Sarah Saturday

Got on an onboarding call with a founder two weeks ago. Before I could finish my intake questions, he stopped me. He wanted to know who I was. Whether I'd actually be involved or just hand off the brief. He'd been burned before. Last agency gave him copy that could've been written for anyone selling anything. Here's what this guy had already done before he ever hired us: > Spent a full month researching his avatar before he built the product > Compiled every word, phrase, and complaint his customers use on Reddit and Amazon into a document > Built the product around a gap (everyone else is selling gummies with sugar and food dye to kids who react to sugar and food dye) > Migrated subscription platforms specifically because the old ones' dunning system was producing bad churn data and he couldn't trust the numbers > Fulfills out of his home with his family because he trusts them most He didn't ask how our process worked. He asked whether the right person would be touching his brand. Most founders never think to ask that. They hire the agency, let whoever gets assigned do the work, then complain three months later that the copy doesn't sound like them. This guy treated the partnership like a hire. That level of intentionality doesn't just show up in how he vets vendors. It shows up in everything he's built.

If you've spent your late 20s-30s in ecom, you'll notice this: - Some left a broken system the moment they saw it for what it was. - Others stayed inside it, arguing they could fix it from the bottom. - Some bet they could do more good upstream than fighting downstream. - Others kept treating symptoms and called it a career. - Some moved across the country on a maybe. - Others waited for a sure thing that never came. - Some said yes to learning a whole new craft at 27. - Others decided what they already knew was enough. - Some built things nobody asked them to build. - Others ran the playbook they were handed and stopped there. - Some walked when the terms stopped fitting their life. - Others complied and resented it quietly. - Some trusted one introduction that broke their own rule. - Others let an old bias make the decision for them. Same decade. The difference was never timing. It was who chose.

We have a fragrance brand pulling $6M/month from email alone. - Doing $21M/mo in total revenue - $6M/mo attributed directly to email & SMS - Email attribution climbed to 28.4% of total store revenue - Flow revenue alone: nearly $6M/mo - Campaign revenue 3x'd in a single month - 660K in campaign revenue in one month - Attribution rate growing even as front-end spend scales - List growing by 127K+ net new profiles per month - Click rates climbing while send volume increases (rare) - Revenue per email increasing month over month This is what email looks like when someone who actually understands retention is driving it.

@navuud There’s a learning curve for sure! But it’s def worth it. Plenty of brands are on both platforms, and their ckc funnels consistently generate 20-25% higher AOV.

@Saturdaymatters With you all the way until you recommended checkout champ.. how anyone can use that platform is beyond me..

PROPAGANDA I’M PUSHING: - Get off Shopify at 9 figs - If you're only on Shopify, you're leaving money at checkout - Shopify's rules protect Shopify. not you - You can't ad-spend your way to a better AOV - You don't own your checkout. Shopify does - Build the post-purchase funnel before you scale ads - Use checkout champ - Get off the platform that was built for small brands

If I could go back to my 20s and start my retention career earlier ✓ I would start building my copy foundation before anything else. ✓ I would stop treating a churned subscriber like a closed door. ✓ I would start using AI for process, data, and organization. ✓ I would stop assuming the time I spent before this career was wasted. ✓ I would start hiring before I felt ready. ✓ I would stop marketing to an avatar I had never been. ✓ I would start leaning into everything I did before ecom. Looking back, the time I spent learning the hard way was the real tuition. What I regret most is not the failed tests, but the years I waited to start.

If your retention agency isn’t talking about: - Subscription platform analytics - Flows segmented by customer stage - Copy built from your actual customer language - Email aligned with your winning ad angles - Conversion rate (not open rate) - Campaign calendar around your product - Proactively flagging churn signals before they hit - Discount conditioning (knowing when promos are training your list to devalue your brand) - LTV strategy Find a new one.

@PamMktgNut Her origin pre-dates AI by a decade so no, I didn’t disclose that we did not use AI.

@Saturdaymatters Did you disclose they were fake AI clearly? If not it’s a massive fine and violation from the FTC.

Invented a fake woman to sell anti-aging skincare > Gave her a name, a title, a headshot > Watch her become the highest converting face on the brand > Swapped her out for a celebrity > Cast an actress with real name recognition and a real face > Watch the fake woman win > Swapped her out for the real scientist who developed the product > Brought in real credentials, a real person, a real TikTok following > Watched the fake woman win again

You can just: - Test one offer at a time - Double down on the winner - Suppress everyone who has just converted - Write copy good enough that people read it And eventually turn email into a million-dollar/month channel.

In 2015, this ecom brand got banned from every ad platform that ever existed… > No Google > No Facebook > No other acquisition channel I jumped on and kept emailing their customers anyway. The person I was writing as wasn't a doctor or a scientist. He was just a curious guy who cared about the same things his readers cared about. Warm. Familiar. The kind of man you tell your daughter to have kids with. … except he wasn't real… I just made him up. Then from 2015 to 2023: > People kept opening his emails > They kept buying from him > They kept writing back Finally shut down the email list when profit dropped below $30k a month. No ads. No new customers. For 8 years. Just a list of people who never stopped trusting someone who only existed in their inbox.