The Phoenix

The Metrics

• $15.8M total email revenue across 31 months (Jan 2022 — Jul 2024)
• $11.7M in 2022 — the scale-up year
• $1.64M in a single month — November 2022, peak performance
• 50.45% of store revenue from email in Nov 2022
• 47.61% of store revenue from email in Jul 2024 — still dominant two and a half years in
• 15-20+ automated flows generating $100K-$210K/month on autopilot
• 39.54% open rate post-cleanup (May 2023)
• 30-47% email attribution sustained through 2023-2024

Before: Email Was an Afterthought

I'm going to walk you through the most complete email marketing case study we've ever published. Not because the numbers are big -- they are -- but because this story has everything. The explosive growth. The near-disaster. The recovery. And ultimately, the proof that email isn't just "another channel." It can be the channel.

When we started working with The Phoenix in January 2022, email was driving about 14-19% of their total store revenue. For a health and wellness eCommerce brand doing serious volume, that's... fine. It's not terrible. But it's leaving millions on the table.

Here's what the situation actually looked like:

The flows were basic. A welcome series. Maybe a cart abandonment sequence. The kind of stuff that comes pre-built when you first set up Klaviyo. Nothing custom. Nothing strategic. Just the default templates doing default things. (If you're wondering what a properly built email and SMS marketing operation looks like, keep reading.)

Segmentation barely existed. Campaigns went out to the full list. Same message to the person who bought yesterday and the person who hasn't opened an email in six months. That's not email marketing -- that's email blasting. There's a massive difference.

The list was growing, but engagement wasn't keeping up. More subscribers sounds great on paper. But when your list grows faster than your engagement, you're diluting your sender reputation with every send. And inbox providers notice.

Spam complaints were already a problem. In January 2022, there were 364 spam complaints. That might not sound like a lot. But spam complaints compound. Each one tells Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook that your emails aren't wanted. Let enough of them stack up and your emails stop reaching inboxes entirely. Period.

The Phoenix had a massive opportunity sitting right in front of them. A big list. A great product. Loyal customers. They just didn't have the email infrastructure to capitalize on any of it.

That's where we came in. As a Klaviyo Gold Partner agency, we knew exactly what levers to pull.

The Scale-Up: January Through November 2022

We didn't ease into this. From month one, we were building and launching simultaneously.

January 2022 was our baseline. We sent campaigns to about 911,000 recipients and generated $389,000 in campaign revenue. Flow revenue that month was $272,000. Total email revenue: roughly $661,000. Email was contributing about 17% of the store's total.

Good starting point. But we knew there was way more in there.

The first move was building the flow architecture. We didn't just tweak the existing welcome series and call it a day. We built 15 to 20 automated flows from scratch. Welcome series. Browse abandonment. Cart abandonment. Post-purchase sequences. Win-back flows. VIP nurture. Sunset sequences. Cross-sell flows. Replenishment reminders. Each one built with proper segmentation, dynamic content, and send timing based on actual subscriber behavior.

This is the part most brands underestimate. Flows are revenue that happens while you sleep. Once they're built and optimized, they generate income every single day without anyone touching them. By mid-2022, our flows were consistently pulling $150,000 to $250,000 per month. In July 2022 alone, we hit a 16% click rate on flows -- that's people actively clicking through and buying from automated emails.

The second move was scaling campaigns aggressively. We didn't just send more emails -- we expanded the list strategically while testing subject lines, send times, content formats, and segmentation strategies. We went from 911,000 recipients in January to over 12 million recipients by November.

Yes. 12 million.

Now -- before you think that's just "blast everyone and hope for the best" -- understand what was happening here. We were testing constantly. Which segments respond to which offers. What time of day drives the highest revenue per send. Which subject line structures get opened. We were building a data set, and every campaign taught us something we could use for the next one.

Here's what the trajectory looked like:

Look at that November number. $1,245,675 in campaign revenue. $401,084 in flow revenue. $1,646,759 total email revenue in a single month. That wasn't a fluke. That was eleven months of building, testing, and optimizing all converging on the biggest sales event of the year.

BFCM 2022: The $1.6 Million Month

November 2022 deserves its own section because it was -- and I'm not exaggerating -- one of the most impressive email marketing months I've ever been part of.

$1,646,759 in total email revenue.

50.45% of the store's entire revenue came from email.

Let that sink in. Half the store's revenue that month was driven by the email program we built. Not paid ads. Not organic search. Not social media. Email.

Here's how we set it up.

October was the warm-up. You can't go from normal sending volume to BFCM volume overnight. Inbox providers will throttle you or flag you as spam. So we spent October gradually increasing send frequency and volume. We ran early access campaigns for VIPs. We launched teaser content. We built anticipation in the list while simultaneously warming up our sending infrastructure.

October email revenue was solid -- north of $600,000. But that wasn't the point. October existed to make November possible.

