Email marketing works best when it’s treated as a system, not a series of one-off newsletters. Getting casual browsers to become repeat customers takes two things working together: a solid automated lifecycle running in the background, and broadcast campaigns that are actually built to convert.
This case study looks at how we rebuilt Photosetup‘s email channel around that idea – combining full-funnel automations with sharper, more strategic campaigns. The results peaked with a holiday promotion that alone brought in over half the client’s email revenue for the month.
Phase 1: The Foundation – Six Core Automations
Before scaling campaign volume, we needed to capture intent at every stage of the customer journey. We built and optimized six flows to cover that:
- New Subscriber Flow – introduces first-time joiners to the brand and delivers a welcome incentive to drive the first purchase.
- Site Abandonment Flow – re-engages visitors who explored the store but left without viewing specific product pages.
- Browse Abandonment Flow – targets users who viewed specific products, with recommendations based on their exact browsing history.
- Cart Abandonment Flow – reaches shoppers who added items to their cart, addressing common purchase hesitations.
- Checkout Abandonment Flow – recovers high-value orders at the final step with reassurance, payment clarity, or quick support.
- New Customer / Post-Purchase Flow – onboards buyers after the sale with product care tips, delivery expectations, and an invitation to come back.
These six flows became the baseline: always-on, running in the background, independent of whatever campaigns were live that week.
Phase 2: Retention Layer – Loyalty and NPS via theMarketer
With the foundation in place, we shifted focus to retention and lifetime value. We used theMarketer’s built-in loyalty and Net Promoter Score (NPS) tools to add a second layer on top of the core flows:
- Loyalty automations – messages triggered by tier status, reward point accumulation, and redemption reminders, encouraging repeat orders without leaning on discounts.
- NPS automations – post-purchase satisfaction surveys. High scorers were routed toward review requests and referrals; low scores were flagged to customer support for fast follow-up.
Phase 3: High-Impact Commercial Campaigns
Automations capture intent that’s already there. Campaigns create demand. On top of the flows, we ran a structured campaign calendar built around new product launches across the client’s multi-brand catalog, and promotions matched to subscriber segments.
Spotlight: The “12 Days of Christmas” Campaign
During peak Q4, we ran a daily event across 12 days: a new deal each day, sent by email and mirrored with a matching website popup, so the messaging stayed consistent across channels.
The campaign sent 227,476 emails – 71.63% of the store’s entire December email volume. Normally, that kind of frequency risks fatiguing an audience. Here, the opposite happened:
- Open rate: 34.52%, versus a 31.60% average for the rest of the period
- Click rate: 2.88%, versus a 2.52% average for the rest of the period
Despite making up nearly three-quarters of the month’s send volume, the campaign wasn’t diluting engagement – it was driving it. That volume converted directly into revenue: the 12-day campaign alone accounted for 54.84% of all email-driven revenue in December.
The Takeaway
Six automations gave the client a revenue floor that didn’t depend on anyone actively running a campaign. Loyalty and NPS gave repeat customers a reason to stay repeat customers. And when it came time to push hard for the holidays, that foundation meant the “12 Days of Christmas” campaign wasn’t a one-off stunt – it was a spike built on top of a system that was already working, which is why it could send at high frequency without burning out the list.
