Designing Retention for a Brand Built to Last
Craighill is a Brooklyn-based design company obsessed with making everyday objects that endure. From precision-machined card cases and puzzles to desk tools and bar accessories, every product in their catalog is obsessively considered, built from enduring materials, and designed to feel timeless from the first moment you encounter it. Craighill isn't selling impulse purchases; they're selling objects people keep for life.
Dispatch began working with Craighill in July 2025, taking full ownership of their email and SMS channels. The partnership spans campaign strategy and execution, complete lifecycle flow development, pop-up and list growth optimization, and an ongoing customer research program. All execution is managed through Klaviyo and Shopify, with Alia powering their pop-up form testing.
The Numbers Tell the Story
From July 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026, Craighill achieved the following performance improvements
Where We Started
When Dispatch came on board, Craighill had strong brand equity and a loyal following built largely through social and paid channels, but their retention infrastructure hadn't kept pace with the growth of the business. Their automated flows were underbuilt relative to the quality of the brand and the depth of the customer relationship they were capable of nurturing. Meanwhile, their campaign approach lacked a consistent content and creative strategy anchored in audience insight, leaving significant engagement and revenue on the table month over month.
The key objectives identified were to rebuild the automated flow infrastructure from the ground up, develop a campaign strategy rooted in brand storytelling and iterative performance learning, establish an ongoing customer research program to generate proprietary audience insight, and continuously optimize list growth through monthly form testing.
"Incredibly thoughtful and intentional partner, balancing a performance focus with true brand respect."
Zach, Craighill
Content-Led Campaign Strategy Built on Iteration
Dispatch approached Craighill's campaign calendar with a content-first philosophy that matched the brand's identity. Rather than defaulting to pure promotional messaging, the team developed a strategy that leaned into brand storytelling, product education, and the kind of editorial voice that Craighill's audience genuinely responds to. A clear example of this approach was a cheese-focused email that performed exceptionally well despite not being a direct conversion send, proving that brand-led content drives measurable engagement and builds the long-term subscriber value that eventually converts.
Each month's learnings fed directly into the next month's strategy. The team tracked which content angles drove opens, clicks, and revenue, then used that data to sharpen the creative direction over time. This iterative loop — test, learn, apply — is the core of how Dispatch builds compounding performance across the accounts it manages, and Craighill's results across the nine-month period are a direct reflection of that process working as intended.
Full Flow Revamp and Ongoing Optimization
One of the highest-impact projects in the partnership was a complete overhaul of Craighill's automated flow infrastructure. Dispatch rebuilt the lifecycle flows from scratch, architecting sequences that mirror how Craighill's customers actually move through the consideration and purchase journey. The revamped flows immediately began contributing meaningfully to overall attributed revenue, which grew month over month throughout the engagement.
Optimization didn't stop at launch. The team is currently running a live A/B test on the browse abandonment flow, pitting the original control against a new variation powered by Revamp: an AI personalization tool that dynamically tailors messaging based on the specific products a customer abandoned. Early data shows the Revamp variation outperforming on revenue per recipient, a result consistent with what Dispatch typically sees when customer journey logic is rebuilt around real behavioral data rather than generic best practices. The team is allowing the test sufficient run time before drawing formal conclusions, but the early signals are encouraging.
In addition to flow work, Dispatch runs monthly A/B tests across Craighill's pop-up forms through Alia, continuously optimizing the brand's list growth conversion rate. Every new subscriber acquired more efficiently is one less customer Craighill needs to pay to reach through paid channels.
Customer Research as a Strategic Asset
A defining feature of the Dispatch partnership with Craighill has been the integration of Typeform-based customer research into the retention strategy. The team has run three surveys to date, generating a body of proprietary audience insight that goes well beyond what standard Klaviyo analytics can surface. The responses have directly shaped content angles, campaign strategy, and creative direction, ensuring that what Craighill sends to its list is grounded in what their actual customers care about.
The value of this research has extended beyond the email program itself. Survey findings have informed broader business decisions, including conversations around where Craighill should consider opening a physical retail location. This kind of insight, generated systematically through the retention channel, is exactly what separates a strategic retention partner from an agency that simply sends emails. When customer intelligence is built into the monthly workflow, the retention program becomes a source of competitive advantage that compounds over time.
