The Lead Plateau
Gild Group · Case Study

Growth had plateaued, and the leads were leaking at the top

After several consecutive years of rapid growth, a national home and design retailer flattened out. Repeat purchase held up. New names had stopped arriving.

Client: confidential Category: home and design accessories, national Scope: Lead acquisition and lifecycle Window: 60 days Published: 2019
+40%Homepage lead acquisition rateAfter launch of triggered capture
5-7%Monthly database growthSustained month over month
3xEmail revenueMonth over month

The brief

Strong retention hiding a weak top of funnel

The client is a national retailer of high-end home and design accessories, with a highly visible media presence and a devoted customer base. Several years of consecutive rapid growth had ended in a plateau.

The diagnosis was not obvious from the revenue line, because return customer rates remained strong. A loyal base can hold total revenue steady for a long time while acquisition quietly fails underneath it.

What had stalled was new customer acquisition and lead generation. The database was no longer growing fast enough to feed the next year of growth.

What we did

Find the points of loss, then capture at them

We analyzed site data to locate the most likely points of loss in the customer experience, then built capture and nurture at exactly those points rather than adding a site-wide popup.

The work
  • Launched behaviorally-triggered lead acquisition points on the site, placed against the identified points of loss
  • Developed subsequent email communication to engage newly-acquired leads rather than leaving them in the list
  • Crafted incentives, where appropriate, to convert leads after the nurture sequence

The numbers

Within 60 days

Change after implementation.
MetricChangeReads as
Homepage lead acquisition rate+40%Result
Database size+5-7% monthlyResult
Email revenue3x month over monthResult

About Gild

Gild Group is a fractional ecommerce team for mid-market Shopify brands. Performance, retention and storefront operations run by one embedded group of senior operators on a fixed monthly retainer. Charleston, South Carolina, since 2014.

Gild Group · Charleston, SC Client details withheld