Retention Marketing Isn’t Marketing...It’s Habit-Building (with Alyssa Wallace)

Summary

Brain Driven Brands: "Retention Marketing Isn’t Marketing...It’s Habit-Building"

Host: Sarah Levinger
Guest: Alyssa Wallace (Retention and Lifecycle Marketing Expert)
Date: September 26, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Levinger is joined by Alyssa Wallace to demystify retention and lifecycle marketing in modern e-commerce. Together, they dig deep into why true retention isn’t just about marketing or running email campaigns—it's about building habits, creating genuine brand connections, and understanding real consumer behavior. The discussion covers practical strategies, the pitfalls of generic loyalty programs, and the need for more thoughtful, psychology-informed approaches to customer retention.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Defining Retention vs. Lifecycle Marketing

[02:17–03:18]

• Alyssa Wallace’s Definitions:
  • Retention: How many times a customer returns to purchase – “It's like an action. Simple.” ([02:17])
  • Lifecycle: The map of all touchpoints used to incentivize repeat purchases.
• Overlap and Industry Confusion:
  The lines blur; often, email and SMS strategies mix acquisition and retention efforts, confusing not just marketers, but leadership at many brands.
• Sarah’s Emphasis:
  Many brands mistakenly believe their email list is made up of existing customers, when it’s actually mostly prospects ([03:23]).

QUOTES:

• “...just because somebody purchased it once does not mean they're going to be in the market to purchase it again for any reason ever. So if you're trying to get people to purchase again and again, that's habit building and behavioral like mechanism basically is what you're trying to build. Not marketing.” — Sarah [03:49]

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2. Acquisition’s Role in Retention

[04:33–08:03]

• Nate’s Experience:
  Data at Original Grain (watches) showed products with the highest ad spend weren’t always the ones producing the best long-term customer value. Instead, they optimized acquisition offers for lifetime value (LTV) rather than just getting sales ([04:33]).
• Customer Timing Matters:
  Customers acquired during sales events like Black Friday were less valuable than those acquired off-promo (August/September), as they’d buy again when the big sales hit.
• Lifecycle Optimization:
  Focusing acquisition on higher-value cohorts improves retention outcomes; getting the right customer in makes everything downstream easier.

QUOTES:

• “The amount of people that don't realize their email list is made up of majority prospects, not customers, is insane to me.” — Nate [03:23]
• “If you don't get acquisition right, then you have no chance of getting retention.” — Nate [08:03]

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3. Understanding Customer Timing & Behavior

[08:03–11:49]

• Consideration Cycles:
  Some customers wait a year to buy after first learning about a product. Brands must educate and stay top-of-mind over long periods ([08:33]).
• Consumables/Cycles:
  In CPG, default replenishment cycles don’t fit all customers—behavior varies, and reminders must be relevant to actual need ([09:41]).
• Divergent Email Ecosystem:
  Sarah notes that those who join the email list are often not the same as immediate buyers; their motivations and values differ.

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4. Messaging Consistency Across Channels

[11:49–13:26]

• Misalignment is Common:
  “Super inconsistent messaging from ads to emails” persists due to teams focusing creative energy on ads and neglecting email flows.
• Effective Strategy:
  Brands should echo winning messages from ads throughout all emails and touchpoints for a seamless customer journey.

QUOTE:

• “If we know exactly what messaging produces the best customer behavior, then we got to say it in the ad, in the caption, in the welcome email, on the landing page, on the post purchase email.” — Nate [12:47]

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5. What Actually Drives Retention? Providing Real Value

[13:26–15:31]

• Alyssa’s Case Study (Breeze):
  The most successful campaign was not a discount or offer, but mocktail recipes—no hard sell, just genuine value ([13:26]).
• Human-Centric Approach:
  Brands keeping it real, talking about everyday life, and providing practical or emotional value (not constant selling) tend to foster deeper loyalty.
• Understanding Your Audience:
  Recognizing buyers’ life context (ex: job dissatisfaction, financial pressure) is key to resonant communication.

