4 Painful Truths We Learned After Managing $MM in Email Revenue (Klaviyo Geeks, S1.Ep2)

Thinking back on all my years of e-commerce conversion, uh, email marketing, Clavio, if I would have known what I know now, life would have been so much easier. Clavio shows you the fruit,

much easier. Clavio shows you the fruit, but if you don't build a tree, you'll never scale properly. Oh, man. Over the

years, learn some things the hard way.

Trying to share some of these lessons that I've learned. There is such a thing as a good welcome flow or a bad welcome flow. But what I am saying is that even

flow. But what I am saying is that even a bad welcome flow can convert really really [Music]

well. All right, we are back on the

well. All right, we are back on the second episode of Clavio Geeks. Welcome

and thank you so much for tuning in. We

have Omar here joining me from the beautiful the Hake in Netherlands. Hello

Omar. Well, last time we recorded we were both at the same location in Amsterdam, but uh now we're basically separate two different countries, which is also really cool that yeah, with the

technology nowadays, this is possible.

Probably in a couple of months or maybe your time, we'll have digital clones having these conversations with each other and we'll be sipping some pina coladas at the beach or something. I

don't know. We'll see. But happy to be back, man. Um I mean, if I look at the

back, man. Um I mean, if I look at the reactions we've been getting just by posting uh picture of us, some teasers. Yeah, I

think people are really uh excited to hear what we have to say, which no pressure. No pressure. Uh will be the I

pressure. No pressure. Uh will be the I mean, it's for everyone listening in, we haven't I think by the time this is going to be live, we'll pro most likely going to have I mean 100% we're going to have episode one live, but we haven't

actually, as of today when we're filming this, we haven't published the first episode. So, we're very keen on

episode. So, we're very keen on publishing that next week and actually getting some feedback from the first episode that we filmed in Amsterdam. And

then, uh, Omar and I decided to have bi-weekly recordings moving forward and just hopefully record as many episodes as we can. So, and some of them together. So, uh, you don't know this

together. So, uh, you don't know this yet. In a couple of weeks, I'll be in

yet. In a couple of weeks, I'll be in London. So, we will have a next

London. So, we will have a next recording there. A surprise ruined. Damn

recording there. A surprise ruined. Damn

it. We can do it in our office or somewhere. I would say I would actually

somewhere. I would say I would actually say let's do it in the Clavio office.

Oh, that's even better. Clavios, the

geeks at Claio. Anyway, we'll see in the Claio HQ. That would be fantastic. All

Claio HQ. That would be fantastic. All

right, cool. So, thank you everyone for tuning in episode two of Clavio Geeks.

Today we have a really, really cool episode. The episode is called four

episode. The episode is called four truths about D2C email marketing. We

learned the hard way. And Omar was very very excited to talk about this because he was very passionate in some of the things that he really really really wish he knew at the beginning of his career.

So Omar, do you want to do you want to get us a quick tease of uh what we're going to cover today? The reason for this uh podcast today we chose this

topic is basically when I was looking back and thinking back on all my years of e-commerce conversion uh email marketing

claio I mean if I would have known what I know now life would have been so much easier. So so many things that I I ran

easier. So so many things that I I ran into and things that I tried doing uh over the years uh learned some things the hard way. So trying to share some of

these lessons that I've learned and I know you as well book and some of them we learned together um we did to help others maybe bypass and not run into the

same issues. So basically some concepts

same issues. So basically some concepts that we have learned over the years.

Hopefully we can kind of like digest this in in in 30 in 30 minutes like put it make a short version of it and summarize it in a way that that it's meaningful for others um in a short

period of time. So yeah, that's basically how this episode came to be.

Um and I hope it's it's it's useful for others as well. We we hope so. I mean,

initially we had 10 and then we brought it down to six and then we were like, no, you know what? This is going to be a three-hour conversation. Let's just

three-hour conversation. Let's just let's just talk about four. So many

learnings. That's the Yeah, exactly. I

mean, there's there's lots of them. So,

maybe this can be like a three fourpart series. Um, we can cover more and more

series. Um, we can cover more and more in new in new episodes as well. So,

yeah, thanks for that. So, let's get straight into it. You know, obviously we want to keep this quite quite, you know, within the 30-minute limit. So, first

lesson, um, this is going to be Omar's territory. um he will cover um one of

territory. um he will cover um one of the biggest lessons for him which is understanding the value tree. Uh Omar,

do you want to give everyone a little background and context behind that and you know what exactly they should do there? I hope uh explaining this uh in a

there? I hope uh explaining this uh in a podcast people are able to follow it. Uh

we'll also share some images and we'll also put publish this as a video as well. So in case it's not clear, we'll

well. So in case it's not clear, we'll add some visuals to under like to basically explain this uh in a visual way as well. I just thought of it. I

think if if people are listening this on Spotify or Apple podcast, we can link resources in there. So we can always just link some um uh images of kind of what Omar is going to break down today.

Yeah. So the concept of a value tree or goal tree um basically comes down to if you're trying to optimize or improve or

change a metric let's say revenue for example um you try to split up revenue

in sub KPIs that directly um kind of like impact revenue on one hand if you take an e-commerce business

for example um revenue is a direct uh effect of amount of orders you're having times the amount the the average order value. So if you multiply those two, you

value. So if you multiply those two, you will know what uh the total revenue is going to be. You can do this for any metric and you can go deeper because if you know average order value that also

consists of submetrics as well or sub KPIs and once you do this you get like a big tree of all different elements that have an impact on the top laying u KPI.

