Most companies post-purchase sequences lose them more customers than they retain (or upsell).
Most companies post-purchase sequences lose them more customers than they retain (or upsell).
Their customer base is shrinking…
And they’re always having to rely on expensive acquisition channels & chase new customers just to maintain their current revenue levels…
They can never consistently scale.
Sound familiar?
Luckily, there’s a unique post-purchase sequence that quickly grows your revenue, retains customers longer, and increases AOV.
I call it the Elongated Post-Purchase Flow.
Basically, you want to combine both a post-purchase flow and an upsell flow together.
Essentially, you STACK an upsell flow on top of your post-purchase flow.
There’s 2 elements:
But here’s why most people mess this up:
There’s a reason why we structure these 2 flows together.
You see, after the 1st purchase, there’s generally gonna be people ready to buy a 2nd time.
So you want to be able to scoop those people up right away.
Otherwise, you’ll be losing out on a lot of extra revenue you could be getting. Right?
At the same time…
There’s gonna be people who AREN’T ready to buy a 2nd time yet. Usually, they aren’t ready to buy again because they need more selling/belief shifting.
This is where the upsell sequence comes into play (after they go through the post-purchase flow)…
You see, post purchase flows make offers that convert those ready to buy TODAY.
But they don’t do all the belief shifting, desire creating, and other psychology techniques needed to convert “not ready” buyers into ready to “buy something more expensive buyers.”
That’s why taking people through a regular post-purchase flow FIRST… and then BOLTING on an upsell sequence after works so much better.
If you wait to upsell, you’ll miss out on those who are ready now/today – plus your chance to get reviews, and accomplish everything else you want to do in your post-purchase flow.
To convert those people who aren’t ready yet, you must ask: what’s the natural next step in their customer journey, and how do you accelerate it with email? This is where buyer LTV growth happens on autopilot.
Now let me walk you through the process step by step.
The post-purchase flow has a few jobs:
Here’s the structure.
This is a transactional email, but it’s so underutilized.
Give them their order details. Then subtly show other products and drive traffic back to the site.
If it’s a repeat purchase (a customer’s 2nd purchase), push for referrals instead of the upsell.
This one is fun. Celebratory. Confetti goes off…
Basically, tell them what to expect…
How the shipping process is going to work…
How they can keep track of their order (their tracking number)…
And anything else important for your order process.
Then…
Give them a customer-only discount with a CTA.
The key here is framing the discount delivery like a favor, not a sale.
Here we do an unboxing video… or push to social channels to cross-promote and leverage other traffic sources.
(Example below)
The video builds anticipation and excitement…
It resells them on the product before it arrives.
I call this tremendous onboarding.
Because the sale hasn’t closed yet, until the customer actually gets the product, uses it, and achieves what they wanted to with it.
As you’ll see… this is the beginning of their journey…
You have to take them through this EXACT process if you want to create lifelong customers…
Each one of these emails achieves a specific goal in the customer lifecycle…
And you HAVE to send them in this exact order I’m showing you…
To increase your customer retention rate, and increase your customer lifetime value.
On top of the unboxing video or push to social channels…
You also give another customer-only discount with a CTA here too.
(If you don’t have a video, you can use blogs, social videos/UGC, or link to social to cross promote.)
Sync shipping updates with your delivery system. Klaviyo and Shopify native features do this well…
Depending on shipping timeline, you might want content here:
Blog articles, success stories from other people who bought…
Send them to pages and content with the highest revenue-per-page-view.
Rebuild excitement. Give encouragement.
(You don’t wanna be that person who only talks to the customer when they buy and then again when you ask for a review later.)
Your title or opening line should acknowledge the exact thing they purchased. And illustrate benefits and education specifically for that product.
Include the actual takeaways…
Link to helpful pieces of info:
Ask yourself:
Does this help them use the product and get value from it?
Is it simple? Engaging?
Does it NOT sound like a research paper?
I like to show I know what they purchased, and I’m here to help them get the best results possible with that purchase.
(Nobody wants buyers remorse)
More helpful content.
More links to blogs, video tutorials, UGC.
This one is optional depending on the complexity of the product…
Personalized at the name AND product level.
Make it easy to leave a review.
Incentivize them, or make it polarizing/funny.
You can use Okendo, Yotpo, or Stamped.io for this:
Advanced Tip: Based on their review, you can send them different offers.
Bonuses for 5-star reviews. Coupons based on not-great reviews. “Try this instead.” etc.
This is also where the upsell flow begins.
If they leave a positive review, that’s an incredible time to start the next phase of the sales process…
Before you write a single upsell email, you must do customer journey mapping.
Document every interaction a customer has with your brand…
From discovering products on social media to post-purchase, unboxing, loyalty and advocacy.
There are a few key elements here:
Touchpoints: Mapping out all interaction points. Paid social, organic social, website browsing, email marketing, checkout, upsells and loyalty.
Stages: Tracking the process through awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy.