QUOTE:

• “I think marketers underestimate how much most Americans hate their jobs... What matters to people is... they want people to understand and feel heard and feel seen.” — Nate [14:45]

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6. The Future: Connection Over Channels

[16:47–21:41]

• Natural Selection in E-commerce:
  Only products and brands that genuinely help people will survive—no amount of hacky tactics will substitute for quality ([16:47]).
• Focusing on Fewer Channels:
  Brands are consolidating onto the most effective channels (especially email) and questioning if SMS or other tactics are really necessary ([17:56]).
• Specialization vs. Spreading Thin:
  Alyssa recommends mastering one or two key communication channels rather than chasing every new platform or gadget.

QUOTE:

• “Ask yourself, are we running SMS because it's actually helping the customer or are we running it because we thought we could get more cash from it? Because that's not a good marriage.” — Sarah [19:09]

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7. The Customer Experience: It’s About Them, Not You

[21:41–25:41]

• Retention Often Gets the “Leftovers”:
  Email and retention marketers often work with what’s left after acquisition teams launch campaigns—this causes disconnect.
• Segmentation for Success:
  Advocating for separate landing pages for retention vs. acquisition so that emails can be targeted, relevant, and their impact measurable ([22:15–23:36]).
• Experimentation & Playfulness:
  Human, light-hearted approaches—like sending “here are my favorite sandwiches” emails—build goodwill and foster sharing far better than transactional messaging.

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8. Loyalty: Make It Earned and Special

[25:41–27:47]

• Reward Returning Customers:
  Alyssa argues loyalty should be genuinely earned, not simply given—with perks and a sense of achievement ([25:41]).
• Gamification Works:
  People desire to “earn” status, even if it’s hard: “They actually want it to be hard...they like to earn stuff.”
• Retention as “Pen Pal”:
  Sarah frames retention marketing as building a pen-pal-style relationship, grounded in ongoing, meaningful exchange—not just transactional mails.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 03:49 | Sarah | “Just because somebody purchased it once does not mean they're going to be in the market to purchase it again...that's habit building and behavioral like mechanism basically is what you're trying to build. Not marketing.” | | 08:03 | Nate | “If you don't get acquisition right, then you have no chance of getting retention.” | | 12:47 | Nate | “If we know exactly what messaging produces the best customer behavior, then we got to say it in the ad, in the caption of the ad, in the welcome email, on the landing page, on the post purchase email.” | | 13:26 | Alyssa | “Our mocktail recipe Evergreen campaign is consistently the highest performing and is even on par with any of our offer focused campaigns.” | | 14:45 | Nate | “Marketers underestimate how much most Americans hate their jobs... What matters to people is... they want to feel heard and feel seen.” | | 19:09 | Sarah | “Ask yourself, are we running SMS because it's actually helping the customer or are we running it because we thought we could get more cash from it? Because that's not a good marriage.” | | 25:41 | Sarah | “I can't tell you how much I wish people understood retention-based marketing is pen pal. You are a pen pal.” |

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Important Timestamps

• 02:17 – Alyssa defines retention and lifecycle marketing
• 04:33 – Nate shares the Original Grain case study on optimizing for LTV over top-line sales
• 08:33 – Understanding customer consideration cycles
• 13:26 – Alyssa’s real-life example: mocktail emails outperform discount offers
• 16:47 – The future: only genuinely helpful products and brands survive
• 19:09 – Rethinking the channels you really need for your brand
• 22:15–23:36 – The argument for dedicated retention landing pages
• 25:41 – The case for earned, not automatic, loyalty programs

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Conclusion

Sarah, Alyssa (and briefly, Nate) offer a refreshingly honest, psychology-grounded take on what really sustains e-commerce brands: authentic connections, behavioral insight, and a relentless focus on actual customer needs—not just “marketing hacks.”
Retention, they argue, is less about pushing offers, and more about becoming a habit in the customer's life. It's about showing up with value, relevance, and humanity at every touchpoint.

