Ecommerce growth in 2027 will not be driven only by acquiring more visitors or increasing advertising spend. For many brands, the bigger opportunity will be getting more value from the customers and leads they already have.
Customer data can reveal what shoppers purchase, when they buy, how often they engage, which products interest them, and where they stop during the buying journey. When this information is used properly, ecommerce brands can create more relevant communication and build stronger customer relationships.
This is where an Email & SMS marketing agency can play an important role. Instead of treating email and SMS as separate promotional channels, a strategic approach connects customer data, automation, segmentation, campaigns, testing, and retention into one lifecycle marketing system.
Acquiring a new customer can require significant investment in advertising, content, partnerships, and other marketing activities. Once someone has purchased, however, the brand already has valuable information about that customer.
The customer may have:
Purchased a specific product
Shown interest in a product category
Abandoned a shopping cart
Browsed certain products
Engaged with previous emails
Responded to an offer
Purchased more than once
Become inactive over time
These actions can be used to create more relevant marketing experiences.
Retention marketing is therefore not simply about sending more messages. It is about sending more useful messages to the right people at the right stage of the customer journey.
One of the foundations of ecommerce retention is segmentation.
A single email sent to an entire database may not be relevant to every subscriber. A first-time customer, repeat buyer, inactive subscriber, and high-value customer can have very different needs.
Advanced segmentation can organize audiences according to factors such as:
Purchase history
Product interests
Customer value
Engagement
Purchase frequency
Email activity
SMS engagement
Geographic information
Website behavior
Time since last purchase
Better segmentation can also support deliverability by helping brands avoid sending irrelevant campaigns to every subscriber.
The goal is not to create hundreds of unnecessary segments. The goal is to identify meaningful customer groups and use those groups to improve the relevance of communication.
Automated flows are one of the most important parts of a scalable retention strategy.
Instead of relying entirely on manually scheduled campaigns, ecommerce brands can create automated communication based on customer actions.
Important flows can include:
A welcome flow introduces new subscribers to the brand, establishes expectations, communicates the brand story, and can encourage the first purchase.
Customers who add products to their cart but leave without completing checkout can receive timely reminders designed to bring them back to the purchasing process.
The relationship should not end after a customer places an order. Post-purchase communication can provide useful information, encourage engagement, and create opportunities for future purchases.
Customers who have not purchased for an extended period can receive targeted communication designed to re-engage them.
Previous purchases can provide opportunities for relevant recommendations, replenishment reminders, cross-selling, or product education.
A well-built flow system allows brands to communicate consistently without requiring every message to be manually created and scheduled.
Email and SMS can serve different roles within the same customer journey.
Email provides space for education, storytelling, product information, promotions, and detailed content. SMS can provide shorter, timely communication for offers, reminders, launches, and other relevant updates.
A strong retention strategy considers how these channels work together.
For example, an ecommerce brand may use email to introduce a promotion and SMS to provide a timely reminder to an engaged subscriber. Another customer may receive an automated email sequence based on their behavior while SMS is reserved for specific high-value communications.
Effective Klaviyo SMS marketing setup should therefore be based on customer behavior, consent, segmentation, timing, and the overall lifecycle strategy rather than simply increasing the number of text messages sent.
Installing flows and sending campaigns once is not enough.
Customer behavior changes. Products change. Offers change. Ecommerce seasons change. New Klaviyo features become available. Deliverability conditions can also change over time.
This makes ongoing Klaviyo Email Management important for brands that want to keep improving their retention program.
Ongoing management can include:
Campaign planning
Flow optimization
Audience segmentation
A/B testing
Deliverability monitoring
Email performance analysis
SMS campaign management
Template improvements
New flow development
Performance reporting
Testing new Klaviyo features
The objective is to continually identify what is working, what is underperforming, and where new opportunities exist.
Not every audience responds to the same message.
A/B testing gives ecommerce marketers a structured way to compare different approaches. Depending on the campaign, brands can test elements such as:
Subject lines
Email copy
Offers
Calls to action
Creative
Send timing
Segments
Content structure
Testing should have a clear purpose. Instead of changing multiple variables without understanding the result, marketers can use controlled tests to learn more about their audience.
