Beyond Discounts: Email Strategies That Actually Drive Revenue

Hey everyone,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Let's talk about something that’s going to become more and more important for DTC brands to nail in 2025: Email marketing. 

We get it. Email feels like the old workhorse of digital marketing - reliable but not exactly glamorous. But if treated right, it can be the star performer. 

Brands relying on half-baked email strategies are underutilizing what could be their highest ROI channel. And in the days of sky high CACs, margin pressure, and tariff chaos, you can’t afford to be running this channel on autopilot.

At Obvi, we’ve evolved our email approach over time from the typical promotional blast stuff to a strategic revenue-driving powerhouse.

Today we’ll go through some key tactics and learnings that will help take your email program from basic to bad ass. 

On the Menu:

• Personalization That Actually Works

• Making Mystery & Gamification Drive Engagement

• Product Launches That Convert Like Crazy

• BONUS - our email prioritization framework

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Real personalization, Guaranteed Revenue

“But we already refer to our customers by their first names in the subject line!”

No, slapping “Dear Sarah” at the top of the email and calling it a day is not personalization. That’s 2013 email marketing.

True personalization starts before you even draft your first email. It requires collecting meaningful customer data and then using it.

At Obvi, we don’t guess why our customers were purchasing from us. We ask them. 

Their feedback becomes the marketing intel we use to craft genuinely personalized follow-up emails.

So, for customers who bought our collagen for hair health, we acknowledged their specific concerns about hair strength and thinning. For those focused on collagen’s role in weight management, we addressed their goals differently. 

This approach wasn't just mail-merge personalization - it’s differentiated, intent-based messaging.

The results were immediate: open rates jumped by 37%, and more importantly, repeat purchases climbed 22%. 

Try this approach → 

1. Identify 3-4 key purchase motivations for your products

2. Create separate email flows for each motivation

3. Use conversational language that specifically addresses their goals

4. See which flow wins. Then, go all in.

🔑 Key insight: Personalization isn't about technology, it’s about understanding and trust. Show customers you get them, and they’ll keep coming back. 

Now, let's add some friendly competition to the mix...

Gamification + Mystery = Engagement 

Here's something counterintuitive: making customers work a little for rewards amplifies engagement. 

When we redesigned our cart abandonment sequences, we moved away from the standard "you left something behind" approach. 

Instead, we created mystery: "You know what's in your cart, but what if we told you there's more to it than meets the eye?"

We added mystery gifts to abandoned carts, but customers could only discover what they'd get by returning to complete their purchase. 

This simple curiosity-inducing tweak increased our cart recovery rate by 39%.

But why stop there? We wove gamification into our entire email program:

• Interactive polls where customers vote on upcoming flavors

• "Scratch-off" style promotional reveals

• Progressive challenges that unlock bigger rewards

• Early access perks for engaged subscribers

Adding these interactive elements to our emails increased click rates by 62% compared to our standard promotional content.

But the showstopper is how we structured our loyalty communications.

Rather than just telling customers how many points they had, we created "unlock" opportunities, nudging them to progress further in their buying journey. 

This approach quadrupled the redemption rate of our loyalty rewards.

🔑 Key insight: A little mystery and gamification go a long way. 

There’s a reason why Starbucks’ “win stars with each purchase” has become such an iconic example of increased user engagement.

Product Launches That Convert Like Crazy

Most product launch emails fail. 

Some overwhelm the customer with too much information, and others come with generic excitement backed by zero persuasion.

We stopped treating our launch email sequence as just another set of emails. Instead, we overhauled it to mirror our highest-converting landing pages.

Here’s how we structured things:

First, we doubled down on our customers’ “comfort in the familiar” instinct. 

Maintaining consistent visual language between emails and landing pages meant that when a customer clicked through, everything felt complementary — the same messaging, same imagery, same proof points.

Next, we tackled any unnecessary info-dump. Our launch emails had clear sections:

Problem→Solution→ Proof→ Offer

By the time they reached our CTA, they were ready to buy. This storytelling approach built anticipation throughout the email rather than frontloading product features..

Finally, we segmented our launch emails based on customer purchase history and quiz responses. 

For example, the launch email for a customer who had bought our weight management products included benefits tied to their weight goals. 

Someone who purchased our beauty-focused items received a different version of the launch email, one that emphasized their beauty needs.

Result: 34% higher click-through rate and, more importantly, nearly double the conversion rate of our previous one-size-fits-all launch strategy.

🔑 Key insight: Treat your launch emails like a sales page, not an announcement. Try it in your next launch!

Bonus: The Email Flow Prioritization Framework

When a customer triggers multiple potential sequences (like a welcome series and an abandoned cart), which one should fire first?

Get this wrong, and you risk sending a “welcome” email when you should actually be nudging your customer with a discount. 

Here’s our exact flow hierarchy to ensure the right email lands in the customer’s inbox: 

💰1. Revenue recovery opportunities (abandoned carts, browse abandonment)

👋2. First impression sequences (welcome series)

💙3. Relationship building flows (post-purchase, loyalty)

🔥4. Re-engagement sequences (win-back campaigns)

A simple rework of email flow means that if a customer abandons a cart shortly after signing up, they'll receive the cart recovery email before the welcome series continues.

 This maximizes our chance to capture that immediate revenue opportunity rather than push through a redundant welcome sequence.

🔑 Key insight: Take stock of the hierarchy of your email flows. Automating these emails is not enough.