Skincare · DTC
Two channels compared. Subscribers found to be worth 2.3×.
12 months of customer revenue. One clear finding. A complete rewrite of the Q2 retention plan.
Balmonds - a UK skincare brand specialising in eczema and dry-skin care - had grown subscriptions to a meaningful slice of revenue but couldn't tell whether subscribers were actually more valuable than one-time buyers. We mapped every order across 12 months and found the answer.
PROJECT BRIEF
Client
Balmonds
Sector
Skincare · DTC
Year
2025
Services
Strategy & Ops, CRM
Scope
Customer revenue analysis · 4 weeks
01
2,052
Active subscribers
02
2.3×
Subscriber LTV vs shop
03
75.2%
Subscribers who reorder
04
38.2%
Of shop revenue
01 · CHALLENGE
Subscribers were invisible in the reporting.
Subscriptions made up about a third of orders. The team knew subscribers probably mattered more but they wanted proof and a plan, the issue was the existing dashboards rolled every customer into one number. The Q2 plan rested on retention assumptions nobody had tested. The brief was simple: find out whether subscribers are worth more than shop-only buyers, and put a firm number on it the budget could be built around.
02 · APPROACH
Three cohorts.
12 months.
Week 1
Map the data.
Pulled every Shopify order from the last 12 months into a single ledger. Cross-referenced subscription status, product mix, and acquisition channel.
Week 2
Segment by cohort.
Built three buyer cohorts — one-time, repeat (2× / 3×), and subscriber (3mo / 6mo / 12mo). Mapped LTV, AOV, and reorder rate across each.
Week 3
Model the lift.
Modelled the financial impact of converting 10%, 20%, and 30% more first-time buyers into subscribers — accounting for cancellation, churn, and discounting.
Week 4
Rewrite the plan.
Rebuilt the Q2 plan around the subscriber finding. Moved paid budget toward acquisition-to-subscription, repriced the welcome series, and set fresh targets.
03 · RESULT
A subscriber is worth 2.3× a shop-only buyer.
Subscribers return 2.3× the lifetime value of a shop-only buyer, and customers who buy on both channels return 4.3×. Once we had those numbers, every Q2 decision changed.
Subscriber LTV vs shop-only
2.3×
Dual-channel LTV vs shop-only
4.3×
Subscribers who reorder
3.9×
Single-product subscribers
68%
Cross-sell conversion target
+25%
Catherine McNamara
Marketing and Sales Director Balmonds
