sales-skills/sales-retention

Retention.com Platform Help

Helps the user with Retention.com questions — from identity resolution setup and list growth through abandonment recovery, retargeting activation, deliverability management, and compliance.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What do you need help with?

   • A) Setup — installing tracking pixel, connecting integrations
   • B) Grow — email/SMS list growth from identified visitors
   • C) Reclaim — abandonment flow recovery
   • D) Deliverability — managing spam complaints from identified contacts
   • E) Compliance — CCPA, consent model, suppression
   • F) Evaluating — comparing Retention.com vs alternatives
   • G) Something else — describe it

2. What's your ecommerce platform?

   • A) Shopify
   • B) WooCommerce
   • C) BigCommerce
   • D) Custom / headless
   • E) Not ecommerce (publisher/subscriber model)

3. What's your monthly website traffic?

   • A) Under 50K unique visitors
   • B) 50K-150K
   • C) 150K-300K
   • D) 300K+ (custom pricing territory)

If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:

• B2B visitor identification → /sales-rb2b
• Email marketing strategy → /sales-email-marketing
• Email list growth strategy across tools → /sales-audience-growth
• Retargeting strategy across channels → /sales-retargeting
• Email deliverability across platforms → /sales-deliverability
• Contact enrichment strategy → /sales-enrich

Otherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge below.

Step 3 — Retention.com platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.

You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Setting up Retention.com

| Step | What to do | Why it matters | |---|---|---| | 1. Install pixel | Add JavaScript snippet to all pages | Required for visitor identification | | 2. Upload suppression list | Your existing email list + unsubscribes | Prevents re-identifying known contacts | | 3. Connect ESP | Link Klaviyo/Mailchimp/etc. | Identified contacts flow directly to your email tool | | 4. Set up Reclaim flows | Create abandonment sequences for identified visitors | This is where the immediate revenue comes from | | 5. Configure Grow | Set up list growth campaigns | Longer-term value — builds your email list | | 6. Monitor deliverability | Watch spam complaint rates closely for first 30 days | Identified contacts generate higher complaints than organic |

Managing deliverability risk

This is the #1 challenge with Retention.com. Identified contacts didn't opt in, so spam complaints are higher than organic lists.

1. Separate sending domain: Use a subdomain (e.g., mail.yourbrand.com) for Retention.com contacts to protect your main domain reputation
2. Warm up slowly: Start with small batches (1,000-5,000/day) and ramp up over 2-4 weeks
3. Segment aggressively: Only email identified contacts who showed high intent (cart abandoners, repeat visitors, product page viewers)
4. Monitor complaint rates: Keep under 0.1% (Google threshold). Retention.com contacts often push 0.15-0.20% if not managed carefully
5. Sunset non-engagers fast: Remove contacts who don't open after 2-3 sends — much faster than your organic list cadence
6. Use Reclaim first, Grow second: Reclaim (abandonment) contacts are higher intent and engage better. Prove ROI there before scaling Grow.

Evaluating ROI

Calculate whether Retention.com pays for itself:

1. Monthly cost: usage-based at ~$0.15/identified email (verified 2026-06-13; no annual contract, 14-day free trial). Estimate as identified emails × $0.15.
2. Expected identifications: Monthly visitors × 15-25% realistic match rate
3. Reclaim revenue: Identified abandoners × abandonment flow conversion rate × AOV
4. Grow revenue: New list subscribers × email revenue per subscriber per month
5. Subtract: Deliverability cost (any reputation damage, dedicated IP, etc.)
6. Benchmark: Top case studies report 5-53x ROI, but median is likely 2-5x

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.

• Pricing is now usage-based, not annual tiers (verified 2026-06-13). The official page (retention.com/pricing) shows "$0.15/email", "No annual contracts", "Pay monthly, cancel anytime", and a "14-day free trial · No credit card required". This replaces the older $500–$2,500/mo annual-contract tiers + $300/mo a la carte that most third-party sites still cite. Forecast cost as (identified emails × $0.15) and confirm the live rate at signup.

• Match rates are likely lower than claimed. Retention.com claims ~35% identification, but independent reports show 16-25%. Budget and forecast using the conservative number.

• Deliverability risk is real. Identified contacts generate 2-3x higher spam complaint rates than organic subscribers. One case study reported 0.18% — nearly double the 0.1% safe threshold for Google. Use a separate sending domain.

• Grow contacts engage poorly. "Grow" contacts (general list building) have ~3% CTR vs ~12% for opted-in subscribers. Reclaim (abandonment) contacts perform much better — start there.

• Implicit consent model is legally gray. CAN-SPAM allows unsolicited commercial email with opt-out, but consumer perception differs from legal permission. Expect some brand reputation risk.

• Not usable for EU/UK traffic. GDPR requires explicit consent. Retention.com's identity resolution only works for US visitors and is only legally safe under US law.

