We’re employee-owned, every team member you work with brings the mindset of a business owner.
Alan Coleman, CEO
After experiencing exponential growth in 2023, Petstop faced the challenge of rising acquisition costs in 2024. At the start of last year, it became evident that attracting new customers through paid channels was becoming increasingly difficult and expensive.Acquisition costs on Google and Meta surged by 60% YoY while Petstop’s marketing investment in these channels grew by just 7%. This didn’t signal a reduction in the brand’s ambitions - instead, it presented Wolfgang with a new challenge: identifying sustainable revenue streams to convert customers more efficiently.
After an impressive 488% YoY growth in 2023, powered by the rollout of multiple email automation flows, 2024 brought a new challenge: sustaining this momentum and driving continued growth amidst rising acquisition costs. With many key flows already in place, our focus shifted from rapid expansion to optimisation, refinement and innovation. Relying solely on the existing flows was no longer enough to achieve our ambitious KPI targets.
To drive sustainable growth we focused on new strategies for email automation to recapture both new and existing customers. Whether a customer had browsed, abandoned their cart, or dropped off at checkout, our goal was twofold: first, to bring them back to complete their purchase, and second, to encourage long-term loyalty through Petstop’s subscription model. This not only increased revenue but also boosted customer lifetime value, strengthening retention and brand loyalty. Our strategy centered around three core initiatives:
1) Hyper-Personalisation with AI: We implemented advanced segmentation and conditional logic to tailor each email to the customer's specific pet preferences. Additionally, through a custom integration with Shop Box, an AI-powered personalisation platform focusing on shopping psychology, we automatically populated hyper-relevant product recommendations using dynamic product feeds to boost relevance and performance.
2) Repeat purchases: To increase adoption of Petstop’s subscription model, we raised visibility and awareness of this service by adding universal content to all emails, highlighting the service and its incentive of saving up to 10% on every purchase. This resulted in an impressive 86% YoY increase in subscriptions, successfully turning once-off customers into repeat buyers.
3) Strategic Incentives: To effectively capture customers' attention, we provided time-sensitive discounts to create a sense of urgency, such as 10% off for the next 3 days. Additionally we highlighted the brand's value proposition by highlighting benefits such as: flexible payment options, free delivery on orders over €29 to encourage larger cart sizes, next-day delivery on 96% of orders, and customer reviews to strengthen purchase confidence.
By aligning our strategy with customer behaviour and leveraging automation, AI, and targeted incentives, we optimised conversion rates and built a foundation for sustainable, long-term growth.
We introduced a newly built in machine learning and data science mechanism in Klaviyo to predict customer behaviour. Using the “Expected Date of Next Order model”, Petstop’s first AI-driven flow predicted when customers were likely to reorder - unlocking a key opportunity to drive recurring sales. This flow enabled us to deliver timely, personalised content through a three-email sequence, culminating with an incentive to encourage action. We also enhanced the post-purchase journey by:
By creating a new AI-driven flow, optimising the post-purchase journey, and adding strategic content throughout all emails, we strengthened retention, maximised customer lifetime value, and achieved outstanding results.
Over the past six months, one of the biggest successes has been the predictive analytics flow, which contributed an incremental 36% revenue growth. The post-purchase flow alone played a crucial role, directly accounting for 15% of total revenue.
In today’s market, where acquiring a new customer costs nearly 7 times more than retaining one, focusing on new customer retention strategies has proven to be a cornerstone of our growth strategy. In 2024, Petstop achieved an ROI of 39:1, with YoY revenue increasing by 128% - a testament to the power of automation, innovation, and a data-driven brand strategy.
Average revenue growth from Email Automations YoY
Incremental Revenue Growth from AI automations
Customer Lifetime Value
RIO from Email
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