Customer acquisition costs are up 40% in the last two years across nearly every paid channel. Meanwhile, average retail retention is still stuck at around 63%, meaning more than a third of the customers you pay to acquire never come back.

Most Shopify brands can tell you their CAC to the penny.

Very few can say with the same confidence what their retention programme is actually worth.

That’s the gap a Retention P&L is designed to close: a simple, board-level way to prove that CRM and retention spend drive real profit (not just opens and clicks).

We broke this down in a recent webinar with Craig Kent, founder of CRM consultancy The CRM Guru.

Here’s the framework, plus our own take on where direct mail fits into it.

Why Retention Is Under More Pressure Than Ever

• More competitor choice: crowded categories mean more switching behaviour
• Higher price sensitivity: as budgets tighten, the cost of switching brands drops
• Channel fatigue: email, paid social, and standard CRM comms have become too noisy
• Weak onboarding: customers churn before they ever see real value
• The 0–7 day cliff :this is where the most churn happens before retention marketing can even step in

A few forces are working against retention right now:

That last point matters most – if a customer is going to leave, it usually happens in the first week.

The 3 Questions Leadership Actually Asks About Retention

Open rates and click-through rates don’t mean much in a boardroom. What CFOs and founders actually want answered to is:

1. What’s our real returning customer rate, LTV, and payback, by cohort? Not merged across the whole customer base. A customer nurtured for 12 months behaves nothing like someone won from a Meta ad last week.
2. Which retention activities are genuinely driving profit? (not just reporting opens and clicks)
3. Can we build a retention P&L simple enough that leadership actually trusts it?

Craig Kent’s 4-Step Retention P&L Framework

This is the core of the framework, and where we think postal marketing has a specific, measurable function in any retention strategy.

Step 1: Segment Customers by Value

Start by segmenting the customer base by behaviour, lifecycle stage, or engagement -not just by how recently someone purchased.

One useful lens: out of every 100,000 customers who’ve ever bought from a brand:

• 30,000 are on an always-on retention programme and responding well
• 30,000 are “promiscuous” (they dip in and out and are unpredictable)
• 40,000 have been targeted repeatedly across email, paid social, and CRM, but simply haven’t moved

That last group – it isn’t gone.

They’re simply blocking out every digital channel a brand can throw at them… BUT that just makes them a strong test audience for a channel they haven’t seen yet.

Step 2: Define the Moments That Matter

Map out the specific moments across the customer lifecycle that actually move the needle ( e.g. a second order within 7 days, a referral after positive feedback, a lapsed subscriber at the 60-day mark). These moments, not calendar-based campaigns, should drive when and how retention activity triggers.

Step 3: Assign Cost by Tactic and Channel

Match the channel to the moment instead of defaulting to email for everything. For example: email plus a postal trigger for a 7-day second-order push, or SMS for a referral ask. This is where postal marketing naturally slots in. And that’s not as a replacement for digital retention, but as the channel aimed specifically at the audience you’ve already exhausted online.

90% of business leaders rate direct mail as effective for winning back dormant or churned customers, and 94% say it performs even better when integrated with other channels rather than run in isolation.

The proof in the pudding: Benefit Cosmetics saw a mid-campaign sales increase after triggering postal marketing, with engagement above 28%.

They succesfuly cut through when digital channels were staying silent.

Step 4: Measure Repeat Orders, Contribution, and Payback

Apply the same discipline to retention that digital channels already apply to acquisition:

• Returning customer rate: how many people come back at all
• Repeat purchase rate: of those who return, how many buy again, and how fast
• Cohort LTV : broken down by segment and behaviour, not blended
• Contribution margin: actual profit driven, after the cost of the channel or incentive
• Payback by channel/segment:  which specific channels are earning back their spend, and over what timeframe

Direct mail payback windows can run up to 60 days, which is far longer than most digital channels, and sustains sales cover over a longer period. This really matters when measuring true incremental value.

For more advanced programmes: Try running test-and-control on every channel, holding out roughly 20% of an audience, to prove real incrementality.

A Quick Reality Check on Email Benchmarks

Why this framework matters: even “good” email performance doesn’t go as far as it looks on paper.