Follow Alyssa Wallace: Anytime on social platforms under X.AlyssaJeanX
Follow Sarah Levinger: At SarahLevinger everywhere

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For anyone looking to transform their retention strategy from transactional to truly habit-forming, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[A]

I'm just burnt out, I think, entirely. And it's not even true for you.

[B]

Do you want to know how burnt out I am? I quit my job.

[A]

Oh, Nate.

[C]

Next level. Congratulations.

[B]

Thanks.

[A]

You're going to be fine.

[B]

Someone sent me you. You know the meme of, like, the guy who, like, has two buttons to press and he's, like, sweating over.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Someone sent it to me. And on one of them was like, take paternity leave. And the other was just quit your whole job. And they're like, this is you. And I was like, yeah. Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands. We got another fantastic guest episode. It's not just me and Sarah. We are joined by retention and life cycle marketer extraordinaire.

[A]

Oh, wow, that's a good title. I'd keep that one.

[B]

Yeah. Alyssa Wallace. What's going on? Welcome to the pod.

[C]

It's going good. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. I've talked a lot to Sarah, which is always a vibe, but see you, Nate. On the little, like, shorts on Sarah's feed is a good intro to it. I'm like, oh, so we're starting a brand this year.

[B]

Brand this year.

[A]

Apparently, I put you in the clips this time. I tried really hard this week to make sure he was.

[B]

I've been complaining to Sarah for a year of. Of doing this pod because every clip she would post, I don't talk in it. I'm just, like, nodding on the other screen and she talks for a minute and then the clip ends and I'm like, all right.

[A]

Like, I'm so sorry.

[B]

Anyways, this week I got to talking about clips, and by the way, numbers are up, so, I mean, maybe there's something to it.

[A]

You know, we are actually. We're doing better. We're doing better. I'm super excited to chat with you. You and I have sat down and had, like, conversations. Well, both of us, me and Nate, me and Alyssa. But now all three of us together is gonna be lovely because Alyssa does something that I don't do a whole lot these days because I'm solidly an acquisition. But you have, like, a. A really, really deep dive handle on retention and lifecycle marketing in particular, which we were just discussing before we hit record, the differences of, like, definitions in this industry around loyalty based attention focused marketing. Drastically different. Like, people don't seem to understand what that is. So do you want to start by giving us kind of a rundown of, like, what are you. How do you term these? Like, the differences in all Those.

[C]

So everywhere I look there's not a clear definition. How I'm defining it internally is retention is just how many times someone comes back to purchase. It's like an action simple.

[A]

I love this simple. Yeah. Amazing. Yes. Good definition.

[C]

And then life cycle is kind of just macro view of the map of all the touch points used to incentivize that repeat purchase.

[A]

Yeah. Which field do you play in? Like which sandbox do you prefer to play in? I should ask.

[C]

I feel like they're interconnected because how else?

[B]

Yeah, agreed.

[A]

Yeah, true.

[C]

One doesn't come without the other. And now that I'm in it, like now I'm confused because I'm using email and SMS marketing and we're dealing with people who haven't purchased before. So I'm like, so acquisition.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, I feel it to myself.

[B]

I'm super glad this conversation is coming to light because like all of it is just selling. All of it is just marketing.

[C]

We're doing the same thing, guys. Yeah.

[B]

I know. I, I've had to like the, the amount of people that don't realize their email list is made up of majority prospects, not customers.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Is insane to me. And I'm like, hey, no, no. Your emails are acquisition. Like yeah.

[A]

Yep. Well, if you're the person that's running it and you're confused, can you imagine like what these brands are thinking? They're just like, somebody take this and do something with it.

[B]

I think their email, oh my God. Is their customer base. And it's like, no.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's not that.

