Ryan is the Co-Founder of Tru Earth

Purpose driven direct to  consumer brand builder.

Ryan has:

✅ Helped Grow Tru Earth to more than 160,000 active subscribing customers
✅ Together with Tru Earth's Changemakers, eliminated more than 165,000,000 plastic-containers from landfills..
✅ Donated more than 33,887,227 loads of laundry detergent to those in need.
✅ Grown multiple premium subscription boxes to multi-million dollar businesses.
✅ Written content has been read by more than 100,000,000 readers.

Connect: 
Facebook https://m.facebook.com/theryemckenzie/
Twitter: @RyeMcKenzie

About Tru Earth
Tru Earth® based in Vancouver, Canada is a leading eco-friendly household product company committed to eliminating plastic from landfills and oceans. At its core, you’ll discover that Tru Earth, is actually a movement (#TruEarthMovement™). The Tru Earth team joins more than a quarter million equally committed people in more than 50 countries to combat the 645 billion plastic household product containers dumped in landfills and oceans globally each year. 

Our customers are #TruChangeMakers™, disrupting the multi-billion-dollar household product industry, reducing carbon emissions by up to 94% and caring for the health of the planet and their families. 

Tru Earth’s suite of products and planned launches come with our pledge to provide #TruChangeMakers with laundry, bathroom and kitchen products they need to make a substantial impact on the health of our world. To do ourpart, we promise to match all first-time subscriptions by donating to families in need across the globe. Because at Tru Earth, we know many small hinges can swing very, very big doors.

Ryan Mckenzie

Every founder on this app is losing their minds over AI tools right now. ClaudeBot this. Moltbook that.

Half of it is slop. The other half you’ll never really use.

But every new drop makes you feel like you’re falling behind. The pace of AI right now is a shiny object machine. And it’s pulling operators away from the stuff that’s been working all along.

I run an eight-figure business. This is my entire AI stack: 

>Open ChatGPT in dictate mode
>Talk through 50 half-baked ideas
>Tell it to organize my brain
>Grab competitor copy, dump it in
>Ask what persona they’re targeting
>Hop on a call
>Let Granola take notes
>Pull action items 

That’s it. 

Free plan. No autonomous agents. No tools I don’t trust accessing all my stuff. 

Don’t let the timeline make you feel behind.

Everyone wants the sophisticated play. 

The sophisticated play is getting good at boring.

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Co-Founder Tru Earth | Saving the planet, one strip at a time.

Before Tru Earth I was running this outdoor adventure brand, and with it came a revenue glass ceiling I didn’t even realize was there.

I thought anything over a million dollars a year was incredible. Like, why would you need more than that?

Then I met Matthew Bertulli at a mastermind. Told him my goals. That it was gonna be a slide of the desk business. Just a nice little thing.

All he said: “Think bigger.”

Two words. And something clicked.

Most of what holds you back is your own self limiting beliefs about what’s reasonable. And you don’t even want to shed those beliefs sometimes.

Because your life is comfortable and you’re afraid that if you change those beliefs, something you really like about your life might change too.

Seven years later and I still think about that conversation.

CEO @ Lomi & Pela Case - Follow me as I talk about building my brands.

Everyone's calling Ads in Chat GPT the next Facebook Ads.

It's not.

The people using ChatGPT today are the same people who used to search on Google. Same audience. Different platform. 

The pie didn't get bigger. The searches migrated.

So if your Google Ads performance has been declining for 2 years and you can't figure out why: your audience is still out there, they just moved. And now there’s a way to follow them.

The data angle is real. Facebook had behavioral tracking. Google had intent. ChatGPT has both. 

People literally tell it their problems in plain English. Every conversation is a targeting signal.

If OpenAI builds their ad product even halfway well, the targeting should be strong. Early conversion data already looks solid.

Everyone is talking about this like a gold rush, but it’s a recovery play.

Most of what you’re seeing is demand that already left Google. Now there’s a channel to go get it back. 

If you're spending on paid search and watching returns erode, pay attention. This doesn’t “change everything.” But it does explain what already changed.

