- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Author: Erin Schnittker Siemek, Founder & CEO, Forge Digital Marketing

Last updated: October 2026

The short answer: Keep Meta ads in-house if your problem is execution and your spend can fund both a full-time buyer and a steady supply of new creative. Hire an agency if the problem is creative strategy, tracking or compliance, or if your spend can’t yet justify a dedicated team. Figure out which problem you have before you hire anyone.

Most founders start by comparing salaries to retainers. Start with the account. Tired creative and broken tracking produce the exact same falling ROAS, yet each needs a different person to fix it. If you hire the wrong kind of help… you’ll pay for three or four months before anyone notices the real issue.

Assess your current performance and internal capacity

Two questions decide this: what is actually broken, and does your team have the hours and skills to fix it? Answer the first one before you touch the second. A lot of “we need an agency” moments turn out to be a creative problem or a tracking problem wearing a disguise.

Read the funnel in order

Meta performance breaks at a specific stage. Find the first weak stage.

Metric	What it tells you	If it’s weak, the fix is	Who usually fixes it
Thumb stop rate (3-second video plays ÷ impressions)	Whether the first frame stops the scroll	New hooks and opening shots	Creative strategist + editor
Hold rate (15-second plays ÷ 3-second plays)	Whether the story keeps attention	Script and pacing	Creative strategist
Link click-through rate	Whether the ad makes a promise worth clicking	Angle, offer, call to action	Creative + media buyer
Landing page conversion rate	Whether the page delivers on the ad	Page, offer, reviews, price	Ecommerce/CRO team
CPM	What the auction is charging you	Account structure, audience, seasonality	Media buyer
Meta purchases vs. Shopify orders	Whether your tracking is accurate	Pixel + Conversions API setup, deduplication	Technical specialist or developer

A media buyer owns two of those six rows. So when a brand hires one person to “fix Meta” and the real break sits in creative or tracking, that hire can work hard for months and move nothing.

What a ROAS drop usually means

Check these causes in this order, because the first is the most common and the cheapest to confirm:

Creative fatigue. Frequency on your top-spend ads climbs while thumb stop rate and CTR slide. You need new creative. New targeting won’t help.
Tracking loss. Meta-reported purchases drift away from Shopify orders over the same date range. If that gap widened, Meta is under-counting, and your ads may be performing fine.
A change on the site or the offer. CTR holds steady while conversion rate drops. Look at what changed after the click: price, stock, page speed, a new checkout app.
Auction pressure. CPMs rise across every ad at once. Q4 and big sale weekends do this every year.

Compare like-for-like windows. If someone restructured the account halfway through a 90-day period, the average blends two strategies into one misleading number. Put the 30 days before the change next to the 30 days after.

Audit your team’s capacity

For a brand spending $20,000 to $100,000 a month, a typical week of Meta work looks like this:

Daily monitoring: 30 to 60 minutes a day on pacing, rejected ads and budget shifts
Test analysis and planning: 3 to 5 hours reading results and choosing what runs next
Creative production: 10 to 20 hours of briefing, creator sourcing, editing and design
Reporting: 2 to 3 hours tying Meta numbers back to Shopify

Most in-house plans budget for the first two lines and forget creative production entirely. The buyer gets hired, runs out of new ads to test by week six, and starts tweaking audiences instead.

Compare the true cost

Ad spend is excluded from every figure below.

Option	Typical cost	What you get	Main risk
In-house media buyer	About $97,000 average US salary (Glassdoor, via Superscale), roughly $10,000 to $11,000 a month once payroll taxes and benefits are added	Full-time attention and deep brand knowledge	One person’s skill set; creative and tools cost extra; a resignation resets the account
Freelancer	$15 to $40 an hour on Upwork, $25 median (Superscale)	Flexible, low-cost execution	Limited hours; rarely covers creative or tracking
Agency	10 to 20% of monthly ad spend, or a flat retainer (Superscale, citing WebFX and Clutch)	A team: buyer, creative strategist, designers, analyst	Less brand intimacy; quality varies widely

Run the crossover math on your own spend. At $50,000 a month, a 10 to 20% agency fee comes to $5,000 to $10,000, which is about what a single in-house buyer costs before you’ve paid for one piece of creative. Past roughly $100,000 a month, many brands go hybrid. An in-house growth lead owns strategy and the numbers, and an agency or creative studio handles production.

In-house usually wins when your spend covers a buyer plus a creative pipeline and your tracking is already clean.

An agency usually wins when the break is in creative or tracking, or when you sell supplements and every ad has to clear health-claim rules before it runs.

Define your requirements for an agency partner

Pick the agency built to fix the problem you just diagnosed. A shop with great media buyers and a thin creative bench won’t rescue an account whose hooks have gone stale. Write down your top two problems and score every agency against them. (Our guide to choosing a DTC ecommerce marketing agency covers the broader evaluation.)

If you sell supplements or wellness products

Supplement ads answer to two rulebooks at once. An agency fluent in only one will get your ads rejected or put your brand in front of a regulator.

Meta’s ad policies. Meta rejects ads that assert or imply the viewer has a health condition. “Struggling with brain fog?” gets flagged; “Built for focus on long workdays” runs. Before-and-after imagery and weight-loss claims carry extra restrictions on top of that.
Federal law. The FTC expects competent and reliable scientific evidence behind every health claim, and it treats a creator’s testimonial as your claim (paid partnerships also need clear disclosure). The FDA draws the other line: a disease claim like “treats anxiety” turns a supplement into an unapproved drug, while a substantiated structure/function claim like “supports healthy focus” is allowed.

In the pitch meeting, hand the agency a disease claim and ask them to rewrite it into a compliant structure/function claim on the spot. Ask who reviews creator scripts before launch. You want names and a process. If they need to get back to you, they haven’t done this much.

If you’re a Shopify brand scaling past $1M

Past $1M the question changes from “can Meta drive sales” to “are these sales real and profitable.” Require:

Server-side tracking. Meta’s Conversions API running alongside the pixel, with deduplication checked. Browser-only tracking under-counts purchases.
Blended reporting. Marketing efficiency ratio (total revenue ÷ total ad spend) and new-customer acquisition cost, alongside Meta-reported ROAS. Meta’s purchase count and Shopify’s will never match exactly, and your agency should be able to explain the gap.
Creative throughput. A repeatable monthly process for producing and testing new concepts. Spend only scales as fast as winning creative does.
Attention past the first order. Acquisition costs pay back when customers buy again, so an agency that ignores email and SMS retention is optimizing half the equation.

Questions to ask any agency

Ask this	A strong answer	A red flag
How do you decide which creative gets more budget?	Named metrics, thresholds and a testing cadence	“The algorithm decides”
Who makes the creative?	An in-house team or vetted creators, briefed per concept	“You send us the assets”
What do you report, and how often?	Thumb stop, hold rate, CTR, CPA and blended MER, reconciled to Shopify	A screenshot of Meta ROAS
Who owns the ad account and pixel?	You do; the agency gets partner access	It runs inside the agency’s own Business Manager
Can I see results for a brand like mine?	A named case study with before-and-after numbers, or a client reference call	Percentages with no client, timeframe or spend
What’s the contract term?	A defined term with a clear exit clause	A long lock-in with no way out if results miss

Establish a budget and performance expectations

Settle the money and the metrics before anyone launches an ad. Agency relationships usually sour around month three, and the cause is almost always expectations nobody wrote down.

What is a good thumb stop rate on Facebook ads?

A good thumb stop rate on Facebook and Instagram video ads is 25 to 35%. Above 35% is strong. Below 25%, the opening needs work. Thumb stop rate (also called hook rate) is 3-second video plays divided by impressions, times 100, and it tells you whether the first moments of an ad stop someone mid-scroll.

Thumb stop rate	What it means	What to do
Below 25%	The opening isn’t stopping the scroll	Test new first frames and opening lines
25 to 35%	Solid, with room to improve	Keep the concept and iterate on the hook
Above 35%	The hook is working	Check hold rate and CTR before you scale it

These ranges come from Motion’s creative metrics guide, which also puts average hold rate at 40 to 50% and average Meta CTR at 0.9 to 1.5%.

Across the accounts Forge manages, our best-performing video creative lands somewhere between 30% and 60%. Read the benchmark with two cautions.

Thumb stop alone can mislead you. One health brand’s video hit a 99% thumb stop rate and a 0.13% CTR. Nearly every viewer paused on it, and almost none clicked. Always read thumb stop beside hold rate and CTR.
It only measures video. Static images don’t register 3-second plays, so judge statics on CTR and cost per purchase. Autoplay behavior also differs by placement, which is why you should compare creative against creative in the same placements before you compare against any industry average.

How many ad creatives should you test per month on Meta?

The number comes out of your budget. Every test needs enough spend to produce a readable result, so use this:

Creatives you can test each month = monthly testing budget ÷ (2 to 3 × your target cost per purchase)

Take a brand spending $20,000 a month. It puts 20% ($4,000) toward testing and targets a $50 cost per purchase. That budget supports roughly 27 to 40 ads read on purchase data, which usually means 6 to 10 concepts with a handful of hook variations each. Thumb stop and CTR give you an early signal within a few days. Purchases make the final call.

Meta’s delivery system needs about 50 optimization events per ad set within a week to exit its learning phase. Spread a small budget across too many ad sets and every one of them stays stuck in learning, so consolidate tests into fewer ad sets with real budgets behind them.

How much should you pay an agency to manage Facebook ads?

Most agencies charge 10 to 20% of monthly ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage, with ad spend billed separately. Clutch puts the average social media marketing retainer at about $5,108 a month (via Superscale).

Get these answers in writing before you sign:

Is creative production included, and is it capped?
Does the fee rise automatically as spend grows?
Are tracking fixes and landing page work billed separately?
Who owns the creative files if you part ways?

Why your Meta ads aren’t converting (supplement brands)

Clicks without purchases on a supplement account usually trace back to one of these:

The page is vaguer than the ad. Compliance edits watered down the landing page copy until it no longer matches the promise that earned the click. Make the ad and the page carry the same claim and the same offer.
Nothing on the page builds trust. People treat supplements as a trust purchase. Put third-party testing, ingredient sourcing, dose per serving and real reviews where shoppers see them without scrolling.
Subscription friction. Forcing a first-time buyer into a subscription kills conversion. Offer a one-time purchase with subscribe-and-save as the option.
Meta can’t see the sales. When the Conversions API is missing or misconfigured, purchases happen off Meta’s radar and the algorithm optimizes toward the wrong people.

What reporting should look like

Ask for a weekly scorecard that repeats the same metrics every time: spend, purchases, cost per purchase, thumb stop rate, hold rate, CTR and blended MER reconciled to Shopify. Then one or two lines on what was tested and which version won. A report that only lists results leaves you guessing whether anyone is steering the account.

How Forge runs Meta ads

Forge Digital Marketing is a boutique growth agency for DTC ecommerce brands, with deep roots in supplements and wellness. We run paid media on Meta and Google (TikTok too, when the product fits) and tie it to the email, SMS and Shopify work that decides whether a new customer ever turns a profit.

Our Meta method starts with the hook. We find the opening that stops the scroll, prove it converts to purchases, then move budget onto it and cut what doesn’t earn its spend. Static creative and design come included in management, built each month around the testing roadmap instead of a fixed number of deliverables.

At Batch Balance, one month of that approach produced these numbers:

Metric	Before	After one month
ROAS	2.34x	4.29x
Cost per purchase	$36.81	$22.80
Thumb stop rate	14.3%	31.2%
Purchases	79	170
Ad spend	$2,908	$3,876

Spend went up 33% while purchases went up 115%.

Weighing an in-house hire against an agency? We’ll audit your account and tell you which problem you actually have, including when the honest answer is to hire in-house. See how we run Facebook and Instagram ads, or book a discovery call with Carolynn Poulsen.

Frequently asked questions

Should I hire an agency or fix my Facebook ads in-house after a ROAS drop?

Start by comparing Meta purchases to Shopify orders, then check frequency, thumb stop rate and CTR on your top-spend ads. If creative fatigue or broken tracking caused the drop, an agency with creative and technical depth will usually fix it faster than a new hire.

Is it cheaper to hire an in-house media buyer or an agency?

Below roughly $50,000 a month in ad spend, an agency usually costs less once you count creative production. An in-house media buyer averages about $97,000 a year in salary, before benefits, tools or creative.

What is a good hook rate for Meta video ads?

Hook rate is another name for thumb stop rate. 25 to 35% is solid, above 35% is strong, and anything under 25% means the opening needs work.

How many creatives should I test on Meta each month?

Divide your monthly testing budget by two to three times your target cost per purchase. A $4,000 testing budget at a $50 target supports roughly 27 to 40 ads.

What should a supplement brand look for in a Meta ads agency?

Fluency in Meta’s health ad policies and in FTC and FDA claim rules, plus a named person who reviews creator scripts before launch. Ask to see case studies from ingestible or wellness brands.

How much do Facebook ad agencies charge?

Most charge 10 to 20% of monthly ad spend, a flat retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage. Ad spend is billed separately.

Sources

Motion: Key creative performance metrics (thumb stop, hold rate and CTR benchmarks)
Superscale: Meta ads management cost, updated July 23, 2026 (agency fee ranges from WebFX, Clutch retainer average, Upwork freelancer rates, Glassdoor media buyer salary)
Forge: Batch Balance Meta ads case study (before and after account figures)
Forge client ad accounts in Meta and Motion, September 2026 (the 30 to 60% thumb stop range and the 99% thumb stop / 0.13% CTR example, anonymized)

Marketing

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency for Your DTC Brand

By Erin Schnittker Siemek on

October 9, 2026

- Category : Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Author: Erin Schnittker Siemek, Founder & CEO, Forge Digital Marketing

Last updated: October 2026

Choosing the right digital marketing agency for your direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand isn’t about finding the agency with the biggest client roster or the most impressive promises. It’s about finding a team that understands how ecommerce businesses grow—and knows how to connect customer acquisition, conversion, and retention into one coordinated strategy.

For Shopify and other ecommerce brands, that means thinking beyond individual marketing channels.

Your Meta Ads strategy influences which customers discover your products. Your website determines how effectively that traffic converts. Your Klaviyo email and SMS programs help customers return. And your SEO strategy creates additional opportunities for shoppers to find your business without relying exclusively on paid advertising.

The right DTC marketing agency understands how these activities influence one another and can demonstrate that expertise through real work.

At Forge Digital Marketing, we specialize in helping ecommerce brands connect paid media, organic search, conversion optimization, and customer retention.

This guide explains what to look for in an ecommerce marketing partner, which questions to ask before hiring an agency, and how to distinguish genuine expertise from attractive reporting dashboards.

1. Choose an Agency That Understands the Entire Ecommerce Customer Journey

A successful ecommerce growth strategy doesn’t end when someone clicks an advertisement or makes their first purchase.

It should account for four interconnected stages.

Acquisition: Attracting qualified shoppers through Meta, Google, TikTok, SEO, and other appropriate channels.

Conversion: Turning visitors into customers through product education, compelling offers, thoughtful website design, and an optimized shopping experience.

Retention: Encouraging repeat purchases through email, SMS, subscriptions, loyalty programs, and relevant customer communications.

Measurement: Understanding how marketing investments influence acquisition costs, customer behavior, revenue, and profitability.

Forge diagram of the DTC customer journey: acquisition, conversion, and retention as one system, with measurement across all three and repeat-buyer data feeding back into acquisition — The four stages of the DTC customer journey, and how each one feeds the next.

An agency specializing in only one channel may be excellent at its particular discipline while overlooking problems elsewhere in the customer journey.

For example, a paid media agency may increase traffic without recognizing that a confusing product page is limiting conversions.

An email marketing agency may celebrate increased attributed revenue without investigating whether the business is successfully acquiring new customers.

And a Shopify development team may build a visually appealing website without understanding the landing page requirements of paid advertising campaigns.

Why does integrated ecommerce marketing matter?

Consider a DTC skincare brand introducing a new moisturizer.

Its Meta advertising introduces the product through distinct creative concepts targeting different customer motivations.

