What a Full-Funnel Retention Audit Reveals: Lessons From a Deep Dive Into a Fast-Growing Beauty Brand

Most Shopify brands don’t have a “retention problem” as much as they have a retention system problem. Channels are turned on, flows exist, campaigns go out, loyalty and subscriptions are technically live—but the ecosystem isn’t working together to meaningfully change customer behavior.

In a recent full-funnel retention audit for a fast-growing beauty brand, our team at Sticky Digital took a deep look at email, SMS, onsite, loyalty, subscriptions, and the underlying data stack. The brand had everything most marketers dream of: beloved hero products, a recognizable aesthetic, visible loyalty benefits, and a solid subscription offering. And yet, the retention system was under-performing its potential.

What we found is instructive for almost every Shopify brand: great products and beautiful campaigns are not enough. Without accurate events, thoughtful segmentation, and lifecycle-aware orchestration, even the strongest brands quietly leak revenue at every stage of the customer journey.

Why Run a Retention Audit in the First Place?

Traditional reporting tells you what happened—opens, clicks, placed orders. A true retention audit tells you why it happened:

  • Where customers get stuck or confused
  • Which flows are doing work and which are decorative
  • Where data is breaking, causing critical flows not to fire
  • How loyalty and subscription programs are actually influencing behavior
  • Where email and SMS are overlapping or leaving gaps

For this brand, the audit surfaced nine big themes—patterns we see again and again across mid- to late-stage Shopify merchants. You’ll likely recognize more than one in your own program.

1. Flow Revenue Lagged Behind Flow Volume

One of the first red flags: flow revenue was underperforming relative to flow sends. At a glance, attributed revenue looked “fine,” but a closer inspection showed:

  • Core flows (Welcome, Abandonment, Post-Purchase, Subscription Lifecycle) were firing inconsistently
  • Welcome flows lacked clear hierarchy and urgency for first purchase
  • Abandonment journeys didn’t leverage loyalty or personalized product logic
  • Post-purchase flows weren’t doing enough to set up the second order

This is the kind of problem a brand can’t see from a dashboard alone. The flows existed, but structurally they weren’t doing the heavy lifting they were designed to do.

2. Hero SKUs Were Carrying Retention—But the System Didn’t Support Them

When we looked at first-time purchasers and repeat behavior, a clear pattern emerged:

  • A small set of hero products drove the majority of first orders
  • Those same SKUs also dominated repeat purchase behavior
  • Hero SKUs were not consistently prioritized in lifecycle flows

This is a classic beauty and personal-care pattern: customers fall in love with a handful of products and then either deepen into a routine—or drift away.

The opportunity was obvious: build the entire early lifecycle around those hero SKUs:

  • Welcome email/SMS: lead with the strongest hero products and proof points
  • Browse abandonment: compare similar SKUs, answer “which one is right for me?”
  • Post-purchase flows: usage education + cross-sell into related categories
  • Loyalty + subscription: points multipliers and refill messaging anchored to the heroes

The brand didn’t need more acquisition offers—it needed a retention system intentionally built around products customers already adored.

3. Deliverability Was “Good”—But Broad Sending Was Hiding Opportunity

On paper, deliverability metrics looked strong. But the audit called out several subtle issues that were quietly depressing revenue per recipient:

  • Segments were too broad (e.g., “engaged 90 days” used as a default catch-all)
  • Soft bounces from certain inbox providers were stacking up
  • There was minimal personalization beyond basic merge tags
  • Dynamic content and decision helpers were rarely used

This is a common trap: deliverability health can look fine while performance is held back by “safe” but blunt targeting. The fix here isn’t to send more. It’s to:

  • Create narrower intent-based segments (e.g., recent PDP viewers, high LTV customers, loyalty members)
  • Rotate segments (30/60/90-day engaged, non-purchasers, winback cohorts) instead of blasting everyone
  • Layer dynamic blocks for recommendations, routines, and loyalty context

4. Campaigns Looked Great—but Were Serving the Wrong Moments

Visually, the campaigns were some of the strongest we’ve seen: beautiful photography, well-designed layouts, clear merchandising. Performance was solid. And yet, the audit uncovered a deeper issue:

  • Campaigns over-indexed on returning customers
  • New and first-time shoppers didn’t get enough structured orientation
  • Education and evergreen storytelling lived in campaigns instead of in flows
  • Hero layouts often lacked supporting copy for more methodical shoppers

The result: campaigns were doing too much heavy lifting for mid- and late-stage customers, while flows were underutilized as always-on education and conversion assets.

The fix was to:

  • Move evergreen “how to choose, how to use” content into triggered flows
  • Introduce “first-time purchaser” modules in campaigns to support new buyers
  • Test hero-led vs product-first layouts to balance inspiration with clarity

5. Flow Strategy Was Strong—But Event Data Was Broken

Perhaps the most important insight of the entire audit: the strategic intent of the flows was sound. The limiting factor wasn’t ideas; it was data quality.

We found:

  • Missing or inconsistent Checkout Started events
  • Over-attribution to one subscription reminder flow
  • Multiple tracking sources firing overlapping events (native + third-party + server-side)
  • Flows that should have been high-volume instead under-fired because the trigger data never arrived

This is the silent killer of retention programs. If your events are wrong, no amount of copy, design, or offer testing can fix your flows. They simply won’t trigger often enough—or will trigger at the wrong time.

The remediation plan focused on consolidating event tracking under a single source of truth, removing redundant scripts, normalizing subscription events, and re-QAing every commerce event before rebuilding triggers.

