100% Pure returns to Klaviyo and blows past goal to drive 20% of revenue with email

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100% Pure makes berry-hued lipsticks, and unlike other makeup brands, they do it with real fruit. Co-founders Susie Wang and Ric Kostick patented an innovative pigmentation method, so they can tint their products with cherries, pomegranates, and more—avoiding synthetic and heavy metal dyes.

The primarily DTC clean beauty retailer celebrates the natural world in other ways, too: They never test their products on animals, and for every order placed, they donate the cost of a tree to Trees for the Future.

Learn why 100% Pure came back to Klaviyo after trying Oracle’s Bronto

Challenge

Bronto was expensive. It wasn’t just the list price of the Oracle marketing automation platform that chafed—Bronto also required pricey developers to function. Marketers couldn’t create the assets and flows they wanted themselves; they had to explain them to a technical team first, which slowed down operations. It hurt performance, too: Email usually drove about 20% of 100% Pure’s revenue, but with Bronto, that metric fell 2 percentage points.

“The nice thing with Klaviyo is it’s a universal price—it’s not negotiated by account,” says Ric Kostick, co-founder and CEO of 100% Pure. “When you work with Oracle, you negotiate by account and you’re at their mercy. You get locked in, and subject to huge price increases, too.”

The nice thing with Klaviyo is it’s a universal price—it’s not negotiated by account.

Solution

100% Pure worked with Klaviyo right when the marketing platform launched in 2012, and left for Bronto due to deliverability issues and inattentive customer support. But in 2020, Kostick started hearing from his network that Klaviyo had “got the mojo back.” Leadership was committed to product excellence and innovation. Plus, Klaviyo was cheaper than Oracle. Kostick and his team decided to give Klaviyo another try.

Strategy

Once 100% Pure restarted their account, it was clear deliverability and support had improved dramatically. Kostick also had new appreciation for a long-standing feature.

Klaviyo flows were:

• Self-serve for marketers: Marketers could easily create flows themselves—even abandoned cart flows triggered by Shopify activity. In Bronto, that would require developer resources.
• Ready to fill in for campaigns: With Klaviyo’s Smart Sending, Kostick’s team has been able to cap the number of emails a customer receives in a given timeframe, and set up “tons of flows.” If they’re short on campaigns, flows automatically fill the gap in the calendar.
• Functional across email and SMS: When Kostick’s team moved SMS from Attentive to Klaviyo, it opened up exciting, “synergistic” flow possibilities, Kostick says.

“I really like how Klaviyo does flows,” Kostick says. “Campaigns, you have to put in a lot of effort, and sometimes you’re not as good at executing. You might have bottlenecks in your creative. The great thing with the flow is it’s automated. It’s a machine. It’s going to go out no matter what, even if someone gets sick. Flows give you a base guaranteed revenue.”

The great thing with the flow is it’s automated. It’s a machine. It’s going to go out no matter what, even if someone gets sick. Flows give you a base guaranteed revenue.