Its Shopify landing page explains the ingredients, benefits, and product experience.

Its Klaviyo welcome sequence educates interested shoppers who haven’t yet purchased.

Its post-purchase flows provide product usage guidance, encourage appropriate replenishment, and introduce complementary products.

Meanwhile, SEO content helps prospective buyers discover the brand while researching ingredients, skincare concerns, or product comparisons.

Each channel plays a different role, but all support the same customer journey.

That’s the difference between managing marketing channels and building an ecommerce growth strategy.

2. Look for Specialized Ecommerce Email and SMS Expertise

Who offers email marketing for ecommerce brands?

Many agencies offer email marketing. Fewer have the technical and strategic expertise to build sophisticated ecommerce lifecycle programs.

For DTC brands, email and SMS should do more than announce promotions or send newsletters. They should respond to customer behavior, support purchasing decisions, and create relevant opportunities for repeat revenue.

When evaluating an ecommerce email marketing agency, look for experience with:

Welcome sequences and subscriber acquisition.
Abandoned checkout and browse abandonment automations.
Post-purchase education and product recommendations.
Replenishment reminders aligned with product consumption.
Customer segmentation and behavioral personalization.
Win-back and reactivation programs.
Subscription retention and loyalty integrations.
Deliverability, list hygiene, and consent management.
Coordinated email and SMS campaigns.

Why Klaviyo expertise matters for Shopify brands

Klaviyo is particularly useful for ecommerce businesses because it can use customer, product, and purchase data to support more relevant marketing.

However, connecting Klaviyo to Shopify doesn’t automatically create an effective retention program.

The strategy depends on how that data is used.

For example, a supplement business selling a 30-day supply may benefit from replenishment messaging based on expected consumption and purchase behavior.

A fashion retailer may benefit more from product affinity, purchase history, new collection announcements, and personalized recommendations.

A skincare business may need education-driven post-purchase flows that explain product usage before introducing additional products.

Forge Digital Marketing is a Klaviyo Master Gold Partner providing email and SMS lifecycle strategy, campaign management, segmentation, automation, deliverability support, and ecommerce integrations.

Our experience also includes connecting Klaviyo with subscription tools, loyalty systems, customer reviews, and other components of the ecommerce technology stack.

What results should an ecommerce email agency deliver?

Be cautious of agencies that guarantee a specific percentage of revenue from email.

The appropriate contribution depends on the business model, acquisition mix, customer retention patterns, and attribution settings.

In Forge’s analysis of six DTC ecommerce businesses over a 90-day period ending October 6, 2026, the median brand attributed 27.28% of its store revenue to Klaviyo. Individual brands ranged from 15.16% to 47.77%.

The important distinction is that attributed revenue isn’t necessarily incremental revenue. A customer who purchases after receiving an email might have purchased anyway.

A sophisticated agency should evaluate lifecycle performance alongside repeat purchase rate, customer behavior, and overall business growth.

Real example: Irwin Naturals

In a published Forge case study, supplement brand Irwin Naturals recorded a 157% increase in Klaviyo-attributed email revenue over 30 days.

Forge’s work included rebuilding foundational automation flows, improving customer segmentation, and introducing a more structured campaign strategy.

During the reported period, Klaviyo attributed more than $66,000 in revenue, representing approximately 28% of total store revenue.

This is an example of platform-attributed performance, not a claim that all additional revenue was caused exclusively by email.

Read the Irwin Naturals Klaviyo Case Study

3. Find a Paid Media Agency That Understands Modern Advertising Algorithms

What should a DTC brand look for in a Meta advertising agency?

Running effective Meta Ads requires more than knowing how to configure campaigns, select audiences, and adjust budgets.

Modern advertising platforms increasingly rely on machine learning to identify which advertisements are most relevant to individual users.

That makes creative strategy, testing methodology, and customer understanding essential parts of effective advertising management.

One of the recurring problems Forge identifies during Meta Ads account audits is a lack of meaningful creative diversification.

We’ll encounter accounts with only four or five advertisements running, sometimes consisting of nearly identical product images or minor headline variations.

The problem isn’t simply that there aren’t enough advertisements.

It’s that the account lacks sufficiently different creative concepts to discover what resonates with different customer motivations.

How Meta’s Andromeda system changes creative strategy

Meta’s Andromeda ad retrieval system is part of the infrastructure used to identify potentially relevant advertisements before later ranking and delivery decisions.

As Meta’s AI-powered advertising technology has evolved, developing genuinely diverse advertising creative has become an important component of campaign strategy.

However, creative diversification doesn’t mean producing dozens of slightly modified advertisements.

An effective creative testing program explores distinct approaches, such as:

Different customer personas: Who needs the product, and what motivates them?
Different pain points: Which problems or frustrations influence purchase decisions?
Different hooks: Which opening messages capture attention?
Different formats: Founder-led videos, demonstrations, UGC, testimonials, lifestyle imagery, and static product advertisements.
Different value propositions: Quality, convenience, product formulation, price, functionality, or other meaningful benefits.
Different buying motivations: Practical solutions, emotional benefits, social proof, or educational content.

Consider a skincare brand.

One advertisement might feature the founder explaining why the product was developed.

Another might demonstrate its texture and application.

A third might use customer-generated footage to communicate how the product fits into a daily routine.

A fourth might focus on a particular ingredient and its role in the formula.

These advertisements aren’t just aesthetic variations. They explore distinct reasons someone might become interested in the product.

Creative volume matters, but creative differentiation is what makes that volume useful.

The appropriate number of creative concepts depends on the brand’s budget, audience, and testing capacity. More advertisements are not automatically better if the account lacks sufficient delivery or data to evaluate them.

Does a DTC brand need separate top-, middle-, and bottom-of-funnel advertising?

The customer journey should influence advertising messaging, but it doesn’t always require a separate campaign for every stage.

Forge regularly encounters accounts that fail to account for the differences between first-time prospects, interested shoppers, and customers already considering a purchase.

An effective full-funnel strategy should understand these distinctions.

Top of funnel: Awareness

Introduce the brand, explain the product, demonstrate its benefits, and connect with customer problems.

Middle of funnel: Consideration

Answer common questions, explain product differentiators, demonstrate use cases, and introduce credible customer experiences.

Bottom of funnel: Conversion

Address remaining purchasing objections through relevant offers, product details, shipping information, guarantees, and other decision-support content.

Retargeting: Re-engagement

Reconnect with people who have previously interacted with the brand or its products, where audience size, privacy requirements, and campaign economics support doing so.

These categories can overlap. Retargeting describes re-engaging an existing audience, while funnel stages describe where someone is in the purchasing journey.

Under Meta’s increasingly automated delivery systems, broader targeting and consolidated campaigns may be appropriate. Dedicated retargeting campaigns or segmented audience structures should be justified by the account’s needs rather than applied as universal rules.

The real objective is to create messaging that addresses different levels of customer awareness and purchase intent.

Who should produce the advertising creative?

This is an important question to ask when evaluating a Meta advertising agency.

Some agencies manage the advertising account but expect the client to supply every image, video, and creative variation.

Others provide creative production as part of their advertising services.

Forge combines both approaches.

Our creative team develops original advertising assets while also using client-supplied photography, video footage, customer content, and UGC.

This allows us to build testing programs using existing brand assets while producing additional concepts when a campaign needs creative diversity.

Depending on the engagement, our process may include creative strategy, original static advertisements, video concepts, creative briefs, and variations developed from available footage.

Rather than repeatedly adjusting targeting around the same advertisements, we can investigate whether new creative approaches are needed.

Real example: Batch Balanced

Forge’s work with food and beverage brand Batch Balanced illustrates the impact that stronger creative testing can have on advertising performance.

The account initially relied heavily on evergreen static imagery and early creator content.

Forge introduced a more structured creative testing approach, including stronger video hooks and relatable, Instagram-native UGC.

Here’s what that shift looked like in the ad account:

Batch Balanced evergreen static ad: Fresh flavors. Real protein. No effort required. — **Before:** polished evergreen static creative, the account’s main format before structured testing.

Batch Balanced IG Post 004 creative: a casual How To hook video — **After:** IG Post 004, a casual, organic-feeling “How To” hook video. On its own, it returned a 7.5x ROAS at a $14.37 CPA with a 57.7% thumb-stop rate (platform-reported).

Across the two periods reported in the case study:

Meta Ads metric	Before	After
Purchase ROAS	2.34x	4.29x
Cost per acquisition	$36.81	$22.80
Thumb-stop rate	14.3%	31.2%
Purchases	79	170

Advertising spend increased approximately 33%, while platform-reported purchase value increased approximately 145%.

The case study demonstrates what happened during a specific creative testing initiative. It doesn’t establish that other advertisers should expect the same outcome.

Read the Batch Balanced Meta Ads Case Study

Questions to ask a Meta advertising agency

Before hiring an agency, ask how it develops and tests creative, not merely how it structures campaigns.

Find out who produces the advertisements, how different customer personas are represented, how creative fatigue is evaluated, and what happens when existing concepts stop performing.

Also ask how the agency determines whether underperformance comes from the advertisement itself, the offer, audience delivery, tracking, or the landing page.

An experienced agency should be able to explain its methodology and show how creative insights influence future decisions.

4. Make Sure Paid Media and Shopify Conversion Optimization Work Together

Even the strongest advertising strategy can struggle when the website creates unnecessary friction.

Paid advertising and conversion rate optimization should be considered connected disciplines, particularly for brands investing heavily in customer acquisition.

What should you look for in a Shopify growth agency?

A strong Shopify marketing agency should understand how advertising traffic interacts with the website.

Important considerations include:

Mobile shopping experience and website speed.
Product page messaging and visual hierarchy.
Trust signals, reviews, and social proof.
Product information and educational content.
Subscription and bundle presentation.
Navigation and product discovery.
Checkout usability and purchasing friction.
Landing page relevance to advertising promises.

For example, a supplement company may have excellent advertising creative but a product page that fails to communicate serving information, ingredient benefits, or subscription terms clearly.

A fashion brand may lose potential customers because its sizing information is confusing.

A skincare company may need more persuasive product education before a first-time shopper feels comfortable purchasing.

These aren’t necessarily advertising problems. They’re conversion problems that affect advertising economics.

How does Forge approach Shopify conversion optimization?

Forge provides Shopify website design and development alongside ecommerce CRO and digital marketing services.

Our teams can examine the broader customer experience, from the advertising message to the landing page and eventual purchase.

When developing or improving a store, we consider how visual design, product education, usability, technical performance, and merchandising contribute to conversion.

The goal isn’t simply to make a website look better. It’s to identify and prioritize improvements that can help qualified visitors become customers.

Ask prospective agencies: If our advertising produces qualified traffic but sales are disappointing, how will you investigate whether the issue is advertising, the offer, or the website?

The answer should involve evidence, not assumptions.

5. Don’t Overlook SEO and Organic Product Discovery

Ecommerce businesses that depend exclusively on paid advertising can become vulnerable to changing media costs and platform performance.

Organic search can provide an additional channel for reaching prospective customers throughout the buying journey.

What should an ecommerce SEO agency actually do?

Effective ecommerce SEO involves substantially more than writing blog posts or placing keywords into product descriptions.

Look for capabilities including:

Technical SEO and crawlability.
Product and collection page optimization.
Site architecture and internal linking.
Commercial keyword research.
Structured data and product information.
Content supporting product education and buying decisions.
Search performance analysis.
SEO-informed website development.

The strongest strategy depends on how customers discover and evaluate products.

A fashion retailer may need stronger collection pages, sizing information, and product-category content.

A supplement business may benefit from educational resources explaining ingredients and product use cases, with appropriate claim review.

A skincare company may need content addressing particular skin concerns, ingredient questions, and product comparisons.

What about AI search and Google AI Overviews?

Search discovery is evolving as customers increasingly encounter AI-generated summaries and recommendations.

Ecommerce brands should focus on clear, accessible product information, original expertise, accurate structured data, and content that genuinely answers customer questions.

These practices can improve the quality and accessibility of a brand’s information, although they don’t guarantee inclusion in AI-generated answers.

An agency should distinguish established SEO principles from experimental tactics rather than promising visibility it cannot control.

Forge’s ecommerce SEO services connect technical optimization, content strategy, and commercial search intent to broader acquisition objectives.

6. Choose an Agency With Experience in Your Ecommerce Category

Ecommerce expertise is important, but experience with your particular type of product can provide additional value.

Different product categories have different customer behaviors, purchasing considerations, and marketing constraints.

Supplements and wellness: Customer education, advertising restrictions, compliant messaging, subscriptions, and replenishment.

Beauty and skincare: Ingredient education, product demonstrations, customer trust, creative storytelling, and repeat purchases.

Fashion and apparel: Merchandising, sizing, seasonal collections, visual identity, customer acquisition, and returns.

Food and beverage: Bundles, subscriptions, product sampling, reorder frequency, and repeat-purchase economics.

Lifestyle and CPG: Product differentiation, brand storytelling, customer education, and channel-specific purchasing behavior.

Forge works with ecommerce brands across these categories, including businesses operating in advertising-restricted markets.

Our experience with supplements, health and wellness, and personal care is especially relevant for brands that must balance persuasive messaging with platform policies and appropriate compliance considerations.

Should an agency have worked with your exact product?

Not necessarily.

A strong agency may transfer relevant experience across businesses with similar purchasing patterns, customer behavior, or operational challenges.

For example, a skincare brand and a supplement brand may both benefit from education-led acquisition and replenishment-based retention.

What’s important is whether the agency understands the commercial challenges affecting your particular business.

Ask for examples of how the agency has solved problems similar to yours—not merely whether it has worked in your industry.

7. Evaluate Strategic Oversight, Client Communication, and Accountability

One of the biggest challenges for growing ecommerce brands is coordinating work across multiple marketing disciplines.

Your paid media strategist may focus on customer acquisition. Your email strategist may prioritize retention. Your SEO team may focus on organic visibility.

These activities should support the same business objectives, even when different specialists own their execution.

Who should actually manage your account?

Before hiring an agency, ask who will be responsible for your relationship and who will be making strategic decisions.

At Forge Digital Marketing, client engagements are supported by specialized marketing teams and dedicated client success management.

Channel strategists provide specialized performance analysis and strategic recommendations.

Client success managers coordinate communication, deliverables, project timelines, and account priorities.

This creates clearer responsibility for both marketing execution and the overall client relationship.

For brands using multiple Forge services, it also provides a structure for coordinating work across departments.

What should an ecommerce agency report?

A strong ecommerce agency should help you understand the business implications of marketing performance.

Depending on your services and business model, important metrics may include:

Metric	What it helps evaluate
Customer acquisition cost	How much it costs to acquire customers
Return on ad spend	Revenue attributed to advertising relative to media spend
Conversion rate	How effectively website traffic becomes purchases
Average order value	Revenue generated per order
Repeat purchase rate	How frequently customers purchase again
Customer lifetime value	The value of customer relationships over time
Contribution margin	Revenue remaining after relevant variable costs
Email-attributed revenue	Revenue associated with lifecycle marketing under an attribution model
Marketing efficiency ratio	Total revenue relative to advertising spend

Not every metric will be available or reliable for every business.

The most useful reports explain what happened, what likely contributed to the result, what remains uncertain, and what the agency recommends doing next.

Transparency matters beyond the dashboard

An agency should also provide visibility into deliverables, ownership, timelines, and priorities.

When interviewing prospective partners, ask how projects are tracked, how quality assurance works, and what happens when something goes wrong.

You should feel confident that your marketing partner can manage its responsibilities without requiring you to chase every update or coordinate its internal teams.

8. Questions to Ask Before Hiring a DTC Marketing Agency

Use these questions to evaluate prospective agencies before making a long-term commitment.