[A]

I am shocked. And they can't tell like by email address. They cannot tell which one are closer, like closest to the purchase, which one of them just got done with the purchase. But then like may never purchase again. I don't think people understand and realize that like retention lice. We should be looking at the whole thing together as a sales process. And this is something I just posted about, I think a couple days ago. There's a very distinct, very clear behavioral science fact around this that like just because somebody purchased it once does not mean they're going to be in the market to purchase it again for any reason ever. So if you're trying to get people to purchase again and again, that's habit building and behavioral like mechanism basically is what you're trying to build. Not marketing. Not marketing like at all.

[B]

Well, and like a big part of the reason we had success at OG was because like we looked at this holistically. Like when, you know, when I first started digging it into some of our our data, we realized that our best selling watches were not actually the best watches to sell. They were the watches that we were like investing the most time into, the most ad spend into. They were the watches that like the marketing team was focused on, but they didn't produce the most lifetime profit dollars. So like, we like reverse engineered the life cycle of our customers by being like, which watches are we selling that produce the best customer behavior in the 12 months following that first order? And then we're like, that's what we should be advertising. Because I've seen so many like hacky or just plain bad acquisition offers that result in no ltv. And then it's like, well then what are you doing? You're not building a brand that's going to last.

[C]

Nate, I actually have a question for you on this because this question keeps coming up. Ever since last year I was at commerce table, which is this theory of finding that cohort of people that are like the ideal customer. And that could be a combination of scoring of like the acquisition side, like how efficient the cost is and on the retention side, how profitable is their lifetime revenue. And combining that and then finding that cohort and finding signals that indicate that person is arriving and kind of working backwards from there.

[A]

That's a great question about this because I think a lot of people have this question of like, how do I work?

[B]

Okay, so for, for us, it came down to the product. They bought, the offer that was on that product, and then the messaging of it. Like, we very clearly saw, you know, certain products performed better than others. But we also saw like our least valuable customers bought between Black Friday and. Yeah, yeah, those are the least valuable customers we have. They're just waiting for a deal. Whereas the most valuable customers, we get by in August and September. So like that timing matters.

[A]

Whoa. Right before Black Friday.

[B]

And it's because those people are still like in top of mind enough to buy again when we get to the sale. So like, that changed how we market. And then like, you know, a lot of our messaging and copy, when we got more into selling the lifestyle and the identity that our customers wanted to see, those people started spending more on first order and on repeat orders. Because we weren't just selling them like on features, we weren't just selling them on a deal. We were selling them on like becoming an original grain kind of man. So those are kind of like the big, whatever, four segments for us. The product, the timing, the offer and the messaging, like all painted a very clear picture of who our most Valuable customers are. So this time of year, in September, we are advertising the right products, the right offer, the right messaging, and the right wow. Well, it's the right time. Like, I know the customers that we're acquiring today are going to be the most valuable ones we have. So we're pushing the throttle on acquisition, but that's kind of how like we, we built it backwards. And then retention, I mean, like, doesn't take care of itself. There's obviously like a lot of work to do. But if you don't get acquisition right, then you have no chance of getting retention.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Yeah. That's so interesting. I was listening to a little mini another clip this last week of you guys and it adds color to this because you were talking about like pushing more content earlier before, like it starts October 1st or something, or September and October. And I'm curious on how you like pinpoint these cohorts. Is it just by measuring the LTV on the people that come through during a specific month?

[B]

Yeah, like the time of year matters a ton for us. And then like something that we've tried to work into, like our entire funnel from the ads to emails which are acquisition focused. We're just really starting to understand like, how long our consideration cycle is. And we have like a third of our customers that wait to buy from us a year after they first hear about who we are. So we have a lot of like, we have like a lot of educating, a lot of persuading, a lot of kind of like priming that we have to do before we get something, before we get someone to buy. And we find that true for both acquisition and life cycle marketing efforts. Like, someone buys the first watch, great, that clock kind of resets. They don't need another one next week or next month even. They might need one for a wedding in a couple of months. They might need one for a Christmas gift at some point. Yeah, but understanding just like our customers consideration cycle was super important into making sure we were dialed in on this.