Over time, these insights can improve future campaigns and automated flows.
Personalization in 2027 should go beyond inserting a customer's first name into an email.
Useful personalization can be based on actual customer behavior.
For example, a brand can adapt communication according to:
What the customer purchased
What products they viewed
How recently they purchased
How frequently they buy
Whether they engage with email
Whether they respond to SMS
Which offers they previously responded to
This creates a more relevant customer experience while helping brands avoid sending identical messages to their entire database.
More emails do not automatically mean more revenue.
If campaigns are consistently sent to unengaged subscribers, the brand can create unnecessary deliverability challenges. A retention strategy needs to consider both revenue opportunities and the health of the sending program.
Advanced segmentation can help brands identify engaged subscribers and create more targeted campaigns.
A strong email program should consider:
Engagement
List quality
Sending frequency
Segmentation
Subscriber behavior
Campaign performance
Flow performance
This approach helps create a healthier balance between marketing activity and audience engagement.
Open rates and click-through rates can provide useful information, but ecommerce retention needs to connect marketing activity to business outcomes.
Brands should look at metrics such as:
Revenue attributed to email
Revenue attributed to SMS
Conversion rate
Repeat purchase rate
Customer lifetime value
Revenue per recipient
Flow revenue
Campaign revenue
Subscriber growth
Unsubscribe rates
Engagement trends
RevGrowth Email Agency's website highlights an average client revenue contribution of 36.2% across industries, with reported results ranging from 28.6% to 51.1% through Klaviyo email and SMS marketing. The company also states that its clients generate $41 million per year through Klaviyo.
These types of measurements demonstrate why retention marketing should be evaluated as a revenue channel rather than simply a communication function.
A successful ecommerce retention program should have a clear customer journey.
A simplified lifecycle might look like:
Subscriber → First-Time Customer → Repeat Customer → High-Value Customer → At-Risk Customer → Reactivated Customer
Each stage can require different communication.
A new subscriber may need education and trust-building. A first-time customer may need post-purchase communication. A repeat customer may respond to product recommendations or exclusive offers. An inactive customer may need a carefully planned win-back campaign.
This lifecycle approach allows email and SMS activity to support the customer's relationship with the brand instead of becoming a collection of unrelated promotions.
The biggest change for ecommerce brands in 2027 may be the shift from viewing email and SMS as individual marketing tasks to viewing them as an ongoing retention system.
That system combines:
Customer Data + Segmentation + Automation + Email + SMS + Testing + Deliverability + Analytics
When these components work together, brands can make better use of the customer information they already have.
The role of an experienced agency is not simply to send campaigns. It is to continuously evaluate the account, identify opportunities, implement improvements, test new approaches, and connect marketing activity to business results.
Before increasing campaign frequency or spending more on customer acquisition, ecommerce brands should evaluate the retention infrastructure already available to them.
Start by reviewing:
Are your core automated flows properly built and optimized?
Are your customer segments based on meaningful behavior?
Are email and SMS working together?
Are you testing campaigns consistently?
Are inactive subscribers being handled appropriately?
Are you monitoring deliverability?
Do you know how much revenue your email and SMS programs generate?
Are you regularly identifying new retention opportunities?
If several of these areas need attention, there may be significant opportunities within the existing customer database.
Ecommerce retention in 2027 will be less about sending more messages and more about creating a smarter customer communication system.
Customer data provides the foundation. Segmentation makes that data useful. Automation delivers communication at the right moment. Email and SMS create ongoing touchpoints. Testing improves performance, while analytics shows whether those efforts are contributing to revenue.
With the right strategy and ongoing management, ecommerce brands can turn their existing customer data into a stronger retention channel and create more opportunities for repeat purchases.
RevGrowth Email Agency provides full-service Klaviyo account management focused on email, SMS, segmentation, flows, testing, deliverability, and lifecycle marketing. Its website states that full account management includes account auditing, flow implementation, email and SMS campaigns, A/B testing, advanced segmentation, and ongoing adoption of new Klaviyo features.