Question	What to look for
Have you worked with brands like ours?	Relevant experience and understanding of your category
Can you show case studies with context?	Real performance evidence rather than unsupported claims
How do you approach Meta creative testing?	Distinct concepts, a testing process, and creative production capabilities
Who creates the ad assets?	Clear responsibilities for design, video, UGC, and approvals
How do acquisition and retention strategies work together?	An understanding of the full customer journey
How do you evaluate profitability?	Awareness of CAC, margins, repeat purchases, and revenue quality
Who will manage our account?	Named responsibilities and appropriate strategic expertise
How do you respond to underperformance?	Diagnostic thinking, testing, and accountability
What happens during the first 90 days?	Realistic priorities and a clear execution plan
What are the contract terms?	Transparent pricing, scope, and cancellation conditions

Red flags when evaluating marketing agencies

Be particularly cautious of agencies that promise guaranteed ROAS, rely exclusively on platform attribution to establish success, or cannot explain how they test and improve creative.

Other warning signs include limited ecommerce experience, unclear deliverables, weak communication procedures, and an inability to explain how different marketing channels support each other.

The right partner should be able to discuss both its strengths and its limitations.

9. What Makes Forge Digital Marketing Different?

Forge Digital Marketing is a boutique ecommerce growth agency specializing in customer acquisition, conversion optimization, and retention for direct-to-consumer brands.

We bring together specialists across Klaviyo, Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok advertising, ecommerce SEO, Shopify development, and conversion optimization.

Our approach is informed by practical experience working with brands that need more than isolated marketing services.

We look beyond the advertising account

When auditing Meta Ads, we don’t just examine campaign structure and budgets.

We evaluate creative diversity, customer messaging, testing opportunities, and the relationship between advertising performance and the landing page experience.

We produce original advertising creative while also developing new concepts from client photography, videos, and UGC.

We build retention around customer behavior

Our Klaviyo work goes beyond campaign calendars and generic automations.

We consider purchase history, customer segmentation, product consumption, replenishment opportunities, and the relationship between customer acquisition and repeat revenue.

We understand the ecommerce technology stack

From Shopify development to Klaviyo integrations and subscription experiences, our teams understand how technical decisions affect marketing performance.

That allows us to address problems that don’t fit neatly within one marketing channel.

We combine specialized expertise with coordinated delivery

Our team includes marketing specialists, creative professionals, developers, and client success managers.

Each discipline brings its own expertise while contributing to the commercial objectives of the brands we serve.

Our work follows the Forge Framework, organizing growth initiatives around building a strong foundation, attracting qualified customers, improving conversion, and creating opportunities for retention.

Our goal isn’t simply to execute marketing activities. It’s to identify the work that matters most, implement it effectively, and help clients understand the results.

Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring a DTC Marketing Agency

What is a DTC marketing agency?

A direct-to-consumer marketing agency helps brands sell products directly to customers, commonly through Shopify, WooCommerce, or another ecommerce platform. Services may include paid advertising, email and SMS, SEO, website development, creative strategy, and customer retention marketing.

Is it better to hire one ecommerce agency or several specialized agencies?

Both approaches can work. An integrated agency can simplify coordination across acquisition, conversion, and retention. Multiple specialist agencies may also be effective when a brand has experienced internal leadership coordinating strategy, reporting, and execution.

What should I look for in a Shopify marketing agency?

Prioritize ecommerce platform experience, relevant case studies, knowledge of customer acquisition and retention, technical integration capabilities, and an understanding of conversion optimization. The agency should also be able to explain how its work contributes to your business goals.

How important is creative testing for Meta Ads?

Creative testing is a major component of modern Meta advertising. Agencies should test meaningfully different concepts, hooks, formats, and customer motivations rather than relying exclusively on small variations of the same advertisements. Testing volume should be appropriate for the campaign budget and available performance data.

Does a Meta Ads agency need to separate every funnel stage into different campaigns?

No. Awareness, consideration, conversion, and retargeting should influence messaging and strategy, but they don’t automatically require separate campaigns. Modern Meta delivery systems can support consolidated approaches. The right structure depends on campaign objectives, audience size, budget, and performance evidence.

Can one agency manage both paid advertising and Klaviyo?

Yes. Agencies with specialized paid media and lifecycle marketing teams can coordinate acquisition and retention strategies. This can help brands connect the cost of acquiring customers with opportunities to generate repeat revenue.

How can I tell whether my ecommerce marketing agency is performing well?

Evaluate performance against agreed business goals, including acquisition costs, conversion rate, revenue quality, repeat purchase behavior, and profitability where data is available. Ask for explanations of performance changes, not simply a dashboard of reported numbers.

How much does it cost to hire a DTC marketing agency?

Pricing varies based on the services provided, advertising spend, complexity of the ecommerce business, creative production needs, and scope of ongoing management. Compare proposals based on deliverables, expertise, and responsibilities rather than monthly fees alone.

Find the Right Ecommerce Growth Partner

Choosing a digital marketing agency for your DTC brand is an important business decision.

The right partner should understand your products, your customers, and the economics behind your growth.

They should be able to explain how paid advertising, creative strategy, SEO, conversion optimization, and retention marketing work together—and show evidence of their ability to execute.

Most importantly, they should provide the strategic expertise, accountability, and communication necessary to make your investment worthwhile.

If your brand is looking for an ecommerce marketing partner with experience across Shopify, Klaviyo, Meta Ads, SEO, and customer retention, we’d love to learn more about your business.

Talk to Forge About Your Ecommerce Growth Strategy

About the author: Erin Schnittker Siemek, Founder & CEO, Forge Digital Marketing

Erin founded Forge Digital Marketing, a retention-focused ecommerce agency for DTC supplement, CPG, and consumer brands. Before Forge, she spent more than a decade on the brand side of the supplement industry at Optimum Nutrition, RULE ONE Proteins, RIVALUS, and 5 Percent Nutrition, and she brings 10+ years of agency experience across Klaviyo email and SMS, paid media, and SEO, along with deep FDA and FTC marketing-compliance expertise. More about Erin and the Forge team.

Marketing, Meta Ads

Why Trybe Is One of the Smartest Creator Plays for Q4 Holiday 2026 and 2027

By Erin Schnittker Siemek on

October 7, 2026

- Category : Marketing, Meta Ads

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

he biggest constraint on paid social right now isn’t targeting or budget. It’s creative volume. Meta’s delivery system now does most of the audience-finding on its own, which means the brands that win are the ones feeding it the most new, genuinely different ads, fast enough to find winners before fatigue sets in.

Most DTC brands can’t produce creative at that pace. A traditional UGC workflow (source creators, negotiate flat fees, ship product, wait, revise, request whitelisting access, upload, launch) caps most teams at a few dozen new ads a month.

Trybe is built to remove that cap. It’s a performance-based creator platform that turns UGC production into a marketplace: creators apply to your program, submit as many videos as they want, and get paid when their content actually drives results. We think it’s one of the smartest structural bets a consumer brand can make heading into holiday 2026 and into 2027, with a few important caveats we’ll cover honestly.

Built by a brand, not a software company

Trybe didn’t start as a SaaS idea. It started as the internal growth engine behind Haus, a DTC clothing brand. Founder Lukas Pakter says Haus grew to roughly $250K a day in sales and was on pace for $70M to $80M this year, up from $8.5M the year before. He launched Trybe in March 2026 to productize that playbook for other brands, and reports more than 17,000 brands on the platform. (Those are founder-reported figures, not audited ones, but the operator-first origin shows in how the product is built.)

In practice, Trybe handles the full creator program in one workspace:

Recruiting: creators apply to your program, or you search Trybe’s creator directory and invite them directly. Each profile shows the creator’s sales driven in the last 30 days, submission volume, approval rate, and niches, so you can recruit proven performers instead of guessing. Direct invites use invite credits, so pick carefully.
Submissions: approve, revise, or reject videos in bulk, with AI tagging by angle, persona, and creative style.
Seeding: creators request product samples inside the app, synced to your Shopify catalog.
Communication: built-in chat with creators, so feedback doesn’t get lost across email and DMs.
Launching: push approved videos to Meta as whitelisted or Partnership Ads in a few clicks. NEW! Trybe also just rolled out Tiktok Ads Manager compatability and says YouTube is on the way next!
Attribution and payouts: server-side last-click attribution ties each sale to a creator, and Stripe-powered payouts run automatically.

Brands on the platform include Cuts Clothing, Cal AI, Wispr Flow, BYLT Basics, Sand Cloud, and Promix.

Why the model is smart

It flips the risk. Traditional UGC means paying a flat fee for every video before you know if any of them work. Trybe lets brands pay on performance instead: a percentage of attributed sales or ad spend, a flat fee, or a mix. Creators we’ve seen on the platform commonly earn 10% to 15% of GMV on content the brand runs. You pay most when a video is making you money.

It matches how Meta buys now. When creative is the targeting, the brand with 200 distinct concepts beats the brand with 20. Trybe’s model encourages creators to submit many takes, so you’re testing hooks, personas, and angles you’d never have briefed yourself.

It collapses the whitelisting bottleneck. Getting creator ad permissions is usually a chain of DMs and access requests. Here it’s built into the approval step, so a winning video can be live as a Partnership Ad the same day.

The platform fee is low. Trybe is free to start with no seats, contracts, or minimums, and its fee tops out at 1.5%. The full cost picture is in the next section.

The results brands report are big. Trybe’s own case studies show Final Boss Sour going from $300K to $2.1M a month in Meta-attributed revenue while CPA dropped from $35 to $20, and JiYu scaling DTC revenue from $50K to $2.5M a month in six months. Treat vendor case studies as best cases, not benchmarks. They still show what the ceiling looks like.

What Trybe actually costs a brand

Trybe’s platform fee is small, but it isn’t the whole bill. Here’s what a brand actually pays.

1. Trybe’s platform fee. One rate, based on how you pay creators, never stacked:

How you pay creators	Trybe’s fee
Commission on sales	1.5% of attributed sales
Commission on ad spend	1.25% of ad spend
Flat fees, retainers, or bonuses	1.5% of creator earnings

2. Creator pay. This is the biggest line item. Creators commonly earn 10% to 15% of the sales their content drives, and you set the rate.

3. Ad spend. Creator videos earn most of their money as paid ads, so budget to run and scale the winners.

4. Product. Free samples shipped to every creator you accept.

5. Team time. Someone has to review submissions, give feedback, check compliance, and launch ads. At hundreds of videos a month, that’s a real workload.

A simple example: creator ads drive $50,000 in sales at a 10% commission. The brand pays $5,000 to creators and $750 to Trybe, plus the ad spend behind those sales and the cost of samples. The difference from traditional UGC is that you pay as results come in, not before.

Why the timing matters: holiday 2026 and 2027

For holiday, the window is now, and it’s short. A creator program needs time to ramp: recruiting creators, shipping samples, collecting submissions, and testing enough ads to find winners. If you want proven creative scaling into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to launch in early October. Start in mid-November and you’re testing when you should be scaling.

Holiday demands more creative, not less. CPMs climb, audiences see more ads, and fatigue hits faster. Gift-angle, bundle, and offer-specific creative all need fresh variations. A performance-paid creator bench is the most cost-efficient way we know to refill the pipeline weekly without a production budget spike.

For 2027, it’s infrastructure. The brands that build a creator bench this quarter walk into January with hundreds of tested concepts, data on which angles and personas convert, and a roster of proven creators. That compounds. Brands that wait will be starting cold while their competitors are iterating on winners.

Where it breaks

Trybe is a tool, not a strategy. You still need a creative strategist guiding your creators and running and optimizing your ads, videos, statics and entire funnel strategy. The same features that make it powerful create predictable failure modes:

Volume without direction. Creator reviews note that some brands seem to want lots of drafts and care less about quality or original ideas. Without sharp briefs and clear creative angles, you get 300 versions of the same mediocre video.
Approved but never run. Creators report brands approving videos and then sitting on them for months. That kills your reputation on the platform, and the best creators stop submitting.
Saturation on popular programs. Big brands attract thousands of creators. One creator noted Cuts Clothing had roughly 3,200 accepted creators and 7,300 submissions. Standing out as a brand requires responsive communication, fast approvals, and fair commissions.
Attribution is a choice, not a truth. Trybe’s server-side last-click model is useful, but it will disagree with Meta’s reporting. Decide up front which model you pay creators on, and stick to it.
Meta-first. The ad-launching workflow is built around Meta. If TikTok or YouTube is your main channel, plan for manual steps.

None of these are reasons to skip it. They’re reasons to run it with a system.

Supplement and regulated brands: scale the creative, not the risk

This is the part most Trybe coverage skips. When a brand runs a creator’s video as an ad, the brand owns every claim in it. For supplement, wellness, and CPG brands, that matters a lot. (It’s why we built our supplement marketing practice around compliance.)

Hundreds of creators improvising scripts will produce disease claims (“cured my anxiety”), unsubstantiated results (“lost 20 pounds in a month”), and missing endorsement disclosures. Each one is an FTC or FDA exposure the moment it’s whitelisted, and the brand is the one on the hook.

The fix is a compliance layer built into the workflow, before anything reaches Meta:

Briefs that spell out approved structure/function language and banned claim types.
A claims review on every submission before approval, not after launch.
Clear disclosure requirements for Partnership Ads and any organic cross-posting.
A “do not run” library so creators learn the boundaries fast.

Done right, compliance doesn’t slow a creator program down. It keeps your winning ads from getting pulled at the worst possible moment.

How Forge runs Trybe programs

Forge manages Trybe creator programs for DTC brands as part of our influencer marketing services, and our team includes active Trybe creators, so we see the platform from both sides. We handle the parts that decide whether a program works:

Program design: commission structure, product selection, and creator recruiting criteria.
Creative direction: briefs built from your best-performing angles, updated weekly from submission data.
Compliance review: claims and disclosure checks on every submission, built on 10+ years of brand-side supplement experience.
Media buying: launching, testing, and scaling winners in Meta alongside your existing account structure.
Creator management: fast approvals and responsive communication, so top creators keep choosing your program.

If you want proven creator ads running by Black Friday, the time to start is this month.

Start your Trybe program here, or book a call with Forge and we’ll build it with you.

Disclosure: Forge Digital Marketing is a Trybe agency partner, and the link above is our referral link. We may earn a commission or credit if you sign up through it. Trybe is free to join either way.

Sources

Marketing

How Much Revenue Should Klaviyo Generate for a Shopify Store?

By Erin Schnittker Siemek on

October 7, 2026

- Category : Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

The short answer

In Forge Digital Marketing’s analysis of six DTC ecommerce brands, the median brand had 27.28% of total store revenue attributed to Klaviyo over a 90-day period, with individual brands ranging from 15.16% to 47.77%.

Klaviyo has even published a recent DTC playbook built around helping brands move toward approximately 30% email-attributed revenue, with a model where automated flows contribute roughly 15–20% of total store revenue and campaigns help make up the remainder.

But here is the part that gets missed:

There is no universal percentage of revenue that Klaviyo “should” generate.

A store showing 35% Klaviyo-attributed revenue can have an incredibly sophisticated retention program.

Or it can have a struggling acquisition program, an overly generous attribution model, a shrinking customer base, or a business that has become too dependent on discount-heavy email campaigns.

Meanwhile, a rapidly scaling Shopify brand might have Klaviyo showing only 18% of total revenue while its retention program is performing extremely well.

The percentage is a clue. It is not the diagnosis.

At Forge Digital Marketing, we look at the entire lifecycle system before deciding whether a Klaviyo account is healthy.

First: What Does “Klaviyo Revenue” Actually Mean?

When Klaviyo tells you it generated $100,000 in revenue, it does not necessarily mean customers would have spent $0 without those emails.

It means Klaviyo attributed those purchases to messages based on its attribution rules.

For new accounts, Klaviyo currently defaults to a five-day attribution window for email clicks and opens, although those settings can be customized. Klaviyo uses a last-touch approach within its applicable attribution windows.

That distinction matters.

Imagine a loyal customer receives an email Tuesday morning. They open it.

On Thursday, they independently Google your brand, return to the website, and purchase something they buy every three months anyway.

Depending on your attribution settings, Klaviyo may receive credit for that purchase.

Did email contribute? Possibly.

Did that email single-handedly create the sale? That’s much harder to prove.

This is why attributed revenue is not the same thing as incremental revenue.

And it is one of the biggest mistakes we see brands make when evaluating email marketing performance.