And by doing this, this is an exercise that it took me a little bit of time to understand. Um, and actually was was

understand. Um, and actually was was taught to me by one of my previous business partners as well. The concept

of it is so strong because you can apply to almost anything in life. If you try to optimize something like start breaking out what the sub KPIs are and

try to see if there's any one of them that potentially has a lower number or is underperforming compared to the other ones because you will find one or two

KPIs that probably will be underperforming. Once you identify which

underperforming. Once you identify which one it is, it's going to be easier to fix whatever thing you're trying to to optimize for. So in case of revenue you

optimize for. So in case of revenue you have like positive numbers like the the total uh um average order value total amount of orders but you also have returns for example you can also add

multiple elements to this returns is a negative number that kind of like yeah if you sold something it comes back um that has an impact on your revenue as well. So understanding all these things

well. So understanding all these things then you see okay returns are 20% or maybe 15%. Like if you compare it to

maybe 15%. Like if you compare it to industry average, it might be low or even high depending on what you're selling. But if it's fashion and it's

selling. But if it's fashion and it's 60% I mean trying to optimize that removing it like if you are able to bring it back to 20% or 40% like if you

if you can minimize it with 20%. Going

from 60 to 40 that can have a big impact on your most important thing which is revenue. actually it is profit but I

revenue. actually it is profit but I mean these are the the the ways that like if you can visually map it out and start adding numbers to it this concept for me I'm now doing it without thinking

but it helps me to understand if you look at okay you know what what email can can provide total revenue it comes

down to sending emails to people and if you break like it's is amount of uh revenue per per uh how to call this

again I'm not revenue per visitor but um per recipient per recipient so if you have revenue per recipient for example times the amount of emails that you send those are two metrics that you

can now optimize but let's let's say for example that we want to increase the amount of emails you're sending out um there are two ways you can do that is one is um sending more emails to the

right to the same people sending like three times a day seven days a week that increases the total volume of uh emails.

That's one one way to do that. The other

way to do that is to basically increase your list size and have more people that you can email to. You can also try to optimize both. Um so if you start

optimize both. Um so if you start understanding these relationships on how these things like these different elements impact each other, it becomes so much easier to also optimize and

start growing uh your business and knowing where to start which actually which which of these KPIs have the biggest impact on your business. I hope

that kind of explains a little bit. It's

it's hard to kind of like uh explain without the visual part of it, but I think that makes sense. I think you know um we'll we'll add the visual as well and maybe we can we can do one that's

specifically for email as well so everyone can can kind of get the better context behind it. Um but I quite like I think you know um I I saw this uh um

thing online. I was just looking around.

thing online. I was just looking around.

This is a concept that you know I am yet to probably use a lot more. I know you know you you've been kind of using this a lot more than I did but subconsciously

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But would you agree

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But would you agree with this? Like this is a I just wrote

with this? Like this is a I just wrote this down now. So like would you agree with this with this um phrase of like Clavio shows you the fruit but if you don't build the tree you'll never scale

properly. Oh

properly. Oh man. Is you've been a copyriter, right?

man. Is you've been a copyriter, right?

You've been a Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Yeah. Of course. I I have I have. You'll

be surprised, man. Like I've done more copyrightiting than I've done email strategy in in the last few years. Um

but yeah, so that's I think that's a nice oneliner oneliner of our of our very first uh point here of understanding the value tree. Very easy

to you know obviously Clavio can can show you the fruit but you know you have to build the tree you have to uh to know exactly what those branches are so you can you know you can properly scale. Um

I think this kind of takes us quite quite nicely into our second point. Um

you know which is um one that I quite like as well and one that I again I should probably use a lot more um within our work as well which is the email uh

and and retention prioritization framework. Um and um would you would you

framework. Um and um would you would you like to to start here as well and then I can continue? Yes. I I want to bridge it

can continue? Yes. I I want to bridge it from uh take a bridge from the previous topic we talked about. um

basically understanding that uh let's see if if it's this one or maybe no I'm I'm going to wait for it for the for the third topic that we have but

understanding the relationship um I think retention or or the prioritization framework for me we've been using this a lot for CRO activities

conversion rate optimization because there's always there's like 10 10 or 20 or 100 things that you can uh but you have to understand which one

has the biggest impact uh which one makes the most sense to start with. So prioritization is a way

start with. So prioritization is a way to to identify what has the biggest impact with the least amount of time or resources needed basically. You can

probably call them lowhanging fruit sometimes, but if you're trying to prioritize, you actually want to maximize something uh without it costing you too much. uh because it doesn't make

sense to I don't know um try to let's say somebody decides that we want to optimize a footer and

specifically the amount of people that uh click on the phone number uh below in the footer. You might put a lot of time into it, but in the end, if

you're trying to optimize something not everybody is seeing, you're probably putting a lot of effort in something that's not

worthwhile doing. So 100% 100% and I you

worthwhile doing. So 100% 100% and I you know obviously we have having work working as agency we see that a lot with a lot of brands where um everyone is you

know at least freelancers or or brand owners they're trying to do everything you know they're always trying to to optimize flows or fix segmentation or um you know launch a new very very

personalized campaigns or test subject lines. I think at the end of the day uh

lines. I think at the end of the day uh the prioritization framework as far as I understand it is is really to ask yourself what actually makes you money, what drives revenue. Um and I think um

you know you can build a system to to prioritize the impact um and sort of the the scalability of of of a project or of a of a task. Um it's really easy. You

know, I remember someone told me a long time ago um when I got into into business that one of the main things that business owners do is they always kind of revert back to like I should I

should design a new website just because you know that's a really fluffy fancy thing. You're like ooh branding, nice

thing. You're like ooh branding, nice colors, videos, but at the end of the day does that do anything for your business in in in the short term?

Probably not. Um, so I think in the in D2C is is the same where people kind of they focus on let's do a creative refresh of our templates or let's do this ultra personalized segmentation

logic that you know would be maybe that doesn't even have any real data or um let's uh let's redesign an entire email template uh uh set or let's let's test

this because XY Z brand is doing it and you know I think there there are some some immediate revenue levers in in in Clavio and email um which is poorly optimized welcome flows, checkout flows,

post purchase which are sort of the the the the I would say the um the foundation of a good uh Clavio setup and retention strategy. Um and yeah, so

retention strategy. Um and yeah, so there's there I think at the end of the day it's very easy to to lose yourself and focus on the things that don't actually move the needle. Would you

agree with that? Man, there are thousand things you can be doing. If you go back to the previous topic, we talked about understanding what has impact or what's

underperforming allows you to better prioritize as well. So if you know, hey, we have poor deliverability that's causing us to not land into the mailbox.

