Case study · DTC e-commerce

DTC paid & lifecycle.
+35% YoY campaign performance.

A DTC brand had outgrown its agency. We restructured paid media around LTV cohorts and consolidated reporting into something leadership actually reads.

+35%

YoY campaign performance

−18%

Customer acquisition cost

24%

Revenue from email flows

40 → 1

Report tabs to board view

Tools used

Segment: DTC e-commerce · $2M+ annual media

Engagement: Ongoing · Paid + lifecycle restructure

The challenge

What was broken.

A DTC brand spending over $2M annually on paid media had hit a performance ceiling. Their agency was optimizing for cheap clicks while CAC kept rising and repeat-purchase rates stayed flat. Six separate campaigns were running with overlapping audiences, no LTV-based bid strategy, and Klaviyo flows that hadn't been touched in two years. Leadership got a 40-tab weekly report nobody read. The CMO needed to defend the budget at the next board meeting and didn't have the numbers to do it.

The approach

What we built.

We rebuilt the paid program from the LTV side first: cohort analysis showed that customers from three specific channels drove 70% of repeat revenue, and the campaign mix didn't reflect that. We retired six underperforming campaigns, redirected the budget to the high-LTV channels, and tied bid strategy to predicted lifetime value rather than first-purchase margin. In parallel, we rebuilt the Klaviyo flows around four customer cohorts (first-time, repeat, lapsed, VIP) – each with its own message ladder. Reporting got consolidated into a single 1-page weekly board view: spend, CAC, LTV-to-CAC ratio, and contribution margin by channel.

The outcome

What it changed.

YoY campaign performance is up 35% on the same total budget. CAC is down 18%, and the LTV-to-CAC ratio climbed to 4.2x from 2.6x. The Klaviyo flows now drive 24% of revenue, double the prior contribution. The 1-page weekly report has replaced the 40-tab spreadsheet at the board level, and the CMO has the numbers she needs to defend – and now grow – the budget.

Paid media restructureLTV-based biddingKlaviyo flow rebuildAttribution dashboard