6. SMS Was Stable—but Under-Leveraged

The SMS program had healthy unsubscribe rates and decent engagement, but it clearly hadn’t been given the same strategic rigor as email:

  • Segments were broad rather than event-driven
  • Lifecycle coverage was shallow (especially for abandonment, replenishment, and loyalty moments)
  • Welcome SMS was a single touch instead of a 2–3 message onboarding arc
  • Branching for purchasers vs non-purchasers was missing

In plain language: the audience was interested, but the brand wasn’t talking to them at the right moments.

The recommended path forward included:

  • Expanding SMS welcome into an onboarding micro-series
  • Adding high-intent flows (cart, checkout, refill reminders, points expiring)
  • Testing smaller, behavior-based segments (PDP viewers, loyalty members, subscription-curious shoppers)
  • Cross-promoting SMS perks via email to grow the list with higher-intent subscribers

7. Loyalty Was Visible—But Not Fully Profitable

The loyalty program had strong surface execution:

  • Points were visible in the header and on PDPs
  • Customers could see how many points they’d earn per purchase
  • Refill subscriptions earned double points and free shipping

But financially and behaviorally, the program wasn’t yet optimized:

  • Redemptions were not consistently tied to incremental orders
  • Points were often acting as discounts rather than as behavior-changing fuel
  • Most redemptions weren’t concentrated around high-impact lifecycle moments (second purchase, replenishment, add-ons)

A big takeaway: loyalty only works if it changes behavior. Otherwise, it’s just margin erosion in a nicer outfit.

The solution looked like:

  • Expressing points in clear dollar equivalents throughout the journey
  • Steering burns toward refills, cross-sells, and second purchases
  • Concentrating multipliers on key moments (e.g., second order within 45 days, refills, add-ons)
  • Letting loyalty reinforce subscriptions instead of discounting the core plan price

8. Subscription Was Strong at Checkout—but Weak at Renewal

Subscription performance showed a familiar pattern:

  • Subscribers grew month over month
  • Attach rates at checkout were excellent
  • Recurring orders had lower AOV and almost no add-ons
  • Churn was overwhelmingly voluntary (customers choosing to cancel)
  • Dunning logic recovered some failed payments but left meaningful revenue on the table

In practice, this meant the brand was good at getting subscribers—but not as good at keeping them or growing their value over time.

Recommendations included:

  • Turning “Upcoming Charge” into a mini storefront with clear points value and curated add-ons
  • Standardizing a save flow (swap → skip → change cadence → add-on offer → pause → cancel)
  • Clarifying the earn/burn rules so loyalty and subscription reinforced each other
  • Optimizing dunning cadence and messaging, with small loyalty rewards for successful recovery

9. The Tech Stack Was Installed—But Not Truly Integrated

The brand had invested in strong tools for:

  • Identity resolution and top-of-funnel list growth
  • Server-side event tracking
  • Subscription management
  • Loyalty

The problem was not the tools themselves—it was the way they overlapped:

  • Multiple systems were firing similar events into the ESP
  • Subscription events were over-attributing to a single flow
  • Cart and checkout signals weren’t reliably controlled by the server-side source of truth

For many brands, the next growth lever is not “adding more apps,” but simplifying and hardening the path data takes into Klaviyo (or any ESP/SMS platform).

From Audit to Action: A 30/60/90 Roadmap

For this brand, the outcome of the audit was not “here’s a long checklist of things to fix.” It was a staged 30/60/90 roadmap, sequenced for impact and sanity:

First 30 Days

  • Enforce a single source of truth for events
  • Re-QA core ecommerce and subscription events
  • Stabilize abandonment and subscription flows based on clean data
  • Add dollar-equivalent loyalty messaging to PDPs and cart

Next 30–60 Days

  • Refine segments and exclusions for both email and SMS
  • Move evergreen education into flows (welcome, browse, post-purchase)
  • Expand SMS lifecycle coverage (welcome series, high-intent triggers)
  • Introduce add-on merchandising and save-flow logic to subscriptions

Final 60–90 Days

  • Evaluate loyalty incrementality and adjust earn/burn rules
  • Test more advanced dynamic blocks and personalization in campaigns
  • Scale high-performing flows and SMS segments
  • Publish updated retention P&L and ROI for the leadership team

The goal of the roadmap wasn’t perfection. It was measured, compounding improvement—the kind that makes every future initiative easier, not harder.

What Other Shopify Brands Can Learn From This Audit

If you see yourself in this story, you’re not alone. Most scaling brands share at least a few of these traits:

  • Strong creative, inconsistent data
  • Hero products, underutilized flows
  • Healthy deliverability, blunt segmentation
  • Visible loyalty, unclear incrementality
  • Growing subscriptions, high voluntary churn
  • Powerful tech stack, overlapping signals

The cure is not working harder inside broken systems. The cure is stepping back and asking:

  • Do we trust our data enough to let flows do their job?
  • Are we designing around the products our customers actually love?
  • Does every message in our ecosystem earn its place?
  • Are we using loyalty and subscription as behavior engines—or just discount layers?
  • Is email and SMS orchestrated, or just coexisting?

A full-funnel retention audit doesn’t just give you answers. It gives you a sequenced plan for turning “we know we could be doing better” into “this is exactly what we’re doing next—and why.”

Ready to See What a Retention Audit Would Reveal for You?

If you suspect your brand is leaving retention revenue on the table—whether in underfiring flows, messy events, under-leveraged SMS, or loyalty and subscription programs that look good but don’t quite move the needle—it’s probably time to zoom out.

At Sticky Digital, we specialize in turning fragmented retention programs into orchestrated lifecycle engines across email, SMS, loyalty, and subscriptions. The work is detailed, but the payoff is simple: more customers coming back, more often, with higher long-term value—and fewer surprises in your revenue forecasts.

When you’re ready to see how your own retention ecosystem holds up under the microscope, we’d love to help.

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