That's something that is really important to take and do uh because it's impacting all the other numbers. So

priority goes up because if you can fix this with 10% or improve anything with 10% it has an immediate effect on the end goal on the end result. So in a way

in a way it's why are you doing what you're doing? Are you able to

you're doing? Are you able to um add any monetary measurement or value have a business case and maybe not everything

needs a business case but even in the smallest way possible like asking yourself what I'm doing is actually driving the needle why am I doing this and compared to not doing something

else. So having a prioritization

else. So having a prioritization framework really helps in CRO we use it a lot. Um you have different models like

a lot. Um you have different models like ICE ice model is one you have the pi framework which stands for pri priority importance ease there's some other

models that go more into like a little bit more binary because most of these models are a bit subjective. You

basically score things based on what you think is is going to work. Uh but even doing that is better than not doing anything. As long as one person is is

anything. As long as one person is is taking a lead on that because from from one person to the other they might score things differently but at least having

the idea of thinking about these things is already helping within businesses. Uh

one of the things that we also do like if there are requests to ask for something like a a value like hey why are we doing this? what what what KPI do you think this will actually impact and

by how much? So people start thinking about hey there's so many shiny objects out there nowadays you can get

um really busy doing a lot of things that are just spinning the wheels and you're standing still. So, um, really understanding what what business value is and what actually potentially can

drive it allows you to better judge what you need to do first versus last. And

there always some um exceptions of course if there's a rebranding taking place, yes, you probably will need to change all the email templates as well.

Um but definitely understanding like how do you prioritize things actually helps you to yeah to basically work on the things that actually move the business forward.

Yeah, I think that's very well said. I

think you know everyone listening like very simple thing you can do if you're you know running the marketing for a brand or working an agency whatever just have a simple Google sheet where you you know you you keep track of all of the

things you want to do like don't just have an idea I was like oh I want to redesign the welcome flow and then do that first really think about what the impact on that is going to be and um something we have as well is just a

really simp I think the ISR framework that works quite well with like the impact and and and I think what what does it stand for again I think it's incremental cost effectiveness ratio sounds really fancy but uh it can be simpler than that just keep a list of

all the all the projects that you want to start and then um one thing that I think everyone should have is is have an revenue impact column you know and think what is the impact this is going to have

on our actual revenue like is this going to bring any immediate results or is it more like long-term results um we actually have a really cool resource that we can share and I can put it somewhere in whatever this podcast is

going to be which is a um in terms of email marketing Um, we have this Google sheet with all every single flow that you can build. And I think the shiny object thing is applies quite a lot in

in email where you think, "Oh, we should build this flow." And then you really kind of have to ask yourself, what is that going to, you know, for example, I I got a brand the other day telling me we should build an anniversary flow. And

I'm like, okay, well, that's that's going to cost time and money to to build, and we're only going to see results a year from now because, you know, the the flow by design launches and triggers a year after someone has

made a purchase. So, if you set a live today on the 18th of April 2025, the first um email to trigger will be on 18th of April 2026. So, what exactly are we achieving with that? Like, yeah,

sure, it's a nice thing to have, but it doesn't bring any immediate results. So

anyway, to go back to my point, we have all of this this huge list of all of every single email flow you can build in Clavio and it has a really cool sort of column with like dollar signs where it

shows you which flow will actually have a higher impact on on you know email attributed revenue that is. So that's

something that you know we could we could share and I think you can apply that with anything that you do. Just

have like projects that you want to uh you want to do in this particular month and really focus on the ones that are going to have the biggest impact.

Definitely. I think uh you're you're hitting a couple of things on the on the on the head there.

Um adding some things on the anniversary flow. I would actually create it, not

flow. I would actually create it, not build it immediately. And if you're I think this is this is a good case of how do you prioritize things. One is

knowledge. You need to understand like some flows probably will not have the impact that you think it will have or might require more nurturing more handholding trying to optimize to really

work. Um but for example that

work. Um but for example that anniversary flow that I would definitely build it but not in the first like not in the first laps of like a welcome flow

would like I would prioritize that based on knowing this is really close. people

are actually subscribing to like the first touch points that you're going to be having. So having that ready is more

be having. So having that ready is more important than building out an anniversary flow. That's is like one way

anniversary flow. That's is like one way to prioritize already. Um my quick tip is make sure that you at least add the anniversary flow so it starts capturing

those people because if you wait six months true you have lost six months uh of capturing data. So it will take another six months before that flow will

trigger. So that might be also knowledge

trigger. So that might be also knowledge learning uh something to understand.

Then taking this concept even a bit further.

Um sometimes brands are no it's a mistake that I never mind the brands mistakes that I've made before. Oh,

wait. This brand is selling this. This

brand is selling that. Like, oh, I'm going to create an email with like all these nice conditional trigger splits and like I'm going to move things in like different sections. Nowadays, I'm

I'm actually thinking no, we think we should think about volume like build something that that works for everyone.

Make sure that's running that's that is already making money. And whenever you have enough now time, start seeing okay, which one which like which of the products or categories that they're

selling are selling the most and then prioritize prioritizing that first like okay let's build a specific uh split that really covers this specific product

or category. Um but before that I was

or category. Um but before that I was like no we need to build everything and like if you don't apply prioritization to this but this also comes down to

understanding these things like you'll cut yourself a couple of times you'll understand hey I've burnt myself and this I've tried this a couple of time maybe this is a better approach uh which

is like broad and then narrow instead of being narrow and taking too much time and losing that time actually the it's like an opportunity um gap that you have

that you miss you miss out if you're trying to do something for specific people instead of going broad first and then going specific. I hope it's clear.

I think we should have a that that was very clear. I just want to add to that.

very clear. I just want to add to that.

