You’re sitting on revenue you already paid for
Every business has a list of people who have already raised their hand: subscribers, leads, trial users, past customers. Most of them get a welcome email, an occasional newsletter and then silence. That’s an audience you’ve already paid to acquire, left mostly untouched.
Lifecycle marketing turns that list into a system — the right message, at the right stage, sent automatically. It’s usually the highest-margin channel a business has, because you own the audience and don’t pay per click to reach it.
How I build lifecycle systems
1. Clean the data and fix deliverability
Before anything else I check that contacts, events and purchase data flow correctly from your store, website and CRM, and that your emails actually reach the inbox. That means SPF, DKIM and DMARC, list hygiene, suppression rules and engagement-based sending.
2. Build the flows that matter first
For ecommerce: welcome, browse abandonment, cart and checkout abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back and VIP. For B2B: lead magnet follow-up, trial onboarding, demo no-show recovery, post-demo nurture and customer expansion. Each flow is built, tested and measured on its own.
3. Segment by behavior, not demographics
What people did — pages viewed, products bought, emails engaged with, deals created — predicts what they’ll do next far better than who they are. Segments are built on behavior, purchase history and lifecycle stage.
4. Nurture and route leads for B2B
In HubSpot I set up lifecycle stages, lead scoring, nurture sequences and routing rules so sales receives contacts who are ready, with context, instead of a raw list of form fills.
5. Report in revenue
Every flow, campaign and segment reports its revenue or pipeline contribution. You’ll know which automations earn their keep and which need rebuilding.
Platforms and integrations
- Klaviyo — my default for Shopify and DTC brands, including SMS.
- HubSpot — for B2B and service businesses with a sales team.
- Customer.io, Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign — when you’re already on them and a migration isn’t justified.
Retention also depends on the tools around email: subscriptions in Recharge, reviews in Judge.me, support in Gorgias. I connect them so lifecycle messages use the full picture of each customer.
What the first 30 days look like
The first week is an audit of data, deliverability and existing flows. Authentication and list hygiene are fixed straight away, because nothing else works if emails land in spam. Then the highest-value flows are rebuilt or launched — usually welcome, abandonment and post-purchase for ecommerce, or follow-up and nurture for B2B. After that, the work moves to a steady rhythm of campaigns, new flows, segment refinement and weekly revenue reporting.
Who this is for
- Ecommerce and DTC brands where email and SMS drive too small a share of revenue.
- B2B companies with plenty of leads, few of them sales-ready, and no nurture in between.
- SaaS businesses that need better onboarding, activation and expansion emails.
Who this is not for
- Businesses that want to buy lists or email contacts without consent.
- Teams looking for newsletter design alone, without the flows and data behind it.