[A]

I think it also comes down to a little bit of understanding how often your customers need this when it comes to their when. Right. So we talk about when a lot on this particular podcast. But for CPG brands, for anything consumable, anything that runs out, you got to track that customer lifecycle span pretty fricking closely because it's not always the three month supply that you gave them. Sometimes they'll run through a little bit of a third of whatever the product is. Then they'll like fall off the wagon for a little bit not consume a ton for the next month, but they'll still have, you know, two thirds of the bottle left by month three. They don't need more product yet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you can't just put in place these retention cycles, especially on the email side, to just drink, buy more. Because like a three month reminder does nothing for their behavior. When they're like, I still have product.

[C]

You're just squeezing the sponge and ruining the account while annoying people at the same time.

[A]

Yeah. And you definitely don't want to annoy people, especially with email. I've noticed the behavior inside inboxes has changed a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot these days. Because I don't find, especially when I'm working with like brands where we have to try and find a good way to squeeze both acquisition and retention at the same time or they don't. They're, they're trying really hard to make sure that they're working well together. We find that the ads seem to be drawing in a really specific type of customer. But the only people that stay in the email ecosystem are drastically different people.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, that's super interesting.

[A]

Totally different customer type. They just, it's, it's almost like a completely different value system. They don't, at least from like what we're seeing from the cim, they don't seem to correlate with why they came in, which is scary. Acquisition, they came in for this reason. Retention. They're staying for another.

[C]

Yeah, that actually makes sense to me because for the brands that I buy instantly, I know I just want that one product and I'm leaving. And then for the ones I actually like intentionally put my email in, I'm like, I'm saving up for when, for when this is more relevant in my life. So I'm just gonna see what pops up eventually, but there's no urgency.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, it's interesting because I've never heard of a customer ever being like, I just really like their emails. So I signed up because I was like, these are the greatest emails ever. I just want to get them in my. No one likes, no one ever.

[B]

And like no one even buys from you because they like your ad. Like, there's nothing about your brand that people like. I think we need to get that into our.

[C]

True.

[B]

I always see like super inconsistent messaging from ads to emails from brands because everyone focuses their creative testing program like around their ad account. And then your welcome email flow was built like two years ago and you haven't updated it. And like that's something that like I've been guilty of at times and something we worked on this year with, like, if we know exactly what messaging produces the best customer behavior, then we got to say it in the ad, in the caption of the ad, in the welcome email, on the. The landing page, on the post purchase email.

[A]

Y gotta be consistent.

[B]

We know what works. Let's put it everywhere. And that's where I think, like, a lot of people lose out on this is like, they, quote, sell, like, this solution, this opportunity. They sell a bag of goods in the ad and then they get to the email flow. And the email flow is like, use code WELCOME10 for 10% off. And it's like, you, we're not done selling them.

[A]

So I have a question for Alyssa, though. You. You work with like a bunch of different brands and you have these, like, experiences of like, all these different retention focused, lifestyle focused campaigns in place. Do you find that there's a consistent thread with people who purchase? Again, like, behaviorally, is. Are there some messages that just resonate really well with them?

[C]

Well, for Breeze specifically, like, by far, our mocktail recipe Evergreen campaign is consistently the highest performing and is even on par with any of our offer focused campaigns.

[A]

A recipe.

[C]

And the mocktails have no call to action, really. It's just like, here's the recipe.

[A]

It's value. Oh, I love this. I love this and that.

[C]

On top of Corbin just talking about, like, life in general, like, what's going on in his week and what's been helping out. And like, fortunately, the customer service team at Breeze is like, really proactive and prompt so that we can do a lot of these initiatives of, like, you can reply and we'll answer immediately. And it's not a empty promise.