I think we should have a section or like the hottest tip of the episode. Just

feature it somewhere on the screen or whatever. Like have like a little audio

whatever. Like have like a little audio effect. I'm going to add a little audio

effect. I'm going to add a little audio effect, right? And I'm going to say that

effect, right? And I'm going to say that what Omar said just now is probably one of the most important things you should learn from this episode and in general from everything that you do whether it's in e-commerce or email marketing and

focusing on the wrong things like what he said was like building these insane conditional splits for products that don't even get sales where you had like nine emails on that path and it's like it has it has like 14 deliveries over

the last 30 days. That's honestly I I've been there, you I I remember when I first started, I I created a post-purchase flow where I added more emails in the placed order 2 plus than in the placed order equals 1, which is

obviously most of the orders. And I

remember when I looked over like a couple of months later, there was only 0.9% people that were actually coming back to purchase a second order because it was a highly first order type of product. So, and I had like nine or like

product. So, and I had like nine or like whatever like five plus emails in that pen got no delivery. So, that's just, you know, for me obviously that's fine.

At the time, I was a freelancer. It's my

time. my waist but like when you work for a brand like wasting so much time on that and not having any impact to it it's honestly so um that was um great

tip Omar sometimes it again shiny object you read something online you see this oh you can do this or even you start playing with the tool it's like oh wait I can do this and you get creative it's

like oh look at what I built but in the end you look at the results like Paw P let's let's add that sound effect as well.

Oh man, that was awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

But those are learnings. Those are

learnings and and I think that Yeah. I

hope basically this podcast also prevents people to go down the same rabbit hole. Uh but sometimes you'll

rabbit hole. Uh but sometimes you'll make the mistakes and be stubborn. Uh

anyway, so don't say we didn't warn you.

I think it it's what you said as well like making the mistake not making the mistakes make might make the journey a little bit more boring if you just get everything right from the beginning. So,

you know, no one just hands you a little handbook. And even if they do, it's not

handbook. And even if they do, it's not the right handbook. Trust me, I've had plenty of handbooks. Wasn't there Do we have a handbook, Omar? Oh, but I remember I got this one. Oh, there we

go. E-commerce marketing automation for

go. E-commerce marketing automation for dummies. Let's have that as a little

dummies. Let's have that as a little giveaway.

I think I have two of these. So, but I want to add one last thing. Um, and

that's the ease. Like, if you have PI framework or ice like there's one element that's called ease. uh the way that we normally um kind of like if we try to do something um and build

something out, it's really important to also understand what how much work does something need. And the way we normally

something need. And the way we normally uh filter this or give it a score is basically does it take hours to do, does it take days to do or does it take weeks to do? And then it's basically using

to do? And then it's basically using three different uh things there. If it's

something you can do in a couple of hours, the ease is going to have a high score. But if it takes like three or

score. But if it takes like three or four weeks or maybe a like a couple of months to build because you need to add some functionality in the website or tools need to be installed, that

probably increase or lowers the the score of the the the the ease how easy it is to do. And that also should be factored in. There are

factored in. There are some there's always a butt or maybe or not not necessar but but um uh it depends basically because like for

example reviews um if you're not using reviews it's a part of social proof it will take time to collect reviews it will take time to implementing things and sometimes this is like it takes a

lot of effort to to get it going and it takes time to collect things over time as well but if you're waiting a long time uh to start doing this. Um it

basically yeah it it it might be something that um you overrule the numbers just because you see like in in 3 months time we need to have this running so we are

prioritizing this now but at least you've thought about it and you have a reasoning of of doing this.

Yeah. No 100%. Great great little add-on in here. Um we have two more tips we

in here. Um we have two more tips we want to cover but before that I just want to add one thing. Um, if you've got any value out of this episode so far, even one little golden nugget, just do

us a solid and go rate Claiogeeeks right now, whether it's on Spotify or Apple.

Drop us a review, share it with a friend, post it in your Slack channel, whatever works. It helps us grow, helps

whatever works. It helps us grow, helps us more people find the show, and, you know, it lets us bringing all this cool stuff and all these geeky conversations to to more people. So, do it right now.

Go post it somewhere, go rate us, and then come back and and watch the rest of the episode. Um, and uh, we appreciate

the episode. Um, and uh, we appreciate you for tuning in. All right. Can we

still stay quiet a little like like wait for them to do it? Waiting. I mean, we can we can I can just I can add the weight in. Yeah, I was kidding. All

weight in. Yeah, I was kidding. All

right. You don't know how this works, Omar. Yes, I do.

Omar. Yes, I do.

Um, cool. All right. So, next, uh, number three, um, on our list of things we wish we knew about email marketing and things that we learned the hard way.

Um, vanity metrics will stole your growth. Um, this is one I know Omar is

growth. Um, this is one I know Omar is very excited to cover. Um, and uh, I'm going to I'm going to let him take the stage for the first one. All right. Um,

I might um, I think I'm going to I know we have a couple of points we want to go over.

Um, the one that I wanted to cover before and the second top uh, uh, topic where I wanted to go back to the first topic actually was this one. Um when I

started with email marketing it's like oh look at this welcome flow is performing really awesomely um I thought it was like we need to optimize it we

need to do this we need to do that and I went and put a lot of time into welcome flow optimization it wasn't until I think a couple of years I think three or four years ago that we started optimizing

some pop-ups for our clients and I noticed hey wait what's happening here we we kind of have fivefolded the amount of subscriptions over a 30-day period.

Like we went from 250 subscribers signing up to 1250 per month, which oh wow. I was like, oh that's cool. Wa let

wow. I was like, oh that's cool. Wa let

me see what's happening. I was like how can I see the value that is now bringing in? The interesting part was like I

in? The interesting part was like I noticed that immediately after that um the welcome flow also started the

first it was like producing around 10k per month it went to 46k I was like whoa wait a minute something is happening here it wasn't like it took a bit of

time to understand hey wait actually the pop-up had more impact on the welcome flow than optimizing the pop-up flow coming back to understanding the the

value tree or the goal tree. Like if

you're optimizing the welcome flow, trying to get more out of it, you probably can have a bigger impact by getting more people to subscribe and hitting that welcome flow. Um, so

understanding these relationships actually is really important to to do.

