// WORK 001

The creative that earns the second order

Email & WhatsApp design for three D2C retention programs (skincare, fashion, supplements).

I designed the email and WhatsApp creative for retention programs across three D2C brands. The campaigns, the lifecycle flows, the content series, the WhatsApp sends: the part the customer actually sees and reacts to. The numbers here are deliberately the ones my own work can be held to, comparisons between two creative decisions rather than program KPIs that pricing, product and the wider team also moved.

Role
Email + WhatsApp creative (strategy set with the wider team)
Scope
Three D2C brands (skincare, fashion, supplements)

Brands withheld under NDA; no client creative shown

Nobody was buying the second thing

72%

of customers never bought past the starter serum.

Every customer got the same campaign regardless of skin type, at the same moment regardless of where they were in their routine. Open rates were single-digit and cross-sells converted under 1%, which is what asking for a second order before earning it looks like in a report.

So I built a ladder, not a campaign

I designed the program as a trust ladder: four rungs, each asking for a little more than the last, and each justified by what the rung below it earned. Knowing which rung a send sits on is what decides its job, so the design follows from the sequence rather than from taste.

01Herotrust earned02Routinebigger basket03Exploreacross the brand04Giftbecomes belief
Each rung asks for more than the one before it, and is paid for by the trust that one earned.

  • A skin-type-personalised creative system

    The quiz captured preferences for ~40% of the list, and the campaign creative flexed to each type instead of going out as one generic broadcast.

  • Lifecycle creative across 8 flows

    Sequenced cross-sell moments (cleanser → serum at Day 30 → moisturiser at Day 45) and “running low” replenishment triggers, each designed for its exact rung.

  • Content that runs between the sells

    The “Glow Guide” series and “Skin Win Wednesday” WhatsApp stories, so the brand stayed useful in the gaps rather than only showing up to ask for money.

Same ladder, three categories

  • Skincare. Quiz-personalised flows, cross-sell sequenced by product half-life.
  • Fashion. A “Style Journey” across categories, carried by real customer photos.
  • Supplements. A WhatsApp community and expert AMAs, because adherence needs company.

Two numbers a creative decision can own

1.8×

The personalised lifecycle flow outperformed the generic campaigns it replaced. Same list, same products, different creative decision: that comparison is the number I lead with.

2.5×

Day-30 replenishment did better on WhatsApp than the same message on email. A channel test of my own creative against itself.

Those flows helped carry ₹89L in program revenue over seven months. That figure is context, not a claim: pricing, product and the rest of the team moved it too, and no creative decision owns a revenue line by itself.

The test I ran last should have been first

I designed all eight flows for email first and only tested WhatsApp at Day 30, once the sequence was already live. That comparison should have been the first test, not a late finding: it would have changed the creative on every rung, not just the replenishment one.

What transfers to any retention program

Retention creative fails when it asks for more trust than the customer has given yet.

The practical version: find the rung the customer is actually standing on, design that send for that rung, and let the ask grow with the trust instead of ahead of it.