[A]

I'd be interested to see more of those emails for Breeze of, like, calling out situational wins, right? So Monday Blues is a thing. There's also something on Thursday where it's like 3pm I have one full day to do tomorrow that I do not want to do. And now I'm just kind of like, this is what I did yesterday afternoon. I just kind of like, didn't work. Like, I went out to the front swing and I was like on my phone, like, scrolling. I'm like, this is work, right? And that was my Thursday afternoon because I was so drained, I couldn't do anymore. That happens everywhere.

[B]

Like, I think marketers, especially in our industry, underestimate how much most Americans hate their jobs. And I think we need to be playing it like the average American makes 66 grand a year. That does not like their job and hates their boss and is like, well.

[A]

And doesn't have a choice.

[B]

I think we need to play into, like, what people are going through on a day to day basis more. And like, yeah, just what matters to people is, like, they want people to understand and feel heard and feel seen and feel like, valued for what they're going through. And I think the brands that can do that are the brands that can hold people for years and years and years, because you're not just buying a product. You're buying into a brand that gets what you go through Monday through Friday.

[A]

I think sometimes D2C marketing can come across as a little insensitive because we run a lot of emails that say, we have a sale. It's a little great call out. You know, we're, we're. We're doing this thing, like, come give us money is all we say, come give us money. Come give us money. And that's why I love that one of the top performers for you guys is something that didn't have a CTA in it. It was just like, check out this cool recipe, guys. Pin it to your Pinterest board. You're gonna love this one. Take it home, please. Destress this weekend because we know you're broke and sad and so are we. Like, this being human. Ah. Okay. We could keep talking about this for so long, but unfortunately, I think we. I think Nate has a hard stop.

[B]

I've got a heart out. Y' all can keep going if you want to, but Alyssa, it was nice to meet you. To meet you. Good episode. If you'll want to keep it rolling, go for it, but I will see y'.

[A]

All. I love this conversation. We're gonna. We're gonna keep it going for, like, just a little bit longer because now I have all the questions and I can't, like, stop coming to my head. What do you think is going to be the future then? Because, like, we have this role of, like, it's coming across as insensitive, customers are broke, and, like, we have just thousands of ads and thousands of emails going out basically every month for some of these brands. What. What should we be focused on?

[C]

I have no clue if it's unconventional or conventional, but I just think natural selection is in full swing. So if you don't have a good product, if it's not helping someone, like genuinely helping someone, oh, my gosh, it's gonna. You're gonna die.

[A]

Nate is gonna be so sad that he missed this part of the podcast because, yes, 100% natural selection business is happening right now. If you can't figure out a good way to connect with customers emotionally and if you can't, if you really are struggling to understand what that even means, you got to go back to square one and do some, like, educating of yourself.

[C]

I'm seeing across brands year over year, growth and like conversion is just decreasing.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Over time. And I have no visibility on acquisition side to see, but have only heard that they're like turning off the faucet on it just because. To save costs or like even turning off SMS altogether just to save costs and focusing majority on email. So I think it's making us, I think it's making us better people.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think it's making us a ton as marketers to get really good at maybe two channels, not like 17 channels like we had in Covid. It was just like, God, how are we keeping up with all of this now? I'm seeing the same where, like, brands are pulling back a little bit and saying, do we really need SMS to scale? Do we really need to have like all these other channels? Yeah.

[C]

Which is an interesting question because I've been asked that over the last three years, like, oh, I want to do sms. And I'm like, do you need it though?

[A]

Do you need it? Yes. Yeah.

[C]

Like, is it supportive?

[A]

Yeah. Or is it going to do what you think it is you're going to do? Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Does your audience actually use their text like that? Because I would talk to brands that have obviously older demographics and they're asking about SMS and I'm like, I, it's. You can test it, but I highly doubt. I think we should specialize in like this one email channel first and then ask, like, actually have that feedback loop on how you want to be communicated, especially if it's like subscription or something that you can replenish, like, hey, can we do this to make your life easier? And then you're more.