Average e-commerce benchmarks sit around 35-45% open rate, just 2.5-5% click-through, and only 1.5-3.5% conversion from that click. Even that last figure is often inflated, since some of that conversion is being driven by Meta, organic, or Google rather than the email itself.

That’s also part of why the unresponsive segment of a customer base needs more than another email to move.

Where This Leaves Shopify Brands

The brands winning at retention right now aren’t necessarily spending more, they’re just being more deliberate about which channel reaches which customer, at which exact moment in their lifecycle.

A Retention P&L makes that deliberateness visible, measurable, and most importantly, trusted by the people who control the budget.

See how this plays out in practice: browse real direct mail case studies from brands already running triggered postal marketing alongside their CRM.

Watch the full webinar below, or scroll down for FAQs:

FAQ

What is a Retention P&L? 

A Retention P&L is a way of measuring customer retention activity with the same financial rigour applied to acquisition spend (tracking returning customer rate, cohort LTV, contribution margin, and payback by channel), rather than surface-level metrics like opens and clicks.

Why is customer retention harder to prove than acquisition? 

Acquisition has clear, attributable spend-to-outcome tracking. Retention activity often gets measured through vanity metrics (opens, clicks) that don’t translate cleanly into profit, which makes it harder for marketing teams to prove its value to CFOs)

How does postal marketing fit into a retention strategy?

Postal marketing performs well as a channel specifically for customers who’ve already been exhausted by digital retention efforts (email, paid social, SMS). Because it’s not competing in the same saturated inbox or feed, it tends to cut through where other channels have fallen off.

1305%

ROAS

DukesHill

The Ingredients

DukesHill are a premium artisan food retailer and proud Royal Warrant Holder, specialising in traditional artisan produce and luxury food gifts delivered across the UK. With strong brand recognition and product demand, the business wanted to get ahead of familiar ecommerce challenges: customers abandoning baskets, one time buyers failing to return, and lapsed seasonal shoppers. Webmart partnered with Paperplanes to help DukesHill address these drop off points whilst preserving the premium brand experience the business is known for.

The Recipe

Webmart and Paperplanes delivered a personalised, behaviour- triggered direct mail programme targeting three distinct customer journeys: basket abandoners who had not returned within 24 hours, first time buyers at the 15 day mark to encourage a second purchase, and lapsed Christmas customers approaching their purchase anniversary. Together their data-led personalisation strategy ensured every piece reached the right customer at the right moment. Each mailing was dynamically personalised with content and offers tailored to the recipient’s cohort, and a 30 day send frequency cap was applied to protect the quality of the customer experience.

The Proof in the Pudding

The programme generated a 22.22% higher conversion rate among mailed customers compared to non-mailed customers, alongside a 1305% ROAS whereby £13.59 returned for every £1 spent. Mailed customers returned to the website 24.79% more frequently, and in one 3-month window alone (July–September 2025), 2,997 customers mailed generated £33,000 in sales at a £118 average order value. Notably, 38% of customers converted without using a discount code, demonstrating that relevance and timing were powerful enough drivers on their own.

11%

Customer reactivation through personalised automated direct mail

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37%

Uplift in Sales

Benefit

Mirror, Mirror

Leading women’s cosmetics brand, Benefit, teamed up with Paperplanes and Royal Mail Marketreach to implement a direct mail campaign focused on increasing online sales conversions for their eyebrow products. The beauty brand had noted a high volume of visitors who were only browsing products online, opening up an opportunity to target customers when they engaged but did not purchase. With a growing range of eyebrow products being introduced, the cosmetic company wanted to focus specifically on increasing conversions within their eyebrow range.

Getting Ready

Paperplanes teamed up with Benefit to programmatically trigger personalised letters to to customers that browsed eyebrow products on their website, but didn’t make a purchase. The letters were designed to encourage customers to complete a purchase on the exact product they viewed, promoting free delivery for the customer to strengthen conversions. Unique shipping codes were applied to each letter to track and monitor performance. The creatives comprised of a double-sided, full-colour print A4 letter and C5 envelope with elements of personalisation across both to enable maximum impact with the customer on delivery through instant brand recognition.

