Nurturing Leads That Convert: How Email and SMS Fuel Ecommerce Growth

These days, attention is the most valuable currency. Between competing brands, flooded inboxes, and distracted shoppers, you’ve got a narrow window to turn curiosity into clicks—and clicks into customers.

That’s where strategic lead nurturing through email and SMS comes in.

As part of our quarterly theme—Driving Growth Through Integrated Digital Marketing—we’re focusing this month on how to build trust, drive conversions, and scale relationships through the channels your audience actually wants to hear from: their inbox and their phone.

With Dotdigital, Justuno, and Klaviyo in your corner (and a few backup tools we'll mention along the way), you can create a nurturing strategy that does more than keep leads warm—it lights a fire under them.

Lead Management & Nurturing: From Chaos to Conversion

An overflowing contact list isn’t a strategy—it’s clutter. Smart lead management means transforming that clutter into conversions with segmentation, personalization, and automation. Here's how to get it right:

1. Start with a Clean House: Audit & Organize Your Contacts

Before you can nurture, you need to declutter.

• Clean your contact lists by removing inactive, bounced, or unengaged addresses to boost email deliverability and protect your sender reputation.
• Segment your database into meaningful categories like prospects, active leads, and existing customers—no more one-size-fits-all emails.

2. Divide & Conquer: Intelligent Segmentation

Segmentation isn’t just helpful—it’s table stakes.

• Use tools to segment leads based on behaviors like site visits, email engagement, or form submissions.

Klaviyo’s segmentation capabilities are built for marketers who want precision, speed, and scale. Segments update in real time, so you’re always working with the freshest data—no delays, no lags. Even better, there are no lookback limits, meaning you can combine historical actions with current behaviors to build powerful segments that evolve alongside your customers. With unlimited conditions at your disposal, you can get as granular as you need to target exactly the right audience.

Klaviyo’s AI makes segmentation faster and smarter. You can generate segments in seconds using predictive analytics like churn risk, customer lifetime value (CLV), and next expected order date. Don’t want to build segments manually? Just tell the AI who you want to reach, and it will do the rest. For marketers ready to level up, Klaviyo supports advanced strategies like RFM groupings and behavioral targeting to help you unlock even deeper insights into your audience.

Go beyond the basics with over 350+ integrations and flexible APIs that let you segment by demographics, browsing behavior, purchase history, channel preferences, custom properties, and even metadata. These segments aren’t just for emails—they power personalized experiences across SMS, mobile push, email, onsite messaging, and more. Use them to trigger automated flows, personalize sign-up forms, request reviews, cross-sell products, and deliver tailored content throughout your customer journey.

You can also sync your audiences with ad platforms to create lookalike audiences, retarget lapsed customers, and exclude recent purchasers to protect your ad spend. Every segment can be activated across multiple channels and analyzed in detail, giving you full visibility into performance and ROI. With Klaviyo, you’re not just segmenting—you’re building smarter connections at scale.

• Build campaigns aligned with the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision.

• Test micro-segments (e.g., high-intent mobile users, repeat cart abandoners) for ultra-relevant messaging and higher ROI.

  • Jordan Craig, a New York-based streetwear brand had over 1.5M subscribers, but limited ability to act on data. After switching to Klaviyo, they created 40+ micro-segments and used performance data to tailor messaging frequency and content. The result? 54% YoY growth in email revenue—with 30% of total revenue driven by automated flows.

3. Make It Personal: Lead Nurturing That Speaks Their Language

Generic follow-ups won’t cut it.

• Tap into Klaviyo’s ecommerce integrations to trigger flows based on browsing behavior, purchase history, and lifecycle stage.

  • Thomas used Dotdigital to create highly personalized customer journeys based on purchase behavior. From helpful recipe emails post-purchase to birthday offers and loyalty incentives, they crafted nurturing flows that drove higher retention, loyalty, and revenue.

• Use a platform like Orita to go deep into customer data and deliver truly personalized content across email and SMS.

• Create dynamic content blocks—think product recommendations, loyalty perks, or content tailored to past behavior—for higher engagement.

4. Stay Top-of-Mind: Build Strategic Drip Campaigns

Think of drip campaigns as your always-on sales assistant.

