Helping DTC Brands Drive Predictable, Profitable Growth 📧 | Over $115M in Email Revenue For Clients | DM me ‘EMAIL’ to chat

Building Kensington Media House: a leading Retention Marketing Agency for DTC brands.

→ Top Klaviyo & Omnisend partner
→ Over $300M generated for clients
→ Worked with over 130 brands since we launched

If you want to learn more about how we can do this for your DTC store, book an introductory meeting with myself below where I'll share exactly how we produce the results that we do whilst building out a roadmap custom to your business on how you can do exactly the same:

https://calendly.com/d/yxt-prp-tgw

We are also always hiring and looking for best-in-class talent. Check out our open roles and how to apply here: https://www.kensingtonmediahouse.com/careers

Or, connect with us on YouTube!
https://youtube.com/@kensingtonmediahouse

Redesigned this email for BRĒZ

The improvements:
- CTA above-the-fold
- Clearer headline
- Final CTA at the bottom

Broke down the full email on my Instagram 🙂


What do you think?

Conor Sunderland

ALWAYS HIRING: Check My About Section | Helping DTC Brands Drive Predictable, Profitable Growth 📧 | Over $300M in Email Revenue For Clients | DM me ‘EMAIL’ to chat

Your Black Friday emails WILL go to spam

Here's how to fix it in the next week:

Before last Black Friday, I audited a client doing $1.3M/month in email revenue.

They wanted to talk about getting their Black Friday flows and campaigns ready for the big weekend.

But I spotted the real problem: their campaign open rates were stuck at 20%, and flow open rates weren’t much better.

They were roughly 50/50 revenue from campaigns and flows, so we knew we could realistically add a couple hundred thousand dollars a month just from improving open rates across both.

Here's the thing about Black Friday 2025:

People have packed inboxes. Even brands with good deliverability get buried.

Your 4-step deliverability rescue plan:
1. Send 4-5 plain text emails to your 7-day engaged segment THIS WEEK
2. Aim for 60%+ open rates (ask questions, solicit replies)
3. Let Gmail see you as a "good sender" before the chaos hits
4. Then expand back out to your bigger segments and you'll see better open rates on those

We did this for a client last year. Their deliverability was in the gutter, transparently.

We rebuilt their reputation over the course of eight weeks, but this process won't take that long and it won't harm you.

The result: Their biggest Black Friday by a country mile.

This year? They're on track to 2X that.

Don't let perfect emails die in the promotions tab.

Fix your reputation now while you still can.

#blackfriday #dtc #ecommerce #emailmarketing

Helping DTC Brands Drive Predictable, Profitable Growth 📧 | Over $250M in Email Revenue For Clients | DM me ‘EMAIL’ to chat

4-6 emails per day during Black Friday

Yes, I'm serious.

Last year we generated $958k in November for a client who thought $600k was "impossible."

How?

We sent more emails than they were comfortable with.

Here's why most brands fail at this:

They get 150 spam complaints → they panic and pull back → they then miss out on hundreds of thousands in revenue.

But here's the reality:

If you had 2 million unique deliveries and got 250 complaints, that's 0.0125%.

Statistically nothing.

The new normal for Black Friday:
- First send: 180-day engaged (cast wide)
- Second send: 90-day engaged (tighten up)
- Third send: 45-day engaged (even tighter)
- Fourth send: 14-day engaged (tightest)

Each send excludes anyone who opened in the last 6-12 hours and anyone who purchased in the last 2 days.

This protects your open rates and keeps you in the primary inbox, and makes sure no one gets spammed too hard.

Reality check: Over 14,000 people purchased TWICE from the same client during their Black Friday sale. Last 2 days purchasers exclusion is enough to give breathing room, and also drive a second sale.

People don't hate your emails.

They hate boring offers and missing out.

You have your best offers of the year live.

Don't let a few angry emails stop you from capturing another 6 figures.


#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

SMS is absolutely destroying email for us this Black Friday.

And I mean destroying.

We're seeing SMS sends do 3x the revenue of email sends.
Triple.

For context, we've been huge advocates of high-volume email sending for years now. Multiple sends per day during peak periods. It worked incredibly well.

But here's what's happening:

Everyone caught on.

Your customers' inboxes during BFCM? Absolute carnage. They're getting hammered from every brand they've ever interacted with.

Meanwhile, SMS is still cutting through the noise.

