Email % of revenue is a good proxy for your overall marketing ROI.
Email marketing costs money (the software, sends), but the ROI potential is much higher. Those subscribers — many of them existing buyers — are easier to gain repeat business from.
Repeat business = higher profits. And a lot of that repeat business will come from the emails you send.
Relatedly, it tells you how effectively you’re utilizing email in particular.
30-35% from email is a good sign you’re covering your bases well. It indicates you’ve built all the flows and are on a good campaign schedule.
Tells you that you can pivot to more advanced stuff, email or otherwise.
So, then, how do you get there?
This case study will show you how.
| Table of Contents |
| The Challenge The Solution Turn Your Email List Into Your Biggest Profit Center What To Do Next |
The Challenge
This company’s a mid-7-figures health/wellness brand.
Email revenue had recently (at the time of writing) plummeted below 20%.
Some technical DNS stuff changed. It screwed up the settings and caused deliverability issues.
Simultaneously, they were building a complex post-purchase flow, delaying other things.
Here’s where they were when I came along:
Yes, I know. This isn’t a starting-from-scratch situation. They were at the 30% mark before.
However, we did make some changes to get back up to and PAST the 30% mark even as we smoothened some technical issues.
90 days later, after we worked our magic, here’s where they stood:
(At the time of writing, it’s now over 34%!)
Not ALL the total revenue is me. They obviously did some lead gen stuff.
Yet those new leads became more valuable once we had followed the steps below, since they placed more orders more frequently.
Otherwise, those leads might not have bought more via email and thus raised the email % of revenue.
Let’s walk through what we did…
The Solution
Step 1: Implement “Low-Hanging Fruit” Flows
When I audit client accounts, I ALWAYS start with the “low-hanging fruit” flows. These are the quicker, easier flows that still offer a healthy ROI.
Our client had some when I came in, but not all. Here are three I added and their corresponding monthly revenue numbers (estimates)
- Abandoned Browse: ~$1,500/month
- Abandoned Checkout: ~$1,600/month
- Abandoned Site: ~$1,850/month
Yeah, I know. That’s not a lot compared to the total email revenue. About 3.6% of their current email/SMS revenue figures.
But money’s money, and this is money they earn forever with minimal involvement. It’s an extra ~$5k/month forever.
One other nifty bonus:
My “low-hanging fruit” flows generated more first-time customers who then entered our existing retention infrastructure:
- Post-Purchase Flow
- Upsell/Cross-Sell Flow
Speaking of that…
Step 2: Build the Missing Retention Flows
Once we finished the low-hanging fruit, we set to work on key retention flows.
These encourage repeat purchases, upsells, cross-sells, and subscription orders. More purchases/customer = less need to spend on acquisition… yet more capital to dump into acquisition.
Here are the flows I helped build:
- Replenishment Flow: Encourage customers to refill their products before they run out.
- Winback Flow: Recover potentially lapsed customers and bring them back to the brand with a purchase.
- VIP Flow: Reward our top buyers and encourage another order.
- Push to Continuity Flow: Upsell repeat one-off buyers to subscription purchases for easier recurring revenue.
Admittedly, these are not making money yet at the time of writing. We’re either still finishing them up… or they’re live but waiting for the first recipients.
For instance, the Replenishment Flow triggers after 90 days. We implemented it about 2 months ago at the time of writing, so we have to wait.
But we hit 30% revenue without these, using the other steps in this article… so I know they’ll help us make 30% the new “floor.”
As mentioned, they had a few other retention flows. Those existed when I came on board, but helped lift email revenue by turning one-offs into repeat customers.
Step 3: Push the Right Products
Some businesses stretch themselves thin trying to sell 100 different products. The rationale is more product types = larger potential customer base.
But customers tend to know you for ONE thing. Could be one product or even a handful across 1-2 categories.
The point is that cutting out the fat and focusing on top sellers can dramatically boost email revenue.
Our client noticed one of their categories (which consists of one product at the time of writing) wasn’t selling much.
They liked the category and product, but decided it was best to temporarily discontinue it. We shifted to our two big-money categories.
