VKTRY Gear Automates Incremental Revenue with PostPilot

Background

VKTRY Gear makes incredible, patented carbon fiber sports performance insoles that help athletes jump higher and protect them from injury. And since 2022, the team has been heavily leveraging PostPilot to help their marketing jump higher and protect it from injury.

Well, some of that is true. We don’t have data (yet) that suggests direct mail can prevent marketing from injury, but it does help marketing jump higher—from an ROI standpoint.

And it does enable VKTRY Gear to reach customers at home, with highly targeted, highly memorable, physical touchpoints that dovetail and enhance their Klaviyo strategies.

“We wanted to communicate with our customers across every channel, and PostPilot is clearly the leader in the direct mail space. It integrates seamlessly with the software we’re using—it works so well with Klaviyo. You can set up automations that trigger based on many Klaviyo segments and other customer purchasing behavior.” —Taylor Scranton, VP of Customer Experience @ VKTRY Gear

Direct Mail Tactics

Since launching their program with PostPilot, VKTRY Gear has been driving net-new and recurring revenue via retargeting and retention tactics that align with their email/SMS moves in Klaviyo.

Driving First Purchases with Direct Mail

The most high-ROI email flow is the abandoned cart flow, and we tend to see similar data on the direct mail side.

VKTRY Gear has timed automated postcards to arrive at the end of their Klaviyo abandoned cart flow, ensuring that cart abandoners definitely see a reminder of what they left behind.

Direct mail postcard from VKTRY Performance Insoles showing a football player in a yellow helmet and white uniform holding a football. Headline reads ‘Invest in Your Performance’ with messaging about athlete-designed insoles, a 90-day money-back guarantee, and 20% off using a promo code. — *4x6 postcard — sent 5 days after cart abandonment*

“Knowing that messages can get lost in a digital inbox or not even reach customers has made them a little less impactful than direct mail. When we send mailers to customers’ houses, we know that they're landing in our customers' hands.” —Taylor

The team adds another touchpoint with postcards in case an almost-buyer happens to abandon their checkout, too—these are sent 4 days after someone abandons checkout:

*4x6 postcard — sent 4 days after checkout abandonment*

Both of these strategies complement VKTRY Gear’s efforts on Klaviyo. While email/SMS serve as the first line of defense to drive new sales, direct mail slides in to guarantee that a shopper will see a “complete your order” reminder.

Driving Repeat Purchases with Direct Mail

From net-new revenue to repeat revenue and increasing LTV.

VKTRY Gear leverages direct mail for lifecycle marketing, once again complementing their year-round email/SMS strategy.

With direct mail, though, they remain able to reach virtually all past buyers, including customers who unsubscribed from email/SMS.

Evergreen (Automated) Winbacks

Winbacks with direct mail are a staple for a reason.

They work extremely well.

Direct mail postcard from VKTRY Performance Insoles featuring a baseball player mid-swing wearing a yellow uniform. Text reads ‘Come Back Today, John!’ and promotes premium insoles with a 20% off discount code. A VKTRY insole is shown alongside the athlete. — *4x6 postcard*

Which is why VKTRY Gear automates them to be triggered at numerous points (like any automated winback campaign in Klaviyo) post purchase. For instance, the postcard above is sent to multibuyers who last purchased 365 days ago—as soon as that threshold is crossed, we dynamically fire off a postcard.

It’s a no-brainer.

Holiday Winbacks (And Exploding BFCM Results)

One-off blasts do have a place, though.

Namely, over the holidays.

BFCM

Direct mail performs well across the board over BFCM, and so it is for VKTRY Gear.

That’s why between 2022 and 2024, the revenue they’ve driven with direct mail in November/December has more than quadrupled (!!!).

Direct mail postcard from VKTRY Performance Insoles promoting a seasonal offer. A basketball player in a yellow uniform is shown mid-air with a ball. Text highlights VKTRY insoles for $99, down from $149, with a promo code and QR code to shop online. — *4x6 postcard*

Over the years, the team has targeted dozens of segments, taking learnings from each holiday, and applied them to the next BFCM season—if some segments respond better to BFCM mail than others, they’re targeted the following year.

Direct mail has driven repeat purchases among a huge variety of buyer segments, including profitably reactivating one-time buyers who last purchased 2 years ago.

Back to School

As VKTRY Gear helps thousands of student athletes, back to school (BTS) is a key selling time—and once again, direct mail steps up.

VKTRY Gear began launching BTS winback campaigns with us last year, and they drove strong results.

Now, these are annual launches, just like with BFCM.

Results

“What’s great about how PostPilot maps this all out is that you can look at your control group and compare customers who did and did not receive the postcards, and say, “'Wow, there was a considerable lift among those who got the postcard.'” —Taylor

A considerable lift indeed. VKTRY Gear has seen strong incremental returns on their retargeting and their winback campaigns.

In their retargeting campaigns (driving net-new revenue):

Automated Abandoned Cart recovery: 5.84x iROAS (incremental ROAS)
Automated Abandoned Checkout recovery: 6.03x iROAS

In their winback campaigns (driving repeat revenue):

Automated winbacks: Up to 10.75x iROAS, depending on the segment
- E.g., The 365-day winback example drove a 10.1x iROAS
BFCM: Virtually all campaigns above 5x+ ROAS
Back to School: Up to 7.22x iROAS

Bottom line?

The bottom line is strong.

VKTRY Gear is ticking the boxes on a killer direct mail program, adding another substantial pillar to their marketing strategy, and supporting thousands more athletes every year.

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