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Retention use cases

14 recipes where the outcome is retention, each written out in the same seven boxes. The patterns they compose most often: behavioral trigger, timed message sequence and channel eligibility check.

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Anniversary and milestone marketing

Low readiness

Recognize tenure and usage milestones with a touch that reads as personal rather than as a template with a date merged in

Weeks·Retention·B2C subscription·Multiple·Packaged stack·2 patterns

Cart abandonment recovery basic

Low readiness

A three-message email sequence triggered by abandonment, gated by consent and channel eligibility

Weeks·Retention·B2C ecommerce·Multiple·Packaged stack·4 patterns

Browse abandonment recovery

Medium-low readiness

Follow up with shoppers who viewed products but never added to cart, filtering out the low-intent browsers so the sequence does not dilute itself

Weeks·Retention·B2C ecommerce·EU GDPR·Composable stack·4 patterns

Cross-sell sequencing post-purchase

Medium-low readiness

Surface adjacent products in the rhythm of how the original item is actually used, instead of dumping every cross-sell into one email

Weeks·Retention·B2C ecommerce·Multiple·Composable stack·4 patterns

Customer onboarding series with engagement gating

Medium-low readiness

Advance the onboarding sequence on what the user actually did in the product, not on a fixed timer that ignores their progress

Weeks·Retention·B2B SaaS·Multiple·Composable stack·4 patterns

Lapsed customer reactivation across email and paid

Medium-low readiness

Orchestrating email-first, paid-second reactivation with consistent suppression

Weeks·Retention·Cross vertical·Multiple·Cross archetype stack·4 patterns

Loyalty tier progression nudge

Medium-low readiness

Catch the customer just short of the next tier and give them a real reason to cross it, anchored on their current balance rather than a guess

Weeks·Retention·B2C retail·Multiple·Composable stack·3 patterns

Replenishment timing for consumables

Medium-low readiness

Time the reorder reminder to the customer's own consumption cadence, not a category-wide average that is wrong for most of them

Weeks·Retention·B2C ecommerce·Multiple·Composable stack·3 patterns

Trip-planning-to-booking nurture

Medium-low readiness

Match the content sequencing to the long consideration cycle the traveller is actually on, with the price-sensitive decision moment at the end where the booking either happens or moves to a competitor

Weeks·Retention·Travel hospitality·Multiple·Composable stack·3 patterns

Bill-shock prevention outreach

Medium-high readiness

Warn the customer before the overage, the roaming charge, or the plan-mismatch cost lands on the bill, so the conversation is about what to do next rather than about why the bill is what it is

Weeks·Retention·Telco·Multiple·Composable stack·3 patterns

BOPIS abandonment recovery

Medium-high readiness

Recover the buy-online-pickup-in-store orders that the customer placed and never collected, with the cross-system identity and the in-store inventory signal that the recovery has to coordinate around

Weeks·Retention·B2C retail omnichannel·Multiple·Composable stack·3 patterns

Cart abandonment recovery with cross-device identity

Medium-high readiness

Recover the abandon that happened on the phone and the purchase that continues on the laptop, as one customer rather than two

Months·Retention·B2C ecommerce·EU GDPR·Composable stack·5 patterns

Predicted churn-risk winback

Medium-high readiness

Catch the customer while they are quietly disengaging, not after they have already decided to leave

Months·Retention·B2C subscription·Multiple·Composable stack·4 patterns

Subscription renewal series with churn-risk weighting

Medium-high readiness

Vary the renewal sequence and the incentive depth by predicted churn risk, instead of running the same series for every renewing customer

Months·Retention·B2C subscription·Multiple·Composable stack·4 patterns
Retention martech use cases · martech cookbook