Feeling good about your email game? I was, too.
Then, I learned it only takes 30 minutes per week for a certain big brand that shall not be named to send 15M emails per month! Give or take.
All agentic, and as optimized as they come, because they’re building on EVERYTHING that’s previously worked.
Well, sh*t.
This is what comes from agentifying your email, and it’s the subject of today’s send.
But first, while I’m bursting bubbles, let’s talk about Labor Day.
Automated flows should drive ~30% of site revenue. So, if you generated $1M over Labor Day weekend → $100K-$400K should’ve come from email and SMS flows.
If that didn’t happen…money, left on the table, etc. And, if you’re projecting November revenue will be (for example) 3x Labor Day, that number should be $300K–$1.2M.
Look, we’ve all got work to do before BFCM. If you had a disappointing Labor Day, you’re not alone. But you CAN’T afford to make the same mistake twice. That’s why today’s theme is…SURVIVAL.
Ahead, 100% tough love: 3 reasons your flows may have underperformed, 1 fix to test, and what an agentic system does that even a very smart setup in Claude or ChatGPT cannot.
Let’s talk real solutions for getting flows where they’re supposed to be, in time for the biggest revenue day(s) of the year.
(Oh, also, there’s a discount AND a $100 gift card waiting at the end, if you want the shortcut.)
3 REASONS YOUR FLOWS ARE FAILING
If your Labor Day flows underperformed, 1 of these 3 issues is probably to blame. (Possibly more than 1. That’s normal.)
1️⃣. NOT ENOUGH FLOWS AND/OR TOUCHPOINTS
The big 3 flows (welcome, cart abandonment, and checkout) are simply NOT enough in the era of hyper-personalization. Especially during BFCM when site traffic peaks.
Whatever your category, you need the full flowin’ suite:
✅ Site abandonment
✅ Browse abandonment
✅ Cart abandonment
✅ Checkout abandonment
✅ Welcome
✅ Post-purcase
✅ Cross-sell
✅ Replenishment
✅ Review request
✅ Price drop
✅ Back in stock
✅ Winback
✅ Possibly a few more, depending on your catalog (e.g. if you’re in fashion or a category with a lot of SKUs, your customers may browse more extensively before buying.)
What’s more, high-value flows should have 3-5 personalized touchpoints, NOT a single email.
1 email’s a DROP in the desert. 💧🌵
3-5 messages, across email and SMS, with optimized timing, triggers, filters, and custom offers is a FLOW. 🚿
2️⃣. NOT REACHING ENOUGH SHOPPERS
This isn’t entirely your fault. You’ve been paying for email based on list size and forced to suppress who you think are lower-intent shoppers.
But can you really be sure about shopper intent, when most ESPs don’t recognize them 48 hours after they opt-in?
But, are you sure they’re low-intent, or are they just un-contactable? Remember: a shopper who browsed on Safari (they exist) can come back a week later. To your system, they’re a total stranger, because the browser wiped the cookie that recognizes them.
You miss all the shots you don’t take, yes, But in this case, you might not even know where the hoop is. Compare how many contacts you suppress on average, and how many site visitors never enter a flow at all.
3️⃣. GENERIC MESSAGING & TIMING
“Hi [first name]” + product block = the bare minimum!
Real personalization = depth. The subject line, copy, products, value props, offer, send time, and next step of the flow – all should be calibrated based on individual shopper behavior. Including timing: night owls, lunchtime browsers, weekend shopping warriors – everyone has a different moment they’ll be most receptive to your message.
So, we’re not simply building a flow around the mascara they left in their cart yesterday. We’re also considering the shade of eyeshadow they bought 2 months ago, and featuring other SKUs they browsed that go perfectly with both. AND sending it at a time they’re more likely to convert.
Your post-Labor Day test: pick a few specific customers with really different profiles (think: the 1 who only shops on sale, the monthly subscriber, the high-average AOV shopper, etc). If they all received the same messaging & discount code, this 1 is for you.
