How Nomad Grew Revenue with Klaviyo

See how Nomad grew email marketing revenue from 2% to 20% of total revenue using Klaviyo.

Klaviyo’s advanced segmentation tools are a huge asset to ecommerce stores, and nobody knows this better than tech gadget company, Nomad. Nomad began in 2012 as a Kickstarter campaign for a portable phone charger shaped like a credit card. They’ve since expanded their product offering and laid down more permanent roots in the form of an ecommerce store, built with Shopify Plus.

Every quarter we become more sophisticated with our segmentation and email marketing strategy. This allows us to deliver content to customers who are interested in a given offering rather than ‘spray and pray’ with our email efforts. Ultimately, these highly segmented audiences and messages have increased our open and click through rates as customers come to appreciate our email marketing efforts.

How Nomad Uses Segments with Campaigns

Nomad has found that the benefits of email list segmentation are twofold. Segmenting contacts allows them to drill down and see which subsets of their audience are most engaged, as well as provide these subsets with more relevant content. This is especially useful when sending campaigns, since these are one-off emails and are not directly triggered by subscriber behavior.

Nomad primarily uses campaigns for product releases. Whenever they release a new product, they divide their mailing list into four segments: iPhone users in the US, international iPhone users, Android users in the US, and international Android users. The content for iPhone and Android users is the same; Nomad uses this measurement for their own purposes to determine which subset is more engaged. If they are releasing a new Apple Watch product, they will create a fifth and sixth segment for Apple Watch users internationally and in the US. Since Nomad offers free shipping to domestic customers, the content varies slightly for their US and international subscribers.

For each product release campaign, Nomad also sends a follow-up email to another segment of subscribers who opened the first email but did not make a purchase. This follow-up reminds them when it is their last chance to take advantage of earlybird pricing. They have found that this email converts particularly well, with open and click rates that are twice as high as the initial campaign. Their most recent feature release saw a 34% open rate for the initial email, and a 63% open rate for the follow-up email. This follow-up email also accounted for a whopping 35% of total sales for the new product release.

This practice is actually the inverse of what many ecommerce marketers do. Often, ecommerce marketers will resend campaigns to a segment of subscribers who did not open the first email. However, Nomad has found that their method works better.

“You want to catch people at the best time of day,” says Chuck. “Half of our customers open on mobile, but not many people purchase on mobile. We want to try to reach them at a better time, when they’re ready to buy.”

Chuck has found that sending an initial email the day a product is released and a follow-up several days later to engaged subscribers strikes a perfect balance. Nomad is careful not to bombard their customers with emails, and by weaving Facebook ads into their online marketing strategy, they are able to have several touch points with their subscribers outside of email.

How Nomad Uses Segments with Facebook Ads

Nomad doesn’t just use Klaviyo for email marketing. Chuck has also found that segments are extremely effective in driving sales when used in tandem with Facebook’s Custom and Lookalike Audiences. Klaviyo’s streamlined integration with Facebook allows users to automatically sync their segments with Custom Audiences. Nomad can create segments based on their Shopify Plus data, and then import these segments into Facebook. Even better, these segments are updated dynamically, which means Chuck doesn’t have to manually remove or add people based on the criteria of the segment.

One of the most successful segments Nomad has synced with Facebook includes “dead leads,” which they define as customers who don’t open their marketing emails and rarely place orders. Surprisingly, these customers are very responsive to Facebook ads. Chuck says, “Building out a Custom Audience of these users has allowed us to reach them in a more natural way during their everyday use of Facebook. As it turns out, many of those customers are very interested in our products, but just don’t open our marketing emails.”

Nomad also imports segments of customers who have purchased their products into Facebook and then creates Lookalike Audiences, or audiences of similar people, based on these customers. As a result, they are able to engage a segment of customers that they would not have otherwise been able to reach.

Half of Nomad’s online advertising spend takes place on Facebook, so finding the right audience is a key part of their marketing strategy. Since syncing their audience with Klaviyo, they have since seen a significant increase in sales attributed to Facebook ads.

Nomad’s Advice for New Marketers

Chuck advises ecommerce marketers who are just starting out to first focus on finding their company’s unique audience. One size does not fit all in terms of finding the most engaged customers, so it’s important that marketers understand their product and what is important to those who are interacting with their product.

He also strongly advises marketers to segment based on location. For example, many ecommerce stores offer free shipping in the US or discounted shipping in neighboring countries, like Canada. Segmentation, at its core, allows marketers to let certain subsets of their audience know what they have to offer them as an individual.

Nomad has seen a 14.6X ROI thanks to Klaviyo, and has extended its applications beyond email marketing. Klaviyo’s one-click integrations with Shopify Plus and Facebook allowed them to get up and running quickly and seamlessly, without wasting time on logistics. Chuck was able to focus instead on becoming more sophisticated in his marketing strategy and drive revenue for the company. Recently, Nomad has started using Klaviyo’s unique, dynamically generated, one-time coupon codes for Shopify Plus stores. Chuck looks forward to using this tool in addition to segmentation and Facebook targeting to further refine Nomad’s email marketing technique, specifically in their abandoned cart and browse abandonment emails.