November was execution. We had the full playbook dialed in:

• VIPs got early access 48 hours before the general list
• Countdown sequences building urgency across the week
• Cart recovery emails firing fast with segment-specific offers
• Browse abandonment flows catching people who looked but didn't add to cart
• Re-engagement campaigns hitting lapsed subscribers with a "last chance" angle
• Every campaign segmented by engagement level, purchase history, and product interest

The result wasn't just one good day. It was an entire month of sustained performance. Campaign revenue alone was $1.24 million. Flows added another $401,000 on top.

December didn't drop off a cliff either. Most brands go quiet after BFCM. We didn't. Win-back campaigns hit non-purchasers with a different angle. Buyers got thank-you sequences with replenishment reminders and cross-sells. December still pulled strong numbers because we kept the machine running.

2022 in total: approximately $11.7 million in email revenue. Roughly $8.7 million from campaigns and $2.9 million from flows. In one year.

The Cleanup: When 11,000 Spam Complaints Hit in a Single Month

Here's the part most agencies would leave out of their case study. We're not going to do that, because what happened in early 2023 -- and how we handled it -- is actually the most important part of this whole story.

When you scale sending volume from 911,000 to 12 million recipients in eleven months, you're going to accumulate some dead weight. Unengaged subscribers. People who signed up for a coupon and never opened another email. Spam traps. Old addresses that are now dormant.

In January 2023, spam complaints spiked to 11,392 in a single month.

That's not a typo. Eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-two people hit the spam button.

Now -- context matters here. When you're sending to millions of recipients, even a small percentage of spam complaints translates into a big absolute number. But inbox providers don't care about your percentages. They see the absolute volume. And when Gmail sees thousands of spam complaints from your domain in a month, they start routing your emails to spam for everyone. Including the people who want to hear from you.

This was a deliverability crisis. And if we'd ignored it or tried to push through it, we would have destroyed the entire email channel.

So we did what most agencies are afraid to do: we cut the list. Hard.

Here's exactly what happened:

Step 1 -- Sunset the unengaged. Anyone who hadn't opened or clicked in the last 90 days got removed from active sending. This was painful. It meant our sendable list shrank dramatically. But sending to people who don't engage actively hurts everyone else on the list.

Step 2 -- Clean the data. We ran the entire list through validation tools. Removed hard bounces, spam traps, role-based addresses, and disposable email addresses. These are the silent killers of deliverability -- they don't just not buy, they actively damage your sender score.

Step 3 -- Rebuild sender reputation. For several weeks, we only sent to our most engaged segments. Small batches. High open rates. High click rates. This tells inbox providers, "Hey, the people we're emailing actually want our emails." It's the email equivalent of rehab.

Step 4 -- Implement proper list hygiene going forward. Automatic sunset flows for unengaged subscribers. Double opt-in for new signups in high-risk sources. Regular list cleaning on a monthly cadence. We weren't going to let this happen again.

The results were immediate and dramatic.

Open rates jumped. Before the cleanup, we were seeing open rates in the low-to-mid 20s. By May 2023, the average open rate hit 39.54%. That's not a vanity metric -- that's nearly 40% of recipients actually opening the email. Which means more people seeing the offer. Which means more revenue per send.

Was 2023 revenue lower than 2022? Yes. Total email revenue for 2023 was approximately $7.3 million -- about $5 million from campaigns and $2.3 million from flows. That's a decline from 2022's $11.7 million.

But here's the thing most people miss: the revenue per subscriber went up. We were sending to fewer people and making more money per person. The list was healthier. The engagement was real. And the foundation we rebuilt would sustain performance for the next year and a half.

Cutting a list is scary. Watching your sendable audience shrink by hundreds of thousands feels wrong. But the alternative -- watching your entire email channel slowly die from deliverability issues -- is way worse. We chose the short-term pain for the long-term gain. And it worked.

The Optimization Phase: 2023 Through Mid-2024

After the cleanup, we entered a different mode. The scale-up phase was about growth and volume. The optimization phase was about efficiency and profitability.

Fewer recipients. Better targeting. Higher conversion.

Instead of blasting 12 million people, we focused on sending the right message to the right segment at the right time. Campaigns went to engaged subscribers who'd shown actual buying intent. Flows were refined based on eighteen months of performance data -- we knew which emails in each sequence performed, which ones people dropped off at, and which ones drove the most revenue.

Here's what the numbers looked like:

Look at that last line. July 2024: 47.61% of the store's total revenue came from email. Nearly half.

That's not a BFCM month. That's not a big sale event. That's a regular July -- and email was generating almost half the store's income. That's what a mature, well-built email program looks like.

The beauty of this phase is that it was low-drama. No crises. No massive pivots. Just steady, consistent optimization:

• A/B testing subject lines every week
• Refining flow timing based on conversion data
• Updating creative and copy to prevent fatigue
• Expanding product recommendation logic in flows
• Testing new segments we hadn't explored yet
• Monitoring deliverability metrics daily to catch problems early

This is the boring part. And it's the most profitable part. Because compounding small improvements over months and months adds up to massive results.

The Flow Architecture: Revenue That Runs Itself

Let me spend a minute on flows specifically, because this is where most brands leave the biggest pile of money on the table.