With AI-powered flows, this is possible. More on that in a sec.
AND JUST SO IT’S 1000% CLEAR: Optimized flows lead to smarter messaging – not necessarily MORE messaging. In fact, done right, you might end up sending FEWER emails. Win-win.
1 WAY TO FIX FLOW FAILURES, INSTANTLY
Now, you should have a better idea of the specific flow issues you need to fix before BFCM. Now what?
With a decent prompt, ChatGPT and Claude can write you some generic emails. But these tools are generative (AKA reactive) AI. You could spend HOURS trying to make your emails accurate and compelling enough to use, even if you provide guidelines and data. Ask me how I know. Not to mention creating enough of them for true customization.
Truly optimized flows require a breadth of data that generative AI doesn’t have, including:
✅ Specific hopper context
✅ Brand standards
✅ Shopify catalog data
✅ Past campaign performance
✅ Inventory
✅ Offers
This is where a tool like Instant AI outwits, outplays, and outlasts generative AI. Because it’s agentic (aka PROactive). It moves fast because it triggers automatically, and it moves accurately because it already knows your brand standards, your Shopify catalog, and what’s converted in the past.
Now, in theory, you COULD build the flows we just outlined by hand. But you’d also have to keep them up to date, by hand. At scale. Instant just does it for you.
It looks like this:
Step 1: Connect Instant AI to Shopify.
In a few moments, Instant ingests everything: past sales, products, what offers resonate with customers, etc. Once it’s synced, Instant keeps learning, refining, and getting smarter with your business.
Step 2: Put Instant AI to work across email & text.
Pick a flow, product, or collection that needs attention. Instant drafts a full abandonment flow in minutes: strategy, sequence, copy, subject lines, personalized send timing, all of it. Written and designed within brand guidelines.
Fun fact: Instant can run email and SMS in the same flow, and will ONLY use SMS if email hasn’t converted. Handy to keep costs down! For flows, Instant writes the text, decides send timing, and personalizes copy, just like it does on email. For campaigns, your brand writes the SMS, and Instant personalizes the send time.
Instant also doesn’t put any limits on your email list. Meaning, if shoppers opt-in, they’re yours to keep. Think of how many you can acquire during BFCM.
Step 3: Review Instant AI drafts.
Edit anything you want. Drafting’s unlimited, and Instant learns from every assignment.
Flow failures, fixed; campaigns, optimized; Business, leveled up. Next stop: BFCM, conquered.
(That last bit is a hint about what to test now, so you can walk into BFCM with targeting & personalization all trained up on recent data. If you test it before the rush, I have 50% off your first 2 months and a $100 gift card just for taking a demo & kicking the tires. Worst case, you learn exactly what your flows should’ve been doing all along. Consider it your immunity idol for Cyber Week.)
THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN
TRX’s Director of Performance Marketing says, “Since starting with Instant, our email flows have never been simpler and have driven us more revenue than ever before. Total game changer.”
ThirdLove’s Sr. Director of Retention & Growth says, “Instant’s capabilities are the best we’ve seen and we’ve tried them all. What impressed us was how quickly we started seeing results, and how knowledgeable and committed their Customer Success team was.”
Not to mention that big brand that shan’t be named is still sending 15M monthly emails using Instant in the time it takes most of us to read through ChatGPT’s latest attempts at a single email.
Cyber Monday is 12 weeks from today.
See if you could be an(other) Instant success.
Get 50% off your 1st 2 months of Instant AI, PLUS a $100 gift card of your choice if you take a demo by September 11th. I’m thinking Sephora?
And you don’t have to go all-in, if you’re not sure. My recommendation: connect Instant to Shopify, test an abandonment flow you’re not running yet, and see what happens.
It’s low-risk (simple to flip off & on), low-friction, potentially very high-reward. And if it performs beyond your wildest dreams goals, you’ve still got enough time to get all your flows together by November.
This year’s BFCM’s gonna be a real game of Survivor. May the best brands win.