6 behaviors I see in founders who stay healthy while scaling:

1. They focus on fewer things 
Running 30 initiatives = zero progress 
Focus is doing less, better

2. They chase asymmetric opportunities 
One big swing beats 20 small tweaks
Incremental wins rarely change a business

3. They optimize for signal, not activity 
Busy feels productive 
Outcomes are what matter

4. They update their thinking at each stage 
What works at $1M breaks at $10M 
Every revenue stage needs new mental models

5. They hold contradictory ideas at once 
Scaling is complex 
Black-and-white thinking doesn’t survive it

6. They build teams that make decisions 
Approval loops kill momentum 
Great teams have agency

The pattern: healthy founders remove complexity

My ADHD brain has 40 tabs open at all times.

Here’s what I do to manage:

- One task at a time. Not “mostly one.” Literally one.
- Physical Pomodoro timer on the desk. Something I can see counting down.
- Dedicated workspace. If you work where you relax, your brain fights you all day.
- Clear the desk every morning. A cluttered desk is a chaotic brain.
- Every notification off. Shopify, Stripe, email, Slack. All of it.
- Phone on permanent sleep mode. Five people can reach me. Everyone else goes to voicemail.
- No email or Slack during a focused block. They can wait.
- No open tabs. I used to have dozens running at all times. MinBrowser fixed that.
- Facebook ads? Go straight to Ads Manager URL. Never through the feed. I've lost hundreds of hours to that scroll.
- Freedom app to block sites during Pomodoro sessions. Even when you get tempted, you can't access them.
- Physical notebook for random ideas. Write them down, close the loop, come back later. Otherwise your brain opens a hundred tabs internally and none of them close.
- Take breaks. Parkinson’s Law is real: work fills the time you give it. If you sit at your desk for 8 hours straight, the last 4 are garbage.

Your brain isn’t broken. 

It just needs a system that works with it instead of against it.

This is first world advice.

If you can’t pay your bills, “build a machine that produces value” won’t help you eat.

You need revenue. Fast.

Maslow’s hierarchy applies to business too.

At the bottom: survive. Solve a problem someone will pay for right now.

Once you’re stable: yes. Build the machine. Think in systems.

Applying $10M thinking to a $10K problem gets you neither.

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Building a durable company means stacking real pillars underneath it: DTC, third-party marketplaces, retail, international. 

Four years is enough time to get somewhere. Rarely enough time to build something.

When you’re growing that fast, you’re holding on by the skin of your teeth. The train goes wherever it wants. You’re just hoping not to fly off the caboose.

Every region needs localized packaging, localized payment gateways, localized language.

You can build fast. Just know the difference between building something fast and building something that lasts.

Two things changed the trajectory of my career.

1. Hitting rock bottom.

- Built a ringtone subscription business. It collapsed.
- Had just bought a house, a condo, and signed an expensive lease.
- Owed the government a pile in taxes.
- Put the tax money into a “regulated” forex opportunity.
- Forex collapsed too.
- Bailiff showed up to seize my SUV.
- I was driving around screaming from stress.

2. Choosing commitment.

- Standing in the shower one morning. Full messaging framework for Tru Earth just clicked.
- The product seemed too cheap to scale. But at that moment, the entire positioning downloaded.
- Voice-noted the whole thing before I dried off.
- That messaging carried Tru Earth for years.

If you can, choose #2.

But if you’ve already hit #1, the clarity that comes from survival mode is real.

The bottleneck isn’t taste, intelligence or creative systems.

Most people online are so vanilla. They don’t expose their interests or say anything controversial. 

They just share business stuff.

Look at Hormozi. Grows his hair, grows his beard, always wears a tank top, works out like a motherf*cker. Says a lot of controversial stuff. I bet you half of it he doesn’t even mean. But people align with it.

Because when everything starts looking the same, nobody’s attracted to you because they don’t feel like they have anything in common with you outside of “I'm this hard working, grinding” guy.

My kids already say everything’s AI this, AI that.

We're heading back to a place where people follow and listen to people who are clearly real. You’ll get verified by being authentic.

Founders sand off every edge that would make someone actually give a sh*t about them.

You've got maybe 1000 days before AI levels this whole playing field.

A friend of mine runs a supplement brand doing solid numbers in the US.

About six months ago he started noticing something unusual in his analytics. Consistent traffic from Canada. Not paid. Organic. People were finding him through social media and word of mouth across the border.

He was excited for about ten minutes.

Then reality set in. His US-based 3PL wouldn't ship north without brutal surcharges. The few orders he managed to fulfill took two to three weeks and arrived with surprise customs fees that destroyed the customer experience on delivery.

