I just got off a call with a founder who was doing everything right …
Post-purchase flows? Dialed in.
SMS cadence? Perfect.
Loyalty program? Live and running.
But retention was still soft.
She kept saying, "I don't understand … we're staying in touch. We're engaging them. What else can we do?"
I tried to break it to her gently … she was solving the wrong problem.
Here's the thing most ecom founders get wrong about retention (especially right now, when you've just brought in a wave of holiday customers):
Retention isn't a communication problem. It's a results problem.
You can send all the emails you want. You can have the best flows in the world. You can stay "top of mind" with SMS and push notifications.
But if customers can't tell that life is actually better because of your product, they won't stay.
They'll just … drift away.
The retention lie is this: "If we just stay in touch more, customers will stay."
It feels reasonable because you can do it. You can build flows. You can post more. You can send more. You can point to activity.
But activity isn't the same as outcomes.
And outcomes are what customers actually pay for.
Here's what I told her …
"Your customers aren't leaving because you're not communicating enough. They're leaving because they can't tell if it's working."
That changes everything.
Because if retention is about results (not communication), then the fix isn't more emails.
The fix is making sure customers can actually recognize that your product is delivering what you promised.
Tomorrow I'm going to show you why this lie is so seductive … and what retention actually looks like when you get it right.
But for now, just ask yourself this …
If you stopped sending emails for 30 days, would your retention collapse?
If the answer is yes, you're using communication to mask a results problem.
And that's exhausting for everyone.
See you tomorrow,
Jeremiah
P.S. If you're reading this in early January and you just brought in a bunch of new customers over the holidays, this is your moment. The next 30-60 days will determine whether those customers stay or quietly disappear. More on that tomorrow.
100% Typo Guarantee … This message was hand-crafted by a human being … me. While I use AI heavily for my research and the work I do, I respect you too much to automate my email content creation.
There was no review queue, no editorial process, no post-facto revisions. I just wrote it and sent it … therefore, I can pretty much guarantee some sort of typo or grammatical error that would make all my past english teachers cringe.
Anonymous Data Disclaimer … Most of my clients prefer that I not share the inner workings of their businesses or the exact details of the marketing strategies we develop. In order to be able to share my own proprietary intellectual property without violating the sensitive nature of my relationship with them, I often anonymize what I share with you. This may include changing the specifics of their industry, what actually happened, or what we developed together. When I make these changes, I work to preserve the success principle I want to convey to you while obscuring sensitive data. This is necessary.