• Craft educational sequences that showcase your brand story, customer testimonials, and top products.

• Launch intent-based workflows triggered by actions like wishlist additions, pricing page visits, or product comparison.

  • Previously managing abandoned cart emails in-house, Neal’s Yard partnered with Dotdigital to automate the journey. The result? A 419% increase in revenue from new flows and 7 automated campaigns that now account for 25% of monthly email revenue.

• Ensure that you tailor each step of the drip journey to the lead’s unique stage in your funnel.

  • Happy V tapped into JustUno’s non-gated pop-ups to boost education and build buzz around their latest product launch—turning awareness into action without a single form fill.

5. Capture First, Then Nurture: Smart Opt-In Strategies with Justuno

Let’s be honest—most site visitors won’t convert the first time they land on your site. But that doesn’t mean they’re lost. Tools like JustUno help you turn browsers into leads by capturing email and SMS opt-ins with behavior-based pop-ups that play nicely with your segmentation strategy.

• Offer discounts to first-time visitors as a compelling reason to subscribe

  • As part of their SMS strategy, Feel Good Contacts offered a 5% discount to shoppers who made purchases through the app—driving engagement and rewarding mobile loyalty

• Highlight gated content (like a sizing guide, style quiz, or free download) in exchange for contact info

• Trigger exit-intent pop-ups to catch users before they bounce—because you can’t nurture someone you didn’t capture

  • When Cornbread Hemp started using Justuno, they implemented a triad of popups (new visitor, exit, cart abandonment) which grew their SMS list by 50% and dropped cart abandonment by 28%. Their secret weapon? A/B tested exit popups paired with tailored automation flows.

These tactics lay the essential groundwork for your nurturing workflows, enabling deeper personalization from the moment a user opts in.

Automation & Workflow Management: Work Smarter, Not Harder

If you're still manually sending emails or following up with leads one by one, it's time for an upgrade. Automation isn't just a time-saver—it's your secret weapon for scaling.

1. Set It, Forget It, Then Optimize: Email & SMS Automation

Automation means your marketing works while you sleep.

• Build email workflows in Dotdigital or Klaviyo for every stage of the journey—welcome sequences, abandoned cart nudges, post-purchase thank-yous, and winback flows.

  • Linksoul, a golf apparel brand, migrated both email and SMS to Klaviyo to support its community-driven mission. By integrating SMS into email flows and segmenting based on recent purchases and engagement, they drove 82% YoY growth in flow revenue and saw 55% of total ecommerce revenue come from Klaviyo alone.

• Create SMS automations for flash sales, shipping alerts, and time-sensitive reminders that land directly in their pocket.

  • Daily + Co. leverages Dotdigital to sync all of their customer data and use SMS as a powerful tool to drive foot traffic to their physical store while also encouraging cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. They credit much of their success to Dotdigital’s impressive 99% SMS delivery rate, emphasizing that the platform’s stability is critical for sending time-sensitive messages that land exactly when they need to.

• Adjust workflows in real-time based on how leads engage with your content (or don’t—looking at you, ghosters).

Campaign Optimization & Performance: Because “Send It and Hope” Isn’t a Strategy

Crafting the perfect campaign isn’t about luck—it’s about testing, tracking, and tweaking. Whether you’re working in email, SMS, or both, this is your playbook for performance that actually performs.

1. Test Like a Titan: A/B Testing for Maximum Engagement

Stop guessing and start experimenting.

• A/B test subject lines, CTAs, and visual layouts to see what gets clicks and conversions.

  • Fishwife is a fast-growing DTC brand used Klaviyo’s A/B testing and multi-channel flows to boost performance. After their Shark Tank episode, revenue in January grew 110% YoY, with overall Klaviyo revenue up 41% YTD.

• Tinker with send times to catch your audience when they’re most likely to engage (hint: it’s not always Tuesday at 9 AM).

• Compare email-only campaigns against email + SMS combos to find your sweet spot for ROI.

2. Track What Matters: Campaign Performance Analytics

If you're not measuring, you're not marketing.

• Monitor open rates, click-throughs, and conversions across all email and SMS campaigns.

  • Feel Good Contacts used Dotdigital’s communication API to send real-time, behavior-based SMS campaigns. With over 45,000 messages sent, they saw a 15% increase in app downloads within a month—and now plan to expand SMS efforts based on these insights.

