Retention marketing for Shopify brands: where to start

What is retention marketing?

It's marketing aimed at people who already bought from you. Shopify defines customer retention as "the ability to bring back first-time customers to make repeat purchases," and retention marketing is how you do that.

For most Shopify brands, the main channels are email and SMS, because they're the channels you own. You don't pay again every time you reach the customer, the way you do with ads. Loyalty programs, subscriptions, packaging and customer service all play a part too, but email and SMS flows are usually where the money shows up first.

Why does retention matter so much for Shopify brands?

Because a second order is where a lot of brands start making money on a customer.

The most-quoted number in this space comes from Bain's Fred Reichheld, whose book Loyalty Rules! says that "an increase in customer retention rates of 5 percent increases profits by 25 percent to 95 percent." Keep in mind that much of the original research behind that range came from financial services, not ecommerce. HBR has reported that acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than keeping one, depending on the study and the industry. The exact multiple varies. The direction doesn't.

The approved numbers I have from my own brands point the same way. A subscription wellness brand saw store revenue fall 37% in one April, with new customers dropping from 1,657 to 223 in a month. Email's share of revenue went from 41% to 53%. When acquisition dried up, the customers they already had kept the business going.

What retention metrics should you track first?

Three, all available in Shopify:

You'll find the first one in your Shopify admin under Analytics, where the overview dashboard tracks returning customer rate. For more detail, go to Analytics, then Reports, and filter the category to Customers. There you'll find reports like new vs returning customers, returning customers and customer cohort analysis.

Pick one period, write the numbers down and check them again in 90 days. For more on the first one, see my repeat purchase rate post, and for the last one, how to increase customer lifetime value.

Which flows should you build first for retention?

Flows first, campaigns second. Klaviyo's 2026 email benchmarks show flows generate nearly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, with revenue per recipient nearly 18 times higher than campaigns. A flow goes to one person at the moment it makes sense for them. That's why it works.

Here's the order I'd build them in for retention:

1. Post-purchase flow. Covers a new customer's first 30 days: thank them, help them use the product, set up the next order. This is where a first-time buyer decides whether you're worth coming back to. More in my post-purchase email flow post.
2. Reorder reminder. If people use up what you sell, remind them right before they run out. This is the biggest retention lever for consumable brands.
3. Cross-sell. Put the next logical product in front of the customer: another flavor, an accessory, a different product. Accessories can come later, so you're not hounding them.
4. Winback. For customers who've gone quiet. Keep this one longer than you think.
5. VIP and loyalty. Once the basics are running, reward your best customers.

Automations are deployed within the first seven days of working with me, because this is where the money is. For a full list by brand type, see Klaviyo flows for CPG brands.

How much can a reorder reminder flow make?

More than most founders expect. Across 4 brands, replenishment flows earn $2.23 per person, about 28 times the best campaign. Only 2 of those 4 brands had one before.

A subscription wellness brand's "your order is coming up" reminder made $47,321 in one month, 74% of all its flow revenue. A skincare brand's reorder reminder flow grew 496% in one month.

If you sell anything people use up, and you don't have a reorder reminder, build it this week. The setup and timing are in my repeat purchase email strategy post.

What does good retention look like over a year?

Here's one example from a skincare brand. It made $48,193 from email in all of 2025. From January to July 2026, after the flows were rebuilt, it made $203,777. Flows went from 60% to 83% of email revenue, and the store went from 6 figures to nearly 7 figures.

That's one brand, and results are never guaranteed. But it shows where retention revenue tends to come from: flows that run every day for every customer, not a bigger campaign calendar. The full story is in my skincare case study.

Should winback emails stop after one or two?

No. Across 4 brands, winback email #3 earns about 2 times what email #1 earns per person ($0.23 vs $0.11). The customers who come back often need a couple of reminders first. Same idea for cart flows: across the same 4 brands, abandoned cart email #5 still earns $0.25 per person, the same as email #3.

Most brands stop too early. Don't.

Where do most brands go wrong with retention?

Three common mistakes:

• Cutting costs instead of growing revenue. I'd focus on making more money from Klaviyo, not saving money on it. Upgrade when you hit plan limits.
• Over-cleaning the list. Remove obviously bad profiles, but founders spend too much time cleaning the list and not enough adding better profiles and systems to capture them.
• Thin flows. Subscription brands in particular often lack flow depth, don't segment subscribers properly, and have no campaign series for subscribers, so customers go long stretches with no non-transactional email at all.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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