Sofa Club
How we took Sofa Club from the spam folder to a best‑in‑class CRM program, driving a 40% increase in email revenue and scaling November revenue from £5M to £9M in 15 months.
Year‑over‑year increase in email revenue
November revenue growth from £5M to £9M across two Black Fridays
Increase in average campaign reach (37k to 130k opens) while boosting open rates from 18% to 46% in 3 months
How We Helped Sofa Club Turn a Deliverability Crisis into Record‑Breaking Black Friday Performance
Sofa Club is a contemporary UK furniture brand that has redefined accessible luxury with trend‑led sofas and homeware inspired by global design capitals. With average order values above £1,000 and a highly considered purchase journey, every touchpoint in their CRM program has outsized revenue impact. When they came to us in August 2024, years of list abuse had pushed their emails into spam folders just three months before Black Friday, capping average campaign opens at 37,000 and open rates at 18–22%. Over the next 15 months, we executed a comprehensive deliverability rehabilitation and CRM rebuild across email and SMS, tripling average campaign reach to 130,000 opens, lifting open rates to 46% in just three months, and growing email revenue 40% year‑over‑year while November revenue scaled from £5M to £9M
From Spam Folder to Black Friday Lifeline
By August 2024, Sofa Club’s email channel was in crisis. Years of poor list management and weak engagement had destroyed sender reputation, leaving campaigns trapped in spam with open rates stuck in the teens and only 37,000 people engaging per send. For a premium furniture brand with £1,000+ average orders, underperforming automations like abandoned checkout and browse abandonment meant critical high‑intent opportunities were being lost, while signup forms converting at just 1.8% throttled list growth. With no SMS strategy in place and Black Friday—their one major discount period of the year—only 12 weeks away, they needed a full deliverability recovery and CRM rebuild that could respect their premium positioning and convert without constant discounts.
How We Solved It
The engagement began with a deep technical and strategic audit of Sofa Club’s Klaviyo setup, sender reputation, list hygiene and customer journey. From there, we implemented a six‑part program focused on deliverability rehabilitation, high‑intent list growth, advanced lifecycle flows, a design‑forward campaign calendar, the launch of a premium‑feeling SMS channel, and Black Friday–specific automations. Each component was designed to respect Sofa Club’s premium, low‑discount positioning while rebuilding trust with inbox providers, nurturing long consideration cycles and unlocking the full revenue potential of email and SMS ahead of back‑to‑back record‑breaking Black Friday periods.
To transform Sofa Club’s underperforming CRM into a revenue powerhouse, we built a six‑part strategy anchored in deliverability first, then scaled with high‑intent growth and sophisticated automation. A structured deliverability recovery program restored inbox placement, while a new popup and form strategy multiplied list growth without discounting. Advanced flows handled the heavy lifting of education, trust‑building and objection handling for high‑ticket furniture purchases, as campaigns and SMS were orchestrated around design‑led storytelling and a tightly scripted Black Friday calendar. The result was a resilient, scalable CRM engine that now drives 40% of total revenue and supports 70–80% year‑over‑year November growth.
Our Six‑Part CRM Growth Engine
We began by rebuilding Sofa Club’s sender reputation from the ground up. A full technical audit surfaced suppression issues, low‑quality segments and harmful sending patterns, which we addressed with strict engagement‑based segmentation, improved authentication and carefully controlled sending ramps. Instead of blasting the full list, we prioritized highly engaged cohorts, monitored bounces and spam complaints obsessively, and only increased volume as inbox placement recovered. Within three months, average open rates jumped from 18–19% to 46%, and campaign opens climbed from 37,000 to over 90,000—turning a barely functioning channel into a reliable Black Friday asset.
Once deliverability stabilized, we overhauled Sofa Club’s signup experience to accelerate high‑quality list growth without leaning on discounts. Starting with Klaviyo and later migrating to Attentive, we redesigned popups and forms around design inspiration, early access and exclusive content that matched the brand’s premium positioning. Conversion rates jumped from 1.8% to 6.6% almost immediately and later exceeded 10% post‑migration, taking 30‑day form submits from 11,000 to 26,000. Tripling list growth at £1,000+ AOV fundamentally changed the economics of their CRM program and built a much larger, more engaged audience for future campaigns and flows.
For a high‑consideration purchase like a sofa, automation has to do far more than send reminders. We rebuilt Sofa Club’s lifecycle flows to focus on education, risk reduction and social proof instead of discounting. Abandoned checkout sequences were re‑engineered to address delivery logistics, quality assurance, design fit and financing options, while browse abandonment nurtured interest over time with design ideas and real homes for inspiration. Post‑purchase flows concentrated on delivery communication, setup support and review generation. Revenue per recipient across key flows doubled, open rates moved from the low 20s to consistently above 50%, and the abandoned checkout flow alone generated over £500,000 in a single peak month, hitting £29.26 per recipient during Black Friday 2025.
With deliverability and automation in place, we re‑designed Sofa Club’s campaign strategy to balance brand storytelling with revenue performance. Outside of Black Friday, campaigns focused on educational content, collection launches and customer stories that kept engagement high and list health strong without over‑promoting. For Black Friday, we rolled out a tightly choreographed calendar that built anticipation, showcased hero products and created urgency over a two‑week window. Average campaign revenue increased from roughly £10,000 to £45,000, as campaign reach expanded to 130,000 opens and open rates climbed into the mid‑40s, turning email into one of the brand’s most dependable revenue drivers.
We launched Sofa Club’s SMS program as a high‑impact, low‑frequency channel that matched the brand’s premium feel. Rather than constant promotions, SMS was reserved for key moments: new collection drops, time‑sensitive inventory updates and Black Friday announcements. Integrated tightly with email, these sends amplified campaign performance without overwhelming subscribers. The channel quickly grew to generate over £20,000 in monthly attributed revenue, with individual Black Friday 2025 sends producing £10,000+ each and adding meaningful incremental revenue atop record‑breaking email performance.
Because Sofa Club’s annual Black Friday event is the only major discount window of the year, we designed dedicated automation specifically for that period. Black Friday‑only flows ran in parallel with evergreen sequences, layering urgency, inventory updates and deadline reminders onto already warm audiences. The abandoned checkout flow during Black Friday 2025 became a standout performer, hitting £29.26 per recipient versus typical £5–6 in non‑promotional periods. Paired with a 12+ send campaign architecture, these flows helped drive £1.8M in email revenue during Black Friday 2024 and contributed to overall November revenue scaling to £8.5–9M in 2025.
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