[A]

This is the question I've been asking myself all year. And it's something again. When you're in the business, it's like really difficult to pull yourself out far enough to be able to think sometimes because you're just putting out fires left and right every day. One of the things that I'm trying to come to terms with is like, what's best for the customer? What's best for the customer this year? So ask yourself, are we running SMS because it's actually helping the customer or are we running it because we thought we could get more cash from it because that's not a good marriage. Sure, you can make money from it, but if your customers are using it just because it was an option and they don't like the text message you send, they're just deleting them, you're not really doing much with it. It's almost similar to like back in the day when pop ups had like a really low opt in rate. It was like a 3 to 5% opt in rate for your pop up is like a good rate. I'm sitting here over going, being like, okay, so that means 95 of the people that land on this pop up don't want it. Why do you have it then? Yeah, the majority of the people don't want it. Why do you?

[C]

That's a really good point. It's because everyone and their mom is saying that you need things that you.

[A]

Don'T, that you need it. I'm like, I don't know that you need it. Especially if you have other channels where the customers like, you know, you got like a 70% opt in rate. I'm like, that's the channel where the majority of my customers are at least engaged enough and enjoy it enough to opt in. I'd rather spend my time there and get that 70 up to a 75 this month, not try and increase my pop up from a three to a seven. Like, I'm just like, what is going on? What is going on? And I think it comes down to perception. Like you said, a lot of it, a lot of it is just like, I don't know, the, this big brand over here said they're doing it, so I'm just gonna do it. And I'm like, I think that's where the retention people or the, the life cycle people honestly have it harder than the ad people. Like, I think ad people are struggling. It's hard out here. But I have full control over what goes out in that ad, what we say. And I also have a little bit of control over the landing page because they have to be congruent. Right. It's like we have to work together. Email retention, it's literally just like, you have what you need, go do it. And you're like, but none of what I do is attached to like what's on the lander. They're going back to the landing page, but I can't control what's on that right now. So everything I do in the email is dependent on what you guys are doing in acquisition. So I basically like the leftovers sort of. Of marketing.

[C]

Yeah, it's like trusting that they know what they're doing and that this, that this does work and that's why it's staying online. And then on my side, it's. Which honestly fits what I think my brand is because the theme of being resourceful and as creative as possible with the most limited amount of resources has been in my life since day one. So I think it's just natural that I'm in this position. I dug this hole myself. I dug it, I'm sitting in it.

[A]

It's good skill set, though. You've built up enough of that skill of I can be creative with this. You give me a banana, a golf ball, and like a card. I'll figure out how to make something interesting from this. Like, here we go. And then you just do it. But this is why I have started to advise brands. You need a different landing page ecosystem for your acquisition and different landers for your retention. Separate freaking landers. Do not send a retention customer to an acquisition. What is going on? And this is also.

[C]

You're supposed to measure the difference. Either you can't.

[A]

I can't tell, like, what am I supposed to do with that? So. And again, I know this goes, like, right out, like, side of my mouth. We literally just said at the beginning of this, oh, you know, like, you, you should. It's different for each. But they're all acquisition, all of its sales. I still think that's a hundred percent true. But what that means is anybody that's warmed up on an email list should not be sent back to a page that talks about education. We're like. Is really very vague. Right. They need to be sent to a landing page that talks about, like, you know, this. We don't need to remind you of this.

[C]

It's like they're five miles away from their destination and we're taking them another 20 miles further away.

[A]

Exactly. Back to the beginning of the journey and being like, wait, wait, we. We want to remind you again of the beginning of your journey.

[C]

It's like, you know, information already.

[A]

You know, every email batch. I would say not like every single email, but like, we have a batch of, you know, 20 emails we're sending this month. Can we send them all to one specific lander that's in congruency with the messaging we're sending out in those emails so that we're not trying to send people back to the beginning of the destination and so that we can track just that ecosystem from warm traffic. I don't want to muddy it with cold traffic. People who have no idea who we are who just came off of an ad.

