🎯 Cycle Gear Welcome Series: Personalization That Actually Performed

At Cycle Gear, I spearheaded a complete overhaul of the welcome series — a foundational touchpoint for new customers that quickly became a powerful engine for personalization across the brand's digital ecosystem.

📍 Objective

The primary goal? Capture meaningful data about each customer—what they rode, what brands they liked, and other profile details like gender—to fuel personalized marketing across email and paid channels.

At the time, using this level of dynamic customization inside an ESP was still pretty cutting edge. We executed it in Sailthru, leveraging both its personalization engine and our own custom-built tools to deliver relevant content from day one.

✉️ The Flow

The series consisted of just three emails, but each one was engineered to encourage customers to complete their profile on the Cycle Gear website. Once that data was captured, it allowed us to pivot from broad promotions to targeted recommendations based on riding preferences.

For example: If a customer selected Harley as their bike of choice, the product recommender dynamically showcased Harley-specific gear and accessories — nothing generic, no wasted real estate.

This recommender was custom-coded to match each shopper’s profile with product SKUs tied to their interests, preferences, and behaviors.

🔥 Results

We saw email performance double throughout campaign emails after personalization was utilized. It was one of the first major proof points for me that personalization isn’t just a buzzword — it’s a performance driver.

This data didn’t stop at email, either. We pushed these customer insights into paid ad channels, powering more relevant banner ads and offsite targeting.

💡 Takeaway

If you're building lifecycle marketing today, this still holds true: The more you can personalize, the better you'll perform.