So actually back then we started that's that's when we said, you know what, we're going to be AB testing pop-ups as a default. We're doing this now for all

a default. We're doing this now for all our clients on a monthly basis, trying to come up with new hypothesis, testing different um incentives, testing different steps, testing timing, testing

text, visuals, whatever. There's so many things you can basically test. Looking

at only welcome flow for me, it was like, okay, wait, that's now I completely look differently at it. And

also, one of the things that if you've been working with Claio, you know that other channels are also bringing in traffic to Claio. So if

you're thinking that email is performing as good as as you think it is, the truth is probably Facebook Meta or Google ads are also

attributing money to it. If you add all these things up, it's it's going to be a multiple of what you think it is or should be. Um so having an understanding

should be. Um so having an understanding on those things like what what is the actual impact of things is also important to know in this specific case.

because I wanted to know I actually overlap the total revenue on top of uh on top of the subscription rate and also the welcome

flow revenue to see right if the same bumps was were correlating and we did see those correlations uh and back fast forward to 2025 where where we're in

right now we've done a lot of AB testing on websites uh where we basically do also CRO and AB testing website AB testing try to understand what is the

impact that pop-ups actually have but this is a bit not covering this topic but pop-ups can have a really good impact on even website conversion rates

so just take that as a gold of nuggets which is a really it's quite against what other people think right like people think popups affect conversion rate the case in a specific test but

like that's a really big thing right like because I know you told me this a few months ago or whatever when we had this first conversation and you're Yeah, you know, like actually we we AB tested

this and you know having popups does improve conversion rate which was kind of like a wow. Okay. Yes. Crazy. So for me the

wow. Okay. Yes. Crazy. So for me the same thing same thing was happening. We

we had for me it was like I think pop-ups are so intrusive they are probably scaring away people and giving them a bad behavior or like bad

experience. But I've learned to question

experience. But I've learned to question my my beliefs.

uh over time and so I basically started like let's can we how do we test this how can we be be sure how can we see if this is actually having a negative impact so once we started testing this

and we've tested this on a couple of websites already um I think five or six or something we have consistently seen the same thing if people are seeing a

popup it increases the uh conversion rate sometimes with 30 50 and sometimes up to 100% which It's crazy. Huge. Yes,

that's huge. That's crazy. Um I I I def I love that. I love that. So um cool. So

again, I think it sort of goes into the vanity metrics. I think Omar is kind of

vanity metrics. I think Omar is kind of breaking some barriers here. So you

know, guys, if you're listening, I think people are are too afraid nowadays.

They're too afraid to to send more emails. They're too afraid to have more

emails. They're too afraid to have more popups. They're too afraid to even have

popups. They're too afraid to even have pop-ups to begin with. or you know something I I heard actually at one of your meetups in Amsterdam was like ooh we shouldn't we shouldn't have like uh the discount in the popup we should just ask people to join our community cuz

like what if we upset them and I'm you know like come on like the goal is to get that person excited like at the end of the day as a customer I care about value for money so you know it doesn't

mean you have to give a flat discount to to lose your margins but if you can frame that that offer on the popup as something exciting something that's happening now you're giving them a

reason to purchase now and not tomorrow.

You should um and you should have multiple touch points as well. Show it

to them on the homepage. Show it them to show it again to them on the product page. I don't know if you have a car

page. I don't know if you have a car page as well. Have an accident. There's

so many different things you can try. I

think at the end of the day, you know, if I'm getting this right from you as well cuz you said like, oh, the pop-up you had before had like 1250 or whatever and then 1250. You know, it is about

driving more impressions, right? So

drive more impressions, you get more um submissions out out of your popup as well. Um the other thing we wanted to

well. Um the other thing we wanted to just quickly cover because we have a few things Omar touched upon welcome flow revenue um which is true. You know I used to obsess over how much revenue the

welcome flow drives at the reality of it is the welcome flow revenue is actually more about acquisition intent than a good email strategy. Now, I'm not saying

you shouldn't um design a great welcome email. You shouldn't put some some

email. You shouldn't put some some thought into that. You know, there's a lot of things you can there's a there's there is such a thing as a good welcome flow or a bad welcome flow. But what I am saying is that even a bad welcome

flow can convert really really well and it matters less when it comes to you know like you know having a retention strategy. It's not really about

strategy. It's not really about retention as much as it is is about acquisition. You can you can inflate

acquisition. You can you can inflate those with discounts as well. And I

think again it's like really easy to to look at a Claio account and see that you know you see oh it's like 45% of revenue comes from email but when you look at what that 45% is let's say that's like

$100,000 $80,000 is just the welcome flow revenue. So, you know, and then

flow revenue. So, you know, and then when you break down the rest of the $20,000, probably 15 of that is retargeting flows like checkout and browse, and only $5,000 is post-purchase, which is your where

you're supposed to actually, you know, drive in as as a retention marketer. So,

be more critical of everything when it comes to looking at a Clavio account.

Don't just be fooled by these vanity metrics that are easy, very easy to to to kind of fall into into the trap. um

claio revenue percentage another one which um Omar was saying earlier a very good point where I said it is a vanity metric and then he asked okay but what

if it's 5%. So I I love that because it's true. If it's really low, it it

it's true. If it's really low, it it does tell you something. It's not quite a vanity metrics. And I said I think it's more of a of an indicator, a lagging indicator or a health indicator where, you know, if it's low, it means

your setup on Clavio is not great and you probably need more flows, you probably need to send more campaigns.

But if it's really high, it also doesn't tell you that you have great email performance. It's I think the way I I

performance. It's I think the way I I read about it earlier is like you should use it to spot trends and not justify performance. Um and I yeah would you

performance. Um and I yeah would you have anything to add to that? H

definitely is it's what you're saying.

Um I think you're able to use this if you've looked into enough Clavia accounts you see that I think on the up side of things it might go to 60 70%. So

you know what the bandwidth can be. Uh

and sometimes it's an indication that you're not doing too much acquisition either. So there can be there can be

either. So there can be there can be different causes of things. Maybe you're

sending too many discounts. Um that's

something you need to really look into.

