How the right discount follow-up increased BK Beauty’s placed order rate by 36%

The challenge

BK Beauty is an ecommerce cosmetics company founded in 2019 by former MAC Cosmetics trainer and YouTube creator Lisa J. The brand originally specialized in selling makeup brushes, but eventually expanded its line to sell 100% cruelty-free, vegan beauty tools and makeup.

With such beautiful products and images, what challenges was BK Beauty facing with its email strategy? One area was the welcome flow, specifically the first two touchpoints. These are triggered after a user fills out the pop-up on the site.

Here’s a quick summary: The original pop-up only captured email addresses, limiting the brand’s communication to one channel (versus engaging on SMS as well). Also, the emails that followed used a busy design. Because of these distractions, BK Beauty was seeing a lower purchase rate from its welcome flow.

Here’s what the original first two emails looked like:

Our approach: New pop-up

First, we updated BK Beauty’s pop-up with a two-part form. The first part captures email addresses, and the second part asks for a phone number. We then segmented subscribers into two segments: one for email-only subscribers and one for email and SMS subscribers. Once the form is filled out, the first email sends immediately to users, sharing the discount that’s promised in the pop-up.

Additionally, we

• Made the design more premium and clean, highlighting the product and email capture form better.
• Added a new tab to share the discount code after the user signs up, making it easier for shoppers to use the discount.
• Changed the discount offer from 10% for email only, to 10% for email and 15% for SMS, improving the ROI of those using the discount.

Our approach: The discount follow-up email

Our version of the discount follow-up email is a lot simpler and more direct than BK Beauty’s original version. We wanted the discount to stand out. To do this we centered the discount, bolded it, explained how shoppers could use it easily, and built FOMO by adding an expiration date.

We also featured the main product categories lower in the email, so shoppers can easily click on one they’re interested in to browse products. We stacked these vertically to make it easier to read as the user scrolls through the email.

Our approach: The first welcome email

30 minutes after the discount email sends, the first welcome email is triggered. This timeframe was a strategic decision: shoppers just expressed interest in the brand, so 30 minutes after the form fill is a good time to officially introduce them to BK Beauty.

As you saw, BK Beauty’s original first welcome email featured many links that weren’t directly related to driving a sale. While this email had a high click-through rate, it was because the links distracted subscribers by driving them to social media pages and YouTube videos. Instead, we focused on targeted clicks to get people to make a purchase.

The first part of the email is a personal note from the founder Lisa. Since Lisa is a well-known creator, people likely already know about the brand through her YouTube channel. This personal note gives her a chance to connect with her subscribers immediately to get them more engaged.