Mariners Email Strategy: Higher Acquisition & Lower Costs During BFCM
Customer acquisition is one of the biggest challenges for eCommerce brands, especially during high-stakes periods like BFCM. Rising costs for paid ads, anonymous visitors, and poor email deliverability leave brands with high traffic but disproportionately low results.
Instead of increasing ad spending, Mariners Learning System (with its growth partner, Metacake) revamped their top-of-funnel (TOFU) email marketing strategy using Tie, identifying anonymous site visitors, growing their email list, and improving their inbox placement.
Due to this, Mariners was able to re-engage web traffic and reach more customers via emails, leading to:
- 84% YoY sales growth during BFCM
- $25K+ in additional monthly revenue from new leads through Tie
- 83% of site traffic identified via Tie
- 67% lift in Klaviyo Deliverability Score in a few months
“Tie has been a game changer for Mariners. It gave us the ability to reach customers we would have otherwise lost, boosted the email list, and helped recover revenue without the usual headaches. With our growth partner Metacake leading the strategy, the integration was seamless, and the results speak for themselves.”
Captain Bob Figular, Founder, Mariners Learning System
About the brand
Mariners Learning System offers U.S. Coast Guard-approved online boating courses, allowing students to earn their captain’s licenses at their own pace. Known for its flexible, user-friendly platform, Mariners has helped thousands of aspiring captains turn their passion for boating into a profession.
Challenges: Rising acquisition costs and underperforming email strategies
As advertising costs increased on platforms like Meta and Google, Mariners Learning System faced increasing pressure to optimize their marketing spend. They were investing heavily in PPC campaigns but saw lower reach and conversions than they did in the past.
Ad blockers and platform privacy changes further reduced campaign effectiveness, leaving Mariners struggling to maximize ROI from their top-of-funnel efforts.
What’s worse, their email list growth was slow, with pop-ups and whitepapers adding only about 1,000 leads/month, making it hard to scale.
The Mariners team lacked a reliable way to identify and re-engage anonymous site visitors, leading to thousands of potential customers slipping through the cracks.
“I’ve been doing paid ads long enough that I remember when they were a nickel and a dime... Now we’re paying a buck and a half and not getting the same results.”
Mariners also faced significant challenges with their email deliverability. Ahead of Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM), email performance dipped, leading to lower inbox placement and reduced engagement around one of the most critical sales periods.
“Our deliverability took a hit right before BFCM, and it really affected our reach. We needed a fix—and fast.”
Solution: Revamping email acquisition and increasing email engagement
When Mariners Learning System set out to optimize their top-of-funnel (TOFU) system ahead of BFCM, they needed a solution that would help them:
- Turn more website visitors into leads than pop-ups.
- Grow their email list without compromising deliverability.
- Re-engage lost traffic.
- Improve revenue from existing site traffic.
That’s when their agency partner, Metacake, introduced them to Tie.
“We already had people coming to our website—we just needed a better way to reach them. Tie made that possible.”
Key wins with Tie
- Anonymous site visitor identification.
The website visitor identification platform uncovered anonymous visitors, expanding the brand’s email list in the weeks leading up to BFCM. With this, the brand started seeing new contacts roll in almost immediately.
“We were gathering names from day one. Even before all the flows were running, we saw the list growing, which was exciting.”
- Email health restoration.
Through advanced warming strategies, Tie improved inbox placement, assuring that Mariners’ emails reached more customers during peak sales periods and increasing engagement.
“The domain warming was brilliant. It took time, but it really helped us get our emails back into inboxes, especially during BFCM.”
How Mariners improved their email strategy
Working with Metacake, Mariners leveraged this better data and improved email deliverability to activate their top-of-the-funnel leads using additional tools:
- Orita applied machine learning to segment the newly acquired leads, identifying those with the highest purchase intent.
- PostPilot allowed the brand to send targeted direct mail campaigns to their segmented lists, adding another touchpoint to the customer journey.
- The seamless integration with Klaviyo and Shopify Plus allowed Mariners to sync their growing email list and deploy segmented campaigns, all while maintaining strong deliverability.
“Between the three tools, we’re probably generating $20K–$25K a month that we would’ve missed otherwise. And this is just the beginning.”
Through this multi-layered approach, Mariners was able to capture more leads and engage them more effectively, leading to a significant increase in email-driven revenue during BFCM.
Results: 84% YoY sales growth during BFCM and $25K+ in new monthly revenue
By partnering with Metacake and implementing Tie, Mariners Learning System rebuilt their email foundation, turning it into one of their most profitable channels leading into BFCM.
- 84% YoY sales growth during BFCM.
- $20K–$25K in new monthly revenue from integrated email and direct mail campaigns.
- 83% of site traffic identified, turning anonymous visitors into high-intent leads.
- 4,000+ new contacts engaged in December alone.
“We’re now reaching people we would’ve completely lost before. It’s brought in thousands of new contacts and real revenue—without blowing up our ad budget.”
Besides driving more sales, Mariners effectively improved their top-of-funnel strategy, reducing their dependency on rising PPC costs while building a healthier, high-performing email list.
“I’m not looking for home runs. I just want consistent singles that add up—and that’s exactly what we’re getting now.”
Ready to supercharge your email marketing?
Many eCommerce brands are losing high-intent shoppers simply because they work with inconsistent customer data or their emails don’t land in inboxes.
But with the right tools in place, you can enrich your existing data, get a holistic picture of your potential customers, and effectively turn them into buyers.
Mariners Learning System used Tie to unlock 84% YoY sales growth during BFCM and add $25K+ in monthly revenue, all by capturing anonymous site visitors and improving email deliverability.
Want to set up a high-performing top-of-the-funnel email strategy and turn website traffic into leads to boost revenue?
Learn how you can improve your eCommerce brand’s marketing data and email deliverability.
