Case study · Stampin' Up!
Customer Email Marketing Strategy
A welcome program built from zero contacts to a measurable revenue line, with consent and infrastructure built from scratch across 14 markets.
The challenge
Stampin’ Up! had no email marketing program for their customers. The company had never sent a single campaign, welcome email, or automated sequence to the tens of thousands of people on their contact list. Revenue was being left on the table with no owned channel to re-engage buyers or nurture new visitors. The existing contact list also couldn’t be used as-is. There was no proper consent on file, and EU markets required explicit GDPR opt-in.
Constraints
Four conditions shaped the work before any design started. None of them moved.
- Legal GDPR compliance across 14 international markets
forced an explicit double opt-in flow and killed any shortcut imports.
- Legal Tens of thousands of contacts with no proper consent
we couldn’t migrate the existing list. We had to rebuild from zero.
- TechnicalScope No prior email infrastructure or owned channel
vendor selection, deliverability setup, and consent management landed in scope before any design work began.
- Resource Limited internal email-marketing expertise
I partnered with a specialist. My role focused on experience design and storytelling rather than deliverability.
Approach
The frame I started with.
Where are visitors already most engaged with the brand, and how do we meet them there instead of interrupting them? Signup placement was the lever. The welcome series only matters if people sign up in the first place.
Options I considered.
A single high-effort signup form in the footer. Low friction, low capture.
A multi-channel touchpoint strategy spread across blog, checkout, and footer. More complex, but matches where customers actually engage.
A gated-content lead magnet alone. High capture, but narrows the audience to download-seekers.
The pick and why.
Multi-channel touchpoints, weighted by intent. Each placement matches a different moment of engagement: blog exit-intent for casual readers, checkout for high-intent buyers, footer as the persistent fallback. The system meets customers in the mode they’re already in.
What the data told us
Blog traffic was substantial, but the bounce rate was high. Visitors read and left without taking action. Checkout was the opposite: high intent, low friction to capture. Footer was the persistent fallback, present on every page.
Those three engagement patterns decided where the signup placements would live. The blog’s traffic volume, combined with its bounce rate, made a strong case for an exit-intent trigger. Checkout made capturing a subscriber feel like a natural next step after a purchase. Footer was the always-on option for everyone else.
What competitors weren't doing
Competitive analysis across crafting and e-commerce brands showed a consistent pattern: most relied on a single footer form with no structured welcome sequence behind it. Few used the signup moment to capture anything beyond an email address. Almost none had solved consent across multiple markets.
Three questions shaped the research: where to capture signups for the best conversion, how to handle double opt-in across 14 countries cleanly, and what the welcome series should accomplish at each touch. Capturing language preference upfront emerged as essential. Personalization at scale falls apart without it.
The test that shaped the series
We tested whether a download incentive would meaningfully lift signup rates on the blog pop-up. One version offered a free downloadable craft project. The control offered nothing beyond the signup confirmation. The incentive version substantially outperformed.
That result shaped the welcome series architecture. Pop-up signups receive Email 1a with the download link. Footer and checkout signups receive Email 1b without it. Both paths merge at Email 2. The test gave leadership something concrete to point to, and it kept the series honest: visitors who signed up for the download got exactly what was promised on the pop-up.
The welcome series
Four emails designed to feel like a conversation, not a funnel. Each one earns the next.
Email 1. Welcome. A warm brand introduction that sets expectations. Pop-up signups receive the free downloadable craft project here. Footer and checkout signups receive the same welcome without the download.
Email 2. Get Inspired. Project ideas and creative techniques. The goal is to make new subscribers feel capable and excited, not overwhelmed. No products yet.
Email 3. Products. A curated look at tools and materials, framed as recommendations rather than a catalog. By this point the subscriber has seen what the brand can do, so the products have context.
Email 4. Community. Real stories from other crafters and an invitation to join. Social proof lands better after three emails of genuine value, not as the first thing someone sees.
How it all connects
Three signup sources, one consent layer, two welcome paths that merge into a single four-email arc.
Welcome series previews
Four emails, four moments. Each designed with a specific subscriber state in mind.
Results
- 7-figure
- Thousands
- 14
- 4
Revenue and signup figures are shown as ranges to respect company confidentiality. Structural facts (markets, email count) are exact.
What I'd carry forward
The best UX work isn't always on a screen someone sees every day. Consent flows, signup placements, and a four-email narrative arc. None of those are flashy. But they turned an idle contact list into a channel that generates revenue every week.
What made it work was scope clarity. I focused on experience and storytelling. The email specialist focused on data and delivery. Neither of us tried to own both sides. That division let the work get to a quality level it wouldn't have reached otherwise.
If I were starting again, I'd run the A/B test earlier. We validated the download incentive partway through, which meant the welcome series structure had already been roughed out without it. Running the test first would have let the data inform the architecture from the beginning rather than confirming a decision already in motion.