So he watched the traffic. Every week. Canadian visitors showing up, bouncing at checkout, leaving.

He described it as watching revenue walk out the door through a window he couldn't open.
We connected him with Breakthrough Fulfillment. 

They had him fully operational in Canada within two weeks. Freight forwarding to local warehouses, next-day delivery to Toronto, Vancouver, and other major cities. No surprise duty at the customer's door.

Within 90 days he had added a revenue stream he had been accidentally ignoring for over a year.

The part that stands out is how common this pattern is. Brands generating organic Canadian demand without realizing it, then losing those customers to a logistics problem they assume is too complicated to solve.

If you are doing real volume in the US, check your geographic analytics. If Canadian traffic is showing up and not converting, the demand already exists. The infrastructure is the only thing missing.

https://lnkd.in/eGUqzqCe+M+LinkedIn&utm_campaign=3pl+feb+wk2

If this sounds familiar, comment below or send me a DM. I will connect you with the team.

www.breakthrough.studio

Breakthrough Studio - Premier 3PL Services | Streamlined Logistics Solutions

Every upgrade feels like a flex for about two weeks.

The office, the car, the lease on a bigger warehouse.

Then it just becomes another bill. Another thing you have to feed every month whether the business is up or down.

The best thing I ever did was start asking "does this make my life easier or does this just make me look like I'm winning?"

Most of the time it was the second one.

Social proof is NOT dead. Stop listening to your timeline.

That’s just bad advice from brands who don’t understand the difference between a 1.5 and a 4x ROAS.

I spend $50K+/month on static ads. And it comes down to one thing: 

Matching the right trust signal to the right stage of awareness.

This changes everything about how you allocate ad spend. 

The same testimonial converts at 4x in one ad and barely breaks even in another. Because nobody asked: does this buyer even need convincing yet?

I broke down exactly which signals belong where here:

Social Proof Isnt Dead Youre Just Using It Wrong 

Landing pages are basically first dates.

You can say all the right things, look great, check every box.

Then you make one claim that's slightly too big and the whole thing falls apart.

Believability is more important than impressiveness. Always has been.

Entrepreneurs don’t like to admit this:

The janitor probably has a better life than you do.

For a few months after I stepped away from the day to day at Tru Earth, I'd be at the gym in the morning and my brain would start screaming at me:

You gotta get to your desk. You gotta get to your desk. You gotta get to your desk.

And I'd be standing there mid-set going... What desk? I don't have a desk to get to anymore.

That voice wasn't rational. 
It was just years of training. 
Years of being always on. 
Years of every morning being about the next fire, the next hire problem, the next thing that needed me specifically to figure it out.

You don't realize how much that costs you psychologically until you stop paying it.

When you're in the middle of it, you think everybody operates like this. You think this is just what it takes. 

- Managing people who won't be in the same room anymore because they don't like each other.
- Solving problems with no clean answer.
- Carrying decisions home every single night and pretending you're present with your family when your head is still at the office.

And then there's the janitor.

The janitor:
- Shows up
- Checks every box on the list
- Walks out at 5 o'clock
- Doesn't think about it again until tomorrow

No mental load. 
No 2am problem solving. 
No Slack notifications at dinner.

A lot of entrepreneurs look down on that. 

I think that's wrong.

Not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Not everybody values the same things. And the person who doesn't take work home with them? They're arguably wealthier in the one thing every founder eventually realizes matters most...

Time. 

And the ability to actually be present inside of it.

If you’re building something right now and you feel this weight every single day, I’m not telling you to quit. I’m telling you to notice this.

Because the cost is real.

My kids are only young once. It's been really nice to just be there. Not thinking about tomorrow's fire. Just hanging out with them and soaking it in.

This is what life is all about.

Nobody tells you the weird part about stepping back from the business you built.

You go from "I'm the CMO of [brand]" to "I'm... working on some stuff."

Your identity was the company. Now you have to figure out who you are without it.

It's a better problem to have than most. But it's still a problem.

I’ve built businesses that did $100K months and ones that did $0 months.

The operator who walks out of the $0 month is someone you couldn’t have built on purpose. 

That only comes from surviving it.

Most operators are optimizing against themselves.

Your open rate went from 18% to 23%. You called it a win.

But 23% against brands your size, in your category, on your platform could be bottom quartile.