So Is 30% of Revenue From Klaviyo Good?

Usually, yes… but we need context.

A recent Klaviyo-hosted DTC playbook uses approximately 30% email-attributed revenue as a scaling target for a mature email program. That’s a perfectly reasonable directional benchmark.

But we’d never audit a client by simply saying:

You’re at 27%, so you’re good.

Instead, we’d ask:

Where is that 27% coming from?

If 15% is coming from sophisticated automated lifecycle flows and another 12% comes from well-segmented campaigns, that’s interesting.

If almost the entire 27% comes from sending 25%-off coupons to the whole list four times a week, that’s a completely different situation.

Same revenue percentage. Completely different business health.

What We Found Across Six DTC Ecommerce Brands

To put the usual Klaviyo revenue benchmarks into context, Forge Digital Marketing analyzed six DTC ecommerce brands using Shopify and Klaviyo over the same 90-day period: July 9 through October 6, 2026.

Across the six brands, total ecommerce revenue was approximately $1.77 million, with $513,121 attributed to Klaviyo.

The most useful finding wasn’t a single magic percentage. It was the amount of variation between brands.

Forge’s 2026 DTC Klaviyo Revenue Snapshot

Median percentage of store revenue attributed to Klaviyo: 27.28%
Average across the six brands: 29.17%
Lowest observed: 15.16%
Highest observed: 47.77%
Median share of Klaviyo revenue generated by automated flows: 51.09%

Klaviyo-attributed share of total store revenue, by brand

Six DTC ecommerce brands, July 9 – October 6, 2026. Median: 27.3%. Scale: 0–50%.

Brand A · Food & beverage

47.8%

Brand B · Food & beverage

15.2%

Brand C · Botanical supplements

39.7%

Brand D · Supplements

28.2%

Brand E · Apparel

26.4%

Brand F · Sporting goods

17.9%

Source: Forge Digital Marketing analysis of six Forge-managed DTC ecommerce accounts.

In other words, the middle of our sample landed remarkably close to the often-discussed 30% Klaviyo revenue benchmark. But individual businesses ranged from just over 15% to nearly 48%.

That’s exactly why we don’t believe Shopify brands should evaluate their retention program against one percentage in isolation.

Perhaps the clearest example came from two brands in the same broad food and beverage category. One had 47.77% of store revenue attributed to Klaviyo, while the other had just 15.16% attributed to Klaviyo during the exact same 90-day period. Same broad industry. Dramatically different revenue contribution.

Factors like acquisition mix, list maturity, purchase frequency, customer behavior, campaign cadence, flow architecture, and attribution can all change what a healthy Klaviyo revenue percentage looks like.

A Note About the Data

This is a small observational sample of six Forge-managed DTC ecommerce brands, not a representative study of the entire ecommerce industry. Brands span food and beverage, supplements, apparel, and sporting goods.

All accounts were evaluated using the identical 90-day date range. Revenue figures reflect Klaviyo-attributed revenue under the attribution configuration in each account at the time of analysis. Because attribution settings and business models can differ between brands, these findings should be treated as directional real-world data rather than a universal benchmark.

And that’s really the point. Our six-brand sample had a median Klaviyo contribution of 27.28%—but individual brands ranged from 15.16% to 47.77%.

There is no single percentage that determines whether your Klaviyo account is healthy.

Flows and Campaigns Were Nearly Evenly Split

Across the six accounts, automated flows represented an average of 50.10% of Klaviyo-attributed revenue, with a median of 51.09%. Measured by total dollars across the entire sample, flows produced 53.76% of Klaviyo-attributed revenue, while campaigns produced 46.24%.

Individual brands varied substantially, however. Some generated nearly two-thirds of Klaviyo revenue through flows, while others generated roughly two-thirds through campaigns. That variation is another reason we don’t believe there is one universal “healthy” Klaviyo revenue mix.

So what is the difference between flow revenue and campaign revenue—and what should a mature account look like?

The Difference Between Campaign Revenue and Flow Revenue

One of the first things we look at is how Klaviyo revenue is divided between campaigns and flows.

Campaigns

Campaigns are scheduled sends: product launches, promotions, educational content, seasonal messages, newsletters, product features, sales, and other broadcasts.

Campaign revenue requires ongoing effort. Stop sending campaigns and that revenue usually slows down quickly.

Flows

Flows are automated lifecycle journeys triggered by customer behavior.

Think:

Welcome
Browse abandonment
Product abandonment
Cart abandonment
Checkout abandonment
Post-purchase
Cross-sell
Replenishment
Review requests
Winback
VIP
Customer education
Subscription lifecycle

These are fundamentally different assets.

A great abandoned checkout flow might run for years, automatically generating revenue every day as new shoppers enter it.

And the performance difference can be substantial.

Klaviyo’s published benchmarks report average revenue per recipient of approximately $0.11 for email campaigns compared with $1.94 across automated flows. Welcome flows average roughly $2.65 per recipient and abandoned cart flows approximately $3.65, although results vary significantly by industry, AOV, audience, offer, and account quality.

That is why we care so much about flow architecture.

Your campaigns monetize your audience today.

Your lifecycle infrastructure monetizes customer behavior continuously.

A Better Question Than “What Percentage of Revenue Should Email Generate?”

Instead of asking only:

“What percentage of our revenue comes from Klaviyo?”

Ask:

“Are we capturing as much revenue as reasonably possible from the customers and prospects we already have?”

That question leads to a much better audit.

At Forge, we would evaluate at least seven areas.

1. Revenue Contribution

Yes, start with total Klaviyo-attributed revenue.

But look at it over time.

Is the percentage increasing? Decreasing?

Did it change because Klaviyo improved—or because Meta spend was cut in half?

Did total store revenue grow while Klaviyo revenue stayed flat?

Percentage alone cannot answer those questions.

2. Flow Coverage

Before obsessing over subject lines or button colors, ask whether the account is actually covering the important stages of the customer lifecycle.

A surprising number of brands have a welcome series, abandoned cart flow, and maybe a post-purchase email—and believe their automation system is finished. It isn’t.

The correct flow architecture depends on the business.

A skincare company may need replenishment, education, cross-sell, review, VIP, subscription, and product-specific journeys.

A high-AOV furniture company may need much longer consideration and educational sequences.

A consumable product may need aggressive replenishment logic.

A gardening brand has an entirely different buying cycle again.

Good lifecycle marketing follows customer behavior. It does not follow a generic Klaviyo flow checklist.

3. Revenue Per Recipient

This is one of the metrics we care about much more than vanity engagement metrics.

Revenue per recipient, or RPR, asks a simple question:

For every person we sent this message to, how much revenue did we generate?

Two campaigns can generate the same amount of revenue while having completely different economics.

Imagine Campaign A generates $20,000 after being sent to 200,000 people.

Campaign B generates $20,000 after being sent to 35,000 carefully selected customers.

Those are not equally effective campaigns.

This is why segmentation matters. More sends do not automatically mean more profitable email marketing.

4. List Growth

Email cannot become a major revenue channel if qualified people aren’t entering the ecosystem.

We look at:

Signup form performance
Traffic-to-subscriber conversion
Offer strategy
Mobile vs. desktop experience
Lead quality
Email vs. SMS acquisition
Where subscribers came from

A Klaviyo strategist cannot compensate forever for a brand that isn’t acquiring new customers or subscribers. Retention and acquisition are connected.

5. Deliverability and Engagement

You can technically increase email-attributed revenue in the short term by sending more email. That does not mean you should.

If increased sending causes falling engagement, rising unsubscribes, spam complaints, or worsening inbox placement, today’s additional revenue can become tomorrow’s deliverability problem.

Healthy email marketing is not:

“How many emails can we possibly send?”

It is:

“How much relevant communication can this audience support?”

That threshold is different for every brand and every segment.

6. Repeat Purchase Behavior

This is where we zoom out from Klaviyo entirely.

Suppose email revenue looks great.

Are customers actually buying again more frequently?

Is repeat purchase rate increasing?

Is customer lifetime value improving?

Are first-time customers becoming second-time customers?

Are second-time customers becoming loyal customers?

Are winback campaigns actually changing behavior?

If the answer is no, then the fact that Klaviyo successfully attributed revenue doesn’t necessarily mean the retention program is doing its job.

The purpose of lifecycle marketing isn’t to make the Klaviyo dashboard look impressive.

It’s to create better customers.

7. Incrementality

This is the most mature version of the conversation.

Ask:

How much of this revenue happened because we sent the message?

That is different from asking how much revenue received attribution.

Holdout testing, control groups, cohort analysis, customer behavior, and broader ecommerce analytics can help separate correlation from causation.

You don’t need to turn every Shopify store into a laboratory.

But sophisticated brands should at least understand that:

attribution measures credit; incrementality measures impact.

Those are not interchangeable.

What If Klaviyo Is Only Generating 10–15% of Store Revenue?

Don’t immediately assume your email agency is failing. But investigate.

There are usually several possibilities.

Your automated lifecycle system may be incomplete.
Your list may be growing too slowly.
Your signup strategy may be weak.
Campaigns may be too infrequent.
Campaigns may be too frequent and poorly segmented.
Your deliverability may be damaged.
Your creative or offers may not be compelling.
Your website may have conversion problems that email cannot solve.
Your customers may naturally have a long repurchase cycle.
Your brand may currently be acquiring so many new customers through paid media that Klaviyo represents a smaller percentage of an otherwise rapidly growing pie.

Context matters.

This is why a percentage should trigger questions, not conclusions.

What If Klaviyo Is Generating 40%+ of Revenue?

This can be fantastic. It can also be a warning sign.

If you have an established brand with a large customer database, strong repeat purchasing, excellent lifecycle automation, and a highly engaged audience, a very high Klaviyo revenue contribution may be completely legitimate.

But we’d still investigate.

Has new customer acquisition slowed?

Is the brand excessively reliant on its existing customer base?

Is Klaviyo claiming revenue from very broad attribution windows?

Are frequent promotions pulling purchases forward rather than creating additional demand?

Would customers have purchased without the email?

Are discounts hurting margin?

Retention is extraordinarily powerful.

But eventually, you need new customers to retain.

A DTC business cannot sustainably email the same audience forever.

Why Shopify Brands Should Stop Chasing One Benchmark

This is probably the most important point in this article.

Benchmarks are diagnostic tools, not business goals.

Klaviyo itself publishes performance benchmarks by factors including industry, company size, message type, and revenue band because performance varies dramatically between businesses.

A $40 consumable should not have the same lifecycle expectations as a $2,000 product.

A subscription company should not have the same retention profile as a gift brand.

A company spending aggressively on Meta should not necessarily have the same Klaviyo revenue percentage as an established business with a massive organic customer base.

And a brand doing $500,000 per year should not blindly copy the email strategy of a $50 million company.

The goal isn’t to achieve someone else’s percentage.

The goal is to understand what your customer lifecycle should be capable of producing—and identify the gaps between that potential and what you’re doing today.

The Forge Klaviyo Health Scorecard

If we were evaluating a Shopify brand’s Klaviyo program, we wouldn’t give it one score based on attributed revenue. We’d evaluate the system.

Revenue contribution: Is Klaviyo producing a meaningful portion of total ecommerce revenue?
Automation: Are the right lifecycle flows live, correctly triggered, and continuously optimized?
Campaign efficiency: Are campaigns generating strong revenue per recipient without exhausting the audience?
List growth: Are enough qualified shoppers entering the owned marketing ecosystem?
Deliverability: Are messages consistently reaching the inbox and maintaining healthy engagement?
Retention: Are customers actually becoming more valuable over time?
Incrementality: Do we have evidence that lifecycle marketing is influencing behavior rather than merely claiming attribution for purchases?

That gives us a much more useful picture than:

Klaviyo says 31%. Everything must be fine.

Sometimes the most dangerous dashboards are the ones where the headline number looks great.

So, How Much Revenue Should Klaviyo Generate?

Here’s the answer we’d give a Shopify founder sitting across the table from us:

For an established DTC brand, seeing email and SMS contribute a meaningful double-digit percentage of revenue is normal, and roughly 20–30%+ in attributed revenue can be a very healthy result.

A recent Klaviyo-published DTC framework specifically targets approximately 30%.

But we would never judge your account from that number alone.

We want to know:

Where the revenue comes from
How much comes from flows versus campaigns
How efficiently you’re generating it
Whether your list is growing
Whether customers are buying again
Whether deliverability is healthy
Whether the program depends on discounts
Whether the revenue is actually incremental

Because the goal isn’t to build a Klaviyo account that looks good in Klaviyo.

The goal is to build a retention engine that makes the entire ecommerce business more valuable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of Shopify revenue should come from email marketing?

There is no universal benchmark. For established DTC ecommerce brands, a meaningful double-digit contribution is common, and roughly 20–30%+ in attributed email and SMS revenue can represent a strong program. However, acquisition mix, repeat purchase behavior, list size, product category, attribution settings, and customer lifecycle all affect this percentage.

Is 30% of revenue from Klaviyo good?

Generally, yes. Approximately 30% Klaviyo-attributed revenue can indicate a healthy retention program. But the composition matters. Revenue generated by sophisticated automated flows and segmented campaigns is very different from revenue generated by repeatedly discounting to the entire list.

Can Klaviyo over-report revenue?

Klaviyo reports attributed revenue, meaning purchases that meet its attribution rules after a subscriber interacts with a message. Attributed revenue should not automatically be interpreted as completely incremental revenue. Klaviyo allows brands to change their attribution settings and compare attribution models.

Should flows or campaigns generate more Klaviyo revenue?

There is no universal split, but flows should represent a meaningful portion of a mature retention program. Automated flows also tend to generate substantially higher revenue per recipient than standard campaigns because they’re triggered by customer behavior and purchase intent.

What Klaviyo flows should every Shopify store have?

Most stores should evaluate a welcome series, browse abandonment, product abandonment, cart or checkout abandonment, post-purchase, cross-sell, review, winback, and customer education journeys. However, the exact architecture should reflect the brand’s products, purchase cycle, customer behavior, and business model.

Why is my Klaviyo revenue percentage low?

Common reasons include missing flows, weak signup forms, poor list growth, low campaign frequency, poor segmentation, deliverability problems, weak offers, site conversion issues, or a business that is currently acquiring large numbers of new customers through other channels.

How do I know whether my Klaviyo account is performing well?

Don’t rely on one metric. Evaluate attributed revenue, revenue per recipient, flow coverage, campaign efficiency, list growth, deliverability, conversion behavior, repeat purchase rate, customer lifetime value, and—where possible—incrementality.

Want to Know What Your Klaviyo Account Should Be Generating?

Every ecommerce business has a different customer lifecycle.

That’s why Forge Digital Marketing doesn’t start a Klaviyo engagement by dropping your company into a template.

We work with DTC ecommerce brands to understand the business behind the account—how customers discover you, what makes them purchase, when they’re likely to buy again, where revenue is leaking, and which lifecycle opportunities you’re currently missing.

Then we build the email and SMS system around that.

If you want to know where your Klaviyo account is leaving revenue on the table, talk to Forge Digital Marketing.

Get a Klaviyo Audit

eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing, SMS Marketing

Klaviyo Integrations for marketing success in 2026: A definitive guide

By on

June 16, 2026

- Category : eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing, SMS Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: June 16, 2026

With Klaviyo integrations you can retrieve and turn ecommerce marketing data into paying customers. In 2022 Klaviyo helped its users generate $2.2B in revenue via email and SMS on Black Friday sales alone. We can only expect more in 2026 Klaviyo provides a robust technology that allows you to automate your email marketing and SMS campaigns at the click of a button. What’s more, Klaviyo’s advanced features are tailored to help your business retain and gain new customers while you channel your energy into delivering the best product or service. But first, you must spare a moment to understand how Klaviyo integrations can help your eCommerce business grow and achieve success this year.