• Use reporting or analytic functionality to generate rich reports showing how leads move through your funnel—from curious clickers to loyal customers.

  • Klaviyo’s intuitive reporting puts actionable insights at your fingertips. Start with a powerful prebuilt dashboard, or dive deeper with customizable reports that break down performance across campaigns, flows, products, and more. With flexible attribution models, you’ll get clear visibility into what’s driving results—so you can optimize with confidence and prove impact at every stage.

• Identify your top performers and double down on what’s working with scalable campaign templates.

3. Retarget With Purpose: Don’t Let Warm Leads Go Cold

The fortune is in the follow-up.

• Trigger retargeting emails when someone visits a product page, reads a blog post, or hovers over a “buy” button.

• Automate SMS nudges for abandoned carts and flash promos.

  • After Neal’s Yard had success with cart emails, they repurposed content into quick-hit SMS flows to reach users on mobile. The result? Their abandoned cart campaigns now deliver the best conversion rates across all campaign types.

• Sweeten the deal with exclusive offers, personalized product recs, or limited-time content to win them back.

  • Color Wow by Federici Brands launched a gift-with-purchase campaign using JustUno designed to provide added value and enhance the customer experience. Using a two-pronged approach with strategically timed side pop-ups, the campaign first engages shoppers when they add an item to their cart and then again if they begin to show exit intent behaviors. This timely reinforcement of the offer encourages follow-through and discourages abandonment. Since launching the campaign, Federici Brands has seen an 8% increase in average order value (AOV), highlighting the effectiveness of personalized, behavior-triggered promotions.

4. Capture to Convert: Lead Magnet Campaigns That Work

If you want better leads, give them a reason to care.

• Create gated content like eBooks, how-to guides, or first-order discounts to collect emails and phone numbers.
• Use a landing page builder and high-converting forms to streamline lead capture.
• Promote your lead magnets across social media, website popups, and paid ads to build your list faster than you can say “download now.”
  • Happy V was faced with a surge in TikTok-driven traffic, they used JustUno’s dynamic popups and redesigned Klaviyo flows to grow their list and revenue. Result: 230%+ increase in annual flow revenue and consistent growth through well-placed, targeted popups.

Seasonal & Compliance Focus: Timely, Targeted, and Totally Legal

Whether you're capitalizing on Father’s Day or prepping for Black Friday, seasonal campaigns need smart planning and tight compliance. Here's how to nail both.

1. Seasonal Smarts: Plan Ahead, Win Big

Holidays and seasonal trends aren’t surprises—don’t treat them like one.

• Build season-specific campaigns that align with events like summer sales, back-to-school, or holiday gift guides.
• Schedule blasts and automations ahead of time to land your message when inboxes and phones are hottest.
• Make sure every seasonal campaign is mobile-friendly, since most SMS users browse (and buy) on the go.
  • For Daily + Co. Expanding into Singapore, they used Dotdigital’s SMS tools to send personalized messages based on customer preferences and behavior. With a 99% delivery rate, they drove $7.23M in sales their first year, boosting foot traffic and average order value.

2. Stay Legal, Stay Trusted: Compliance Best Practices

The fines aren’t worth the shortcuts.

• Use Dataships to manage consent, opt-ins, and data hygiene across email and SMS channels.

  • Dataships offers intelligent consent technology that keeps you globally compliant without sacrificing performance. Their dynamic systems automatically adapt to regional regulations—so whether you're selling in California or Copenhagen, every consent option is covered. By tailoring consent flows to local laws while optimizing for conversion, Dataships helps you grow your list confidently across every channel and market.

• Always include clear opt-out links or replies in every message—because a clean breakup is better than a spam report.

• Review your privacy policy regularly and update it to stay compliant with laws like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and TCPA—especially when entering new markets or launching fresh campaigns.

Final Take: Nurturing Is the New Selling

The brands that win? They don’t just blast emails or shoot off texts when they need to hit their numbers.They nurture. They listen. They build a system of trust and relevance that grows warmer with every touchpoint.

With Dotdigital, Klaviyo, and Justuno, you’re not just reaching out—you’re building relationships that convert.