You don’t know. And that’s the real problem.

Omnisend’s Benchmark Calculator pulls real data from 150,000+ ecommerce brands and shows you where your email and SMS actually stands, not just whether the numbers are trending in the right direction.

Open rates. Click rates. Revenue per email. Benchmarked against brands running similar send volume and similar categories.

This is the difference between “our emails are improving” and “our emails are beating the top 20% of brands in our space.”

Q1 just ended. Before you commit to a Q2 plan, you should know where you actually stand.

If your benchmarks are coming up short, sending more isn’t usually the fix. Getting on a platform with the flows, segmentation, and automation infrastructure to actually convert is.

Omnisend’s US merchants average $79 in revenue for every $1 spent. The Benchmark Calculator is free.

If your current ESP can’t even show you how you stack up, that’s already your answer.

Run your numbers here: https://lnkd.in/dddMBgx8

Use code RYAN30 for 30% off your first 3 months.

Already on a paid plan elsewhere? Omnisend handles the migration for free. Automations, templates and flows. All done in 5 days.

And yes, I’m a proud Omnisend partner.

Open article: Recommended by Ryan McKenzie by omnisend.com

A friend of mine owns this little café I like to visit from time to time. 

And man, this guy’s got it figured out...

A couple real estate investments. His future is set. He runs the café because he wants to, not because he needs it to work perfectly.

And something clicked for me sitting there.

That’s the actual goal.

Not the flashy milestones. Not scaling to 9 figures for the sake of saying it. Not even the massive paydays.

The goal is having enough resources working for you that you can take risks and fail without everything coming apart.

I think most founders get into this game thinking about success. But they forget that things change.

Products lose steam. Business models stop working. Algorithms evolve.

It’s easy to feel untouchable when things are good. But what happens when it all stops?

That’s when you need to be okay starting over.

The café owner had it right. He built enough outside the business that he could operate without any desperation. No panic. No survival mode.

And it made me realize: I need enough resources outside of my main thing to keep going on my terms. Because everything ends eventually.

But if you’re prepared for that?

That’s freedom.

I help DTC brands turn $1 into $43.80 | Scaled Chronos from 0 → 85 team members

Hey! Thanks for stopping by my profile.

I'm Josh 👋, co-founder of Chronos - a retention and lifecycle marketing agency for 7 - 9 figure DTC brands (say that 3 times fast).

In short, we help fast growing brands nail repeat purchases, so they can scale their acquisition efforts with confidence.

Over the past 7+ years, we've worked with over 500+ brands and have generated over $300M in tracked, attributable revenue. Some of the results we're proud of:

👉 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞: 2x-ed email rev in 90 days, $44M in first 12 months

👉 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲: 26% increase in cart recovery AOV

👉 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐌+: 288% increase in total email revenue

👉 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐈𝐂𝐄: 2.53x in customer return rates

👉 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐲: 32% increase in customer AOV

In a sea of retention agencies, choosing the right one can be tough. Here's why brands choose Chronos:

🏷️ 𝐖𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬: We've been in the game for 7+ years and focus on building long term relationships by consistently delivering results.

🏷️ 𝐖𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬: We've seen a lot. Having worked with over 500+ brands, we bring a proven playbook of what works - and what doesn't - to get you results faster.

🏷️ 𝐖𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐬 No 'yes men' here. Our team actively challenges ideas and collaborates with you to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Making that leap is never easy - but if you're ready to partner with a team that's as invested in your growth as you are, let's chat.

Feel free to DM me, or check us out at: chronos.agency

Joshua Chin

Be me:

> Started running a weekly check-in with my wife 
> Borrowed it from how we run client accounts 
> How are we feeling, what's working, what's not 
> No waiting for problems to pile up 
> No burying things under gifts or distractions 
> Just honest, directional conversation 
> Turns out the best business lesson I learned 
> Was also the best marriage advice I never got 
> Ownership fixes everything

Helping DTC Brands Turn $1 into $43.80 | $300M+ Revenue Driven for 500+ Brands | Scaled Chronos from 0 → 85+

Ready to Make Retention Your Growth Engine? Let's Chat!

The Retention Playbook That Scaled 500+ Brands

CEO, Chronos Agency | Retention systems that turn $1 into $43+ | $400M+ attributed revenue via Email, SMS, Push | Free Audit Below

9 years ago I never would’ve believed I’m having so much fun running a business. 