The platforms are nearly equal now in terms of ease of unsubscribing. Gmail's updates have changed the game. But SMS still has that immediacy that email's losing during these massive sales periods.

So here's my advice, even if you're not typically an SMS person:
→ Prioritize growing your SMS list heading into big sales periods
→ If you have a major push coming in December, seriously consider sending an SMS for it
→ Don't sleep on this channel just because you've built a massive email list

We're likely hitting a saturation point with email volume during peak periods.

SMS is where the opportunity is right now.

What are you seeing with your SMS performance this Q4?

#DTC #ecommerce #BFCM #SMS #emailmarketing

We just crossed $2,500 in our first 30 days with our own e-commerce brand.

Not life-changing money. But it changed everything about how we run our agency.

After 5 years building our retention agency to multi-7 figures, we finally decided to put our own money on the line and launch a DTC brand.

The ignorance debt? Painful.

The learning? Priceless.

Last week I had a client call with a CMO scaling a CPG brand. The conversation was completely different than it would've been a month ago.
↳ More honest
↳ More strategic
↳ More partnership, less vendor

He respected that I'm now dealing with the same cash flow decisions, the same "should we scale or not?" moments, the same creative fatigue he faces.

Here's what surprised me most about running our own brand:

The creative volume myth: Everyone preaches volume in 2025. We launched 50+ statics. One image is taking 80% of spend and driving most revenue.

We're iterating on what works, not spraying and praying.

Agency skills transfer better than expected: Our team management and operational systems are accelerating growth faster than pure marketing instincts would.

Client conversations hit different: When you're both bleeding on ad spend, the strategic depth goes 10X.

The goal? $1M in year one.

But the real win is already here: becoming the kind of agency partner I'd actually want to work with.

To the brand owners reading this – you now know we actually get it.

To the agencies reading this – consider putting your own money where your mouth is.

What's your biggest surprise from stepping outside your comfort zone?


#DTC #ecommerce #agencylife #entrepreneurship

I'm skeptical of email attribution.
Weird thing to admit, right?

But here's what I learned from running our own DTC brand:

Meta + great creative is the biggest lever in eCommerce.

Email's job isn't to compete with that. It's to make it more profitable. Get more out of every dollar you spend acquiring customers.

Since becoming a brand owner myself, I've realised just how critical Meta is to the whole machine.

This is why we use 12-hour click attribution for a lot of our bigger clients who are spending heavily across multiple platforms.

Not 5-day open tracking, which inflates numbers like crazy.

If someone opens an email then clicks a Meta ad 2 days later, Meta should get the credit.

But if someone clicks an email? That's fair game.

The reality: Email increases conversion likelihood. It doesn't create new audiences. Attribution gets murky past a certain point, and we've made peace with that.

Some agencies inflate numbers to look good in monthly reports.

We'd rather be honest and keep clients for 3+ years.

Email is incredibly important to the business. It's a profit multiplier.

And while I know that the percentage in the image below would look a lot better on normal settings, standards matter more than vanity metrics.


#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

Everyone sends their Black Friday emails at 9:00 AM
So we send ours at 9:06 AM.

Sounds stupidly simple, right?

But here's what happens:

At 9:00 AM, there's a tsunami of promotional emails hitting every inbox.
Your carefully crafted campaign? Buried on page 2 within minutes.

Our solution:
Send at 7:47 AM instead of 7:30 AM. Send at 8:06 PM instead of 8:00 PM. Send at 9:34 AM instead of 9:30 AM.
You ride in 6 minutes after the wave and sit at the top of the inbox.

Bonus hack: Increase your volume of plain text emails during Black Friday week.

Why?

Superior deliverability. Flies under the radar. People actually read them. Make sure you hit the inbox with this timing hack, then make sure you sit at the top of the inbox.

Designed emails are great.

But plain text during peak season? That's how you print money.

Small details. Massive results.


#emailmarketing #ecommerce #DTC

We blew past a client's Black Friday revenue goal with this counterintuitive move

Most people won't do it because it feels "wrong."

Standard Black Friday playbook: Go live with sale, send a bunch of emails, end the sale, move on.

Our playbook:
- Early Black Friday sale (2 weeks out)
- Break for a week
- Main Black Friday sale

Two peaks beat one peak.

Every time.

Why this works:

Captures early buyers who plan ahead. Creates FOMO during the "break." Gives you two chances to hit the inbox. Segments naturally emerge (early vs. procrastinators).

