FASHION & FOOTWEAR · CASE STUDY

Give the product a reason to be worn.

Product-led email and SMS for a swimwear brand, supported by campaign production, audience checks and attribution work through the Eli Zeta portfolio.

Documented work: 2022–2023 · selected campaign and SMS work

01 · THE CHALLENGE

A seasonal product needs a specific story.

BeachBum was a swimwear store supported by Thrivelia through Eli Zeta. Our role combined email production and SMS work within a wider multi-store programme. This was partner-delivered work, with each store needing its own products, offers and sending arrangements.

The creative challenge was to give someone a reason to consider a particular product. A new-arrivals message can show what has arrived. A more useful message also explains where it fits into the customer’s life and why that product deserves another look.

The operational challenge sat alongside it: campaign copy, design, platform setup and audience selection had to stay aligned across a busy portfolio. BeachBum’s account history matters here. An April 2023 instruction confirms email was being built in ActiveCampaign; this story does not assume every portfolio store migrated to Klaviyo together.

02 · THE CREATIVE

Start with the moment of use.

A May 2023 SMS draft for a one-piece rashguard led with surfing. The copy then connected the product to practical features and offered a choice of patterns. Trayan shared the message with the copy team as material that could also inform an email.

The useful change in emphasis was from a catalogue description to a recognisable activity. The customer could picture the product in use before considering colour or pattern. Email could develop that idea with imagery and more detail, while SMS needed a focused reason to click.

This is a creative example, not a verified winning test. The surviving record establishes the draft and the instruction to reuse its angle. It does not establish a conversion lift or prove that every proposed line was sent. The lesson is to carry the same product idea across channels while adapting its length and presentation.

03 · THE DELIVERY

Keep the idea connected to the actual send.

By August 2022, the account summary recorded SMS flows as set up across a group that included BeachBum. The same note described weekly to fortnightly campaign work across those accounts. In October, a production update recorded a scheduled BeachBum SMS campaign and requested a check of the audience setup.

Email production ran alongside that activity. The October update referred to a corrected email template, and later workload plans assigned BeachBum dedicated copy, design and account-management responsibilities. These are concrete parts of delivery: the message needs an owner, a functioning build and an eligible audience.

For another retailer, a practical pre-send review is to check the product link, the live offer, the audience and the rendering together. A persuasive message cannot compensate for a broken destination or an audience that should not receive it.

04 · THE CALENDAR

Shared production still needs store-specific details.

December 2022 planning included plain-text seasonal messages and a BeachBum-specific spend threshold for a Boxing Day offer. Other portfolio stores had different thresholds. The calendar could be coordinated, but the commercial details could not simply be copied from one brand to the next.

The records also included a plan to test SMS flows across several accounts, including BeachBum. That shows an optimisation agenda, rather than evidence of a completed test or a winning variant. Separating a planned change from a measured result is essential when reviewing historical work.

The transferable lesson is to maintain one clear source for each store’s offer and timing, then carry it through copy, design, links and scheduling. Reuse the production process; check the customer-facing details each time.

05 · THE MEASUREMENT

Make attribution a question to investigate.

Early-2023 work included reconciling SMS reporting across SMSBump, Shopify and Triple Whale for the portfolio. The team sought exports to investigate how tracking and order information appeared in the different tools. That work matters because a platform revenue total is not automatically an agreed commercial result.

The documented delivery includes SMS flows, campaign production, audience checks and product-led creative. The surviving reports do not provide a sufficiently consistent BeachBum comparison window and attribution basis for a defensible growth headline, so no incremental revenue lift is claimed here.

The broader lesson is to connect the customer story to operational and measurement discipline. Give the product a clear use case, coordinate the channels, check the audience and reconcile the reporting before declaring the result. Scope: selected 2022–2023 work through Eli Zeta. Current brand imagery illustrates the retailer and is not presented as historical email creative.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WORK

What this case study shows.

How can swimwear emails sell more than a discount?

BeachBum’s documented work connected product-led email and SMS with campaign production and audience checks. The useful lesson for a seasonal brand is to give the product a specific occasion: where it will be worn, why its features matter there and what the reader should do next. This project is presented as delivery evidence, not a measured revenue-lift experiment.

How do campaigns and automated flows work together?

Campaigns give a timely reason to engage, while flows respond to customer actions and lifecycle stages. Coordinate the calendar, offer and exclusions so both serve the same customer journey. Evaluate campaign and flow performance separately before combining the picture; growth in one can hide weakness in the other.

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