> built a $1m year business, 60% margins
> felt absolutely miserable all the time
> business took off
> purely brute force, no systems
> caught up to me quick
> lost all freedom + autonomy
> constantly answering to everything
> gave up profit
> built a team + systems
> got my life back
> don’t have 60% margins
> but I have my life again
> the game of business is actually fun now
> don’t quit the game, just make it fun

I've been a Whoop subscriber for 5 years. And not because their emails are good.

Wearing it changed how I saw myself. 

Your product needs to make your customer FEEL something.

• A segment 
• A good campaign
• Your win-back sequence

Until your product gives your customer a new identity, emails don’t really matter.

Like me with Whoop.

• I started going to CrossFit
• Started seeing other people with Whoops 

And without anyone saying it out loud, there was this signal between us: We were people who valued our health.

Wearing a Whoop gave me a new identity.

Then the product did something smart. They created habits with an app.

Every morning I answer a short journal in the app. Sleep, recovery, habits. Simple questions. But the data it builds over time is mine. Personal to me. The longer I use it, the more it knows me. Now I’m attached to using their app every single morning.

Two retention loops running at once. Community on the outside. Habit on the inside.

If your product gives the customer a new identity that makes them feel good, you won’t need to constantly battle for attention in the inbox. They’ll be excited to read your emails.

Flows are great for retaining customers. But your customers want a new identity, that’s why they buy your product.

Make them FEEL the identity. That’s what they want.

After 8 years managing email for 500+ DTC brands, here's every retention flow tip I could come up with:

1. If you don't have a pop-up offer on your site, you're leaving the cheapest leads on the table.

2. Aim for a 4-9% pop-up submission rate. If you're under that, your offer or timing is off.

3. 70% of visitors won't scroll past your hero section. If your best offer isn't there, it doesn't exist.

4. Your abandoned checkout flow should convert at 7-10%. If it's not, there's room to tighten up.

5. Max ONE SMS in your abandoned checkout flow. They're still cold. Don't overwhelm them.

6. Browse abandonment is not the same as cart abandonment. The psychology is completely different. Treat it that way.

7. Your browse abandonment email has one job: show them the product they viewed is the solution they're looking for.

8. Abandoned cart visitors are blocked by something. Shipping cost, reviews, comparisons. Answer those objections before they have to ask.

9. Site abandonment visitors aren't ready to buy yet. Don't sell. Just guide them back and let your brand do the work.

10. Failure-to-Launch Flow targets people who signed up in the last 30 days and never engaged. Take one strong swing before they go cold.

11. Your highest open and click rates will always be right after someone buys. Use that window.

12. Most second purchases happen within 30 days of the first. If you're not pushing for that, you're leaving easy revenue behind.

13. Ask new customers "why did you buy?" Offer a small incentive for the reply. It boosts deliverability and tells you exactly what's working.

14. A win-back flow is part reminder, part nudge, part proof. Lead with value, not just a discount.

15. Your sunset flow isn't a failure. End the relationship well. Ask for a referral or review. Leave the door open.

16. A second purchase is a satisfaction signal. That's your best moment to ask for a review and actually get one.

17. VIPs should feel like VIPs. First access to drops, sales, and launches. If they don't feel special, they won't stay loyal.

18. Cross-sell recommendations only work when they're relevant. If it doesn't feel helpful, it feels pushy.

19. Replenishment flows exist for one reason: to catch one-time buyers before their product runs out and they forget about you.

20. Subscriptions aren't just good for retention. They're good for customers too. Lower cost, more convenience. Lead with that.

21. Running all of these at once will usually add 20-30% more revenue from the same list.

22. The list you already have is worth more than you think. You just have to work it properly. Save this and implement it all.

7 retention lessons I learned by questioning everything I was told:

1. The "1–2 emails per week" rule was never tested. It was just repeated enough that everyone stopped asking why.

2. Best practices only work under specific conditions. Most teams inherit them without validating them.

3. First principles means anchoring to real customer behavior. Not the playbook someone else built.

4. Not all rules deserve to be challenged. Test what's recoverable. Protect what's not.

5. Engagement, revenue, and list health tell you when it's safe to push further. Pay attention to the signals.

6. Email forgives slowly. SMS punishes fast. Your experimentation should match the downside.

7. No email or SMS campaign can create demand that doesn't exist. The product is the foundation. Retention is the amplifier.