However, even within those categories… some products did better than others.
Customers love all of the products, but one stood out among the rest. It had an outstanding repeat purchase rate. People will buy ‘em, then buy ‘em again and again.
That became our “hero” product. We allocated more of our sends to this product, and sales responded accordingly. We’re sunsetting some of the other products to narrow the focus further.
The client’s launching new hero product variations. Flavors, basically. That’s how you do variety the proper way. One product, different types.
This shift in product focus ALONE likely did 30-40% of the work.
Step 4: Send Campaigns That Connect
Flows are in place. Products are narrowed. Now, it’s time to make sure we’re sending the right kinds of emails.
Here’s what worked well with our client:
- Storymonials: Turn a testimonial into a customer story. Use bits of the testimonial (customer’s actual words) where relevant. These speak better to customers. Customers also intrinsically trust other customers. So I made these about 50% of our regular email sends.
- Throw stones at enemies: We leaned into “us vs. them”. We wanted to make clear who the “enemy” was so the right customers say, “Hell yeah, these guys get it.” Being milquetoast turns off everyone.
- The science behind the product: Emails showcasing what is in the product. We did one email showing exactly what makes our top seller so great, and it was one of the best we’ve ever sent. These work because customers in this niche want to see the science behind why our product is so clean and healthy.
- General educational emails: We sent emails educating on a variety of health topics, even if only vaguely tangentially related… and then connected them back to our products. Some are regular “value” emails. Others are longer pieces (almost like mini blog posts). One of the op eds did 67 sales for $7,371.41 in revenue. Crazy!
- Seasonally relevant emails: We accomplished our 30% feat in late September/early October. We used travel angles, fighting off winter blues, gifting, and so on. One of them did almost $5k in sales on its own.
These don’t only work with this client. They work in tons of niches, with all sorts of brands.
(And if you want some more email types I use with this and other clients… check this out.)
Step 5: Nail Your Promo Offers & Messaging
This brand runs at least one promo a month. Usually at the end of the month. Since we were in August, I planned a promo around taking care of your skin (cold weather and less sun), focusing on a different product each day.
We didn’t even have an offer. It was more of a product feature. But it did pretty well for having no offer. Fewer sales, but greater margin… and more awareness of what this category does.
Then, at the end of September, we did a fall-themed store-credit cashback sale.
The customer got $25 store credit for spending $150+. $150+ orders always come with free shipping and 2 gifts, so we used this promo to advertise that, too.
The emails themselves tackled seasonally relevant issues, such as “fall fatigue” (from shorter, colder, darker days).
Other pieces of messaging included:
- Prepping for the winter like your ancestors: Stocking up now, similar to how your ancestors stored food for the winter.
- Fall rituals: Evoked nostalgia and cold-weather coziness.
- Product pairings: Help them hit the $150+ threshold by recommending pairings that go well together.
A few other promos:
- Labor Day flash sale: Short and urgency-driven. We still worked in some fun angles and copy around Labor Day and eating healthy.
- VIP sale: We created a VIP segment of our top customers. They got an exclusive code to use during this sale. Messaging was all about exclusivity, being above the “average person” in terms of health/diet, showcasing what other top customers grab, etc.
The big takeaway here is to exercise some creativity.
Find fun, unique angles that connect to your audience. Experiment with different offers (not just discounts).
This keeps things fresh, drives overall revenue, and turns many one-off or occasional customers into more frequent buyers.
Turn Your Email List Into Your Biggest Profit Center
Email should be a HUGE moneymaker for bigger brands. It was doing well for this brand, but we built it into so much more.
To do the same…
Create all your flows, starting with low-hanging fruit before moving to retention-focused sequences.
Meanwhile, narrow down to the products you do best and send emails that connect with and help your readers. Get creative with your promo offers and messaging to keep things fun and buyers buying.
Start on this today, or reach out if you need help. Happy to help
What To Do Next
- Share this article with someone who might find it helpful (or entertaining).
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- Reach out to me if you have a sizable email list and make less than 20% of your revenue through email.