Emotions and Motivations: Understanding how a customer feels and what drives them at each stage from lead, 1st purchase, 2nd purchase, subscriptions, upsells/cross-sells, etc.
Goals: Identifying what the customer wants to achieve throughout their journey with you. For example, if you’re a nutrition brand, it’s their health journey (gain muscle, lose fat), or if you’re a fashion brand it could be their wardrobe, or it could be their financial journey if you’re a trading education business or selling other financial produces.
Here’s the process.
Every customer goes through phases. Mapping these out gives you clarity on how they interact with your business at each stage.
When it comes to upselling, we need to understand the emotional and psychological state of the customer as they progress through each stage. This helps us know WHEN to introduce upsells without being pushy.
Ask yourself:
Why did they buy the front-end product?
What do they want to accomplish next?
Where do they get stuck?
Why do customers get stuck with this product?
What products help them get unstuck?
What beliefs need to shift for those products to feel like an obvious next step?
In the Decision and Onboarding stages, they’ve made the first purchase. They’re usually feeling motivated. But they’re also still feeling a bit skeptical.
They don’t trust us or the product entirely yet… They want the product to work. But if something weird happens, they’ll be quick to blame us or feel like it’s always their fault. (On the other hand, someone who has bought the product from us many times and gotten good results with it, if they have a bad experience one time, they’ll assume it’s other factors without ending the relationship.)
This is NOT the time for an upsell…
It’s a crucial window to create trust and make sure they feel successful with their purchase.
(This is why we do onboarding in the post-purchase flow.)
When you reach the Engagement/Retention stage, the customer has already invested in the product or service. They’re familiar with your brand, they trust you to some degree.
And most importantly…
They’ve used the product and are starting to experience its benefits.
However, they might be starting to experience NEW challenges….
They could be starting to notice gaps that the current product doesn’t fill.
Just like in video games… every new level unlocks a new monster you have to face.
They solved 1 problem, and by doing so they’ve unlocked a NEW problem…
Eg. “I’m jacked but now my clothes don’t fit.”
or, “I’m getting more leads now, but I can’t close any of them!”
This is where an upsell is appropriate, based on a pain point or opportunity that arises naturally in the product experience.
This is where we begin the upsell process…
Here’s the most important part though, that will drastically improve the conversions for your upsell emails:
The customer may not be aware they have a NEW problem.
In order to upsell them, we need to make them aware of that problem, and then make them actually feel pain. Or desire for improvement. Without those emotions, they won’t feel compelled to buy the upsell.
You’ll have to map out the different points of your customer’s lifecycle based on your product and business model.
For example, if you sell airplane trainings… do they get their pilots license and fly around for a few months until they need more advanced pilot training?
Or if you’re selling bedding or interior design… Does your customer leave their mattress on the floor for the first 30 days after moving into a new apartment? (Peak male experience).
Understand your buyer, when they typically do things allows you to time the upsell at the right timing.
Eg – 30 days after they purchase, 6 months after getting a certification (for a renewal.)
Now that we’ve identified the exact moment where the upsell fits, the next part is to introduce it in a way that feels like the logical next step in the customer’s journey.
This is about presenting the upsell not as an additional product, but as the next natural step toward achieving their bigger goals they have in mind.
The way we do this is by exposing a NEW problem to them, and/or a NEW opportunity to achieve better results.
Typically, we expose the new problem and intensify it, as that’s what drives the motivation to purchase again.
But we do so carefully to avoid creating buyer’s remorse:
We want the customer to feel congratulated and good about themselves for their previous purchase.
But also feel pain and desire to address this next challenge.
The only way we can do these things together is by exposing the problem and agitating it in a strategic way…
That looks like:
This is where customer journey mapping pays off…
Because it’s what allows us to time the upsell perfectly.
Example:
Email 1: Post-Purchase Confirmation – Congratulate them on their purchase and set expectations for what’s next. (This is the same post-purchase from earlier.
Delay (30-180 days) – The exact time delay is based on when they’ve likely started using the product and experiencing results.
Email 7: Introducing the New Challenge (after the delay) – This is when we begin the upsell process.
This brings us to the actual upsell emails…
This is where buyer LTV growth happens on autopilot.
And where you skyrocket your EPS (Earnings per Subscriber).
But before you write a single email, remember when I said to ask yourself:
…you need to answer those 6 questions first!
At a minimum, you need to know:
If they feel like they can continue their life without ever purchasing the upsell product… and they’ll have ZERO consequences for doing… it’s a weak offer.
Now, let me show you what successful email upsell offers look like.
The delay is based on your customer lifecycle and the customer journey mapping we did earlier.
Here’s how to structure your 1st upsell email (email #7, because we did 6 post-purchase emails already):
Link with your review software, too!
If they leave a positive review, that’s an incredible time to upsell and begin the next phase of the sales process.
Examples:
After presenting the problem in email 7, use another belief shifting email while introducing the upsell offer or a resource that can help them solve their issue.
Send them to your highest revenue-per-page-view content.
