Learn how AllSaints, Steve Madden, Represent Clothing, and Nadine Merabi use Attentive to build lasting customer relationships across SMS and email.
Fashion marketers don’t have the luxury of predictable purchase cycles.
Unlike beauty or grocery, there’s no replenishment reminder bringing customers back every few weeks. Every purchase has to earn its place—whether it’s inspired by a new collection, a back-in-stock alert, or the chance to shop a sale before everyone else.
That's why the strongest customer relationships in fashion are built between purchases, not just at the point of sale.
AllSaints, Steve Madden, Represent Clothing, and Nadine Merabi each approach that challenge differently. Some reward loyalty with early access. Others focus on relevance, timing, or recognizing when a customer is ready to buy. What they share is a messaging strategy that gives customers a reason to keep coming back, time and time again.
Here's how they're doing it.
1. AllSaints: Make the experience feel premium from the first interaction
For a premium fashion brand, every customer touchpoint shapes how the brand is perceived. That includes the moment someone signs up for marketing.
AllSaints wanted its sign-up experience to feel like a natural part of its website, rather than a generic pop-up added on top. The team used custom styling, tailored display rules, and even an embedded experience on the brand's newsletter page. They also gave shoppers a clear reason to choose SMS by offering 15% off, compared with 10% for email.
That attention to detail didn't stop after sign-up. As the program matured, AllSaints shifted away from broad campaigns and toward behavior-based segmentation. Triggered journeys like cart abandonment helped the brand reconnect with shoppers when there was a genuine reason to reach out—not simply because another campaign was scheduled.
As Louisa Maloney, Global CRM Manager at AllSaints, explains:
"With SMS, customers are giving you something personal. If they are sharing their mobile number, they want to hear from you, so the key is to make that communication feel relevant and worth it."
The results reflected that approach. Top campaigns achieved click-through rates of 24% and conversion rates of 33%, while automated journeys became some of the strongest performers in the program.
Results at a glance
- 45x total program ROI
- 955x ROI from the welcome journey
- 358x ROI from the cart abandonment journey
What you can take from this
The first message sets the tone for every one that follows. Create an experience that feels worth signing up for, then let customer behavior—not your campaign calendar—guide when and how you stay in touch.
2. Steve Madden: Make every message feel timely
Fashion changes quickly, and Steve Madden builds its messaging around that reality.
The brand uses location, seasonality, cultural moments, and product trends to decide what customers should hear about. For example, subscribers in New South Wales received invitations to a Sydney block party. Party-season campaigns featured statement heels, while bridal collections appeared when wedding season was top of mind. Campaigns jump on whatever's actually trending—raffia one month, animal print the next.
MMS carries a lot of that weight, especially when the inbox gets crowded.
As Jamie Kouktzelas, Marketing Manager at Steve Madden, explains:
"There's a lot of noise during big campaign periods. MMS helps us highlight what's unique about our offering and cut through."
The same thinking carries into the brand's lifecycle strategy. Cart, browse, and session abandonment journeys help reconnect with shoppers who have already shown intent, while AI Pro sharpened that further: with Identity AI, the team recognized returning subscribers whose cookies had expired and lifted abandonment revenue by 25%, and with Audiences AI they added high-intent subscribers to send lists automatically and drove 112%+ more revenue.
Results at a glance
- 20x total program ROI
- 38% of SMS subscribers have made two or more purchases
- 26% revenue increase with AI Pro
What you can take from this
Fashion moves fast, but that doesn't have to mean sending more campaigns. Look beyond purchase history. Local events, seasonal moments, trending products, and previous browsing behavior all create opportunities to send messages that feel more relevant. The more closely your messaging reflects what's happening in your customers' world, the more likely they are to engage.
3. Represent Clothing: Reward your best customers differently
Not every customer should receive the same message.
Represent Clothing uses Attentive's segmentation tools to tailor campaigns around customer behavior, purchase history, and loyalty, helping the team decide not just what to send, but who should receive it.
