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New Retention Engine

A new way to retain customers and improve LTV for a fast-growing CPG company.

Role: Growth Lead (Senior Growth Manager)

Skills: Funnel Optimization • Subscription UX • Retention Strategy

1. Problem and Opportunity

At a high-growth CPG startup, rising customer acquisition costs means that subscriber retention and customer lifetime value (LTV) are critical to get right. There hadn’t been significant efforts to improve retention before (I was the first Retention hire!), and LTV was getting worse. Additionally, subscriber churn was high and concentrated in the first month.

So, it was up to me to determine what retention strategy would work best for this company. This meant understanding when and why customers were dropping off and finding opportunities to improve touch points with our customers. I ended up re-architecting the post-purchase customer journey and subscription portal experience. By providing flexible subscription options and personalized messaging, this new retention strategy reduced voluntary churn, incentivized repeat orders, and met customers where they wanted to be met.

2. User Validation

I wanted to understand how customers felt, so I analyzed subscriber feedback and collaborated with Customer Experience (CX) to identify key friction points in the post-purchase experience. Many subscribers mentioned that the subscription optionality and platform was too rigid, so it was easier to cancel their subscription instead. CX noted that many subscriber communications were for manual modification requests.

From my own analysis, I observed that the biggest drop occurred at the first month, and getting members to their fifth month meant they were more or less sticky. I also looked by SKU to understand if certain products had lower retention than others. I found that the lower-rated products had significantly lower retention.

This inspired a few questions:

• What subscription options would work best for a majority of customers? What features should be prioritized?

• How can we up/cross-sell members to higher-rated products?

• How can we get customers to stay until their fifth month?

3. Strategy & Features

Subscription portal experience:

1. Flexible Management: Redesigned portal UI allows one-tap options to swap products, delay shipments, adjust delivery frequency, or skip orders.

2. Platform Migration: Led transition from Stay AI to Recharge with custom event triggers and zero downtime.

3. In-Flow Churn Save: Leveraged customer feedback to create a tailored cancellation flow with different suggested actions depending on the reason for wanting to cancel, resulting in significantly less completed cancellations.

Lifecycle strategy:

1. Post-Purchase Triggers: Optimized email (Klaviyo) and SMS (Postscript) post-purchase messaging after A/B testing send times and delays, subject lines, and messaging.

2. Predictive Nudges: Email and SMS workflows send personalized product education, upcoming shipment alerts, and targeted win-back campaigns.

3. Surprise-and-delight gifts: Using our analysis of typical churn months, implemented surprise-and-delight gifts during critical months where customers were more likely to cancel.

4. Success Metrics

• Blended retention rate: Percentage of subscribers who retained across recurring monthly cycles.

  • Achieved: +35%.

• Customer LTV: Average revenue generated per subscriber over their lifetime.

  • Achieved: +7% overall.

• Email CTR: Click-through rates for email retention workflows.

  • Achieved: +14%.

5. Product Roadmap

Phase 1: MVP Launch (Completed)

1. Migrate and launch on new subscription portal platform

2. Redesign automated lifecycle triggers for SMS and email retention (e.g., up/cross-sell flows, churn-save flows)

Phase 2: Additional personalization

1. AI-driven dynamic churn-save flows based on personalized cancel reasons.

2. Tiered subscriber loyalty rewards program embedded directly in the customer portal.

3. Personalized cross-sell/upsell recommendations based on SKU purchase history.

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