Klaviyo Ecommerce Integrations

Klaviyo is not just an email marketing and SMS powerhouse. This platform is known for providing rich integrations with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Tapchart and Magento. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are over 300 different Klaviyo integrations for any ecommerce platform to choose from. Integrations are what sets Klaviyo apart from other marketing platforms because they allow you to automatically track, analyze and manage your customer behaviour. With the data you’ll get after integrating Klaviyo, you can gain strategic insights that will give your business a competitive edge. And of course — with the right metrics at your fingertips — you can provide excellent customer service to keep your customers loyal. If your business is running on any ecommerce platform, rest assured that Klaviyo has a lightning-fast integration to support it. Let’s delve deeper into how you can integrate your eCommerce platform with Klaviyo.

How to integrate your Ecommerce platform with Klaviyo

Integrating your ecommerce platform with Klaviyo starts with signing up for a free Klaviyo account. The entire process takes less than two minutes. Klaviyo allows you to start integrating your ecommerce store immediately after signing up. However, if you decide to skip the process you should arrive at a screen that looks like this: You can always log in and integrate your ecommerce platform, by clicking your account name on the lower left corner of your dashboard and clicking integrations on the next pop-up. The next page will show you hundreds of Klaviyo integrations you can choose from. You can do it in a few simple clicks.

Be sure to have your API key from your website handy. After integration, Klaviyo can synchronize data from your ecommerce platform. That gives you insights and metrics which can be turned into revenue if maximized.

Top 7 Klaviyo integrations

Let’s talk briefly about some of the most used Klaviyo integrations. Remember, there are hundreds of Klaviyo integrations for ecommerce businesses today.

1. Shopify integration

If you have a Shopify store, Klaviyo integration can help bring the data of your customers into Klaviyo. That will allow you to get insights into what customers are doing on your site and their buying patterns. This is ultimately crucial for making better business decisions.

2. Woocommerce integration

With Klaviyo Woocommerce integration you can send targeted emails to customers, create automated workflows and also synchronize the historical data of your customers.

3. Optin Monster Klaviyo integration

Klaviyo Optin Monster integration allows you to create irresistible, high-performing pop-up forms to better retain customers and reduce the bounce rate from your site.

4. Facebook Ads integration

Klaviyo Facebook integration will help you to collect email addresses from Facebook ads, create custom audiences and advertise to inactive customers.

5. Gatsby Klaviyo integration

Gatsby Klaviyo integration will help you to gather data about your customers on Instagram. This is one powerful tool that can help a brand view metrics of its customers, run automated campaigns and find micro-influencers.

6. Zendesk integration

Zendesk is a powerful tool for customer service. By integrating your Zendesk with Klaviyo you can sync data between both platforms which will enable you to target your customers based on the interactions with your support team.

7. Tapcart integration

Tapcart Klaviyo integration can help you create a mobile app for your ecommerce store without coding. With that, you can send push notifications to your customers such as abandoned cart notifications and new product alerts.

FAQs on Klaviyo integration

What is the best use of Klaviyo integrations?

One of the best uses of integrating Klaviyo with your site is automation and data science. Klaviyo is also perfect for email marketing, SMS, promotions and customer service.

How many Klaviyo integrations are allowed on my account?

Klaviyo only supports one integration per account. That means you can’t integrate more than one ecommerce platform on your Klaviyo account. The only way around this is to create other Klaviyo accounts, particularly if you have more than one ecommerce store for the same business.

Is it possible to send custom data to my Klaviyo account after integration?

YES. Klaviyo’s flexible APIs allow you to easily import custom data to your account. Check out how to manually import data into your Klaviyo account.

Exactly how many Klaviyo integrations are there?

Klaviyo has every integration known to man, according to Maple. But our research shows us that there are 315 Klaviyo integrations. However, Klaviyo attests that it is possible to find a few ecommerce platforms that don’t support Klaviyo integration.

Klaviyo does not integrate with my ecommerce platform, what do I do?

If Klaviyo doesn’t support your ecommerce site, you can contact them and they will get it done quickly.

Wrapping up

Klaviyo integrations are easy and free to set up. With Klaviyo integrations properly set up for your business, it’s possible to generate a minimum of 25% of your monthly ecommerce revenue through Klaviyo in your first month. The system is that good. Besides the revenue that follows Klaviyo integration, it’s arguably the best platform when it comes to ecommerce automation and creating a varied list of workflows. It’s time for you to take a closer look at what Klaviyo can do for your business by signing up.

eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing

Klaviyo Shopify Integration: How to do it in minutes

By on

June 16, 2026

- Category : eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: June 16, 2026

Klaviyo Shopify integration is simpler than ecommerce enthusiasts make it sound. In fact, the entire process can be completed in minutes if one follows a few simple steps. Once integrated with Shopify, Klaviyo will synchronize all the data from your store and allow you to efficiently run SMS and email marketing campaigns, create automated flows and so much more. In 2022, eCommerce brands leveraged Klaviyo to generate over $2 billion in revenue. That was only possible because those businesses took the extra step to integrate their ecommerce platform with Klaviyo. Now, let’s help you integrate your Shopify store with Klaviyo.

How to integrate Shopify with Klaviyo

You have to do it from your Klaviyo account. Log in to begin or create a new account for free. Klaviyo allows you to integrate Shopify straight from the account setup wizard. Alternatively, you can add Shopify from the integration tab in your Klaviyo dashboard. Click on your account name in the lower left corner of your dashboard. Next, click on Integration.

On the integrations page, scroll down or search for Shopify. Click on Add Integrations on the right.

On the next page, paste the URL of your Shopify store. It must be in the format mystore.myshopify.com as shown in the URL placeholder

Additional configuration settings

Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo: this automatically adds all your customers who subscribed to email marketing while shopping with you on Shopify. Next, select a list to add those subscribers from the dropdown menu — preferably Newsletter. You can do the same for your SMS subscribers if you have activated your phone number on Klaviyo. Sync data to Shopify: We recommend selecting Sync all profiles. That way the two sites will have a complete handshake.

Finally, click on Connect to Shopify. On the next page click on Install App at the top right of your screen or bottom left. You’re all set. Your Shopify store is now integrated with Klaviyo.

How to integrate Klaviyo with Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is basically Shopify with more advanced features. When you integrate your Shopify store with Klaviyo, Klaviyo sees it as a Shopify Plus store — that’s if your Shopify domain is for a Shopify Plus account. You won’t find a Shopify Plus integration app on Klaviyo because it’s the same as normal Shopify.

Key Benefits of Integrating Shopify Plus with Klaviyo (vs standard Shopify)

You’re allowed to edit your Shopify checkout to include a custom opt-in language, premium Klaviyo forms and lots more.

You can disable transactional emails in Shopify and send them through Klaviyo. This creates a seamless brand experience.

Benefits of Klaviyo Shopify integration

Data management. This is one of the greatest benefits of integrating Shopify with Klaviyo. Doing this allows Klaviyo to synchronize historical data and other transactional data. Thus, you can create tailored email marketing campaigns, flows with triggers and scale your business. Klaviyo support can help you do this. Customer support. Klaviyo will help you understand your customers’ needs and serve them better. The impact of this on brand loyalty cannot be overemphasized. Audience segmentation. Klaviyo integrations allow you to segment audiences based on the customer data retrieved from Shopify such as purchase frequency, cart abandonment, items purchased, conversions and more. Automation. Klaviyo integration with Shopify opens the door to automated email and SMS marketing campaigns. This allows you to focus more on the business side of things. Study shows that automated campaigns generate 4x more revenue compared to others.

FAQs on Klaviyo Shopify integration

How much does it cost to integrate Shopify with Klaviyo?

Integrating Shopify with Klaviyo will not cost you anything, however, there’s a cost when you try to take your email marketing to the next level. Klaviyo email marketing is free for 0-250 email contacts. You also get 150 SMS/MMS credits free. However, Klaviyo costs $35 per month for businesses with more than 250 email and SMS subscribers. Check out Klaviyo’s full pricing.

How do I integrate my Shopify customers with Klaviyo?

Your Shopify customers will automatically show up in your Klaviyo data when you integrate Shopify as shown earlier. However, you have to make sure you select Newsletter when syncing your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo. To do it, select your account name in the bottom left of your Klaviyo dashboard and click on Integrations. Select Enabled Integrations and click on Shopify. That will take you to your Shopify integration settings page. Below Sync settings, on the From Shopify tab, select the box next to Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo.

What Shopify data does Klaviyo sync?

After integration, Klaviyo syncs events data, profile data, catalogue data, email subscribers, customer phone numbers and lists. For historical data, Klaviyo syncs data from your Shopify account in the last 90 days. That allows you to engage with and gain insight on some of your most recent customers.

What other brands can be integrated with Klaviyo?

Besides Shopify, other big ecommerce platforms that can be integrated with Klaviyo include Woocommerce, Wix, Magento, Facebook, Google, Magenta, BigCommerce, Aftership and numerous others.

What kind of platform is Klaviyo?

Klaviyo is arguably the best marketing and automation platform built to support ecommerce businesses of all sizes. Klaviyo is not an ecommerce platform on its own as you can’t buy or sell on it.

Final takeaway

Integrating Klaviyo with Shopify is an easy and straightforward process that can be completed in minutes as we have shown. Shopify, as powerful and profitable as it is, can be turned into a different beast when integrated with Klaviyo. The benefits of integrating Shopify with Klaviyo are numerous, most of which have already been highlighted here. We recommend that you sign up for a Klaviyo account if you’re serious about taking your ecommerce marketing to the next level. That’s if you haven’t done so already.

Instantly grow your ecommerce business 25%+ with Amazon Buy with Prime: Here’s how

By on

June 16, 2026

- Category : Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: June 16, 2026

Amazon Buy with Prime was built to provide the ultimate shopping experience for customers. But for an e-commerce merchant like yourself, “Buy with Prime” can help drive higher conversion rates and an increase your revenue.

Amazon says the Buy with Prime feature button is helping eCommerce businesses increase their conversion rate by 25% by offering fast shipping and delivery, easy returns and a seamless checkout experience for customers.

Amazon’s pitch for Buy with Prime is that it allows customers to enjoy the full benefits of the Fulfilled by Amazon Program (FBA) on any ecommerce platform. But for D2C ecommerce brands like yours, this could be a goldmine!

Top 5 Benefits of Amazon Buy with Prime for ecommerce merchants

Since Amazon launched Buy with Prime in April 2022 many ecommerce merchants claim to have noticed a marked increase in their conversion rate. Brands like Trophy Skin and Wyze report a 30% increase in their conversion rate after adding the Buy with Prime button to their site.

Here are the other key benefits of using Amazon Buy with Prime

1. Customer confidence. Amazon’s popularity makes it easier for customers to trust your business when they have to checkout via the Buy with Prime button.

2. Fast shipping and delivery. Amazon Buy with Prime can fulfil orders in two days. Customers are always thrilled when their order is shipped and delivered fast.

3. Better customer relationships. Buy with Prime helps eCommerce merchants improve their relationships with customers given that orders are fulfilled professionally and returns are handled by Amazon.

4. Seller fulfilled prime. If your business is still growing and yet to have its own fulfilment operation set up, Buy with Prime is an excellent choice to help handle orders directly from your warehouse.

5. Integrates with most ecommerce sites. Amazon Buy with Prime can be integrated with nearly every ecommerce platform you can think of because Amazon provides you with an installation code which can be added to your site. There’s even an app to easily add Buy with Prime to BigCommerce.

To start enjoying the immense benefits of Amazon Buy with Prime you have to integrate it with your ecommerce store first.

Let’s walk you through how to integrate Amazon Buy with Prime to your ecommerce website.

How to add Buy with Prime to your ecommerce website

There are two basic requirements before you can add Buy with Prime to any ecommerce website:

1. A United States-based entity. Amazon Buy with Prime is only available to businesses registered and operating in the US.

2. An ecommerce website.

With those two confirmed you can now proceed to create your Buy with Prime account by following the next steps.

Step 1. Sign up. Fill in your details on the Buy with Prime signup page.

Step 2. Complete the Buy with Prime requirements.

In this section, you need to fill in your business details, link your ecommerce account and activate Buy with Prime for your products.

Step 3. Install the Buy with Prime button code on your website theme.

You will only be allowed to create and install a Buy with Prime button code on your ecommerce site after Amazon has verified your business details.

Here’s what it will look like on your product checkout page:

When a customer clicks the Buy with Prime button on your site they will be prompted to checkout via their Amazon account. Amazon will proceed to fulfil the order.

How to add Buy with Prime to your Shopify store

If you have a Shopify store you can add Buy with Prime to your checkout page by placing the installation code inside the code of your Shopify theme.

Here are the steps to do it.

Step 1. Log in to your Shopify store

Step 2. Navigate to Theme customization. Sales Channel > Online Store > Themes > Customize.

Step 3. Select Default Product.

Step 4. Select Purchase buttons

Step 5. Select Add Block and click on Custom Liquid on the drop-down.

Step 6. Paste your Buy with Prime button code into the editor box. Save.

Step 7. Drag the new Custom Liquid under the Add to Cart buttons.

That’s it! You’ve added Buy with Prime to your Shopify site.

Amazon Buy with Prime can be integrated with Klaviyo

Buy with Prime can be integrated with your Klaviyo account to get a bird’s eye view of what customers are doing on your ecommerce platform.

Klaviyo is a powerful marketing automation platform built for small and big ecommerce businesses. It leverages customer data to help ecommerce merchants build deeper customer relationships which are invaluable for higher conversion rates and business growth.

You can even integrate Buy with Prime with Klaviyo to get insight into your customer data, create automated and targeted marketing campaigns and set triggers based on customer behaviour on your site.

Forge can help

You can start seeing instant results in terms of your conversion rate and revenue just by adding Buy with Prime button to your ecommerce website.

Buy with Prime transfers the heavy lifting to Amazon. They handle the shipping and fulfilment. Amazon even stores the product for the seller.

However, setting up Buy with Prime for your ecommerce site can be a little tricky. In some cases, you may need some coding experience to do it right. That’s where Forge can help.

We’ve helped many ecommerce businesses add the Buy with Prime feature to their websites in minutes and we can do the same for you. Contact us to get it done and start scaling your conversion rates into the stratosphere!

Marketing, Sales

How to increase sales on Shopify: 22 Proven strategies with examples and illustrations

By on

June 16, 2026

- Category : Marketing, Sales

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: June 16, 2026

Shopify houses over 4 million online stores and records 2 million active users per day. Such staggering numbers are why the company registered revenue of $1.7 billion in Q2 of 2023.

Still, millions of merchants struggle to increase their sales on Shopify over the long term.

It all points to the flawed assumption that the success of Shopify (as a brand) translates to success for e-commerce merchants who sell on Shopify.

The fact is, driving consistent sales on Shopify requires the use of a winning strategy — or better still, a combination of proven strategies. You’re about to see them all in this blog.

Your strategies for Shopify are important because they ultimately help you achieve your business goals, viz making more sales.

Now let’s delve deeply into strategies that work on Shopify for sales and the tactics required to implement them.

22 Proven strategies to increase sales on Shopify

Strategy #1. Content Marketing

Content marketing leverages all kinds of content to bring your business to the forefront of your audience while providing value for the consumer.

Without excellent content, your Shopify store will struggle to attract customers and your sales will be badly affected.

On the one hand, quality content around your niche will help you engage your audience and build solid relationships that will ultimately reflect positively on your sales.

Here’s an infographic (by Neil Patel) that aptly depicts how content marketing moves your audience down the sales funnel.

Now that you understand how important content marketing is to your Shopify success, let’s talk about how to do it right.

Blogging: Create content that suits your audience

Your Shopify online store features a built-in blogging engine that allows you to share articles about your niche. Use it to create awareness for your brand while educating your target audience.

Use all kinds of content to create that awareness

Your content marketing strategy shouldn’t be text blogs only. Include videos, high-quality pictures, infographics and even podcasts to deliver smashing content for your Shopify website.

In this example, Kirrin Finch uses top-quality pictures to make their blog content even more appealing.

Leverage content marketing channels

Use content marketing channels like social media and email newsletters to broadcast your content.

Your content must be optimized for search engines using keywords. We’re going to discuss that strategy next.

