Ride FRSH sees 151% YoY jump in email revenue after switching to Klaviyo

Ride FRSH’s co-founders appeared on Shark Tank and (spoiler!) got an investment from Barbara Corcoran by disrupting an old-school industry: air fresheners.

Their sleek, square pendants come in a choice of 14 scents, decorated with pop lyrics about driving, NBA logos, or SpongeBob characters.

Ride FRSH’s direct-to-consumer subscription model—2-5 air fresheners monthly—has 10,000 subscribers and growing.

Learn why Ride FRSH ditched “clunky” Mailchimp for Klaviyo

Challenge

Ride FRSH initially ran email marketing through Mailchimp, and it worked when they had one product: a monthly two-pack subscription. Then they started branching out, offering more varied subscriptions, and a la carte premium air fresheners.

Their custom-coded ecommerce site couldn’t keep up. Neither could Mailchimp.

“MailChimp’s original appeal was the ease of use and getting started—that intro level,” says Donovan Brown, co-founder of Ride FRSH. “But it wasn’t as good in terms of where I’m going now. It seems kind of antiquated.”

Solution

Ride FRSH migrated to Shopify. All the Shopify brands Brown admired managed email with Klaviyo—but Ride FRSH’s email agency, Special Opts Agency, hadn’t used it before. Brown hesitated.

The agency gave it a test run. Immediately, they were fans. Brown loved Klaviyo from Day 1, too: Onboarding support was stellar, he was able to set it up and integrate it with Shopify by himself.

I can tell you a specific thing that made me say I’ll never use MailChimp again.

“I can tell you a specific thing that made me say I’ll never use MailChimp again: the ease of excluding a segment from an email in Klaviyo,” Brown says. “It was super difficult in Mailchimp. Clunky is the best word I could use.”

Strategy

Ride FRSH started with Klaviyo in the summer of 2021, and it’s unlocked a few big email wins for them, like:

• Sending winning upsells: Ride FRSH can send optimized upsells that drive more revenue than unsubscribes, thanks to Klaviyo’s performance data—which Brown finds more trustworthy and actionable than Mailchimp’s.
• Personalizing promptly: Klaviyo’s real-time segmentation makes it easier to reach a relevant audience at the right time, and the comprehensive Shopify integration allows for flows triggered by shopping activity.
• Next up—consolidating email and SMS in Klaviyo: RideFRSH will migrate its SMS marketing efforts from a patchwork of providers to Klaviyo in Q1 2023. “As somebody who’s doing a lot, I need the program to work seamlessly,” Brown says. “That’s what Klaviyo does.”