Uh uh profitability, but there are there are good indicators. If you're measuring the same thing, the same over the same period of time, that actually allows you

to spot trends and maybe have an understanding, hey, wait, we could be sending more campaigns or maybe we need to also add more retention type of flows

um or do more with pop-ups to see if we can increase uh in this case welcome flow revenue, but also the amount of people that are subscribing to the list, for example. So

um I wouldn't use Claio revenue or claio revenue percentage as uh the way to

measure the true performance of email because that way it's it's it's off because there are also other channels having that understanding helps but it's definitely a way to see hey how much

room of growth do I still have left or do I need to actually improve if it's 5%. maybe you need to really there's a

5%. maybe you need to really there's a lot of things you can still do and then the prioritization framework then comes in okay what are the things that we can do how much time does this cost so I

think without knowing we kind of like followed a great path on the topics that we wanted to yeah everything links we're we have a narrative here guys like

everything we do is well thought out we did not spend the the 10 minutes before recording this putting this together not at all um yeah I know very quickly because I know we're we're going on the

39 minute mark. I think the other thing with with uh Claio attribution is also follow the context as well like you know we worked with this yoga clothing brand

where I was very shocked to see that not 60 not 70 but 81% of their revenue was was coming from Clavio and and I thought at first something you know fish is

going on. They have like a 30-day

going on. They have like a 30-day attribution window or something but they didn't. Um what happened is that this

didn't. Um what happened is that this brand had such insane loyal customers and they kept doing new drops um that every time they would do a new drop,

people would just rush in to buy the new drop and they would like most of the revenue would actually was coming from campaigns. Now what you should also do

campaigns. Now what you should also do in that if you have this type of insanely loyal brand is you should most likely drop that attribution window to I don't know I I would just look at clicks

one day. makes it a little bit more um

one day. makes it a little bit more um laser focused. If you if you have this

laser focused. If you if you have this type of brand where a lot of your um marketing is coming from email, you know, you can make it a little bit more um f because if you have a fiveday attribution, it's really easy to then someone clicks on an email that maybe

they see or drop on social media. It

doesn't, you know, does it mean they bought because they got the email or because they saw the social media post.

So, it helps you, it helps you and then with Clavio now you can create new attribution models. It's actually quite

attribution models. It's actually quite quite complex. um you know it allows you

quite complex. um you know it allows you to to tweak it quite quite a bit topic that we can actually cover in one of our upcoming uh podcasts as well because like in the last meetup that we had we

actually have some conversation around this like how do you like what are the good settings for this I hear people are saying this people are saying that I think context is really important uh we

have a brand we're working with they're basically sending emails once a day and then resends every day um which kind of like yeah defied my own beliefs a little

bit. Um, but for those specific, if

bit. Um, but for those specific, if you're sending a lot, it does. Yeah, you

need to look into those attribution windows as well because this can have an impact on how it's getting attributed.

Um, it might be that email on Monday was the one that's causing it. But then, I don't know, it's it's those are the things that, you know, the context is is highly dependent on uh how do you

actually uh set up your attribution windows. But the cool thing is that I

windows. But the cool thing is that I think Claia has been listening in. They

have added these kind of like features to allow you to better I don't know tweak things around as well. So um there are possibilities to to change that. But

going back to your topic um yeah percentage of email uh attribution that's something that is a good measurement to really kind of like spot

trends but it's not a single source of truth. That was that was very well said.

truth. That was that was very well said.

Um, do we want to cover one more vanity metric or do we want to move to our fourth lesson of the episode? I will say let's do the fourth. Um, let's do the

fourth. Um, this is a controversial one.

fourth. Um, this is a controversial one.

It truly is. And I think the reason it's controversial is because there's what we're about to say and I actually I don't know what Omar is going to say, but you know it can it can have you can

look at it as we're right, but you can also look at it as like we're wrong because there's no right or wrong way.

There's only again going back there's only context and what works for you and what makes the most sense because anyway let me just say it first. So only

sending email campaigns to engaged 30 60 90day segments. This is um for us, for

90day segments. This is um for us, for me personally has been a a huge lesson um in managing um email marketing for

for brands because you know when I started in this industry I I was of the belief that you should only send emails to engage 30. Um, and then the segment engage 30 is useful when you want to

boost up engagement a little bit, when you want to build up your deliverability because by design, it's meant to send to only to people that have opened, clicked, or maybe have been active on

site, placed an order, started checked out within the last 30 days. But when

you do that for a consistent amount of time, for two regular amount of time, I would say, you start getting a lot of people falling out of that segment, right? Because you're only focusing on

right? Because you're only focusing on that 30-day window. Um, and to me, the reason this is slightly flawed is because in time, the more you work on a

brand than you do that, you're going to end up ignoring up to 60, 70, 80% of your list, people who, as I like to say, may not be ready to buy today, but could

be ready to buy again soon, which kind of goes very um very nicely into the 955 rule, which is, you know, only 5% of your audience are in the market to buy

at any given time. 95% need to be nurtured so that when they're ready to buy, they're going to buy from you and not from your competitor. Or even more so, I like to say in today's world, we're not just competing with your

competitors. You're not just competing,

competitors. You're not just competing, you're competing with the disposable income of a customer. So, when they have that disposable income and then that matches up with them needing to

replenish their razor blades or buy supplements or buy whatever, are they going to buy from you or are they going to buy from someone else? And I think what you have to think here is that if

you keep sending to a wider uh part of your list and let's say that you know Omar who's part of your list, he watches from the shadows, he always gets your emails, gets those Gmail notifications,

doesn't open them, just swipes them, right? But the brand touch point is

right? But the brand touch point is there. He knows that you've been sending

there. He knows that you've been sending an email and then you've kind of established that relationship with him.

And you keep doing that for months and months and months. Omar, finally, month five, he's ready to buy that creatine because he's been noticing he's been losing muscle and he wants to buy creatine. Who's he going to go to? He's

creatine. Who's he going to go to? He's

going to go to the brand he's been kept kept getting emails from, but hasn't really engaged because he didn't need to. And then he goes to one of his inbox

to. And then he goes to one of his inbox emails, sees that there's an offer, clicks on the email, makes a purchase.