Then we do one more thing that prints an extra chunk of cash at the end:

Send an email the day AFTER the sale "ends."

Subject: "I spoke with our warehouse manager..."

Body: "Our sale crushed it. Got approval for one more day."

Is it a little cheeky? Yes.

Does it work? Every single time.


#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

The best client call I've had in 5 years happened last week.

Not because of what I said.

Because of what I'm now doing.

Context: We've run a retention marketing agency for 5 years, scaled to multi-7 figures, worked with 130+ DTC brands.

Last month, we launched our own e-commerce brand.

Yesterday, I jumped on a call with a CMO scaling a CPG brand.

The conversation was completely different.
→ He asked deeper questions
→ I gave more honest answers and showed off our whole funnel
→ We talked strategy, not tactics
→ It felt like a partnership, not a vendor relationship

Why?

Because now when I say "I understand the pressure you're under," he knows I actually do.

I'm running the same Meta campaigns. Making the same scale/pause decisions.

Dealing with the same creative puzzles.

Here's what I'm seeing after 30 days as a brand owner:

Different skill sets matter at different stages:

Most e-com entrepreneurs are incredible at 0→1. They can launch and hit $1M faster than anyone.

Most agency operators are incredible at 1→∞. We build systems, teams, and infrastructure that scales.

We're leveraging 5 years of operational excellence to move through the 0→1 phase.

And I think the 1→∞ phase will come easier to us than most brand owners.

The agency mentality in e-com is an unfair advantage:
- We already know how to manage 37 people
- We already have tight feedback loops
- We already think in systems, not tactics
- We already know what good operations look like at scale

But most importantly:

Our client calls are now 10X more valuable.

Because we're not just consultants anymore.

We're operators who actually understand what it feels like to watch your ad account burn cash at 2am wondering if you should kill that campaign or let it run.

To the brand owners: You want an agency that's been in the trenches WITH you, not just advising FROM the sidelines.

To the agency owners: If you want elite client relationships, consider becoming a client of your own advice.

What's the biggest credibility unlock you've experienced in business?

#agencylife #DTC #ecommerce #entrepreneurship #retention

We just unlocked an extra $50k for a client with ONE email
Sent the day BEFORE their BFCM sale went live…

Most brands spend Black Friday week sending vague teasers.

We do something different.

The day before the sale starts, we send what we call "The Postman Email" (because it always delivers 📬)

Subject line: "Don't buy from us today"

Wait, what?

People open it thinking "this brand is telling me NOT to buy?"

Then we hit them with: "Don't buy today because our sale starts TOMORROW. 
You'll pay full price if you shop now."

Results:
- 600+ new SMS subscribers in a single send
- 64% open rate on our first sale email which generated a ton of revenue
- Hundreds of purchases that wouldn't have happened

The lesson: Prime your list BEFORE the sale drops.

Everyone else is designing fancy campaigns.

We're focused on making sure people actually SEE them.

I'm including an example of this type of email below so you can steal it for your Black Friday sale.

You'll thank me later.

#dtc #emailmarketing #ecommerce

4 email tactics printing money for our clients right now:

1. Plain text to cold subscribers
↳ "Subscribed >30 days, never purchased" segment
↳ Feels personal, converts cold leads

2. Micro-commitment popups
↳ Get a small yes before the big ask
↳ Conversion rates jump 2-3X

3. Back-in-stock immediate discount
↳ 10% off while they wait for restock
↳ Turns interest into an immediate conversion

4. Smart cart splits by free shipping
↳ Different flows for above/below threshold
↳ Stops leaving money on the table

The brands crushing it aren't doing fancy stuff.

They're just doing the basics with more precision.

What's working for you right now?

#emailmarketing #DTC #retention

The anatomy of a great BFCM launch email: 

- One message: 30% off starts now 
- Little copy, just focuses on the message 
- Repetition 

Because they mention every part of the site individually, there is zero ambiguity.

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

Redesigned this email for Loop Earplugs

The improvements:
- CTA above-the-fold
- Clearer sectioning
- Clearer reviews

Broke down the full email on my Instagram 🙂

What do you think?

#emailmarketing #ecommerce #DTC

Master this skill in December and you'll print money:

Saying the same thing over and over again, but packaging it differently.

After Black Friday, especially if you're still running sales, you don't need to reinvent the wheel with every email.

