Linksoul grows flow revenue 82% using Klaviyo for email and SMS

Linksoul is changing golf, one printed polo at a time—making the game less dress-code-strictly-enforced, more open-to-all. In 2009, John Ashworth and Geoff Cunningham founded Linksoul with the goal of being more than a company that sells golf apparel. They wanted to build an inclusive community around a shared love for golf and art.

Since then, they’ve saved their local municipal golf course, Goat Hill Park, from redevelopment; hosted local art shows in their Oceanside, CA headquarters; and raised more than $600K for charity by selling limited edition graphic tees designed by Cunningham. Linksoul builds community—on the golf course and through their marketing.

Learn why Linksoul switched from Attentive to Klaviyo SMS

Challenge

Linksoul was an early adopter of SMS marketing, and their customers took to it immediately: just weeks after launch, they had 20K subscribers.

Their initial SMS provider, Attentive, didn’t have the functionality to support the empathetic SMS marketing that ecommerce manager Brandi Cantrell wanted to do. Segmentation was challenging in the platform, and customer profiles were skeletal. Calls with support, promised monthly, happened quarterly—if that.

“When I’m trying to find ideas, I want to spot check a few of our really engaged customers to see what they’re doing,” Cantrell explains. “That’s how you build messaging that customers actually want and convert from.”

When I’m trying to find ideas, I want to spot check a few of our really engaged customers to see what they’re doing—that’s how you build messaging that customers actually want.

Solution

Cantrell already ran Linksoul’s email through Klaviyo, and loved the platform’s easy onboarding, robust support, and seamless segmentation. She didn’t need to shop around—she wanted to move SMS to Klaviyo, too.

Attentive didn’t make it easy. Linksoul couldn’t take any creative or historical performance data with them, and they had to contact support for help downloading their SMS contact list. Once they had it, it only took Cantrell an hour to upload into Klaviyo and get started.

Strategy

In 2022, Linksoul invested in building a high-performing SMS program—and succeeded.

By January 2023, their program far exceeded Klaviyo benchmarks on KPIs from revenue per recipient (7.2x median) to placed order rate (4.6x median).

A few tactics that have helped them do it:

• Boosting send frequency: Cantrell worried this would annoy customers, but ramping up to weekly SMS sends—based on advice from Klaviyo support—actually reduced unsubscribes.
• Integrating texts into existing email flows: “Now we’ve got a text in almost all of our flows, and our overall flow revenue increased 82% last year,” Cantrell says. “The majority of that flow revenue came from SMS.”
• SMS segmentation: Cantrell segments every SMS send based on recent SMS engagement and purchase history—and it boosted SMS click rate 20% YoY in 2022.

“I am a huge, huge Klaviyo fan,” Cantrell says. “They listen to their customers. If I have an idea, I know our account manager will help me build out a flow or I can run segments by her. We actually have monthly one-on-ones.”

I am a huge, huge Klaviyo fan. They listen to their customers. If I have an idea, I know our account manager will help me build out a flow.