This is a very very rough example which can be attacked from many different angles, but this is my um my view on it.

And um yeah, I think it's very much I'm going to let Omar speak now. So that's

that's my view. What what do you think?

I will say look up BDON on LinkedIn and uh go attack him there.

Uh no, but but it's an interesting take.

Um the one thing that I said, why why did why did they create these groups like 30 69? Where does this come from?

Uh I think if you zoom out a little bit there is some truth to it in the way that uh you want to be engaging with the people that are engaged with you as a

brand. And I think those metrics are

brand. And I think those metrics are important to to consider if you're trying to understand who might be interested in your brand who is engaging with your brand that

those those are signals basically.

Um but if you zoom out uh a little bit more uh if you're not sending to people they will have 0% of chance to engage with you. If you're targeting people

with you. If you're targeting people with marketing most of the times you show the the the ad somewhere it creates a view somebody will see it they won't

engage but they kind of have seen it.

Same goes for email. And this is a concept that for me it was I think it was was five years ago Delaquist was at the conversion rate uh conference in the

Netherlands. He was the only email

Netherlands. He was the only email marketeer talking and basically saying you should send more emails more emails not less. I thought it was controversial

not less. I thought it was controversial but started testing out and looking at these things and we've been having these discussions the last uh years as well uh bogdan and seeing there's really a lot

of truth to it because even if somebody deletes your email there's no way they're going to delete it without at least reading something oh this from this one I want to so if you think about

in the concept of attention or um a view they will have had a view they maybe it's not the right time maybe they have not interacted with you. If you

have sent nothing, they probably will have a lot of competitors in there that are sending emails to them that they're probably also deleting, but there's no kind of like no view on this. And you

were saying that you're actually competing against the disposable income of people or not so so much the competitors. I think you're also

competitors. I think you're also competing around attention.

So people have a very limited amount of attention span. So if you're there and

attention span. So if you're there and maybe consistently or over time, if somebody is looking like just having that sitting in the mailbox, they've

interacted with you subconsciously a little bit, they will remind you as a brand. So I think that those things are

brand. So I think that those things are important to to be aware of. For me, I think last year I started thinking about this a little bit more. It was actually

Delaquist who spoke and if you don't know Deloquist he is one of the big uh godfathers in email marketing really consider I advise you to look him up on LinkedIn see what he's posting he is a

really smart guy uh but he was at another conference and he was talking about this concept so I went back and started creating segments in Clavio basically give me the whole list how many people are in there give me the

whole list that actually received an email in the last 30 days 180 days, 365 days, like try to have an understanding of how much of your

database is receiving emails. That's

already a really like it's a good uh exercise to do. Uh then understanding how many of them opened or clicked your emails. It gives you at least some

emails. It gives you at least some numbers to start looking at to see okay, I'm doing this right now. How can we improve this? And then thirdly, ask

improve this? And then thirdly, ask yourself if 50% of your audience has not been receiving your emails, why are you keeping them in your list? So even that

like in in terms of cost, if you're not going to be sending to them, just remove them. Um I I know Deloquist is like,

them. Um I I know Deloquist is like, hey, keep emailing people even after a year like don't be don't be stupid. You

don't want to hurt your deliverability.

If you notice that deliverability metrics are going down, then of course, yes, you need to uh to take that into account. Um, but don't forget those

account. Um, but don't forget those people either because they will still there's still potential that uh potent potential they will be ordering from you

uh in the future again. Um at at a certain point you probably will need to clean up, but um probably that is different than what most people are using. Like if you're using 30 60 90 and

using. Like if you're using 30 60 90 and then don't send to the rest, you're actually missing a big portion of your list. True. Very true. I think you know

list. True. Very true. I think you know that's becomes especially more important with the new Clavio pricing nowadays where you know they they they charge based on how many profiles you have. So

you know as you said if you're not emailing 50% of your profiles why why keep them in there? And I think the question here kind of becomes more what are you going to do with the rest of the rest of those 50% profiles? you have a

strategy in place to hopefully reactivate some of them or at least test to see what engagement you have. Now,

this raises more problems in the sense how do you do that without emailing a bunch of unengaged profiles without messing up your deliverability. So, that

is a good point to many a point to cover in a in a future.

Let's take a note of that Omar. Yes,

just just adding two things like channels is one and also using RFM groups to really understand who are potentially valuable in that list. uh

you should start like again going back with prioritization going back to the things that we talked about in the beginning uh understanding the value tree like where where is value and

what's underperforming what what if you do something if you put time in anything what can you expect from it that I will like help you with this but there are some frameworks and things you can do to

reactivate those those groups definitely but not sending to them is probably not uh there's no way that they're they're going to come back if you're if they're not seeing you or not hearing anything

from you. Yeah. And then also it raises

from you. Yeah. And then also it raises the risk of the more you wait, the less likely it is that you can actually re-engage them because if they've been on that list for even a year, two years,

like it becomes more difficult because they they you would you as a brand would have completely fallen out of their heads. So it it becomes more difficult

heads. So it it becomes more difficult which is why as a mark email marketeteer you should be on top of it. you know,

every single, you know, week that you manage that account, you should kind of look at these these different cohorts of your of your data. Um, it depends. One

one last thing, one last thing I wanted to say on this basic because I I have a good story here is basically, you know, as a as an email marketer, whether you join working for a brand or you're freelancing, whatever. Don't make

freelancing, whatever. Don't make decisions without context. Don't assume

just because you're the expert in email that you know better. Talk with a brand owner. you know, we have this brand

owner. you know, we have this brand where they sell paint by number kits.

