Dagne Dover adds SMS in response to consumer data privacy changes

Dagne Dover is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand that makes a wide variety of performance-driven bags for work and leisure. Founded by three women in 2013, the brand creates “problem-solving bags for all the badass, problem-solving humans out there. Bags that keep up with you to stay organized, and look good doing it.”

Traditional and digital advertising has lost its impact

Acquisition costs for digital advertising are skyrocketing, and consumer data privacy updates from Google and Apple have made third-party attribution difficult.

And as third-party data becomes harder to attain, brands like Dagne Dover have come to rely on Customer-First Data™. With first-party data, Dagne Dover used its success on owned marketing channels to convert (and keep) their hard-won customers.

Dagne Dover expands owned marketing efforts with SMS

After adding SMS to their Klaviyo account, Dagne Dover joined branches to their existing email flows, reaching customers who were on the edge of converting. Revenue from email and SMS marketing now account for 25% of Dagne Dover’s sales every quarter.

As we see other channels’ costs continue to increase, we know that Klaviyo is a way that we can connect with our most loyal repeat customers. Through our expansion into SMS, we are able to reach these customers in a more cost-efficient way. With SMS, we’re able to engage customers at critical points where they’re just learning about us and considering purchasing. During the holidays, we leaned on SMS to send reminders echoing our emails at times when customers were more likely to be on their phones than reading their emails.

Marcia Zimmerman
, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

Text messages reach Dagne Dover’s audiences when it matters

It’s easy to go overboard with sending text messages to customers, so Dagne Dover reserves its SMS for the most important moments during the customer journey. While the team sends texts for important brand moments like launches and sales, they’ve found that SMS is most effective when a customer is on the edge of converting.

“With SMS, we’re able to engage customers at critical points where they’re just learning about us and considering purchasing,,” Zimmerman explains. “And we really see good efficiency from Klaviyo, whether that is a session on the website or stronger purchasing behavior.”

When Dagne Dover sends an email to a customer and they don’t respond—sending another email will likely be ineffective. Instead, Dagne Dover’s customers are more likely to respond if the second message is sent as a text. In a recent survey, Klaviyo found that 37% of consumers prefer to receive text messages instead of emails from brands.

Dagne Dover finds that SMS is a perfect channel to notify customers of product launches and sales because of its immediacy. According to Klaviyo’s internal data, the median time between an email being received and getting clicked is two and a half hours. For texts—it’s just one hour.

Meaningful relationships grow through SMS

SMS is an especially personal form of communication, so brands need to be sure they’re sending messages customers actually care about. Dagne Dover also limits the frequency of its texts. This not only keeps its customers happy—it helps Dagne Dover follow SMS compliance.

Klaviyo’s quiet hours allow Dagne Dover to send automated SMS messages at pre-set times, so it’s easy to send texts that are appropriate for the customer’s time zone—all while complying with government regulations.

SMS is another way to reach our loyal customers in a channel that’s very close and personal to them. Other than talking with someone face to face—there’s no more personal way of communicating than with your phone.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

Dagne Dover achieves SMS success with Klaviyo

Because of its dynamic segmentation, robust analytics, and easy integration with email flows, Klaviyo SMS was an easy decision for the team at Dagne Dover.

Klaviyo is more cost-effective and has more important segmentation and analytics integrations than other options we considered. We also like the recommended product. Since we already use Klaviyo for email, using the same platform for SMS is easy for our team.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

Pre-built flows engage customers with relevant messages

With Klaviyo’s pre-built flows, the team at Dagne Dover can build out their customer communications strategy, fast—without the help of an engineering team.

We can edit set-it-and-forget-it flows very quickly without a web developer. Then, we can just turn them on and forget about it.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

Klaviyo’s flow library has dozens of pre-built email and SMS templates for every stage of the customer lifecycle—and it’s easy to search for templates by type, goal, or integration.

After choosing the right template, the team at Dagne Dover can edit the flow to suit their use case in just a few clicks. And as they gather data on what works, they can go back and edit the flows as needed.

Robust analytics fuel success on owned marketing channels

An exceptional customer experience can only happen when you personalize the customer experience. The most effective way to do this is with data. And with Klaviyo’s robust analytics dashboard, the team at Dagne Dover can optimize their email and SMS communications to convert (and keep) more of its customers.

We’re really able to get into the data with Klaviyo. Nothing is a black box.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

With Klaviyo, Dagne Dover can make informed, data-driven decisions based on Customer-First Data. Klaviyo provides a foundation of data to inform Dange Dover’s marketing efforts into things like deliverability, attribution, customer lifetime value, and audience comparisons.

When we can understand what’s happening with the health of our business, then we will know how to engage our customers on a more personalized basis.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍

What’s next for Dagne Dover: Personalized SMS

Klaviyo gives Dagne Dover all the tools and support they need to scale its SMS channel—and allows for future growth by enabling Dagne Dover’s team to personalize the customer journey.

If we have a question on consent or attribution, we know that we have people at Klaviyo who would be able to work with us to solve those issues. And moving forward, we want to use Klaviyo to reach people with the products that we know they already love—and continue to re-engage and keep a larger percentage of our customers.

Marcia Zimmerman, Growth marketing and analytics manager at Dagne Dover‍