A third of the store's revenue, from email.
A European store selling bedding, chandeliers, tableware and decor. In the 30 days around Black Friday 2023, Klaviyo attributed €176,752.76 of the store's €529,150.97 to email, 79% more than the month before.
Pretty products, long buying cycle.
King-size embroidered duvet sets, crystal chandeliers, gold cutlery. Nobody needs any of it this week. The list is full of people who liked the look once, and the work is giving them a reason to come back.
The store sells in euros. It lives and dies by the seasons: autumn refreshes, the end-of-year sales, winter clearance, Valentine's Day.
So the calendar followed the seasons, and every send went to the part of the list most likely to buy.
Built around the season.
Segments that know who bought
Sends were built from named segments: purchased customers, VIPs (€200+ revenue and 2+ orders), newsletter subscribers and potential purchasers. The New Year email also went to everyone who hadn't opened in 30 days.
A sale told in chapters
The January winter sale went out as four separate emails, on January 7, 13, 18 and 21, rather than one blast and silence. December had two 50% off bedding sends six days apart. Then best sellers on January 3 and Valentine's Day on February 1.
Timing per person
Most campaigns ran on Klaviyo's Smart Send Time, which picks the hour each subscriber tends to open. The New Year email went at 2:00 PM in each recipient's own timezone on December 31.
Designs built for a phone
Big type on a warm neutral background, rounded photo tiles, a vertical word down the side, one button per section. The autumn offer carried a code valid for 24 hours, so the reason to act was in the email itself.
The Black Friday month, from Klaviyo.
Klaviyo's business performance summary for October 28 to November 27, 2023, compared by Klaviyo with the previous period. Email revenue is Klaviyo's attributed revenue: orders it credits to an email that was opened or clicked.
The whole store
- Total revenue€529,150.97
- Against previous period+105%
Attributed to email
- Email revenue€176,752.76
- Share of store revenue33.4%
- Against previous period+79%
Send by send, winter 2021 to 2022.
Placed-order revenue per campaign as Klaviyo reported it, to lists of 15,162 to 17,515 recipients. The sum is our addition of the rows shown.
December and early January
- 50% off bedding, Dec 22€6,218.20
- 50% off bedding, Dec 28€2,797.27
- Happy New Year, Dec 31€5,173.80
- Best sellers, Jan 3€4,526.42
- Winter sale, Jan 7€9,273.70
January to February
- Winter sale, Jan 13€7,466.25
- Winter sale, Jan 18€3,049.57
- Winter sale, Jan 21€3,527.17
- Valentine's Day, Feb 1€10,139.82
- Sum of all nine sends€52,172.20
Three of the emails.
Cropped from the sent versions. Store name, logo, discount code, product names and address are removed.
The takeaway.
The Valentine's send beat every sale email in the run. €10,139.82 from 11 ordering customers, more than any of the four winter sale emails. A reason to buy for someone else outsold a price cut.
Be fair to the comparison. The 2023 window includes Black Friday and the one before it doesn't, so part of the store's +105% is the calendar. Email grew 79%, a little slower than the store, and still carried a third of it.
One number went the wrong way. Over one 30-day run in winter 2021 to 2022 the average open rate rose to 31.75% (+5.32%) and clicks to 1.43% (+0.13%), but the placed order rate slipped to 0.03% (-0.01%). More people read; slightly fewer bought per email sent.
The thinking behind the calendar.
Email works best next to the channels that fill the list:
Is your list only hearing from you on Black Friday?
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