And you know, one of the things that I was very shocked to find out, and when I looked at the data, I did confirm it is that people buy in two buying cycles and they buy twice a year. You know, once at the beginning of the year and once at uh

at the end of the year. So, they most of the time buy during Valentine's Day um to kind of like paint with their partner and they buy again during Christmas, right? In the during the holidays. And

right? In the during the holidays. And

then we had like a bunch of people unengaged. They haven't engaged with us

unengaged. They haven't engaged with us in like over nine months. My

recommendation was to you know uh suppress some of them and then the brand owner came to me was like whoa no need to suppress them like these are customers they're going to come back and then when we looked at the data you

could see how earon they would come back to purchase so anyway the lesson here is that look at the data talk with the the brand owner I think Omar loves this but like talk with the customers as well

right yes I just released some blog post on this uh the whole concept customer value optimization and especially for your brand bookan this whole concept probably will blow away uh and kind of

like focus more on loyal customers.

Sorry, is that the one on clavio.com?

Yes, on the blog post. Yes, we just released Check out Check out Omar's latest blog. I I I read it. It's it's

latest blog. I I I read it. It's it's

it's fire. It's amazing. Definitely go

check it out. We're going to link it in the uh in the bio of the of the podcast as well. Um cool. Any final thoughts? I

as well. Um cool. Any final thoughts? I

I just want to finalize the 306090. Uh

we also like with an we have a brand that's that's been sending consistently to the whole list every day and I would also doing resents uh to them every day

which for me it was against all my core beliefs. I noticed that it's actually

beliefs. I noticed that it's actually working pretty well. In the beginning they had a really high amount of unsubscribes so we kind of like helped them with segmentation. So sometimes it

does matter um if you're going to be sending a lot like these 30 60 90 days these are engagement metrics. It depends

like context is really important. Um so

sometimes you need to kind of like think how how can we if you're sending every day um how do you prevent people from churning? Is this a

bad thing? Is it too much? Is it too

bad thing? Is it too much? Is it too low? like you'll probably have to start

low? like you'll probably have to start adding uh specific profile pages where people can say how much email they want to have like what type of emails they want to have. But the 30 60 90 days

there are some really nice frameworks.

Claia also has some of these things I will be sharing this as well where basically if you're sending less and not daily that you know okay every so many

period or like you don't have to send to everyone every time you can have um normal news going out normal emails

going out and when you have uh to like to engage people but for those that are less engaged you probably want to send emails that are um I don't know, have some incentives or

have some things that are probably um more relevant to them or more engaging to them. Um that way you always make sure that for the people that

haven't interacted with you for some time, if you have really engaging content, the chance for them to react on that is better. So you split out sending to the engaged in a lower volume and

then once a month, once a quarter, once every two months, it depends on your brand on how how often you want to send this. Just start sending or twice a

this. Just start sending or twice a month just you do send to the whole list at least. That way you have a way and uh

at least. That way you have a way and uh a moment that people can actually interact with you and then test around this. I mean, at at the in the end, the

this. I mean, at at the in the end, the customers will and the uh people on the list will show you what's working for your brand based on the numbers. If

you're seeing unsubscribe going through the roof, that's a clear indication that you might need to throw back a little bit or add some things to keep people on the list. But if it's not and you see

the list. But if it's not and you see that every cent just increases your revenue, that's a probably also a good indication you can potentially send more.

So 100%. All right, that's really really good, really good advice. If anyone here is doubting whether having Omar on this podcast is not like having your own

mentor on e-commerce and retention, please don't doubt it anymore. This is a huge value for you guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Omar. I didn't own my own ASP, so you know, I'm a little bit behind. Uh

behind. Uh yeah. Um, right. So, those were our four

yeah. Um, right. So, those were our four lessons, things that we wish we knew when we first started. Um, that's a wrap on this episode of Claviogeeeks. Um, I'm

just going to say my bit. Uh, I wrote it down so I I am going to read it, but uh, it is very much true. So whether whether you're building flows, uh whether you're battling benchmarks or just trying to

make sense of this crazy email D2C world, um Omar and I uh will be here to cut through the noise and talk about things that actually works. Uh things

that actually work for us. Um I'm going to say it again. If this episode gave you something to think about, um don't forget to hit that follow button, drop a rating, drop a comment, send it to

someone who's maybe stuck on best practices or whatever. Um Omar and I will be here um next time with more lessons and maybe a few controversial opinions. Omar, do you want to share

opinions. Omar, do you want to share your final thoughts? Yeah, I think the the one thing that I want if you have questions or if you have a topic or something you've really been struggling with, either send us a DM at the

comments below, we will cover this in one of the episodes if it's if it's something that we think is is worthwhile for others, but do share your uh your questions as well. we will be delighted

to uh to basically cover that and and and answer those questions if it helps you move ahead because I've gotten a lot of help over the years. I know Bogn the same. I wouldn't have been here for the

same. I wouldn't have been here for the help from others and sometimes by beating my head against the the keyboard trying to fix something. Uh so if I can help you uh do better uh we'll be here

to to do that. And um yeah, and if you're living in Amsterdam, it's just a small plug. We have a monthly clavio

small plug. We have a monthly clavio meetup happening. Um, you're more than

meetup happening. Um, you're more than welcome if you're in the Netherlands, more than welcome to join that. It's

free. Can I get ahead? Can I just read actually just on that? Um, I got so I'm part of the group as well. I'm sometimes

attending these meetups and the last one really gave me FOMO. Um, it was so just some of the comments here is like very fun and insight meetup. Hope to see you all again soon. Wait, wait, that wasn't

it. That was like it was great. I wish I

it. That was like it was great. I wish I could have stayed longer. Um, was a great meet up as always, Omar. Thanks.

This was amazing. Like honestly, some of the feedback I've seen on like on the group on the WhatsApp group for this session that you had last time, I was like, damn, I wish I would have been there. So, I don't know what you guys

there. So, I don't know what you guys covered there. Maybe we should make it a

covered there. Maybe we should make it a podcast episode. But anyway, guys, if

podcast episode. But anyway, guys, if you're in Amsterdam or around the Amsterdam area in Netherlands, make sure you make the trip. Um, it's it's really worth it and Omar is a fantastic entertainer, so definitely uh uh go and

go and say hello. Cool. Thanks. All

right. So, see you in the next episode.

Uh, Bdan, speak to you soon as well.

Awesome that we're doing. See you in the next episode. All right. Bye-bye.

next episode. All right. Bye-bye.

Thanks, guys. Bye.