I've spent 8+ years running retention for DTC brands.

Supplements. Fashion. Home goods. Food.

And if you asked me where retention works perfectly?

It's beauty.

Beauty hits on four levels that no other category touches at the same time.

Psychological. Emotional. Habitual. Economic.

People don't buy a serum because they want a serum.

They buy it because they want to feel young again.

They want their spouse to look at them the way they did 10 years ago.

There are layers to why people buy beauty products.

Most brands only market to the surface.

Fix your wrinkles. Clear your dark spots.

But the real driver is deeper.

It's emotional. It's identity.

When you understand that, your emails stop sounding like product pitches.

They start sounding like you actually get the customer.

Now the economics.

Beauty is replenishable by nature.

Even when the product solves the problem it leads to the next one.

Or at the very least maintenance of the outcome.

Theoretical LTV doesn't end.

The customer always needs more.

And the replenishment cycle gives you a predictable window to drive the next order.

That changes the math on everything.

Then there's the habitual side.

Beauty customers are sticky.

Way stickier than most categories.

They've been dealing with their issue for months. Sometimes years.

They buy a product and it doesn't work immediately.

But they don't bounce.

You can anchor them with small wins along the way.

"Seeing redness after week one? That's actually a good sign."
"Here's what results look like at week two. Week six. Week twelve."

Those mini milestones keep people on the path.

Even before the product fully delivers, they stay.

Because they feel like they're making progress.

That's lifecycle marketing at its purest.

You're building a habit around the product so they keep using it.

See results faster.

Run out sooner.

This actually works too. Not just some concept or idea.

We work with a beauty brand mid 8-figures.

Core product is a microinfusion device.

Helps with fine lines, wrinkles, dark spots.

Replenishment cycle is every 3-6 months.

Here's the ecosystem we built:

- Bounce back flow offering a discount within 24-48 hours of purchase to pull forward LTV instead of waiting 6 months

- Educational sequences mapped to their timeline. What to expect at week two. Week six. Week twelve. So they don't quit.

- Product-specific cross-sell flows. Not one generic post-purchase flow. Each product gets its own flow tying the cross-sell back to what they already bought.

- Campaigns feeding the whole machine. Even when click rates dip from higher frequency those clicks push people back into browse abandonment, cart abandonment, checkout abandonment. Flows absorb the pressure.

This is why beauty brands win at retention. 

Every layer feeds the next one. 

Psychological → Emotional → Habitual → Economic

This might sound crazy.

But hear me out...

You shouldn’t be rebuilding your retention strategy every time you onboard a new brand.

The brands change. The buying behavior never does.

Once you understand the psychology driving purchases in a vertical, you stop reinventing campaigns and start deploying a structure that works every time.

You learn this after 700+ campaigns a month.

→ You stop asking what worked for this brand.
→ You start asking what works for this type of buyer.

That answer becomes the structure. The structure is what scales.

For example: 

I see this again and again with pet brands. They have the same exact problem.

Their emails were written for the owner. Not the pet.

Pet parents don't buy for themselves. They buy for the animal.

That sounds obvious. But watch how many pet brands still lead with product specs, stack features in the body, and bury the discount like it needs to be earned.

Once we understood that the pet purchase is almost always an act of care and not a transaction, the email structure changed.

Every product benefit is written through the pet's experience. Because that's what the owner is actually buying.

Same structure. Can be applied to other brands too.

Stop caring about the product, the features, the benefits...

Until you understand why and how the buyer will buy.

The buying behavior doesn't change. So the framework doesn't either.

We grew our retention agency to easily run 100s of campaigns a month.

• 75 people
• Strategist-led
• Making our brands $8M/month total

Here’s exactly what I’d do if I had build my agency from scratch:

GET CLEAR ON THE FOUNDER’S ROLE:

> Don’t get tied to day-to-day campaign execution.
> Track core retention metrics: list growth, 90-day LTV, content retention, contribution margins.
> Compare metrics to track progress (last year, past campaigns, etc)
> Founder’s Role: Oversee strategy and performance.

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT WITH BUSINESS GOALS:

> Every email, SMS, and campaign should support core business objectives.
> Ensure your retention strategy integrates with marketing, product, and growth goals.
> Have a Strategy Lead acting as the glue across operations, product, and marketing.

