2025: How to Keep Your New Customers from Slipping Away
The holiday shopping season is a goldmine for attracting new customers, with events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday driving massive traffic. But the real challenge is keeping them engaged. To help you maintain that year-end sales momentum in 2025, this article will show you how to turn first-time buyers into loyal, repeat customers. From trends in sales and subscriptions to post-purchase flows, plus tips on using AI to level up your retention strategy, we’ve got you covered.
Jan 10, 2025
Contents
1. During the Sales Season, What Can You Expect in Terms of New Traffic to Your Site and First-Time Purchases?2. Understanding and Comparing Post-Purchase Flows: Replenishment Reminder, Post-Purchase Followup, First Purchase Thank You & Bounceback3. Pro Tips for Klaviyo Users: Boosting Retention with Smart Segmentation and AIFirst-Time Buyers Into Lifelong Customers1. During the Sales Season, What Can You Expect in Terms of New Traffic to Your Site and First-Time Purchases?
In November and December, when most brands run major sales events like BFCM and year-end promotions, traffic, subscribers, and purchases tend to fluctuate significantly. Based on our experience with our clients, here’s an estimate of how your brand’s performance might look:
1) How much will average sales increase in November and December during this season?
We expect at least a 1.3x increase compared to the previous months.
2) How do new subscribers increase in November and December?
Compared to the period from August to October, November would see a 126% increase in new subscribers, while December would see a 108% increase, representing growth of about 26% and 8% respectively. During November, brands that focused heavily on email marketing saw particularly strong results, with some experiencing double the number of new sign-ups.
3) When do new subscribers during this period make their first purchase?
On average, first purchases occur about 10 days after signup in November, and about 6 days in December.
2. Understanding and Comparing Post-Purchase Flows: Replenishment Reminder, Post-Purchase Followup, First Purchase Thank You & Bounceback
Many Klaviyo users who have set up basic flows may find it confusing to understand the specific differences between various post-purchase flows.
This section will clarify the functions and differences of three commonly used flows designed to target repeat buyers: the Replenishment Reminder, Post-Purchase Followup, and the First Purchase Thank You & Bounceback.
1) The Replenishment Reminder Flow
The Replenishment Reminder flow is a broad strategy to encourage repeat purchases from customers who may be due for a reorder.
After a customer places an order, this reminder email is sent after a set period of time, which you can customize based on your brand's needs. This flow is especially effective for products that require regular replenishment, such as coffee beans, vitamins, or skincare.
Most brands using this flow manually set fixed intervals(ex. 30 days) based on respective industry standards.
Shortcomings:
This approach can work. But if this is the case for your brand, we recommend going beyond generic cycles for better results. Approaching your brand’s customers as a single group with the same purchase cycle just can’t account for the various purchase patterns that exist. Instead, the key to improving conversion rates is customizing email timing, based on individual purchasing patterns. This personalized and predictive approach will allow your customers to receive emails at the most opportune time, increasing the chances of engagement and repeat purchases.
2) The First Purchase Thank You & Bounceback Flow
The purpose of this flow is to target one-time buyers by sending a thank-you email with a coupon immediately after their first purchase, essentially while enticing them to place another order.
Compared to other flows, this is an immediate response to every first-time purchase, which can potentially overwhelm recipients if not executed carefully. To make the most of this flow, Klaviyo suggests to prepare a compelling promotion or static coupons that can encourage these first-time buyers to place another order.
Shortcomings:
The potential drawback of the First Purchase Thank You & Bounceback flow is that it sends automated emails right after the initial purchase. While offering benefits may seem appealing, recipients may eventually feel overwhelmed by the constant push for additional purchases. If not managed well, this leads to disengagement rather than encouraging repeat purchases.
3) The Post-Purchase Followup Flow
The Post-purchase followup flow segments customers based on the number of purchases they've made, most typically by one, two, and purchases more than three. Each customer follows a cycle tailored to their specific purchase history, with customized email content for each stage. You can set each cycle’s contents to have different products or bundle recommendations, as well as timing for when each email is sent.
If you don’t have a loyalty program but want to send personalized messages to repeat buyers, this flow can be a great starting point.
Shortcomings:
While the Post Purchase Followup flow uses the number of purchases as a basis for segmentation, we strongly recommend not relying solely on this criteria when defining your brand’s loyal customers. If you focus only on purchase volume, you may overlook key factors like the timing of purchases and total spend, which are essential for identifying truly loyal customers. For a more accurate picture of customer loyalty, it’s crucial to analyze the entire purchase history with data from Shopify, rather than simply counting each order.
3. Pro Tips for Klaviyo Users: Boosting Retention with Smart Segmentation and AI
1) Avoiding Overlap in Your Klaviyo Flows
Most of all, if you use these multiple flows at once, there's a high likelihood that multiple flows will target the same recipients if you don't categorize your customers properly.
So, for Klaviyo users, it's best to segment your customers as effectively as possible within a single flow using multiple condition splits.
For instance, in the Replenishment Reminder flow, you should split customers by purchase frequency and time frame, separating first-time buyers from those who've made multiple purchases, so they receive non-overlapping emails.
2) How AI Can Transform Your Retention Marketing
Klaviyo introduced new AI features in 2024, emphasizing their ability to:
- Quickly segment your customers with simple audience prompts
- Automatically identify the winner in A/B tests based on stats
- Predict when customers are likely to place their next order and estimate their spending potential
- Offer product recommendations
But leveraging advanced AI technology opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your retention strategy.
First, it lets you cluster your buyers by recency, frequency, and purchase amount, plus additional data like how many different product categories they've bought from. This helps you get a clearer picture of past behavior and pinpoint your brand’s most loyal customers.
Next, AI can analyze purchase data from Shopify to predict the best time for each customer to make their next purchase. With this insight, you can send timely emails to the right people, those whose buying cycles align with specific dates, nudging them toward their next purchase.
Lastly, AI triggers give you a powerful strategy to convert first-time buyers. By predicting when they’re most likely to buy again, you can time your messaging to match their buying patterns. With insights tailored to each product and brand, AI’s technology will enable you to to fine-tune your flows and connect with customers at just the right moment.
First-Time Buyers Into Lifelong Customers
By focusing on retention during and after the holiday rush, you can turn first-time buyers into long-term customers. With the right post-purchase flows and AI tools, you’ll keep them coming back. Make 2025 your year for building lasting relationships and driving repeat sales!
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