Loyalty data from LoyaltyLion adds another layer to that strategy. Subscribers are grouped into Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and VIP tiers, making it easy to reward loyal customers with early access to launches, sales, and points reminders.
Want to see how leading brands are rethinking loyalty and customer rewards? Read our report.
Interestingly, Represent puts just as much thought into who doesn't receive a message.
During Black Friday Cyber Monday, customers who had already made two or more purchases were excluded from a later Cyber Monday discount campaign. They'd already shown they were willing to buy, so there was little value in giving them another discount. Instead, the offer was reserved for customers who needed an extra reason to purchase. Even with a smaller audience, the campaign achieved an 18% conversion rate.
"The ability to refine segments based on customer behavior and purchase propensity—such as recent high-value customers to prevent oversaturation—allows us to send to smaller, more engaged lists. This has led to optimized channel spend, higher conversion rates, and better overall performance." — Niall Young O'Brien, CRM Manager, Represent Clothing
That same, tailored approach carries into the brand's lifecycle journeys. Cart abandonment, price drop, and post-purchase campaigns reconnect with shoppers based on what they've done, while the team uses AI Pro to identify likely buyers and optimize audience selection as the program grows.
Results at a glance
- 28x program ROI
- 2x subscriber growth in the first year
- 32% of SMS subscribers have made two or more purchases
What you can take from this
Exclusivity works when people can see how they earned it. A real loyalty structure behind your SMS access, paired with the discipline to leave people off a send when it protects the experience, is what turns early access into repeat business rather than a one-off gimmick.
4. Nadine Merabi: Turn customer signals into better experiences
From the moment someone signs up, Nadine Merabi looks for signals that reveal what they're interested in. Their two-way welcome journey asks new subscribers about their preferences, helping the team build richer customer profiles from day one.
That same thinking shapes campaigns throughout the customer lifecycle. Customers eagerly waiting for the Aria dress received an exclusive preorder email before the wider audience, achieving a 13.2% click-through rate and a 7.7% conversion rate—around four times the engagement of the broader campaign.
Shoppers who had viewed specific collections received tailored campaigns when those products went on sale, while visitors browsing New In were the first to hear when the Bouclé collection was restocked. Loyalty members also received early access to launches and sales because they'd earned it, with Black Friday early access driving a 33% click-through rate and a 24% conversion rate.
As Abigail Birch, CRM and Loyalty Manager at Nadine Merabi, explains:
"The more data and insights you gather, the better you understand your audience and refine your strategy."
By the time Nadine Merabi brought its email program onto Attentive, the team already had a clear understanding of what resonated with its customers. Rather than building a separate strategy for email, they extended the same approach that had worked so well in SMS—using customer interests, loyalty status, and shopping behavior to decide who received what, and when.
Results at a glance
- 77x total program ROI
- 21% revenue uplift with AI Pro
- 19% of SMS subscribers have made two or more purchases
What you can take from this
Every click, browse, and preference is a signal. Use those signals to decide who gets early access, who receives a waitlist launch, or who should hear about a product coming back in stock. The more your messaging reflects what customers have already told you, the more relevant it becomes.
Fashion is personal. Your marketing should be, too.
Fashion has always been about more than what people wear. The brands customers return to are often the ones that reflect their style, help them discover something new, or make them feel part of a community.
That's why the brands in this article invest so much in the moments between purchases. AllSaints makes the first interaction feel considered. Steve Madden keeps pace with what customers care about right now. Represent Clothing rewards loyalty in ways that feel earned. Nadine Merabi turns every customer signal into a more relevant experience across SMS and email. Different tactics, the same principle.
The more your marketing reflects what your customers have already told you—through what they browse, what they buy, and what they care about—the more likely they are to come back, season after season.
Want more inspiration?
Explore Texts We Love to see real campaigns from leading fashion and apparel brands using Attentive to engage customers throughout the shopping journey.
