Latest / The Retention Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Email, SMS, and Loyalty for Repeat Customers / How a Beauty Brand Uses Subscription Email to Boost Retention
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a beauty brand — I won't name it because they've since been acquired and the strategy shifted — but they ran an interesting experiment last year that I think gets at something a lot of retention marketers wrestle with. Luna: What's the experiment? Lucas: They had a standard one-time purchase email flow: abandoned cart, post-purchase, replenishment reminder. Pretty standard stuff. But they realized that their highest-value customers weren't buying single items — they were subscribing to a monthly box. So they asked: what if we rebuilt our entire email ecosystem around the subscription, not the one-off? Luna: That's a big pivot. Didn't they worry about cannibalizing their core one-time buyers? Lucas: They did. But the data showed that subscribers had a 3x higher lifetime value. So they decided to test a subscription-first email flow on a segment of new customers. The key change was in the abandoned cart email. Instead of saying 'Hey, you left your moisturizer behind,' they sent an email that said 'Your first box is almost ready — pick your products.' Luna: Oh, so they reframed the cart as a subscription onboarding step. Lucas: Exactly. They made the subscription the default path. If someone abandoned a cart with three items, the email invited them to complete their 'starter box' — same products, but billed as a recurring subscription with a 'skip or swap' option. That's the other piece I want to dig into. Luna: The skip or swap option feels critical. It gives the customer control, which reduces the fear of commitment. Lucas: Right. The brand launched with a 'skip anytime' promise, and the email flow reinforced that. The post-purchase email for subscribers didn't say 'Your next box is coming' — it said 'Your next box is scheduled for. If you want to swap a product or skip this month, click here.' That transparency drove a 40% increase in repeat purchase rate within 90 days compared to the control group that got standard one-time purchase emails. Luna: So the control group was still receiving standard post-purchase emails encouraging a new one-time purchase? Lucas: Yes. The control got a typical 'We hope you love your order — here's 15% off your next purchase' email. The test group got the subscription flow. The test group's repeat purchase rate hit 68% versus 48% for the control. And the average order value was actually slightly lower for subscribers — but the frequency made up for it many times over. Luna: That's the classic trade-off: higher AOV versus higher frequency. But if lifetime value is higher, frequency wins. Lucas: Exactly. And the brand did something else smart. They used the replenishment email — normally for one-time buyers — as a trigger to convert one-time buyers into subscribers. If someone bought a face serum, they'd get an email three weeks later saying 'Running low? Subscribe and get 10% off your first recurring order.' Luna: That's a low-friction upsell. The customer already knows they like the product. Lucas: Right. The email didn't push a box — just a single-product subscription. That converted about 12% of one-time buyers. Then, once they were subscribers, the brand used a follow-up email to upsell them to the full box. So it was a two-step conversion funnel. Luna: I like that. It meets the customer where they are. Someone who just bought one serum isn't ready for a three-product commitment. Lucas: Exactly. And the metrics bear it out. The single-product subscribers had a 30% lower churn rate in the first three months compared to customers who went straight to the full box. Then after three months, about 40% of them upgraded to the box. Luna: So the email sequence was basically: first purchase, then replenishment reminder, then subscribe to single product, then upgrade to box. That's a four-email lifecycle. Lucas: That's the core. They also added a win-back email for subscribers who skipped two months in a row. Instead of a generic 'We miss you,' they sent a personalized email with the customer's most-purchased products and a 'Resume your subscription with a free gift' offer. That recovered about 15% of at-risk subscribers. Luna: The free gift is interesting. What was the cost? Lucas: A sample-sized product — maybe 50 cents in cost. But the recovered subscription's average lifetime value was around $120. So a 0.4% cost of goods to save a subscriber. That's a no-brainer. Luna: I think a lot of brands overcomplicate retention email. This brand's approach was almost ruthlessly simple: make the subscription the default, give customers control, and use email to nudge them along a clear path. Lucas: And they didn't blast the same email to everyone. The segmentation was sharp. New customers got the subscription-first abandoned cart. One-time buyers got the replenishment to subscription bridge. Subscribers got the skip or swap. Each message was tailored to where the customer was in their lifecycle. Luna: That's the kind of specificity that makes retention marketing work. One-size-fits-all email is dead. Lucas: It really is. And this case is a good reminder that sometimes the biggest gains come from rethinking your core assumption — in this case, that one-time purchase email should be the foundation. For a lot of brands, subscription email might be the better foundation. Luna: Especially if your product is consumable. Beauty, skincare, supplements, coffee — anything people use up. Lucas: Absolutely. And we talk about this kind of stuff every week because we genuinely believe better retention strategies make for better businesses. If these conversations have sparked something you've actually used, we'd love to hear about it. And if you want to support the show staying ad-free, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, no ads, no sponsors — just the two of us digging into what works. That's the philosophy. Lucas: So back to the beauty brand — one more thing I want to highlight. They also A/B tested the subject line of their skip or swap email. The winner was 'Your box is ready — make it yours.' That outperformed 'Your subscription is coming' by 22% on open rate. Luna: That language gives the customer ownership. 'Make it yours' implies they have a say. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the thread through the whole strategy: give customers control, and they'll stick around. The brand proved that with email, not with a fancy app or a complicated loyalty program. Luna: Sometimes the simplest changes have the biggest impact.