The Perfect Look

Mid campaign results revealed a 37% uplift in sales of eyebrow products online, with an average customer value of over £40. Results from the campaign also revealed that engagement levels had risen to over 28%. Marketreach research has previously indicated a piece of direct mail will stay present in a customer’s home for an average of 17 days. Initial findings from this campaign have built further on that insight, with the majority of customers targeted converting 2 to 16 days after receiving the mailing.

11%

Customer reactivation through personalised automated direct mail

“The team at Paperplanes have been helpful and supportive to ensure we had a smooth sailing launch. Mid way through our campaign we are happy to see some positive results comes through.”

CRM Manager, Benefit

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195%

Uplift in No7 Skincare incremental sales

Boots

Unreachable Skin Seekers

Boots has a best-in-class digital strategy for delivering lifecycle CRM for their number one skincare brand, No7, with sophisticated email and app programmes driving customer engagement and repeat purchase. However, a larger proportion of their Advantage Card base only had direct mailable consent, leaving an untapped audience for customer contact. They wanted to test a customer-responsive automated mail journey in a physical format to enhance their CRM programme and unlock new sales from this hard-to-reach segment, particularly for their scientifically-backed No7 Retinol range which requires education and replenishment reminders.

Beauty Treatment Plan

In collaboration with Paperplanes, Boots initiated a trial on their No7 Retinol range, replicating their existing purchase-triggered CRM email and app programme structure as a 3-stage, customer-responsive automated mail journey. Each envelope was unique, using letter format in clear address carrier envelopes with strong Boots Advantage Card and No7 branding to differentiate from traditional one-page mailers. The creative integrated with the No7 Retinol brand campaign, weaving together succinct callouts alongside lifestyle imagery across 2 sides of A4 with clear visual hierarchy and personalised titles. Their third mailing included an optimised offer with both barcode and media code, giving customers freedom to shop in-store or online, whilst additional nudges encouraged email opt-in and app downloads via QR codes.

Youthful Returns

Boots’ targeted 3-step mail customer lifecycle programme successfully drove both product replenishment and cross-sell of the No7 Pure Retinol franchise, generating a 114% uplift in spend per mailed customer and a remarkable 195% uplift in No7 Skincare incremental sales. The programme paid itself back within the first 4 weeks of launch, proving the commercial viability of investing in physical mail for customers with mail-only consent. The success demonstrated that programmatic direct mail could effectively replicate complex digital CRM journeys whilst unlocking a previously untapped customer segment. Boots were able to expand their lifecycle marketing beyond email and app to reach their entire Advantage Card base with personalised, purchase-triggered communications.

11%

Customer reactivation through personalised automated direct mail

“Partnering with Paperplanes allowed us to unlock a significant untapped customer base who only had direct mail consent. The 3-step automated mail journey delivered exceptional results, 114% uplift in spend and 195% increase in No7 Skincare sales, whilst paying for itself within just four weeks.”

CRM Manager, Boots

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11%

Customer reactivation through personalised automated direct mail

Gousto

The Challenge on Our Plate

Gousto, one of the UK’s fastest-growing recipe kit providers, had seen digital response rates plateau. They partnered with Paperplanes to explore whether fast, personalised direct mail could re-engage lapsed customers and strengthen their existing customer journey.

Our Recipe for Success

Personalisation and speed were central to the strategy. We created dynamic mail pieces featuring weekly meal recommendations tailored to each recipient. We also tested direct discounts against QR-code offers that linked customers straight into the Gousto app, helping identify the most effective route back to subscription.

Bon Appétit

The campaign exceeded expectations. 11% incremental uplift overall. QR codes proved highly effective, driving customers directly back into the app while mailed customers showed stronger long-term retention, increasing lifetime value beyond the initial conversion.

11%

Customer reactivation through personalised automated direct mail

“We were looking for the right capability and channel to help us resurrect customers who had recently lapsed. Paperplanes integrated seamlessly with our integration tools, helping us learn best practices for reaching these customers. Paperplanes are a valuable partner for us to help aid our customers contact strategy.”

CRM Manager, Gousto

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