• API is extremely limited (upload-only). Base URL https://api.retention.com/api/v1/, auth via api-id/api-key headers (or api_id/api_key body/query). Only two POST endpoints: /suppression and /custom_optouts, both taking a multipart/form-data CSV (file + optional is_md5). Limit: 5 requests/day, ~40K emails each, rolling 24h. No read/query endpoints — all real operations happen through integrations or the dashboard. Grow webhooks (Integrations > Webhook) POST identified-contact JSON but offer no automatic suppression.

• Same founder as RB2B. Adam Robinson runs both. If you're B2B, RB2B is the right product. Retention.com is specifically for B2C ecommerce/DTC.

• Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.

Related skills

• /sales-rb2b — RB2B platform help (B2B person-level visitor identification — same founder)
• /sales-customersai — Customers.ai platform help (competitor — Shopify + Klaviyo identity resolution with Inboxer deliverability suite and Alfred AI intent scoring)
• /sales-audience-growth — Email list growth strategy across tools
• /sales-email-marketing — Email marketing strategy for opt-in subscribers
• /sales-retargeting — Retargeting and remarketing strategy across channels
• /sales-deliverability — Email deliverability (critical when using identified contacts)
• /sales-klaviyo — Klaviyo platform help (most common ESP pairing with Retention.com)
• /sales-omnisend — Omnisend platform help (alternative ESP for ecommerce)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Set up Retention.com for a Shopify DTC brand

User says: "I run a Shopify store doing 100K monthly visitors and want to try Retention.com for abandoned cart recovery" Skill does:

1. Estimates realistic match rate (15-25K identified visitors/month at 15-25%)
2. Recommends starting with Reclaim (abandonment recovery) before Grow
3. Walks through pixel installation on Shopify and Klaviyo integration
4. Sets up deliverability protection: separate subdomain, slow warmup, aggressive segmentation
5. Calculates expected ROI based on their AOV and abandonment rate Result: Retention.com configured with realistic expectations and deliverability safeguards

Example 2: Compare Retention.com vs RB2B

User says: "My co-founder uses RB2B for our SaaS — should I also use Retention.com for our ecommerce side project?" Skill does:

1. Clarifies that Retention.com (B2C/ecommerce) and RB2B (B2B) serve different use cases
2. Notes both are founded by Adam Robinson but are separate products
3. Recommends Retention.com for the ecommerce side project (Shopify/DTC)
4. Advises keeping RB2B for the SaaS business
5. Warns about annual contract commitment vs RB2B's monthly option Result: Clear decision with the right tool for each business

Example 3: Fix deliverability issues after enabling Retention.com

User says: "My Klaviyo deliverability tanked after I turned on Retention.com — spam complaints spiked to 0.25%" Skill does:

1. Diagnoses the root cause: identified contacts didn't opt in, higher complaint rates expected
2. Recommends immediate actions: separate sending subdomain, pause Grow (keep Reclaim only)
3. Suggests aggressive segmentation: only email high-intent visitors (cart abandoners, 3+ page views)
4. Sets up faster sunset policy: remove non-openers after 2 sends instead of the usual 5-10
5. Recommends monitoring for 2 weeks and gradually re-scaling Result: Deliverability recovered with Retention.com still generating ROI from high-intent segments

Troubleshooting

Spam complaints spiking after enabling Retention.com

Symptom: Spam complaint rate jumped from 0.05% to 0.15%+ after adding Retention.com contacts to email flows Cause: Identified contacts didn't opt in to your emails. They're being matched from third-party data and have no relationship with your brand. Some will mark you as spam. Solution: (1) Use a separate sending subdomain to isolate reputation, (2) only email high-intent segments (cart abandoners, not all visitors), (3) implement a 2-send sunset policy for non-engagers, (4) consider pausing Grow and only using Reclaim until complaint rates stabilize under 0.1%.

Match rates lower than expected

Symptom: Retention.com is identifying 15-20% of visitors instead of the claimed 35% Cause: The 35% figure is a best-case scenario. Actual match rates depend on your audience demographics, traffic source mix, and geographic concentration (US-only). Mobile traffic and privacy-focused browsers reduce match rates. Solution: 15-25% is typical. Focus on maximizing value from identified contacts rather than chasing match rates. If you're below 15%, check that the pixel is installed on all pages (not just product pages) and that your traffic is predominantly US-based.

"Grow" contacts not generating revenue

Symptom: Added thousands of contacts via Grow but email revenue didn't increase meaningfully Cause: Grow contacts are lower intent than Reclaim contacts. They visited your site but didn't start a checkout or add to cart. They also didn't opt in, so engagement rates are 3-4x lower than organic subscribers. Solution: Don't treat Grow contacts like your main list. Create separate flows with lower frequency (weekly vs daily), higher-value offers (deeper discounts), and faster sunsetting. If Grow contacts aren't generating positive ROI after 60 days, pause Grow and focus budget on Reclaim.