You just need to get your offer in front of everyone.

Here's how we do it:

Same offer, different angles:
→ Urgency angle: "We're low on stock, last chance"
→ Bonus angle: "Free gift card giveaway with purchase"
→ Social proof angle: Focus entirely on your bestsellers
→ Testimonial angle: Lead with product reviews and customer results

The goal isn't creativity for creativity's sake.

It's making sure every single person on your list actually sees your offer.

Because during BFCM and December, open rates are all over the place.

One tactic that's crushing it for us right now:

Send campaigns to individual products that are running low on stock.

Pick one SKU that's almost gone and capitalize on that urgency. Drive a wave of purchases on that specific product.

This works incredibly well when your general sale campaigns are starting to fatigue your audience.

It's fresh enough to cut through, but still leverages the urgency of the moment.

Try it out and let me know what happens.

#DTC #emailmarketing #retention #BFCM

One of our account managers just oversaw 130 email campaigns in a single week.

I love Black Friday.

But sometimes it is genuinely insane.

The prep, the volume, the pressure to execute flawlessly when the stakes are this high.

Watching our team pull off weeks like this never gets old though.

Shoutout to the entire KMH team for crushing Q4 for our clients.

Now back to the chaos 🚀

#DTC #BlackFriday #emailmarketing #agencylife

This email could print an extra $50k after your Black Friday sale "ends"
Most brands finish their sale and move on.

We send one more email.

Subject line: "I spoke with our warehouse manager..."

The premise is simple: Your sale crushed it. You got approval for one more day.

Here's the exact structure:

"Hey [name], our Black Friday sale did way better than we expected. I just spoke with our warehouse manager and she told me we can extend it one more day. You now have until [date] at midnight to grab [offer]."

Then add indented arrows for the CTA (weird tip, but it increases click rates in plain text emails):
→ Shop now
→ Don't miss out

Why this works:

People who missed the sale get a second chance. Procrastinators finally pull the trigger. Anyone on the fence sees it as a sign to buy.

Last year this email generated $50k for a client. At a 3.5X ROAS after accounting for the discount.

That's revenue that literally wouldn't have existed.

Is it a little cheeky? Sure.

Does it work every single time? Absolutely.

Send it at 9:06 AM the day after your sale ends (not 9:00 AM, remember the timing hack).

Watch what happens.

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

Here’s how you can turn your best emails into winning ads
↳ Try this hack today:

Look at your best performing emails of all time in Klaviyo → Use the subject as the headline in a static → use the rest of the email as a landing page (advertorial or listicle)

Take a proven winning message and use it to acquire more customers ♻️

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

Want to know something weird?
During December when everyone's screaming "25% OFF" in every email...

Send one about your shipping speed instead.

Or your return policy.

Or how good your customer service is.

Sounds counterintuitive, right?

But we're seeing these emails convert better than yet another discount message.

Here's why it works:

Your customers are getting absolutely pummeled with discount emails. Every brand is doing it. It all blends together into noise.

Then you show up talking about how fast you ship, how easy returns are, or how responsive your support team is.

It's pattern interruption at its finest.

And for people who are already interested but haven't pulled the trigger, these are often the real objections holding them back. Not price.

We tested this across multiple clients last December and it outperformed our discount-heavy emails.

Try it. Just one email in the middle of all your sale messages.

Talk about the stuff that actually removes friction from buying.

You might be surprised by the results.

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce #conversionrate

600+ new SMS subscribers from ONE email

This happened last week for a client.

Everyone focuses on email during Black Friday prep.

But the real opportunity? SMS signups.

Here's the play:

Week before Black Friday, send the "Don't buy today" email.

In the email, include an SMS signup form link.

Why it works:

People are primed and excited. They don't want to miss the sale. SMS feels more urgent than email.

The next day when the sale drops:

Those 600+ new SMS subscribers turn into hundreds of purchases that wouldn't have happened.

Cost to execute: $0

Revenue generated: 5 figures minimum

If you're not building your SMS list before Black Friday, you're leaving money on the table.

Simple as that.

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

Redesigned this email for SKIMS

The improvements:
- Headline + CTA combo would be enough to get many to click, so we put them together
- Cleaner sectioning of the email
- Better product showcase selection below

Broke down the full email on my Instagram 🙂

What do you think?

#DTC #emailmarketing #ecommerce

taplio

Conor Sunderland's Linkedin Analytics