SPLIT THE ROLES:

> Strategy Lead: high-level planning and alignment with business goals.
> Activation Specialist: operationalizes campaigns and ensures deadlines are met.
> Clear separation = better accountability, focus, and results than one person juggling both.

DEDICATED CREATIVE RESOURCES:

> Bring in copywriters and designers dedicated to retention if possible
> Having the right creative resources ensures your strategy turns into action smoothly.

Get the structure of your agency right and the results follow.

I'm watching a $50M health and beauty brand build an app right now and it's changing everything about how they retain customers.

The old way will fizzle out in 2026.

- Email open rates hovering around 30%
- SMS getting lost in the noise
- Push notifications on web that nobody opts into

Now compare that to an app.

- No load times. 
- No clunky mobile web. 
- Everything is seamless. 
- A premium-feeling mobile experience

Push notifications through an app are free. You click send and you're in front of millions of eyeballs instantly. 

That's an entire channel of communication that didn't exist before.

And the habit-forming angle is where it gets powerful.

We use Klaviyo's recency, frequency, monetary scoring to rank customers. 

There's always a middle band: 

People who bought recently but haven't crossed a spend threshold. Or spent a lot but haven't come back in a while.

Life got in the way. An app reminds them of their habit.

An app is that gentle, consistent touchpoint that makes a customer feel: “Despite what happened today, I'm still a person who takes care of my skin.”

When you can instill that thinking, two things happen:

→ Stickiness to the brand goes up 
→ Replenishment periods get shorter

And here's the part that surprised me.

It's way easier to introduce new product categories when your customers are on an app. Because you're not selling a solution anymore. You're selling an identity.

I'm an Apple guy now. 10 years ago I would've never called myself that. 

But here I am with the whole ecosystem. It's not about any single product. It's a being, not a doing.

When your customer identifies as "a person who takes care of their skin," launching a new SKU becomes a no-brainer. (Especially paired with mobile push notifications)

We know excitement spikes at key moments: 

- Right before someone places an order. 
- Right after they order.
- When the new product arrives.

But that energy fades fast. Not with an app.

An app lets you capture that peak intent and extend it just long enough to build the habit. 

And then the cycle continues.

2026 is the year smart DTC brands stop treating apps as a nice-to-have. And start treating them as the retention infrastructure they've been missing.

It’s never been easier.

Only 50% of your list opens your emails on a good day. 

For supplement brands, that 50% is the difference between a one-time buyer and someone on a 30-day replenishment cycle.

The best way to run retention as a supplement brand:

Copying retention strategies from other industries is one of the most expensive mistakes in DTC.

Every industry has a different retention logic.

• Supplements run out
• Beauty gets used up
• Subscriptions auto-renew
• Fashion has none of that

A fashion brand running a supplement playbook is running a system designed for a customer who doesn't exist.

Fashion retention runs on desire, not depletion.

1. Lead with identity, not inventory
2. Win-backs need a reason to want, not a reminder to reorder
3. Loyalty programs work when they reinforce who your customer wants to be

If your retention strategy could work for a supplement brand, it couldn’t possibly work for yours.

Make 2026 the year you make MILLIONS in repeat revenue.

Here's 13 core retention flows you can implement today:

1. Welcome Flow
2. Abandoned Checkout Flow
3. Browse Abandonment Flow
4. Abandoned Cart Flow
5. Site Abandonment Flow
6. Failure to Launch Flow
7. First-Time Purchase / Thank You Flow
8. Win-Back Flow
9. Sunset Flow
10. Repeat Purchase Flow
11. VIP Flow
12. Cross-Sell / Upsell Flow
13. Replenishment Flow

Brands doing $5M+ are using all 13 of these.

This email came in 42% above our average campaign revenue.

After a heavy Q4, our list had seen the same pitch dozens of times. 

Discount. Urgency. Repeat. 

Performance was dropping across the board.

So we led with story instead: 

• The history behind their best-selling product.
• Influencer GIF in the hero.
• Problem agitation in the body. 
• Social proof at the close. 
• Discount in the CTA

What the data told us:

→ Most of the revenue came from returning customers 
→ The email reminded them why they bought in the first place 
→ It didn't need to convert, just reconnect

Not every email has to sell. Some exist to refill goodwill so the next promo lands harder. The brands that figure out that balance tend to keep their lists a lot longer.