[C]

Yeah. And I think it's more efficient overall because it's changing what is like measured intuitively over a six month or 12 month time span to even maybe as soon as like one week. It's a lot of work, but less time overall because it's just that one week that you have this live.

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

And then you move on to the next one.

[A]

Yep. Yes. And then, then yeah. Your retention focused team then doesn't have to try and like play with what acquisition is doing because they have their own ecosystem set up. You could track it way, way better. Oh, I could go so far down this rabbit hole.

[C]

Just like, just this is why, this is the only motivation of why I need to start a brand at some point because I have these theories and I want to do the complete opposite just to fuck around and find out and box brands.

[A]

Yes, Nate. And I want to want to start one so bad this year because I'm like, I just want to fuck around with something and I want to be able to just be like, what if we send out a weird list that's like, here's all of the sandwiches I ate in the last two months. We want to know what, what sandwiches did you guys eat this week? Like dumb shit. Like, I just want to send something stupid and see what the response is because like people are dying for that kind of content. They just want to feel happy for two seconds. Guys. It's hard to be a human distracted.

[C]

Happy and not sold to at the same time.

[A]

I can't tell you how much I wish people understood retention based marketing is pen pal. You are a pen pal. That's what you.

[C]

Okay. On the pen pal note for found if, you know, just, you know, thinking about the future. If I had my own brand and it was founder focused, I would totally send handwritten letters to like the top 1%. And that brings me to this other question that I feel like you've already thought about. But it's a non data backed theory or belief that I have that we should be rewarding returning customers significantly more than any new customers. So it's earned. It's an earned relationship. And you can feel, and I'm sure on the customer side you could feel a sense of achievement in earning this type of status instead of like plopping this loyalty status with no actual perks with.

[A]

Yeah, well, no perks. No, they didn't earn it. Like, no. Likes to be told you're special without having to earn it because they know in their brain that they haven't. And so they're going to sit down, what is this for? Like, I'm not going to do anything with this. I'm also not incentivized to keep doing it. People, humans love games. They like to earn stuff. They actually want it to be hard. That sounds weird, but they do. So, yeah, loyalty, emails, retention, like, any of this stuff, you got to make it hard for people to get something from you. And this is probably a good spot to end this because you and I are going to talk about this for like two straight hours. Yeah, you are doing a fantastic job because you think about it and I think this is like, good marketers think about what they do and say, is this how we should be doing this? They don't just like, okay, just keep going, like, whatever. We're just going to keep doing. I think the more you think about it, the better content you're going to be able to make. Because this week, on top of your CTAs and like driving river, whatever it is, you might send a random email that's just like, here's all the sandwiches we have this week. What kind of sandwiches you guys have this week? And then you're going to see drastic numbers come into the inbox and they're going to share it with their friends who share it with their friends who share it with their friends. You'll get that kind of chain mail type thing going because people are like this, like, weird sandwich email I just got. And that's how you drive. Good retention. Why can people follow you if they want to, like, watch your journey? Come work with you. Where can they find you?

[C]

They can find me on anything with the username X. Alyssa Jean X. Yay. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you so much for coming on this show. This was lovely chatting.

[C]

It was so fun. Will I see you at commerce table?

[A]

I was gonna come to you, but I didn't get invited. One and two. Usually I. Okay. And I'm not saying that, like, Sarah didn't get invited, so I'm not coming. It was more like, if you don't tell me when it is, I don't know these are happening. And like, I didn't hear from anybody that this was a thing. And I was like, crap. So I ran out of time to, like, book any ticket. And then I. Yeah, we have other kids stuff going on this year. So I was like, crap.

[C]

Well, we'll catch up. We'll catch up.

[A]

So it's gonna be great. Thank you for chatting. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm at Sarah Levinger. Anywhere you consume content, he is at Nate Lagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. See you next time.