Apr 25, 2025
The Retention Gap No One Talks About
Personalization won't work if your foundation is broken. Here's how to fix the leaks and level up your retention strategy.
In today's DTC landscape, retention marketing isn’t a “nice to have” —it’s survival. But while brands rush to personalize every subject line and SMS, many are skipping the foundational work that actually drives long-term revenue.
To dig into what’s really happening inside retention marketing, Orita gathered three experts from across the globe:
Olivia Grant (Growth Gurus), Rattan Muttoo (KlēwdUp), and Josh Chin (Chronos Agency). Their message? Forget hyper-personalization until you fix your basics.
Here’s what they had to say—and what every brand needs to hear.
Retention Used to Be Optional. Now It’s Business-Critical.
Once upon a time, retention was a side hustle to customer acquisition. Not anymore.
“Retention was a nice-to-have. Now it’s hygiene,” said Josh Chin. “It’s a must-have to survive rising CAC and changing customer behavior.”
Olivia Grant reinforced that it's not just about doing retention—it’s about doing it right:
“You can’t fake a good customer journey. Customers expect brands to actually know them now—and it’s not enough to throw a dynamic product feed into an email and call it a day.”
In other words: personalization isn't a Band-Aid. It's what happens after you’ve built a real strategy.
The big mistake? Brands are skipping core flows—like welcome, cart abandonment, post-purchase, and win-back—and jumping straight into fancy tactics.
Olivia says:
“We wouldn’t recommend a brand spend time building hyper-personalized strategies if they don’t even have the basics in place. You're leaving so much revenue on the table.”
Translation: If your retention funnel leaks, no amount of AI-powered popups or SMS flows will fix it.
Personalization Only Works When the Full Customer Journey Matches
Personalization isn't just about what happens in the inbox—it’s about consistency across the full customer experience.
As Rattan Muttoo pointed out:
“You can create the prettiest emails in the world, but if the website looks like it’s from 1998, the whole brand experience falls apart.”
Retention success now demands a fully aligned journey—from ads, to landing pages, to on-site messaging, to email. Otherwise, personalization feels fake.
Why RFM Segments Are Essential (and How Orita Makes Them Smarter)
Once your foundations are solid, real personalization starts with smart segmentation.
Josh Chin explained:
“We’re not just looking at who’s loyal and who’s at-risk. The magic is finding the middle—the people showing signs of conversion, but who haven’t yet pulled the trigger.”
That’s where RFM segments (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) come in:
Champions get loyalty offers.
At-risk customers get win-back campaigns.
New customers get nurtured differently than longtime fans.
Hint: Orita layers on top of traditional RFM segmentation to go even deeper. By factoring in real-time behavioral signals—not just past purchase history—Orita helps brands find the true "moveable middle" and target smarter.
It’s not about sending more email. It’s about sending the right email to the right group at the right time.
Deliverability Still Matters—A Lot
Another major problem lurking under the surface? Brands are hammering their full lists, tanking deliverability in the process.
Rattan shared an example:
“I had 90+ emails in my inbox by 9:30am during Afterpay sales in Australia. Some brands sent three emails in an hour. That’s not marketing—that’s desperation.”
Slamming your database doesn’t just annoy customers. It actively trains ISPs like Gmail and Yahoo to flag your emails as spam—hurting your chances with every customer, loyal or new.
Winning Retention in 2025 Means Testing, Tightening, and Targeting
Retention marketing isn’t static. What works today won’t work six months from now. That's why constant testing and refinement matters.
Olivia’s advice?
“Start with the basics. Then test intentionally. Where are customers falling off? Which offers resonate best with which segments? Let the data lead.”
Josh added:
“The real metric we’re watching now isn’t just revenue—it’s how many clicks we’re generating from email and SMS. Traffic from these channels converts 3x higher than general traffic. The more qualified clicks you drive, the more efficient your whole marketing program becomes.”
In short: Get your foundations right, build smarter segments, respect deliverability, and keep testing. Then—and only then—layer on more personalization.
The Bottom Line: Retention Isn’t About Flashy Tactics. It’s About Smart Strategy.
Retention marketing isn’t about doing the most. It’s about doing the right things, in the right order.
At Orita, we help brands stop guessing and start scaling.
We layer intelligent segmentation and real behavioral signals, on top of your existing tech stack—so you can focus on creative strategy to drive retention.
