In-box

Founder

Flowstate

Email Marketing Specialist

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

Personal Assistant

Founder @ In-box | Email Marketing, Klaviyo Certified In-box.co.nz

If you’re an e-commerce brand doing $100K+/month, we need to talk. 

I run In-box, an email + SMS agency that helps brands turn browsers into buyers and buyers into repeat customers using smart automations and campaign strategy. 

No fluff. 

No spammy hacks. 

Just clean systems that drive consistent revenue.

If you want to take your email to the next level with high-converting flows, campaigns that people actually want to open and a strategy that works across all channels, not just email, we need to talk.

I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about when it came to email marketing… and after about 15 minutes of thinking, I realised that for today… I wanted to talk about something else.

Today… I wanted to talk about my business and what I am doing and what I am looking forward to next year. Not because I think it would position me as an expert email marketer, but just because… I want to share it.

So here is my little business update as of 2025:

- We have grown to 10 full-time staff
- We are currently working with 32 different clients
- We have two active YouTube channels
- We have hit record revenue months
- Things are looking up

I was looking back on my yearly goals I set in 2024, and at the time of writing, we have completed pretty much every one of them, which is both exciting and underwhelming.

So going into 2026, I have made some much more aggressive goals:

- Monetised YouTube channel
- 10k subs on my agency follow-along channel
- 3 $100k revenue months in a row
- Skool community for email marketers
- 5k subscribers on my newsletter
- No more client-facing work
- No retainers under $2k
- 10k Twitter followers
- New website
- Podcast running concurrently with my YouTube channel
- One $200k month
- Start an e-commerce store

One of the biggest things that has helped push my business forward is breaking down the long-term into the short-term.

Every month, I look at my yearly goals and set my monthly goals according to that. Every week I do the same with my monthly goals, and every day I do the same with my weekly goals.

Chipping away daily has allowed me to turn the big picture stuff into smaller, more actionable things that make something like growing a YouTube channel to 10k a lot more digestible and actionable.

So, let’s see how everything goes…….

Gavin Hewitson

Founder of In-box | Email Marketing & SMS Marketing | Klaviyo Certified In-box.co.nz

I am so f**** done trying to get Google reviews

My business profile should have at least 200 reviews at this point

It's infuriating 

Every time we get 2 reviews

One gets removed

I woke up yesterday to find out that 6 of the most recent reviews had been completely wiped from our profile

No explanation

All real clients and real reviews

Just taken down

Logged a ticket with Google 

No response

I am sure this LinkedIn post will reach the highest levels of Google, and I am looking forward to all my reviews being restored, an apology from the product team, and a $1,000,000 donation to my personal bank account, just like they did with Trump.

My biggest struggle this year

I wanted to share the biggest struggle I have had with work this year.

One thing I am noticing more and more is that as your company grows, the more reliant you become on a team, and the more you have to let them operate autonomously, and it is in that autonomy that the A players really shine through.

I have really struggled finding those A players, and one thing I have learned this year is the importance of cutting your losses as soon as you feel like someone is not the right fit. A lot of the time, the hassle of getting rid of someone and finding someone new feels like more of a pain in the ass than just keeping that person on board.

Trust me, it is not, and the reality is, you will need to cut that person inevitably anyway. The longer you keep that person around, the more reliant you are going to become on them.

Bite the bullet.

I feel like I dodged a bullet

I had commissioned about 6 months' worth of SEO work at the start of August ($15k - $20k worth of work)

Only for a new Google Algorithm update to come in and to completely wipe out all the SOPs that the agency I had hired was using

They literally had to go back to the drawing board for everything

Instead of starting from scratch, they said they no longer wanted to help me

The good thing was that they gave me a full refund, which I appreciate

Fast forward to today, and it feels like everything is swinging towards LLMs 

It feels like investing in SEO is almost a waste of time at this point, with the amount of changes going on and the direction things are moving

Keen to hear everyone else's thoughts on this

Is SEO something you are looking to invest in in the next year?

I am a big fan of investing in channels that require a big upfront investment but continue to bring in dividends long into the future. I think SEO used to be this, but not anymore. Instead, I am putting a lot of my energy and time towards YouTube's search engine (seeing great results there).

This has been the best thing I have done this year

I know it sounds so easy 

And I am sure some of you are rolling your eyes

But I decided to become so strict with my day and my time blocking

And I know this is not my original idea

Here is how I have started dividing my day:

8:00 am to 12:00 pm sales and marketing

Here is an example of what that might look like on a daily basis:

- Chase leads
- Invoice REDACTED
- Upwork leads
- Old upwards leads
- Record Skool intros
- Record 5 shorts 
- Script LinkedIn content
- Script Twitter content
- Invoice REDACTED
- Script two newsletters
- Find out how to reduce skool churn

Afternoon 12:30 - 4:30 - Service Delivery

- Check all cold emails
- Clear Slack
- Reconcile
- Start on the REDACTED
- Clear emails

Night 5:30 - 9:30 - Operations

- ACH check in
- Check Upwork stats
- Plan next day
- Figure out how to structure levels in skools
- Check zapier

What I really like about this approach is that it allows me to focus without guilt. 

A lot of the time, I will be working on sales, for example, and I will have this nagging feeling that I should be responding to Slack messages or reading emails.

I end up giving in to that nagging feeling, and end up interrupting what was a state of flow

I think this way of working takes a lot of the decision-making out of my day i.e. 'should I do this or this'

I don't want to have to think about that when I am working

I want that pressure out of my head

And this new approach... is working for me.

I am not going to lie, though, it took me a bit to get over the anxiety of having emails and Slack messages being unresponded to for the first 4 hours of the work day.

aimerce.ai is a software allows you to track your subscribers for a longer period of time, allowing you to send more abandonment Emails to them. 🤖

#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

Don't ask for their Email Marketing and phone number in your pop up forms.

#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

Post purchase Thank you flow: One of the most underutilized flows out there

#GavinSays #DTCMarketing #EmailMarketing

Hey there! I'm the founder of In-box, THE email marketing agency.

In-box is all about helping DTC brands kill it with their email marketing strategies. We're not jacks of all trades - we're masters of one! Our goal is to help brands get a minimum of 20% of their online sales just from email 

When I'm not slinging marketing magic, you can find me sipping on a flat white at one of Auckland's coolest cafes (shoutout to Daily Bread and Crave!) or belly-laughing at a comedy show.

If you're ready to level up your email marketing game, or just want to grab a coffee and chat, hit me up! And don't forget to check out our website at in-box.co.nz to see how we can make email marketing your brand's secret weapon.

Divide your database by Engaged costumers and Engaged non - costumers.

#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

YOTPO just cancelled its Email and SMS functionality. There are a few alternatives that you can definitively go for.

#EmailMarketing #GavinSays #MarketingTips

The easiest way to grow the size of your newsletter is doing giveaways 🧠📈


#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

Do this Email Marketing campaign
3 days
3 Emails
40% off for 40 Minutes

#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

Stop using your Open Rates as your succes metric

#EmailMarketing #MarketingTips #GavinSays

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Gavin Hewitson's Linkedin Analytics

Gavin Hewitson

Performance ScoreGavin Hewitson's LinkedIn Performance

Gavin Hewitson's Best Posts (last 30 days)

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.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Gavin Hewitson's Linkedin Analytics

Gavin Hewitson

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Gavin Hewitson's LinkedIn Performance

Gavin Hewitson's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

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Gavin Hewitson's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreGavin Hewitson's LinkedIn Performance

Gavin Hewitson's Best Posts (last 30 days)