Relaxium: +$3M Incremental Annual Revenue From Klaviyo, Pete as Head of Retention Marketing
Head of Retention Marketing (Email & SMS) · October 2022 · 22+ months
/ Free Audit
Get your free Klaviyo audit
Drop your store URL and email. We'll review your email program and send a written 90-day revenue roadmap within 24 hours. No obligation.
/ Results at a glance
RESULT.01
+$3M
Incremental annual revenue from email & SMS
RESULT.02
INC 5000 #461
2021 ranking
RESULT.03
22+ months
As Head of Retention Marketing
RESULT.04
$100-120M
Brand annual revenue
Trusted by
800+ brands
01 / The challenge
What Relaxium was up against.
Relaxium is a $100-120M annual revenue supplement brand, ranked #461 on the 2021 INC 5000 with 1,040% growth over three years. By any reasonable measure, the brand was already a success. But email and SMS were not generating revenue proportionate to their list size or brand momentum, particularly given the strength of the underlying customer base and the natural fit between supplement consumption cycles and email automation. The opportunity was clear; what was missing was senior operator capability inside the marketing function. Rather than engaging an external agency, Relaxium chose to bring Pete on as an embedded senior leader.
- Brand
- Relaxium
- Website
- relaxium.com
- Category
- Supplements · INC 5000 #461
- Region
- United States
- Engagement
- Head of Retention Marketing (Email & SMS)
- Started
- October 2022
- Length
- 22+ months
- Platform
- Klaviyo
02 / What we changed
What we changed.
Pete joined Relaxium as Head of Retention Marketing (Email & SMS) for what became a 22+ month engagement. Unlike a typical agency relationship, this was full ownership of the program from inside the brand, with decision authority within the marketing function.
- 01
Campaigns before automation
Relaxium's flow infrastructure was reasonably built. The gap was in the campaigns: cadence, segmentation depth and a high-frequency send strategy to engaged subscribers. So the strategy was campaign-driven rather than automation-heavy.
- 02
Own the calendar, segments and reporting
Ownership of the campaign calendar, segment architecture and reporting cadence: daily decision-making, weekly executive reporting and monthly strategic reviews.
- 03
Plain emails, tested every month
Plain-aesthetic emails, an instrumented architecture and a send cadence tested month by month.
- 04
In step with the rest of marketing
Email and SMS ran in coordination with paid acquisition, retail and brand campaigns, with real-time visibility into the wider business that an outside agency rarely gets.
03 / Results
What moved.
+$3M in incremental annual revenue did not come from a single optimisation. It came from the cumulative compounding of monthly campaign decisions, ongoing segment refinement and synchronisation with the wider business calendar.
Because the program ran in step with paid acquisition, retail and brand campaigns, email and SMS were not just running well technically. They were pulling in the same direction as the rest of the marketing.
The lesson
Why an embedded operator beats an outside agency at this scale
For brands at $100M+ revenue, the typical agency model has limits. Agencies operate from outside the business, with limited access to the wider marketing context: paid acquisition trends, retail partnerships, brand initiatives. They optimise the email program in isolation, which produces good email programs that aren't necessarily aligned with the brand's full revenue trajectory.
The embedded operator model addresses this: full strategic alignment with marketing leadership, real-time visibility into the wider business, and decision authority within the function.
It is not a fit for most brands. Brands at $5-30M typically benefit more from a strong agency relationship than from a single embedded operator. The embedded model fits at a scale where the role justifies senior in-house leadership and the compensation reflects that.
"Awesome! I'm going to start calling you Mr. Director of Marketing (though you're completely over qualified)"
What to take from it
Apply it to your account.
The same method runs on every account we take on as an ecommerce email marketing agency: diagnose first, remove what costs you, then build. Three lessons from the Relaxium engagement:
TAKEAWAY.01
Flows built? Look at the campaigns
When the flow infrastructure is sound, the gap is usually campaign cadence and segmentation depth.
Campaign management →
TAKEAWAY.02
Plan email with paid, not after it
The customer your media buyer paid for is the customer email has to keep. Run them on one calendar.
The Profit Loop →
TAKEAWAY.03
Match the model to your size
An embedded operator fits at $100M+. At $5-30M, a strong agency relationship usually returns more.
Retention marketing agency →
/ Relaxium operates in the Supplements category
See our Supplements email playbookWant results like Relaxium?
Free Klaviyo audit. We measure your lift, thrust, drag, and weight, then send you a written 90-day rebuild plan within 24 hours.
Or browse all reports →/ Free Audit
Get your free Klaviyo audit
Drop your store URL and email. We'll review your email program and send a written 90-day revenue roadmap within 24 hours. No obligation.