The Problem: Brand Equity Locked Behind Sporadic Sending
Scott Hawaii is a family-owned Hawaiian footwear brand founded in Honolulu in 1932. They created the original Hawaiian rubber slipper and built decades of customer loyalty around comfort, durability, and their lifetime sole guarantee. When they came to In-box, they did not have a product problem or a brand trust problem. They had a systems problem.
Email revenue was sporadic because campaigns were sent without a consistent calendar or clear overarching strategy. Their lifecycle automations were bare-bones, which meant too much revenue depended entirely on one-off manual sends. Segmentation was almost completely neglected, so first-time browsers, loyal repeat buyers, and unengaged contacts all received the exact same generic messaging.
The biggest issue was that email made up a tiny fraction of total revenue relative to the brand's heritage. The list was being treated as a broadcast channel rather than a high-margin retention engine. That is a mistake.
A Strategy Built on Storytelling, Not Discounting
Most ecommerce agencies try to boost email revenue fast by slashing prices and throwing 20% discount codes at every problem. Doing that simply trains your audience to never buy at full price. Our brief had six clear goals: grow email-attributed revenue, increase repeat purchases, build a predictable campaign calendar, optimise core lifecycle flows, grow the subscriber base, and do it all without eroding profit margins.
We split our strategy into three parts: segment, automate, and tell the story. Scott Hawaii has genuine heritage, and our copy needed to lean into Hawaiian culture, craftsmanship, and why their footwear lasts for years. We stopped relying on promotional urgency and started selling through product education, customer proof, and local connection.
We also split the database strictly between buyers and non-buyers. A person who has worn Scott Hawaii slippers for ten years requires completely different messaging than someone who landed on the site five minutes ago. Treating them identically leaves money on the table.
Rebuilding the Lifecycle Automation Engine
Automations give an ecommerce store baseline revenue that does not rely on someone manually hitting send every week. We rebuilt their entire lifecycle flow architecture from scratch, introducing dedicated trigger splits and dynamic product recommendations across the journey.
- Welcome Series: Introduced the brand heritage, reiterated the product promise, and highlighted best-sellers without immediately relying on margin-killing discounts.
- Abandonment Flows: Built curated abandonment pathways for browse abandonment, abandoned cart, and abandoned checkout tailored to specific product categories viewed.
- Post-Purchase Decision Flows: Reassured buyers immediately after purchase and reinforced the brand guarantee while the order was in transit.
- Fulfilled Order and Cross-Sell Flows: Triggered targeted cross-sells based on the exact item purchased and the typical replenishment window for that category.
By mapping out specific pathways for distinct product lines, each automation felt like a 1-to-1 recommendation rather than a generic automated nudge. Automated flow revenue jumped 47.6% once these were live.
A Content Calendar Rooted in Culture
Instead of only emailing the list when there was a sale, we built a campaign calendar around genuine reasons to communicate. We created campaigns celebrating Hawaiian culture, highlighting seasonal milestones like Father's Day and Memorial Day, showcasing new collections, and educating subscribers on footwear durability.
Every send sounded like it came directly from someone living in Hawaii who understood the lifestyle. When we did run promotional events, we segmented offers heavily based on past purchasing behaviour. Existing customers received exclusive VIP access, while non-buyers received targeted educational nudges with lighter incentives (often 10% instead of blanket 20% discounts).
Campaign revenue increased by 226% because subscribers were receiving relevant, culturally grounded content on a regular schedule instead of random batch-and-blast sales pitches.
The Numbers: Revenue, Growth, and Deliverability
The total business grew 42.3% year-on-year, but email-attributed revenue grew by 121.6% over the same period. That distinction matters. Email did not simply ride the coattails of overall store traffic. It became a significantly larger, more profitable contributor to the entire business, generating up to 38% of total attributable revenue in key months like April.
We achieved these numbers while substantially improving list health and deliverability across more than 782,000 sent emails:
- Open Rate: Averaged 70.7% across all sends.
- Click Rate: Averaged 1.46%.
- Deliverability Score: Reached 84 out of 100 in Klaviyo (an 88-point improvement from where they started).
- Bounce Rate: Maintained at 0.13%.
- Spam Complaint Rate: Held down at 0.0007%.
- List Growth: Sign-up form submissions increased by 96.5%, and form-attributed revenue surged by 329.4%.
High volume means nothing if your emails land in the spam folder. By keeping our segments clean and our sending patterns consistent, we scaled revenue while protecting sender reputation.
Final Thoughts
If you have an established ecommerce brand with strong customer loyalty, email should never be an occasional broadcast tool. Turning brand equity into consistent profit requires structured automations, smart segmentation, and regular campaigns that respect your margins. When you tell a genuine brand story to the right segment at the right time, the revenue follows naturally.
Audit Your Email Channel
If you want to uncover where your lifecycle flows are leaking revenue and how to scale your campaigns profitably, book an account audit with the In-box team today.
