Cidercade grows automation revenue more than 3x with Klaviyo B2C CRM + Square integration

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Cidercade is a Texas arcade bar chain, with 5 locations in Dallas, Austin, and beyond. Visitors pay at the door for unlimited access to hundreds of arcade games, from air hockey and pinball to driving and sports simulators—plus food and beverages for sale on-site. To build digital relationships with their diverse clientele—families during the day; 18+ visitors after 9 p.m.—Cidercade venues rely on Klaviyo.

Learn why Cidercade left HubSpot and its glitchy integrations for Klaviyo B2C CRM

Challenge

Cidercade used HubSpot for email marketing for a year—and the whole time, “it never felt like we stopped onboarding,” CEO and co-founder Joe Malone recalls.

The team went through months of trial and error with third-party onboarding agencies, trying to get their HubSpot account set up and manually integrated with their Square POS.

It never worked for long. When they cross-checked their Square data in HubSpot against their data in Square, they routinely found discrepancies and errors.

“Unless I had someone full-time dedicated to ensuring that our Square data was accurate, HubSpot just didn’t seem usable—and it was quite costly,” Malone says.

Everything was too fragmented. We were missing touchpoints. We were never confident our data was right.

Cidercade was only using HubSpot for email, too—they used another platform for SMS. This siloed setup muddled their performance data and blurred their view of their customers.

They’d often target customers who hadn’t visited in 6 months with win-back campaigns and promo codes—then hear from employees that regulars were redeeming the code.

“Everything was too fragmented,” Malone says. “We were missing touchpoints. We were never confident our data was right.”

Solution

Klaviyo caught Malone’s eye because it had a pre-built Square integration. That meant Klaviyo could easily ingest data from Cidercade’s complex Square account, which spans 5 locations and multiple types of SKUs—memberships, in-person food orders, in-person ticket orders, online purchases, and more.

Klaviyo also let Cidercade consolidate their email and SMS data with their Square data.

“Having that holistic view of a customer and seeing all of the touchpoints for one contact was critical for us,” Malone says. “You can’t get very smart and precise with the flows and campaigns if you don’t have a complete, clear picture of the customer.”

All of our Square data is now pulled into Klaviyo. We can easily tag and organize it, so we know our customers better and can market something to them that they care about.

After quick and painless onboarding with Klaviyo’s in-house onboarding team, Cidercade was off to the races. The Square data in Klaviyo matched what they saw in Square.

They relaunched win-back flows—and stopped hearing about regulars mistakenly receiving them.

“All of our Square data is now pulled into Klaviyo,” Malone says. “We can easily tag and organize it, so we know our customers better and can market something to them that they care about.”

Strategy

Now that they’ve switched to Klaviyo, Cidercade is activating and collecting customer data in creative new ways that improve the customer experience—and boost core KPIs. Here are a few tactics they’re seeing success with:

• Win-back flows to boost visit frequency: Cidercade’s whimsical win-back flows start to trigger when a customer doesn’t visit for a few weeks; one guarantees free admission if the customers beats a staff member at rock, paper, scissors. Since launching a new win-back flow 2 months ago, Cidercade’s automation revenue has jumped 221% period-over-period—and Malone considers these flows a major visit frequency lever.
• Lottery-style flows to clean up customer profiles: After purchase, Cidercade customers enter into a lottery automation, where a random sample of them get a hybrid email and SMS flow offering buy-one-get-one-free entry. The only condition: they have to enter their email if they claim the deal via SMS, or phone number if they claim via email. This helps Cidercade build out and de-dupe their customer profiles.
• Boosting spend per visit with Square-based offer personalization: Soon, Cidercade plans to invest in more targeted campaigns, segmented based on Square purchasing data. These will encourage customers to try new visit add-ons—for instance, they might get a discount offer on food or drink if they’ve never purchased from one of those categories before.

Ultimately, with their customer data consolidated in Klaviyo B2C CRM, Cidercade has a foundation they’re excited to build on.

“Without an audience to remarket to, you’re not building anything,” says Malone. “Klaviyo is the best tool we’ve found for owning our customer base and aggregating our customer data from Square, email, and SMS. It’s immensely valuable. Over time, we can shift more efforts from paid advertising to remarketing with Klaviyo, and spend our marketing dollars more and more efficiently.”

Klaviyo is the best tool we’ve found for owning our customer base and aggregating our customer data from Square, email, and SMS. It’s immensely valuable. Over time, we can shift more efforts from paid advertising to remarketing with Klaviyo, and spend our marketing dollars more and more efficiently.