If campaign revenue has been slipping, it might not be the offer. It might be how often you've been making one.

Review request emails are usually begging in disguise.

CALECIM didn't beg. They just led with:

"Was It Love At First Swipe?" 

It doesn't ask if the customer liked the product. 

It assumes they did. 

The relationship is already real. They're just being invited to talk about it.

That's a completely different ask. And it changes how the whole email lands.

By the time readers hit the offer, it doesn’t feel like a bribe, it feels like a thank you.

That confidence is what gets people to actually click.

I see AMAZING products flop because the launch strategy is horrible.

If your product launch starts on launch day, you already lost.

Get them excited a week beforehand...

Send a "raise your hand" email before the product page even exists:

"Want first access? Click here." 

Immediately identifies your highest-intent buyers before there's anything to buy.

By the time you go live, they've already decided they're in.

Then don’t mess up the launch email.

Put someone wearing or using the product in the hero. 

• Not a flat-lay. 
• Not a product on white. 
• A person your reader can see themselves as. 

That visual sells harder than any copy underneath it.

Stack the offer to push AOV. 

• Buy one get 10% off. 
• Buy two get 15%. 
• Buy three get 20% plus free shipping. 

They just need a little nudge to get over the edge. This does it and then some.

Then throw a short banner at the bottom for the skimmers. 

Half your list scrolls straight to the footer. Meet them there.

Most brands treat a launch like one big blast. 

One email
One shot
Move on

Do this and you’ll flop.

A real launch sequence has warmup, early access, the main push, a reminder with social proof, and a last-chance close. 

Five touches minimum.

Your list already trusts you. 

Build the launch around that trust.

Been watching the discourse around Meta's credit card ban. 

It’ll be fine, they’ll fold within 90 days. 

Invoice billing becomes an option, not the default. Third-party providers build workarounds so brands can still run cards and collect points. This already exists in other markets anyway.

What actually dies is the arbitrage seller. People running products at breakeven just to harvest points and fund a travel lifestyle. 

We're like a rounding error to Meta. The SMB world below $200M is a tiny slice of their revenue. Nike isn't tweeting about losing points. 

Platforms will always change the rules. Build so you won’t constantly fall victim to them.

I was talking with a friend who owns a $50M health and beauty brand. 

They’re doing something that will permanently change the retention game.

Building an app. 

Here's why it's changing how you should think about retention heading into 2026.

1. Email is plateauing: open rates hovering around 50% with diminishing upside

2. SMS is getting noisier: harder to stand out, rising costs, declining response

3. Web push adoption is weak: most customers never opt in

4. App push = direct, frictionless access: one tap, zero load time, premium experience

5. Apps reinforce identity, not just product: customers become "a person who takes care of their skin," not 
just a buyer

6. RFM scoring + app = powerful reactivation: Klaviyo flags the middle band, the app brings them back

7. Easier cross-sell and category expansion: you're not selling a new product, you're extending an identity they already hold

Soon apps won’t be a feature, but they’ll be a foundation for any good DTC brand to help their customers build habits.

Unlock your revenue potential with a free customized audit:

chronos.agency

Book an Appointment with Chronos Agency Experts

The average holiday promo leads with the discount.

ForChics led with the customer.

"Let's Celebrate YOU." was the opener. National Compliment Day was the hook. The 20% off came after.

By the time readers hit the offer, it felt like a reward.

The product naming did the same thing:

→ "Boost My Brows" 
→ "Unleash My Lashes" 
→ "Elevate My Lashes"

Those do so much more than sell the product. They’re reinforcing identity and reaffirming WHO the customer is (someone who uses this product).

The discount didn't change. The sequence did.

Lead with identity then follow with the offer. The emotional weight of the whole email shifts.

This post reminds me of brands that just give up on retention.

They try it, build something, don't see the return they expected, and move on. 

Retention is an amplifier. The better your lifecycle program runs, the more efficient every other channel gets. Lower CAC. Better ROAS. More room to scale.

Shutting it down doesn't ever free up bandwidth. It just makes everything else harder.

83% of Chargeasap’s newest product drop was funded by people already sitting in their CRM. 
Here is the technical breakdown of how they did it without redlining their ad account.

Welcome back to the LTV Profit Lab. If I walked into your office and told you that 83% of the money for your next launch was already sitting in your d

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