“This pairs perfectly with…”
More belief shifting… Creating urgency…
Share customer testimonials or examples of how others have overcome the same problem by using your upsell product.
Gauge interest in supplementary offers too, by including them in the footer section of the email…
They help you segment people based on what they click and how many times they click.
Then, you can see what they likely want the most and serve more content that will convince them to buy that thing.
This is where you get more aggressive.
Leverage behavioral analytics here.
Lifetimely (Shopify plugin) and Klaviyo analytics are your best friends.
So…
Pull product sales reports. Look at your best selling products/categories.
What are some popular slept on products?
Look at what’s already selling organically. Is there anything that’s selling well organically, that hasn’t been promoted to the email list yet?
Offer exclusive offers to buyers that non-buyers can’t access —> repeat the cycle.
That’s your lowest-hanging fruit.
Then use Lifetimely and your predictive analytics to identify cross-purchase patterns and buy cycles. Just like I did with the whey protein and BCAA supplement.
Look at what customers are already buying together on their own. Then build a flow that accelerates that behavior.
You can run this like quiz funnels too. With segmented emails based on people’s interests or what they buy.
In fact, I built a quiz funnel for a 9-figure client that got a $48 rev per recipient. How I’d know what to sell? I pulled product sales reports to identify our best selling products for each category.
People would go through and tell me what they wanted more of… I’d then offer a 3 email promo “for the next 72 hours, here’s an exclusive discount… then add related products in the footer. Segment these by product categories and make sure to use the top sellers in those categories that already show demand!
Get creative! Find bundles with other products as your “upsell” to boost AOV.
Either find a bigger supply (60 day supply vs 30 day), or “this gets better results when combined with this”
At a minimum, sometimes the easiest LTV driver is just more of the same thing they bought (typically best upsell #1 in DTC cold traffic funnels and often beats done-for-you, faster results/better results.)
To do this, identify the supply and typical buy cycle/renewal cycle of a product.
Then send an automated “re-stock” campaign.
Something like:
“Top off your supply… wanna make sure you don’t run out, so you can continue getting these great results. The more consistent you are the even better your results get. I opened a 20% discount to make it easier for you [Stock up and save].”
If you’re using Klaviyo, you can link this based on the Sku— so you can get granular— if a person buys a 30 day supply, you can use that logic in the flow to time the upsell/resell perfectly (especially with predictive analytics and customer journey mapping tools)
If someone bought a 30-day supply of something, and your data shows the average reorder happens at day 45, build a flow that hits them at day 40 with a restock reminder.
You don’t always need a new product to upsell. Sometimes you just need to make it stupidly easy for them to buy again. And then use a little pain/benefit language to push them over the edge.
More-of-the-same is good for physical products (like supplements)
Done-for-you and faster results are good for informational products (books, investment subscriptions and stock picks).
The highest converting upsells are either:
Example:
1st purchase: How to fix your bad credit
2nd purchase/upsell: An automated program that files the forms to fix your bad credit for you
Start with customer journey mapping…
Then, setup your post purchase flow:
The goal of your post-purchase flow is to get them to USE the product and get results.
Then… based on your customer journey mapping process and upsell paths you’ve identified…
Start the belief shifting process, and introducing the new problem.
You want them to be well aware of their new problem, feel pain and desire…
And then, shift their beliefs…
Get them to realize your upsell is the ONLY way their situation will ever get better.
Goal: Boost AOV. Make them go from placing $47 orders to placing $97+ orders and up. Higher AOV generally is more margins and practically guarantees higher LTV. If you can double someone’s AOV, you’ll often double their lifetime value.
Someone who spends more money with you in a single transaction buys more over time. And it’s a lot easier to do that than increase the frequency of their orders, especially when they have to wait for shipping more often. You reduce the time to value. So many other obvious benefits of increasing AOV with upsell flows like this.
Use bundles, etc. or just sell more of the same thing and a bigger supply (60 capsules instead of 30).
Most companies post-purchase sequences don’t retain or upsell their customers.
Forcing them to rely on expensive acquisition channels as the only option just to maintain their current revenue level.
The Elongated Post-Purchase Flow is a unique post-purchase flow that quickly grows your revenue, retains customers for longer, and increases your AOV.
When you combine a strategic post-purchase flow with a well-timed upsell sequence – and use customer journey mapping to nail the timing – you turn every single buyer into a revenue multiplier.
The framework is simple:
Phase 1 gets them to use the product, trust you, and feel good about their purchase.
Phase 2 exposes the next problem, shifts their beliefs, and positions your upsell as the obvious next step.
If you take one thing from this post, let it be this:
Stop treating your post-purchase flow and your upsell strategy as two separate things. Stack them together. Time them perfectly.
Then let the data tell you when your customer is ready to buy again… so you can make the easiest upsell of your life. Or if you just want someone who does this for a living to implement everything for you like the push of a button, fill out the form on this page to see if you qualify, and reserve your free consult.
