Retainly Media

Diet Smoke

Making Subscriptions Stick Without Constant Promotions

Diet Smoke

Diet Smoke is a THC products brand with a subscription model at the core of their business. Acquisition was already working — traffic was coming in, people were buying. The real opportunity was everything that happened after the first purchase.

Subscribers were churning. One-time buyers weren’t converting to subscription. And the email channel was running generic promo blasts to everyone regardless of what they bought, what strength they preferred, or what experience they were actually looking for. The list was being treated as one audience when it was really dozens of different ones.

Platform

Klaviyo + SMS

Industry

THC Products / Subscription eCommerce

Services

Lifecycle Strategy, Segmentation, Flow Builds, Campaign Management, Signup Capture, Subscription Retention, Ongoing Optimization

Brand Alignment

THC is a category where trust and personal fit matter enormously. Customers aren’t just buying a product — they’re buying an experience, and getting it wrong means they don’t come back. Generic messaging in this space doesn’t just underperform — it actively erodes confidence in the brand. Every piece of communication was built to reflect that reality. Emails didn’t just promote products — they helped customers understand what was right for them, reinforced the value of their subscription, and made the brand feel like it genuinely understood how they used the product. That shift from broadcast to conversation is what drove both LTV and retention upward.

Challenges

What We Built

The strategy started with a clear separation between two fundamentally different customers — subscribers and one-time buyers. Each got their own lifecycle path with different cadence, different messaging, and different goals. Subscribers received retention-focused communication built around the value of staying subscribed. One-time buyers received conversion-focused sequences designed to show them why subscription made more sense than buying ad hoc.

The bigger unlock was segmentation by THC strength and vibe intent. Diet Smoke’s product line maps naturally to how customers actually use THC — chill, social, sleep, focus. We built campaigns and flows around these exact categories so every email felt like it was written for that specific customer’s experience rather than broadcast to a list. A customer who buys for sleep got different messaging than one buying for social occasions. The personalization wasn’t cosmetic — it was structural.

Product discovery flows were built to guide new shoppers to their right fit fast — matching strength level, format, and intended vibe — which improved first-purchase satisfaction and made the path to repeat purchase much shorter.

The churn prevention system addressed subscription drop-off before it happened. Proactive reminders, flexible adjustment messaging, and save sequences were built to keep customers subscribed through value and relevance — not just by throwing discount codes at them when they tried to cancel.

Signup capture was rebuilt from scratch with zero-party data collection built in — strength preferences and vibe categories captured at the point of signup so personalization started on day one rather than after several purchases.

Outcomes And Results

Diet Smoke

Subscription growth became less dependent on constant promotions and more driven by a system that made staying subscribed feel like the obvious choice. Subscriber LTV increased as churn dropped and repeat purchase behavior strengthened across both subscribers and one-time buyers. The vibe and strength segmentation changed how the entire list performed. Open rates, click rates, and conversion improved across segments because the messaging was finally relevant to the individual — not just the list average. The zero-party data signup system meant every new subscriber entered the lifecycle already segmented, which compressed the time between first purchase and second purchase significantly.

Higher AOV & Healthier Margin

$1.9M

Dual-Audience Segmentation — Retail vs MUA/Bulk

255K+

Service

Audience Split, Separate Lifecycle Flows, AOV Offer Framework, Pro Messaging for MUAs, Retail Discovery Sequences, SMS Integration

“Retainlymedia took the time to communicate with me and fully understand my brand message, and they’ve never gone off point. They’ve also managed to consistently produce results and have done an incredible job through and through.”

Founder of Diet Smoke

Summary

Longterm clients like Diet Smoke are a true testament to the ongoing revenue email marketing can bring your business when it is done effectively and sustainably. If you have a brand that wants to improve their email marketing results in an effective and sustainable way. Reach out to our team to see if you would be a good fit to work with us.