Lucas: They recovered 18 percent of the lapsed segment within 30 days. That's nearly one in five customers who had gone silent. And the average order value for the reactivated customers was actually slightly higher than their previous average — about 8 percent higher. Luna: So the discount didn't just bring back price-sensitive customers. It brought back higher-value ones too. Lucas: Seems that way. PetPlate's team told me they think the personalization — especially the pet's name in the message — made a big difference. They used merge tags for the pet's name in the first message, and that lifted click-through rates by about 40 percent compared to a generic version they tested on a small holdout group. Luna: That's a big lift. And it makes sense for pet food. People are emotionally attached to their pets. Seeing the pet's name in a text feels personal, not spammy. Lucas: Exactly. They also paid attention to timing. They avoided weekends and evenings. Tuesday at 10 a.m. and Thursday at 2 p.m. — those were their best-performing send times based on prior campaign data. Luna: So they used their own historical data to optimize send time, not just a generic best-practice rule. Lucas: Right. And they also handled unsubscribes gracefully. Anyone who opted out got a confirmation text saying 'You're unsubscribed. If you change your mind, you can always re-subscribe on our website.' No hard feelings. Luna: I think that's important. A lapsed customer who unsubscribes might come back through another channel later. Burning that bridge isn't worth it. Lucas: Totally. The unsubscribes from the campaign were low — under 2 percent — which suggests the targeting and copy were well-calibrated. Luna: So if our listeners are thinking about trying something similar, what are the key takeaways? Let's say they're a mid-market brand with a decent email list but haven't done much SMS reactivation. Lucas: First: segment by purchase history. A one-time buyer and a ten-time buyer need different messages. Second: use a two-message sequence with a clear gap between them — don't send back to back. Third: personalize where you can, especially if your product has an emotional hook. Luna: And fourth: test the offer. PetPlate used 25 percent off. That might not be right for every brand. You need to find the discount that's high enough to motivate action but low enough to preserve margin. Lucas: Yeah, and they actually tested two discount levels — 20 percent and 25 percent — and the 25 percent won by a significant margin in terms of conversion rate. But the 20 percent still worked, just at a lower rate. Luna: So even a smaller discount could be viable if you're worried about margin impact. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing: make sure you have a way to track which reactivated customers go on to order again. PetPlate saw about 30 percent of the reactivated customers place a second order within 60 days — so the campaign wasn't just a one-time bump. Luna: That's a really strong retention rate for a lapsed segment. If these conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own marketing, it's worth mentioning that listener support is what keeps this show ad-free. If today's episode was valuable, you can find the link at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, and it's genuinely a small thing that makes a big difference for us. So back to PetPlate — one thing I found interesting was how they handled the follow-up for customers who didn't engage. Luna: What did they do? Lucas: They waited 90 days and then sent a third message, but only to customers who hadn't unsubscribed. This time the offer was free shipping on their next order instead of a percentage discount. They saw another 5 percent conversion from that third touch. Luna: So it's a long game. Not everyone comes back on the first or second message. Lucas: Exactly. And they learned that the third message with free shipping worked better for customers who had originally been acquired through a free-shipping promotion. So even within the reactivation campaign, they were using acquisition channel data to tailor the offer. Luna: That's a level of sophistication that not every brand has. But even if you can't do that, the basic segmentation by purchase frequency is a great starting point. Lucas: Absolutely. And the cost of SMS — even at a few cents per message — is far lower than the cost of acquiring a brand-new customer. So if you can recover even 10 percent of your lapsed segment, the ROI is usually positive. Luna: I'd add that you need to make sure your SMS list is clean and opt-in. Sending reactivation texts to people who didn't explicitly consent is a quick way to get reported as spam. Lucas: Huge point. PetPlate only sent to customers who had opted into SMS during checkout. They didn't import phone numbers from email or other sources. That's essential. Luna: And they also gave customers an easy way to opt back in later. That confirmation text included a link to re-subscribe. So even if someone opts out, you haven't lost them forever. Lucas: Right. So if you're a brand with a lapsed customer segment and you're not doing SMS reactivation, this is a low-risk, high-reward channel to test. Start with a small segment, use a simple offer, and measure the recovery rate. Luna: And if you want to go deeper, consider testing different offers or copy angles. PetPlate's results show that even small tweaks can have a big impact on conversion. Lucas: Absolutely. And the beauty of SMS is speed — you can run a campaign, analyze results, and iterate in a matter of weeks. For marketers who want to learn fast, it's a powerful tool. Luna: Alright, that's a solid playbook. Thanks for breaking it down, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And to our listeners — if you try a reactivation SMS campaign, let us know how it goes. We'd love to hear your results.