Strategy #2. Search Engine Optimization

Search engines can organically drive potential customers to your Shopify site. But you have to first optimize your store for search engines to rank high in Search Engines Result Pages (SERPs). Here’s how to do it.

Conduct keyword research

Keywords are search terms that users enter into search engines to discover relevant content. They’re immensely important because they help search engines satisfy the user’s search intent.

To find the right keywords you must conduct keyword research around your business niche. This can be done using Google auto-suggest.

For example, if your business sells dog food, you can type the search term “dog food” on Google and take note of the keywords that pop up.

Google Keyword Planner, Semrush and Ahrefs are tools that can help you find relevant keywords if you decide to use them.

Use the keywords you found to create content for your blog.

Also include those relevant keywords in your meta description, page URL, image description and blog content. But be careful to avoid keyword stuffing. Google will penalize you for that.

P.S. Shopify allows you to edit website SEO on your product page.

Navigate to the Product page and click on Edit. Include your title and add text that best describes the product — including your keyword in the description and title.

Make your website easy to navigate

Google ranks websites based on how easy they are for users and crawlers to navigate. It’s the same for Shopify stores.

Making your website easy to navigate also improves user engagement and lowers your bounce rate. The idea is to make sure a user doesn’t have to click more than three times to reach a particular product on your site.

Your customers should be able to reach your product page in three clicks: Homepage > Product category > Product

You can do that by editing your store navigation menu structure. Head over to Online Store > Navigation and readjust your menu items.

Blogging

Publishing insightful blog posts around your target keyword on your website can attract organic traffic from search engines.

Besides helping you build brand trust, educative articles also serve as a dragnet for backlinks which massively impacts your search ranking positively.

Finally, several SEO Apps on Shopify can help you level up your site for search engines.

Strategy #3. User Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is created by loyal and satisfied customers about the business. UGC can be in the form of positive reviews, testimonials, social media posts, videos and podcasts.

UGC, if used correctly, will impact your business’ ability to increase revenue through sales while retaining and adding new customers. Plus they improve your site’s visibility for search engines.

How to get user-generated content

Ask your customers for reviews after every sale. You can ask customers to share unboxing and usage videos on their Instagram and TikTok pages with your hashtags.

Not long ago, a video shared by TikTok user Trinidad Sandoval about the effect of an eye cream by Peter Thomas Roth went viral and caused the product to sell out in weeks.

@trinidad1967
♬ original sound – user3761092853451

Offer incentives to customers for leaving a review or posting about their purchase on social media. For example, you can offer discounts on future purchases and reward points.

How to use user-generated content on your Shopify

Share customer reviews on your social media pages and website.

Use the Product Reviews app on Shopify to allow customers to leave reviews on your products.

We also love Yotpo reviews for Shopify for enhanced review capabilities like allowing customers to leave reviews with videos or photos!

Strategy #4. Paid Advertising

Paid advertising strategy can quickly take your Shopify sales to new heights if your organic strategy is proving slow.

Want to see the numbers behind a paid campaign done right? Explore our Google Ads Shopping case study.

Using paid advertising, you can have your business in front of your target audience faster than through other organic strategies.

Here are some types of paid advertising

Search engine advertising. This strategy allows your business to reach customers who are searching for your products on Google, YouTube and other search engines.

Social media advertising. Platforms like Google, Instagram, Twitter (X), and Facebook will promote your business to people based on their behavioural preferences like comments, likes and search history.

Programmatic Advertising. Programmatic advertising automates the buying and selling of online ads using advanced algorithms and real-time bidding. It allows advertisers to target specific audiences with precision and efficiency. By leveraging data, it optimizes ad placements to reach potential customers more effectively on platforms like Shopify. We utilize third-party platforms like StackAdapt for our programmatic media buying.

Google Ads is a good place to start your paid advertising campaign. But first, you need to be clear about your target audience and your budget.

Shopify lists some paid advertising apps that are popular among merchants on the platform as seen in this screenshot:

Strategy #5. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be a powerful force for driving Shopify sales as almost everyone uses email nowadays – stats put the number at 4.5 billion email users in 2023.

A successful email marketing campaign will not just help your business make sales, it will also improve your brand awareness, customer loyalty and acquisition.

Here are a few ways to improve your email marketing strategy

Personalize emails. Beyond addressing your customers by their first name, your email campaign must understand your customers’ needs and send them timely and relevant emails. A tool like Drip can help.

Use a compelling CTA. Your Call To Action (CTA) is how your customers engage with your email. It has to be bold, concise and different from the body of the email. Here’s an example of a good CTA from Netflix.

Use convincing subject lines. The first thing your customers see when you send your email is your subject line. That’s why you need to make it clickable and compelling.

Segment your list. Your email campaign will convert better if you segment your audience based on various criteria like their interests, preferences, or demographics.

Automation with a tool like Klaviyo can also help your campaign perform better.

Strategy #6. SMS marketing

SMS marketing will improve your brand awareness and help you reach your customers and potential customers faster. This strategy also keeps your audience engaged and that will often translate to sales.

Here are a few ways to go about using an SMS marketing strategy

Send welcome messages to new customers

Welcome text messages can help you turn first-time visitors who subscribe to your list into customers. In this example, the brand offers a discount to a new store visitor.

Inform customers of sales and promotions.

Keep your messages concise. This ensures you don’t bore your audience.

Educate your audience with each message. Your campaign should inform your audience before selling. This improves brand trust and customer loyalty.

Try out one of the several SMS marketing apps on Shopify to take advantage of this strategy.

Strategy #7. Personalization

Research shows that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer a personalized shopping experience.

Creating a personalized shopping experience for your audience will lower the bounce rate from your site and improve your customer loyalty.

How to personalize your shopping experience on Shopify

Use email marketing. To reach out to your customers based on their behaviour on your site.

Use hyper-personalized search plugins. Shopify features plugins like Searchanise that can offer products based on the customer’s relevant shopping experience.

Strategy #8. Social Media Marketing

To succeed on Shopify with social media you need a Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy. Your social media marketing strategy will help you plan what content you’ll post, what social media channels you’ll use and how best to achieve your business goals through social media.

Your SMM strategy will leverage sales channels on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to improve sales. You can do this easily by adding the Facebook and Instagram app on Shopify.

For example, Blueland uses Instagram to sell its products with a direct checkout linked with Shopify.

Here’s how to create a successful social media marketing strategy

Define your sales goals. Your business goals for using social media to improve sales should be clearly defined.

Identify your target audience. You should be clear on your audience and how to reach them.

Pick a Shopify SMM app to use for your strategy. We already highlighted Facebook and Instagram. But there are others.

Strategy #9. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a strategy that will require you to partner with people who have a large following and audience on social media to advertise your brand.

Influencer marketing is a brilliant method for skyrocketing sales on Shopify because you can leverage experts and influential people to drive purchasing decisions in favour of your business.

How to get influencers to market your business

Gift your product for a review. An influencer in your niche will likely be open to reviewing your product if you gift it to them for free.

As seen in this pic, Fatima reviews affordable laptops on YouTube. Brands reach out to her to get her to review their products.

Offer discounts. You can offer influencers discounts on your product for a review.

Live interviews and podcasts. You can ask an influencer for an interview or podcast from their social media pages.

Strategy #10. Checkout optimization

Your checkout optimization strategy can directly impact your conversion rate. The idea is to minimize all distractions for the shopper and drive them toward completing the checkout process.

Checkout optimization makes the checkout process convenient, streamlined and pleasant for the customer. This reduces dissatisfaction and cart abandonment.

A few checklists for checkout optimization

Keep it simple. In this example, the checkout on Rothys footwear store is simple and uncluttered.
Make your CTA clear. In the example above, the checkout button is clear and impossible to miss.
Allow for guest checkout. Your site should allow people to checkout as guests to reduce the hassle involved in making a purchase. This option can be set in the Shopify admin panel.
Use an exit pop-up. Your pop-up can ask customers why they’re not completing the purchase and if you can do anything differently.
Optimize your checkout process for speed and mobile
Only ask for credit card information at the last checkout stage.

Strategy #11. Promotions and Discounts

Shoppers are often drawn to discounts and promotions on items they’re interested in buying. Shopify makes it easy to implement this strategy directly from the Discounts tab in your admin panel.

However, there are ways to set discounts and promotions to drive sales for your Shopify business

Offer percentage discounts. Say from 5% to 50%

Free offers. Get customers to buy more by offering free products for a certain purchase. For example, “Buy three, get one free.”

Use a discount pop-up template. This tells your visitors about your discount immediately when they arrive on your site.

You can also offer discounts to get customers to sign up for your email newsletter. Here’s an example.

Offer holiday discount sales, particularly for returning customers.

It all depends on how best you want to approach this strategy.

Strategy #12. Use Wishlists

Some customers may be unwilling to pay for a product right away. That’s why your site should allow visitors to save items on their wishlist. This will help remind the customer of what they were previously browsing whenever they return to the store.

Using wishlists and Save For Later, you can grow your email list which can be segmented for personalized email campaigns.

Simple ways to improve Shopify sales using Wishlists

Use powerful wishlist apps that convert. An app like Wishlist Club serves this purpose effectively. Others like Wishlist Hero and Wishlist King also work.

Remind visitors to save on wishlists. While customers browse your products, your app should remind them to save on their wishlist.

Strategically place your wishlists. This makes it easy for customers to save items in just one click. Here’s an example:

Now let’s talk about some strategies that stop customers from abandoning your cart altogether.

Strategy #13. Reducing Cart Abandonment

Research shows that nearly 70% of users who add an item to an online shopping cart will abandon it before checkout. You need to have a strategy to stem this tide for your Shopify store.

To change this narrative for your Shopify store and improve your sales here are a few things you can do.

Use a retargeting marketing campaign. You can set up a remarketing campaign using Google Ads that advertise your products to visitors who abandon your checkout process.

Set up exit pop-ups. An exit popup will try to get the customer to rethink abandoning the cart. It also works to get their email and re-market to them via your email campaign.

Look at this example by PushLiving:

Again, Shopify has several apps you can use to create an exit pop-up for your site such as Privy, Popup Upsell and others.

Follow up on social media and chat. You can use your list to market the same product to your visitors on social media. It’s also important to chat with your shoppers to find out why they’re not completing the checkout process.

Strategy #14. Collaboration — Shopify Collabs

Your sales could move to the next level if you leverage the power of collaboration with content creators. This strategy has been made ever so easy with the Shopify Collabs program.

Here’s how to get this strategy up and running for your brand

Sign up for Shopify Collabs. Head over to Shopify and sign up for the Shopify Collabs program as a brand.

Find creators. There are thousands of creators on Shopify Collabs who will be open to collaborating with your brand.

Create a collab program. After finding a creator that suits your brand, the next step is to create a collab. Creators are paid based on commission.

Track sales. Shopify collabs allow you to track your sales through the system.

Strategy #15. Improving Customer Satisfaction

The lifetime value of a customer cannot be gauged on their first purchase but on how satisfied they are after every purchase.

Excellent customer service is crucial for every brand that wants to improve customer satisfaction and increase sales.

Here are 5 ways to improve your customer satisfaction

Offer multiple communication channels. Your customer should easily reach you across multiple channels – like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and email.

Stay in touch. You have to connect with your customers through various communication channels. For example, you can send messages to individual customers using the Shopify admin panel. Personalizing your conversations with customers fosters lasting relationships.

Improve product quality. The quality of your product/service goes a long way to determine how satisfied your customers are. A high-quality product meets the expected need, lasts over time and works without adverse effects.

Meet expectations. Every customer has an expectation they want your product to meet. Achieve this and you have a loyal customer.

Respond to complaints and feedback. When it comes to customer service your handling of complaints and feedback is what matters most to your customers. If they feel you don’t take their concerns seriously, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

Customer satisfaction rests on your product quality and your ability to resolve issues efficiently to meet the expectations of your clients.

Strategy #16. Payment options

Your sales could be suffering because your business doesn’t offer a convenient payment method for your customers.

The good news is, that Shopify offers numerous payment options for merchants besides credit and debit card payments.

For example, Ketnipz offers their customers an express checkout using Amazon Pay and Shop Pay.

But that’s not all. There are other payment options on Shopify like PayPal, Mobile Wallet, PayLater and even Crypto.

Here are some checklists for choosing a payment option that ultimately increases your Shopify sales:

Understand what works for your audience.

Transaction fees. Customers will prefer an option with the lowest transaction fee and chargebacks. This also affects your profit margin.

Availability. The best payment option will allow customers to pay from anywhere in the world.

Security. Your payment option should be risk-free for the customer with efficient anti-fraud measures.

Strategy #17. Mobile Optimization

More than 79% of Shopify traffic comes from mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets. The figure continues to increase year on year. And it’s why your Shopify store must be optimized to work on all kinds of devices.

Your strategy should have a plan for mobile because it improves your search engine ranking, lowers your site’s bounce rate, and ultimately improves sales.

Here’s what you have to optimize your site for mobile

Improve page load speed. Stats show that a delay of one second reduces your conversion rate by 7%.

Easy navigation. We talked about this in Strategy #1. Your users should be able to browse through your website with minimum effort.

Visuals. Your mobile strategy shouldn’t sacrifice quality product images for speed. For example, the mobile page of Tenthousand’s Shopify store is irresistible as it features quality images, placed at the centre of the screen.

Improve your mobile landing page. This is the first impression users will have when they land on your site.

Google Analytics, Mobile Friendly Tests and PageSpeed Insights are a few tools to check how optimized your site is for mobile.

Strategy #18. Optimizing Landing Page Content

Mobile aside, the overall landing page of your Shopify store has to be optimized to convert your visitors into paying customers. As mentioned earlier, your landing page is the first impression your visitors will have of your site. And you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. A visitor typically makes a decision about your business after 0.05 seconds on your landing page.

Note: Your landing page is not the same as your home page. You need a strategy for optimizing your landing page.

The first things to look at are the page speed, the quality of images (remove oversized, distracting images), your CTA and social poof.

Best tips for optimizing landing page content

Write a smashing headline. The first 10 words of your landing page headline are the most important. Think it through.

Include social proof. Feel free to add user-generated content like reviews, testimonials and social media posts on your landing page.

Use quality images. And video too if it doesn’t reduce your site’s speed.

A powerful CTA. Your call to action has to be clear, compelling and visible.

Optimize it for mobile. This is a powerful strategy for driving conversion as already discussed.

Now here’s a great example of a landing page that converts, by Huppy:

As you can see, the landing page above features powerful social proof, a persuasive copy and a clear call to action.

Strategy #19. Upselling and Cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling is an easy-to-implement strategy that can skyrocket your Shopify sales this year. It simply involves encouraging your customers to purchase more products on your site that add extra value and complement what they initially bought.

For example, a fashion store can offer a customer who bought a pair of jeans a matching T-shirt and belt for half the price.

Doing this effectively on your Shopify store can take your sales to new heights while providing massive value for your customers. Why wouldn’t they want to do business with you now?

Shopify apps like Visually All‑In‑1 Optimization are excellent for cross-selling and upselling.

Strategy #20. Using Referrals

A strong referral strategy is efficient for increasing sales on Shopify and reaching new customers. This strategy turns your customers into your marketers.

You can implement this strategy using the Shopify Affiliate Program. This program allows merchants to offer incentives to customers for referring a new customer to their store. This strategy works perfectly because customers are usually more trusting of fellow customers.

How to create a Shopify referral program

Identify your audience. Their demographics, location, preferences etc.

Decide on software. This will allow you to track your progress and offer rewards.

Decide on your incentives. This will be based on your budget and your business goals.

Invite customers to join the program. Broadcast your referral program using various communication channels like social media and email marketing.

Strategy #21. Live Chat and Automated Responses

The best Shopify brands have a live chat feature on their website to keep shoppers engaged with fast answers to questions. This ensures that the customer is never confused or frustrated to the point of abandoning their intended purchase.

But it’s almost impossible to be readily available to respond to shoppers, even for a growing brand. That’s where automated responses using chatbots can help.

Shopify apps allow you to use chatbots that can respond to customer queries 24/7 with the best answers from your FAQ database.

Chatbots are also important for designing Shopify landing pages that convert.

