When Thornfield Foods came to us, their email list had not been touched properly in 14 months. Open rates had fallen to 11 percent. Revenue per send was down 60 percent year on year. And the deliverability score, which should sit above 95, was at 78 — a number that puts you one ISP complaint away from the spam folder permanently.
The first 30 days were entirely about list health, not campaigns. We ran a three-stage re-engagement sequence to identify genuinely active subscribers, sunset the 40 percent who had not opened in 180 days, and warmed up a fresh sending domain with a carefully sequenced ramp schedule. No promotional sends. Just repair work.
By day 45, deliverability was at 96. Open rates on the cleaned list were at 34 percent. We then built out the foundational flows: welcome series (seven emails over 14 days), abandoned cart (three-touch, 24h/48h/72h), post-purchase (value, education, cross-sell), and a winback that triggers at 90 days of inactivity.
The content strategy shifted from promotional cadence to editorial cadence — two value-led sends per week with one promotional send. Thornfield makes artisan condiments, so the content angle was provenance, recipes, and producer stories. Engagement more than doubled versus pure promotional sends.
Ninety days in: email was generating 34 percent of total revenue, up from 18 percent. Revenue per send increased 4.2x. The list was smaller by 40 percent, but every subscriber was worth materially more. That is what a healthy email programme looks like.