A flow is an automated email sequence triggered by subscriber behavior. Someone abandons a cart -- flow triggers. Someone browses a product but doesn't buy -- flow triggers. Someone makes their first purchase -- flow triggers. They run 24/7, 365 days a year, without anyone pressing send.

For The Phoenix, we built and maintained 15 to 20 active flows throughout the engagement. Here's what the architecture looked like:

Welcome Series -- The first emails a new subscriber receives. Sets expectations, delivers the signup incentive, introduces the brand story, and moves toward that first purchase. This flow alone generates significant monthly revenue because it catches people at peak interest.

Cart Abandonment -- The bread and butter. Triggers when someone adds to cart but doesn't complete checkout. Multiple emails in the sequence, each with a different angle -- reminder, social proof, urgency, and occasionally a small incentive for high-value carts.

Browse Abandonment -- Catches people earlier in the funnel. They looked at a product but didn't even add to cart. Softer sell. "Still thinking about this?" with product imagery and reviews.

Post-Purchase -- Thank you, order confirmation, shipping updates, then transitions into product education, usage tips, and cross-sell recommendations based on what they bought.

Win-Back -- Targets customers who haven't purchased in 60, 90, or 120 days. Graduated urgency. Different offers at each stage. The goal is re-engagement before they go completely cold.

VIP Nurture -- Top customers get treated differently. Early access to new products. Exclusive offers. Content that reinforces their relationship with the brand. These people are your most profitable segment -- treat them that way.

Sunset Flow -- The unengaged get a final sequence asking if they still want to hear from us. If they don't re-engage, they get removed. This protects deliverability for everyone else.

Replenishment Reminders -- For consumable products (which health and wellness brands are full of), timed reminders based on average product lifespan. "Running low? Reorder before you run out."

Cross-Sell and Upsell Flows -- Post-purchase sequences that recommend complementary products based on purchase history.

The combined output of this flow architecture: $100,000 to $400,000 per month in automated revenue. Every month. Without anyone hitting send.

Peak flow month was November 2022 at $401,084. But even in quieter months -- mid-summer, post-holiday -- flows consistently generated $100,000 to $210,000. That's the power of automation done right. It doesn't take vacations.

The Full Numbers: 31 Months of Data

Here's the complete picture, broken down by year:

2022 (Full Year -- The Scale-Up)

2023 (Full Year -- The Cleanup and Rebuild)

2024 (Jan -- Jul -- The Optimization)

Grand Total

What This Proves

This case study isn't just about big numbers. It's about what happens when you treat email as a real revenue channel instead of an afterthought. Here are the takeaways:

Email can drive 30-50% of your total store revenue. Not 10%. Not 15%. When it's built right, email becomes your single most profitable channel -- higher margins than paid ads, more predictable than SEO, and it compounds over time.

Aggressive scaling works -- but only if you manage deliverability. We scaled from 911,000 to 12 million recipients and drove $11.7 million in email revenue in year one. But the spam complaints that came with that growth nearly killed the channel. Growth without deliverability management is a ticking time bomb.

Cutting your list can be the most profitable decision you make. When we slashed the list in early 2023, revenue per subscriber went up, open rates nearly doubled, and email attribution stayed at 30-47% of total store revenue. Smaller list, better results. Every time.

Flows are the foundation. $6.2 million in automated flow revenue over 31 months. That's revenue that generated itself while we focused on optimizing campaigns. If you're not running at least 10-15 properly built flows, you're leaving six figures on the table every month.

The compounding effect is real. Month one was $661,000. By month eleven we hit $1.64 million. And even after the cleanup and scale-down, we sustained $400,000-$550,000 per month through 2024. Each optimization, each test, each refined segment -- they all stack on top of each other.

This isn't theory. These are real dollars. Real Klaviyo data. Real results from real campaigns and real flows sent to real people over 31 months. $15.8 million worth of proof that email marketing, done right, is the most undervalued channel in eCommerce. (And email was only one piece of the puzzle -- see how we managed $23M+ in paid media spend for the same brand.)

Related Case Studies

• The Phoenix Paid Media: 3x Revenue on $23M Ad Spend — The other half of The Phoenix story. How we managed their entire paid media operation across Google and Meta.
• If It Barks: 24x ROI and Tripled Email Revenue in 2 Months — Another eCommerce brand where we rebuilt the email program from scratch and saw explosive results.
• TheLiquorStore.com: 296.9% YoY Revenue Growth — How segmentation and quarterly planning turned a "dead quarter" into the best one on record.

Your Email Channel Is Probably Leaving Money on the Table

Here's what I know from doing this for years: most eCommerce brands are running 3-5 basic flows, sending campaigns to their full list, and calling it an email strategy. It's not. It's the default. And the default leaves 60-70% of your email revenue unrealized.

If you're doing $1M+ in annual revenue and email accounts for less than 25% of your total store -- there's a gap. A big one. And we know exactly how to close it because we've done it before. $15.8 million times over.

We'll look at your Klaviyo account, walk through the numbers with you, and show you specifically where the revenue is hiding. No pitch deck. No generic recommendations. Just your data, our experience, and an honest conversation about what's possible.

Book a call with Mark