Strategy #22. Free Shipping

Customers are drawn to online stores that offer free shipping because it takes away the ‘annoying’ extra cost of buying a product. Free shipping has proven to nudge customers into spending more than they initially intended.

Research has shown that customers expect free shipping from online stores when they spend above a certain limit.

Ecommerce brands have gone with the trend and now offer free shipping to high-spending customers.

For example, the Naja store offers free shipping for orders that are above $150. They make it clear from their landing page.

Various strategies can be implemented around free shipping to improve your Shopify sales.

Brands can use free shipping offers to:

Drive sales for a particular product
For clearout sales
Gain new customers around a geographical location.

Bonus strategy. Selling on Marketplaces

If you’re still hungry to reach more customers and improve your sales, one more strategy to try is selling on different marketplaces. Shopify encourages both small and big brands to leverage the power of other large marketplaces to improve their sales.

Here are some marketplaces you can consider selling on:

Amazon
Etsy
eBay
Walmart
Bonanza

Choosing the right marketplace for your brand requires some research on your part to find out what works best for your target audience and the fees involved.

Make more sales on Shopify today!

As you’ve already seen, multiple strategies can be combined to increase sales for your Shopify store. Now there’s no more excuse why you shouldn’t be seeing positive results going forward.

But if you’re still at a loss on what strategy to use and how best to use it, you can contact us at Forge and we’d be glad to help.

Remember — the smallest changes can sometimes make the biggest difference for your Shopify sales. To start seeing instant results you must take action immediately using the information already at your fingertips.

eCommerce, Marketing, Shopify

How to improve dwell time and reduce bounce rate on your Shopify store

By carolynn on

June 16, 2026

- Category : eCommerce, Marketing, Shopify

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: June 16, 2026

Does your Shopify store suck? Visitors won’t stick around for two shakes of a lambs tale – let alone add your product to cart. God forbid someone buy something already! Phew, almost lost my cool there. Well take a breath and pull up a chair. Let’s talk about how we can fix your PDP (that’s what we call a product page in marketer world) and get you selling ASAP. If people aren’t spending time consuming content on your site or PDP, you have a bounce rate and dwell time problem. Dwell time tells you how effective your Shopify store is engaging visitors. Bounce rate shows you how quickly visitors navigate away from your Shopify store after arriving at your landing page. Both important, but we want bounce rate to be low and dwell time to be loooooong. For any Shopify-based brand, user engagement is a fuel that fires your site to the top of search engine results, which in turn helps you reach more customers. Thus, to drive consistent sales and retain customers, you want to increase your Shopify store’s dwell time and lower its bounce rate. How do we do that? Improve engagement! It’s not as scary as it sounds – all technical terms aside, you need to craft messaging and visuals that keep people engaged with your brand. One of the helpful hacks you’re about to see in this piece on how to increase dwell time and reduce bounce rate in Shopify is the use of product videos. This could be a game-changer for your business. A superb example of how product videos can work for Shopify is this one by Hydroflask. Their 37-second product video hooks the viewer by showing off the product’s features — it also includes a clear call-to-action.

Using product videos like this, Hydroflask keeps visitors on their site for longer than 30 seconds, fostering user engagement which inevitably boosts their conversion rate. As we head into 2026, we will see more successful Shopify stores leverage product videos to increase their site’s dwell time while lowering bounce rate. We’ll discuss this unmissable trend in detail later. Now let’s dive deeper into dwell time and bounce rate to see how it can massively help your Shopify business move to the next level.

Understanding Dwell Time and Bounce Rate

Dwell time boosts search ranking

Dwell time is also referred to as the average session duration per visitor. This metric is a strong indicator of user engagement on your website. It’s important to Google’s search algorithm too. You see, after Google rolled out their latest search core updates, dwell time became an essential ranking factor for websites, including Shopify stores like yours. Now, Google algorithms measure how long users spend on a website, if the time is too low Google reduces the site’s ranking in search results. For example, if a user immediately navigates away from a website after arriving there from a search result page, it tells Google algorithms that the user’s search intent was not satisfied. Over time that website’s search ranking suffers. This concept also applies to bounce rate. Let’s take a closer look at it from the user’s perspective.

High bounce rate is bad for Shopify business

It takes less than 10 seconds for most Shopify users to determine if a website is helpful or not. Their immediate action afterwards is either to stay and engage with the website or leave. Bounce rate shows the percentage of visitors that leave a website without taking any action, like viewing more pages or making a purchase. In Google Analytics 4, a page is considered bounced if a user doesn’t view it for longer than 10 seconds, doesn’t trigger a conversion event or generate an additional page view. There are several reasons why people bounce from a Shopify website — the problem could range from an ugly site design, low page speed and importantly not satisfying the user’s search intent. It goes without saying that a high bounce rate is bad for any Shopify business as it harms conversion rate and customer retention. Come with us to see how you can make your site more exciting using product videos.

The Power of Product Videos in 2026

‘Pictures will always show it better than words but then videos will always show it better than pictures.’ This old quote still holds true even for Shopify businesses. “Brands that use product videos can grow revenue up to 49% faster than non-video marketers,” Shopify guru and eCommerce consultant Katy DeLeon says. A product video is a motion picture or animation describing a product and showing how helpful it can be for the end user.

How to lower bounce rate and increase dwell time

Here’s an example of an excellent product video by Squatty Potty (and their brilliant advertising agency, The Harmon Brothers). And here’s the formula that made this video increase conversions for the silly stool by over 600%! (can you say “holy s#!t”?)

Humour (classic Harmon Brother’s requirement for all ad spots)
Education: show, don’t just tell and you can make people buy something they didn’t even realize they needed!
Answers BDQ’s (buyer decision questions) and objection handling during the video: i.e. “Where can I store this huge stool?” – “Easy, it tucks right under the toilet bowl for compact, convenient storage!”
Establishes Authority: cites rave reviews from doctors, famous personalities and the infamous Shark Tank TV show
Social Proof: cites over 2,000 Amazon 5 Star Reviews (yes, 2,000 reviews was a big deal back when this ad debuted 😂now that’s the minimum buyers like to see on any Amazon product).
Strong Call To Action & Snappy Closing Tagline: “The Stool for Better Stool”

Product videos like this one educate and inform the customer. It also inspires them to make a positive purchase decision for the brand. But that’s not the only benefit of having a product video.

Types of Product Videos

Product demos and explainer videos

A video can help prospects get an idea of the touch-and-feel of any product — that’s why explainer videos and video demos hook prospects. This example from Bruvi introduces their product and showcases how to use it. And, what the user stands to get for buying it. All in two minutes.

Customer testimonial videos

Shopify has apps like Vid Proof that allow store owners to embed customer testimonial videos in their website. You can get more customers to make testimonial videos by sharing a link. Here’s a great testimonial video posted by Barner, a reputable eyewear brand.

Besides boosting brand credibility, testimonial videos are also a powerful and persuasive strategy for driving sales.

360° product interactive videos

Some prospective customers want to see a more detailed video of a product before buying. Such a video must be interactive and capture all sides and angles of the product. Videos like that are appealing because they help the customer understand the shape, size and intricate details of what they’re buying. Take a look at this perfect example from Apple for their iPad Pro.

Another brand that takes 360 video in a different direction is Allbirds. They showcase a model wearing their insanely comfy shoes (yes, I bought into the messaging and finally got a pair and yes, they’re worth the price) and doing a complete 360 on screen so you can visually see how the shoes present on a real human in motion.

As we head into 2026, video marketing will become even more essential for user engagement and conversion. However, to stay ahead of the curve businesses must follow the trend.

4 Modern Trends in Product Videos

1. Use of short-form videos for social media platforms

Short-form video marketing is here to stay, particularly for social media. Nearly 5 billion people use social media today. That tells you your audience is already on social media. Hence, you can expand your brand reach using 30-second to 2-minute videos that work across multiple social platforms like X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and more. The biggest brands are already doing this. Why not you?

2. More interactive elements and user-generated content integration

User-generated content (UGC) is considered credible because they are created by real-life end-users, not the brands. This trend will continue to gain momentum because it improves brand engagement and credibility leveraging user opinion and creativity. Repurpose this content thoughtfully (and only with written permission) when possible for social proof on your own PDP or landing page to enhance social proof.

3. Live streaming product launches

Live-streaming product launches recently became popular in the United States and continue to gather momentum. In Shopify, live streaming works side-by-side with live shopping. This strategy allows a host to unveil a new product with viewers able to order the products in real-time. Live streaming provides brands with the opportunity to interact with their customers live.

4. Using AI for video creation

Creating product videos for several new products can be burdensome and expensive for any business with a strict budget. That’s where artificial Intelligence (AI) can help. “AI will of course continue to be a huge topic and trend going forward. As more and more AI-powered tools come onto the market, their significance in video marketing strategies will only grow. AI tools will increase productivity and help video teams do more with less,” Danielle Warren, senior video editor at Google says. By now you know how vital video marketing is for your Shopify business. But how do you do it effectively?

ABCD on How to Create Effective Product Videos for Shopify Stores

A. Planning and Pre-Production

Define your goals and target audience The first step to creating a powerful product video is to clearly define the marketing goals for your target audience. Your goals could range from boosting brand engagement and authority, expanding brand reach, generating new leads, educating your customers to increasing conversion — in any case your video must include a clear call to action. Scriptwriting and storyboarding Your video script is a document containing the storyline of your product video, including all the stage directions and dialogue. First, you have to write an outline of what the video will look and sound like with a good hook that captures the attention of the viewer when they click on the video. A good video script will help your actors or voice-over artists (if you plan to use them) understand your needs to create your dream video with a clear message. Here’s a quick checklist for writing a great product video script, according to Shopify.

How many characters will you have?
Who will your characters be?
Character demographics. Where will your characters come from?
Will your video have narration?
What kind of story do you want to tell? Is it emotional, educational, explainer, product demo etc?
Video length — 30 seconds to 1-minute videos usually work best.

Product selection and preparation Picking a product for your video should be easy. But it gets tricky if you’re a brand that deals on several distinct products. Our simple advice is that you only make product videos for your best product(s). That way you stand a better chance of building brand credibility with your video. It’s called putting your best foot forward. Cowboy Bikes sells bicycles and other bicycle accessories but they only make product videos for their latest bicycle. Like this one:

Make sure your selected product is clean, efficient and appealing before rolling out the camera.

B. Production

Producing a high-quality product video will require the use of a decent video camera. You may need to hire a videographer if you don’t have enough experience making such videos. The goal is to produce quality footage for your product. The sound quality of your video must also be as high as the footage. Use boom mics to ensure that your narrator’s voice is clear throughout the video and isn’t drowned out by music or noise. Finally, your video setting has to be top-notch. Use a well-lit and lovely background that resonates with your message.

C. Post-production and Optimization

After shooting your video, the next step is to edit it for clarity, engagement and SEO. A good product video may not get the required attention if it has a boring title that isn’t optimized for search engines. If you’re uploading your video to social platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, you must include a video description with keywords, hashtags, tags and captions. The best product videos for Shopify also include a clear call-to-action at the end with product links. For example, Ruggable’s call-to-action directs users to their Shopify homepage using their product video.

D. Integrating Product Videos into Your Shopify Store

A high-quality product video does little good if it is not properly placed in your Shopify store. This is the easy part, but it’s still important. Shopify allows you to strategically place your product videos for each product in your store. Click on Products on your Shopify admin page, and select Upload new. You may embed the video from a URL if you have a link to the video from YouTube or Vimeo.

Expert advice: It’s usually better you upload your product video directly from your Shopify admin page. This ensures that your viewers don’t get YouTube recommendations at the end of the video. That could be distracting for a visitor. Don’t forget to A/B test different product videos to see what works best for your target audience and what gets them to click on your call-to-action. Besides using product videos there are other ways to boost user engagement in your Shopify website to increase dwell time and lower bounce rate.

Additional Strategies to Improve Dwell Time and Bounce Rate

Optimize website navigation and speed If your website takes more than 2.5 seconds to load it needs to be optimized immediately to avoid losing potential customers. There are several steps to optimize your website speed in 2026, but first, you have to know how fast your website is loading using a powerful tool like PageSpeed Insights. Next, optimize your images by compressing high-resolution images. Remove unresponsive elements on your site. And only use responsive fonts. PRO TIP: Make your Shopify website easy to navigate and display for products attractively. Improve product page content Spending time to optimize your product page content will ultimately pay off because it gets people to spend time on your website which boosts your site’s dwell time and conversion rate. A great product page must be informative, robust and easy to navigate for the user. It must also use high-quality images to tell a story of your product and brand. Adding reviews and customer testimonials cannot be understated. Asos clothing brand is a good example. They use high-quality images and their product page content is concise, informative and features a clear call-to-action.

Asos also uses short product videos to show off their products. Offer internal linking and related product suggestions Shopify encourages the use of internal links in your product description to direct users to similar products and informative blogs on your website. Doing this reduces a website’s bounce rate considerably. Besides that, internal links on your website make it easier for search engines to index your pages. Online shoppers often like to look at different products before deciding on which to buy. Don’t let them go elsewhere, add recommended products on your site today. Make your website mobile-friendly Most Shopify premium themes are mobile-friendly, but you have to make sure your website is — you can check it with Google’s Lighthouse or with tge eye test by using a mobile phone. According to Google, 61% of website visitors will not return to a site if it isn’t mobile-friendly. Here are a few tips on how to make your Shopify site mobile-friendly.

Reduce file sizes of your images and videos
Improve your page speed with responsive Shopify themes.
Avoid overcrowding your site with widgets

Leverage website analytics to track and analyze user behavior The surest way to understand the dwell time and bounce rate of your Shopify website is to use analytics.

Several analytics tools track user behavior on Shopify websites, like Google Analytics, HotJar and Kissmetrics. Shopify’s inbuilt analytics can also be of great help. Analytics will show you how well your website is engaging visitors, which gives you an idea of your dwell time and bounce rate.

Conclusion

If your Shopify store cannot keep users for longer than 15 seconds you may already have a big problem. That shows your dwell time is low and the bounce rate is high. But you can change the narrative and optimize your Shopify store using the hacks shared in this guide, particularly product videos. Research has shown that Shopify brands that use product videos record higher user engagement and conversion rates than those that don’t. Why wouldn’t you shoot a product video today? At Forge, we are experts in optimizing Shopify websites using the latest strategies for maximum results. Get in touch to see how we can help.

eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing

The Subscription Email That’s Quietly Killing Your LTV (And Exactly How to Fix It)

By Erin Schnittker Siemek on

March 24, 2026

- Category : eCommerce, Email Marketing, Marketing

- Tags : 2022, affiliate, agency, automation

Last updated: May 2026 | By Erin @ Forge Digital Marketing

Your upcoming charge notification gets 60%+ open rates. Most DTC brands waste it by literally inviting cancellations. Here’s how to turn it into your highest-converting retention touchpoint… and actually grow AOV in the process.

TL;DR

If you run a DTC subscription brand and your “upcoming charge” email still says something like “It’s almost that time… manage your subscription below”… you’re basically handing your subscribers a cancel button on a silver platter.

The fix: Reframe the entire email from a billing warning into a value-reinforcing, upsell-driving retention moment. Lead with excitement about their next order, stack subscriber benefits, offer one-click delay/skip buttons before any manage link, add product recommendations, and push “Manage Subscription” to the very bottom.

Brands doing this are seeing up to 50% less churn at this touchpoint and meaningful AOV lifts from in-email upsells. One beverage brand cut their Month 2 churn from 60% to 30% just by rethinking this single email (Stay AI case study).

This is the highest-ROI email template change you’ll make all year. And it takes an afternoon.

What Is the Upcoming Charge Email?
The Problem: Why Most Brands Get This Wrong
Real-World Examples: Bad, Better, Best
The Data: How Much This Actually Costs You
The Fix: 6-Step Email Redesign Framework
The Full Template Structure (Copy This)
What to Measure After You Deploy
Tools That Make This Possible
FAQ

What Is the Upcoming Charge Email (And Why Does It Matter)?

The upcoming charge email (also called a pre-shipment notification, upcoming order reminder, or subscription charge notification) is the transactional email sent to subscribers before their next recurring order is billed and shipped. Most subscription platforms (like Recharge, Stay AI, Loop, Bold, Skio) send this automatically, typically 3-5 days before the charge date.

Here’s why this email is so important and why most brands completely sleep on it:

It has the highest open rate of any email you’ll ever send. We’re talking 60%+ open rates consistently (ARPU). That’s 3-4x what your best promo email does (unless you work with Forge 😝).

My point is, every subscriber reads this thing. Every. Single. One.

And yet… the default template on basically every subscription platform looks something like this:

Subject: You have an upcoming charge
It’s almost that time. Your next order is set to ship in 3 days. If you’d like to make any changes, please do so today so we can ensure we can update your order in time.
[MANAGE SUBSCRIPTION]

If you just read that and thought “…wait, that’s basically what ours says”… yeah. You’re not alone. And that’s a problem.

The Problem: Most Brands Are Using Their Highest-Engagement Email to Lose Money 😅

Let’s break down what that default template is actually doing to your subscribers’ psychology:

The subject line: “You have an upcoming charge” — frames the subscription as a cost. Not a value. Not a routine. A charge. You’re literally starting the conversation by reminding them money is leaving their bank account.

The body copy: “If you’d like to make any changes…” — that’s a polite way of saying “hey, want to cancel?” You’re planting the seed of doubt in a subscriber who probably wasn’t even thinking about canceling until they opened this email.

The CTA: one giant MANAGE SUBSCRIPTION button — leads directly to a portal where… what’s the most prominent option? Yep. Cancel.

So let me get this straight…

You spent real money acquiring this subscriber. You got them through a welcome flow. They made it past their first order. They’re actively paying you every month. And now, at your moment of maximum guaranteed attention, you’re essentially saying:

“Hey! Just a reminder we’re about to take your money. Want to cancel? Here’s the button!”

…that’s what we’re doing? That’s the strategy?!

“Getting Warmer” – What a Partial Fix Looks Like:

Here’s an example from Lume (a DTC deodorant brand) that shows a brand starting to get it right, but not quite there yet:

What Lume got right: they show the order contents, they have an upsell section, and they offer a delay. But the delay is buried in paragraph text instead of a one-click button which means subscribers who “aren’t ready yet” still have to hunt for it… and many will just cancel instead.

The fix is being intentional about the hierarchy. Every friction-reducing option (delay, skip) should be more visible than the cancellation path. Lume’s almost there… but almost doesn’t save the churn.

The Gold Standard: What Grüns Gets Soooo Right 🙂‍↕️

Okay so I have to talk about Grüns here because I actually received this email as a subscriber and it stopped me mid-scroll.

This is what we’re aiming for.

Let’s break down exactly what they’re doing…

The subject line: “We’re preparing your order 📦”

No “charge.” No “billing.” No “upcoming.”

They’re preparing something for you.

The mental frame is completely flipped. This isn’t money leaving your account, it’s a package being built. That’s not an accident. That’s intentional psychology.

“Yay! We’re happy to keep this going for you.”

Two words: “keep this going.” Not “you’ve been charged.” Not “another order is processing.”

They’re positioning the brand as a partner in maintaining your routine, not as a company extracting payment.

The word “Yay!” is doing emotional priming before the subscriber even reads a word of substance. By the time you get to the details, you’re already in a positive headspace. That’s Kahneman 101: the framing of the first moment colors everything that follows.

The 60-minute urgency window: “You can only make changes for the next 60 minutes.”

This is sneaky-brilliant. Most brands either give no window (subscribers feel powerless) or a vague “manage your subscription” nudge (subscribers wander off to cancel).

Grüns gives a bounded, specific, low-stakes action: just check your address. That’s it. It’s almost impossible to say no to… and that small act of engagement is a micro-commitment that re-anchors the subscriber to the order they already said yes to.

The 30/60/90-day outcome ladder

This is the move most brands completely miss. They re-sell the why inside the order notification itself:

After 30 days: Supported Digestion, Reduced Cravings, Skin & Nail Health
After 60 days: Gut Health, Stress Management, Mental Clarity
After 90 days: Immunity, Recovery, Sustainable Energy

By month 3, your subscriber has probably forgotten why they started. Subscription fatigue is real: people cancel not because they hate the product but because they’ve stopped connecting it to a goal. Grüns re-connects that goal every single month, at the moment of highest attention. That’s your cancellation defense.

The clinical data

“20.5% increase in Folate. 40.1% increase in Vitamin C.”

Right there, inline, with a bar chart. They’re not just saying “our gummies are good for you”, they’re proving it, in the email, at the exact moment when churn risk is highest. This re-justifies the purchase decision just before the card gets charged.

“4.8 Stars | 1,000,000+ Members”

The closing line before the footer is pure social proof. A subscriber who’s wavering suddenly remembers: one million other people are doing this. That’s community.

That’s validation.

The anxiety of “am I wasting my money?” dissolves when you’re reminded you’re part of the largest club that ever said yes to this brand.

What you should take inspiration from Grüns on:

Every element reframes the email from a billing event into a reinvestment in yourself. They never once say the word “charge.” They lead with excitement, empower their customer through a time-bounded action, re-sell the product benefits to people who already bought, and close with social proof that makes staying feel like the obvious, validated choice.

Side-by-Side Psychology Summary

Element	“You’re About to Be Charged”	Grüns’ Approach
Core frame	Loss (money leaving)	Gain (product arriving)
Emotional tone	Neutral / transactional	Enthusiastic / celebratory
Customer role	Passive recipient of charge	Active agent in their health journey
Urgency	None or anxiety-inducing	Empowering (you have 60 min to act)
Churn defense	None	Full benefits re-sell + social proof
Brand relationship	Vendor collecting payment	Partner invested in your outcomes

That’s the bar. That’s what your upcoming charge email should be doing.

The Data: How Much This Email Is Actually Costing You

Okay let’s talk numbers because this isn’t just vibes, the data here is wild!!

Subscription Churn Is Already Brutal

Average monthly churn for DTC subscription brands sits between 10-15% (Recurly).

That means if you sign up 1,000 subscribers in January, roughly half are gone by summer.

The subscription economy is fundamentally a retention game, and only about 20% of subscription businesses are actually improving their retention numbers (yikes).

The LTV Math

If your average subscription order is $80 and your customer sticks around for an average of 6 orders before churning, each subscriber is worth $480 in lifetime value. Every cancellation at this email touchpoint is $480+ walking out the door… and you held the door open.

The Upsell Opportunity You’re Missing

Here’s where it gets really painful…

Cross-sells and upsells account for over 30% of ecommerce revenue (Shopify)
For subscription businesses specifically, up to 46% of revenue comes from upgrades and add-ons
Upselling converts at roughly 20% on average — way higher than cold acquisition

The upcoming charge email is one of the most effective touchpoints for driving those add-ons… because the customer is already expecting to buy.

The purchase decision is made. The credit card is on file. You’re just asking “want anything else while we’re packing? 👀”

And most brands aren’t even asking!

The Fix: How to Redesign Your Upcoming Charge Email for Retention + Revenue

The fix isn’t complicated. Honestly it’s more of a framing shift than a technical overhaul.

But the impact? Massive.

Instead of treating this email as a compliance notification, treat it as what it actually is: your subscriber’s monthly moment of highest engagement with your brand. A moment where they’re paying attention, expecting to hear from you, and already committed to purchasing.

Here’s the 6-step framework:

Step 1: Lead With Identity, Not Transaction

Kill the “upcoming charge” language. All of it. Your subject line should reinforce the subscriber’s identity as someone who made a good decision, not remind them of a cost.

	Before	After
Subject	You have an upcoming charge	Your [Brand] order ships soon
Preview	(empty or generic)	Here’s what’s headed your way.

See the difference? One says “we’re taking your money.” The other says “good things are coming.” Same email, completely different emotional response!

Step 2: Open With Habit Reinforcement

Your first line of body copy should make the subscriber feel smart for subscribing, not anxious about a charge.

Before: “It’s almost that time.”
After: “Heads up, your next order ships in 3 days. You’re staying consistent. That’s the whole game.”

One sentence. No fluff. But it reframes everything from “we’re taking your money” to “you’re doing the right thing.” That’s identity reinforcement, and it’s one of the most powerful psychological tools in retention marketing.

Step 3: Stack the Subscriber Benefits (Every. Single. Time.)

Here’s something brands forget… your subscribers forget why they subscribed.

Seriously. By month 3, most subscribers couldn’t tell you what perks they’re getting. So remind them in every single upcoming charge email:

✓ Member-only savings on every order
✓ Priority access to new products and limited drops
✓ Flexible schedule — adjust, skip, or delay anytime
✓ Cancel anytime if it’s ever truly not for you

Notice the structure? Three positive benefits… then a soft reassurance that they have control.

That last bullet actually reduces churn because it removes the anxiety that drives impulsive cancellations. When people feel trapped, they cancel. When they feel in control, they stay.

Step 4: Offer Delay and Skip Before Cancel

This is the single most important architectural change in the entire email.

Most brands put a “Manage Subscription” button front and center. That button leads to a portal where cancellation is the most prominent option. You’re sending people who weren’t thinking about canceling to a page that asks them to cancel.

Instead… offer one-click delay and skip options directly in the email:

[DELAY 1 WEEK] · [DELAY 2 WEEKS] · [SKIP THIS ONE]

When a subscriber thinks “I still have product, I don’t need more yet”- the answer isn’t cancellation. It’s a delay. A delayed subscriber is still a subscriber. A canceled one is gone forever.

Tools like Stay AI and ARPU make this possible with two-click delay and skip actions.

The “Manage Subscription” link? It should still exist. But push it to the verrrry bottom of the email, styled as a quiet text link. Not a primary CTA. Not a button. A footnote.

Step 5: Upsell While You’re Packing

This is where the email stops just saving you money… and starts making you money.

Add a product recommendation section with a simple prompt:

“Want to throw something else in while we’re packing?”

This works because the purchase decision is already made. You’re not asking them to buy, you’re asking if they want to add something to an order that’s already happening. The friction is almost zero.

Show 2-3 complementary products with one-click “Add to My Order” buttons. Even a 5-10% add-on rate compounds massively over the lifetime of a subscriber.

Erin’s bonus tip: tie loyalty points redemption in here for mega customer happiness XP.

Step 6: Make Support Effortless

Close with a simple, human line:

Questions? Just reply. We’re here.

That’s it. No ticket systems. No “visit our help center.” Just… reply. This builds trust and it gives subscribers who are on the fence an alternative to canceling. They can talk to a human first.

What It Looks Like in Practice

Here’s a before/after from an actual client redesign — a men’s grooming subscription brand — using this exact framework:

The manage link is still there – it just doesn’t run the show anymore.

The Full Anti-Churn Email Template Cheat Sheet

Here’s the complete architecture… feel free to screenshot this, steal it, send it to your email team. This is the template structure we use for our subscription clients:

Section	Purpose	Key Detail
1. Hero header	Brand-forward, identity-reinforcing	“Your Natural Routine Is On Its Way” — NOT “upcoming charge”
2. Personal greeting	Name + ship date + habit reinforcement	“You’re staying consistent. That’s the whole game.”
3. Order summary	Dynamic block showing what’s shipping	Product images, names, quantities
4. Benefits stack	Remind them why subscribing is smart	3-4 perks + “cancel anytime” reassurance
5. Delay/skip buttons	Prevent cancellation with easier options	One-click: Delay 1 Week · Delay 2 Weeks · Skip
6. Product recs	Increase AOV with low-friction upsell	“Add to My Order” on 2-3 products
7. Manage link	For people who genuinely need it	Quiet text link at the very bottom
8. Questions	Human touch, churn safety net	“Just reply. We’re here.”

The key insight: Every section above the manage link does one of two things — makes the subscriber feel good about their subscription, or increases the value of their next order. The manage link exists for people who genuinely need it… but it’s no longer the star of the show.

What to Measure After You Deploy This

Don’t just ship it and forget it. Here are the 4 metrics that tell you if it’s working:

Metric	What to Look For	Why It Matters
Churn rate at pre-shipment touchpoint	Voluntary cancellations should drop within 1-2 billing cycles	Primary KPI — this is the whole point
Delay/skip rate vs. cancel rate	Subscribers choosing delay over cancel	A delayed subscriber is still a subscriber
Subscription AOV	Add-on rate from product rec block	Even 5-10% compounds massively over LTV
Subscriber LTV	More months retained × higher AOV per order	The exponential downstream payoff

Best Tools for Subscription Email Optimization

Here are the platforms that make one-click delay, skip, and in-email upsells possible for Shopify subscription brands:

Tool	What It Does	Key Feature
Stay AI	Shopify subscription platform	RetentionEngine + one-click delay/skip in emails
ARPU	Upcoming shipment email optimization	Two-click upsells + delay/skip directly in email
Recharge	Shopify subscription platform	Customizable notification emails + Klaviyo integration
Loop	Shopify subscription platform	Flexible subscriber portal + email notifications

FAQ

What is an upcoming charge email?

An upcoming charge email (also called a pre-shipment notification or subscription order reminder) is a transactional email sent to subscribers 3-5 days before their next recurring order is billed and shipped. It’s typically sent automatically by subscription platforms like Recharge, Stay AI, or Loop. This email consistently achieves 60%+ open rates, making it the highest-engagement email touchpoint in a subscriber’s lifecycle.

How do I reduce subscription churn with email?

The most effective way to reduce subscription churn with email is to redesign your upcoming charge notification from a billing warning into a value-reinforcing retention touchpoint. This means replacing “you have an upcoming charge” framing with excitement about the next order, stacking subscriber benefits, offering one-click delay and skip buttons before any manage/cancel link, and adding low-friction product recommendations. Brands implementing this approach have seen churn reductions of 30-50% at this touchpoint.

Should I include a cancel button in my upcoming charge email?

No, you should not make cancellation the primary action in your upcoming charge email. Instead, offer delay and skip options first (Delay 1 Week, Delay 2 Weeks, Skip This Order) which keep the subscriber active. A “Manage Subscription” text link should still exist at the bottom of the email for subscribers who genuinely need it, but it should be styled as a quiet footnote, not a primary CTA.

What is a good churn rate for DTC subscriptions?

Average monthly churn for DTC subscription brands is 10-15% according to industry benchmarks from Recurly and Recharge. Top-performing subscription programs target under 8% monthly churn. Voluntary churn (customer-initiated cancellations) accounts for the majority of losses, which is why optimizing high-engagement touchpoints like the upcoming charge email has outsized impact on retention.

How can I increase AOV on subscription orders?

The upcoming charge email is one of the most effective channels for increasing subscription AOV because the purchase decision is already made. Adding a “Want to add something to your order?” product recommendation block with one-click “Add to My Order” buttons directly in the email creates a nearly frictionless upsell moment. Cross-sells and upsells account for over 30% of ecommerce revenue and convert at roughly 20% on average which is significantly higher than cold acquisition.

What open rate should I expect from subscription notification emails?

Subscription upcoming charge emails and pre-shipment notifications consistently achieve 60%+ open rates: approximately 3-4x higher than promotional marketing emails. This is because subscribers are expecting the email (it contains information about an upcoming charge to their payment method) and the content is directly relevant to them. This makes it the single highest-attention email touchpoint in your subscriber’s lifecycle.

The Bottom Line

Your upcoming charge email is not a legal obligation. It’s not a courtesy notice. It’s the single highest-attention moment in your subscriber’s monthly lifecycle with your brand and you get it for free, every month, for the life of the subscription.

Stop using it to remind people they’re being charged. Start using it to remind them why they subscribed.

The brands that figure this out? They don’t just reduce churn. They turn a cost center into a revenue channel.

…and honestly? It takes an afternoon to fix. So if your upcoming charge email still says “You have an upcoming charge”… what are we doing here? Let’s fix that.

At Forge Digital Marketing, we build retention-first email and lifecycle systems for DTC subscription brands. If your subscription emails are leaking revenue, let’s talk.

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