How Clove Built a 97x ROI Lifecycle Marketing Engine Across SMS, Email, and AI With Attentive

Building a lifecycle program around customer intent

For Clove, SMS and email each play a distinct role in the customer journey.

The brand does not treat the two channels as interchangeable. Email gives Clove space for education, storytelling, product detail, and broader lifecycle engagement. SMS is reserved for moments where immediacy matters most, like a product drop, sale, clear incentive, or timely reminder customers can act on quickly.

That discipline shapes how Clove thinks about lifecycle marketing across the entire funnel. SMS supports acquisition, retention, winback, and high-intent customer moments, while email gives the team another layer of reach and flexibility for deeper engagement.

The result is a lifecycle program that is both broad and deliberate. Clove can reach customers across multiple stages of the journey without treating every message, moment, or channel the same way.

Bringing SMS and email together in one place

Clove was an early adopter of Attentive Email, moving onto the product when it was still relatively new.

Before consolidating email on Attentive, Clove ran a head-to-head test against Klaviyo for automated journeys. The goal was simple: understand whether Attentive could match more customer events, trigger more timely messages, and drive stronger journey performance.

The results gave Clove the confidence to bring SMS and email into one platform.

“Attentive beat the Klaviyo journey counterparts across the board in all of the journeys we tested. We made the switch and never looked back.”
- Nick Sanetra, Director of Marketing, Clove

The shift also simplified Clove’s day-to-day workflow. With SMS and email under one roof, the team can manage timing, segmentation, triggers, and performance without bouncing between systems or manually cross-checking how one channel should influence the next.

That foundation made it easier for Clove to build a connected lifecycle strategy, where SMS, email, AI, segmentation, and triggered messaging all work together.

Using AI Pro to make every message work harder

Clove uses AI Pro across Audiences AI, Identity AI, and Send Time AI to improve audience reach, message timing, and triggered journey performance.

Across all AI Pro features and channels, Clove drove an 11% revenue lift above baseline.

Audiences AI expands reach without watering down relevance

Clove uses Audiences AI to reach more high-potential subscribers while still protecting message relevance. That balance matters for a brand that is selective about when, why, and how often it reaches customers.

With Audiences AI, Clove can expand campaign reach while keeping performance tied to customer intent.

Audiences AI for SMS

• 14% revenue lift from inclusion campaigns
• 35% more sends from AI-expanded audiences vs. the baseline audience
• 31% adoption rate across eligible segmented campaigns
• Average 6% send suppression per campaign cycle through exclusions, helping protect list health and reduce send costs

Audiences AI for Email

• 26% revenue lift from inclusion campaigns
• 13% more sends from AI-expanded audiences vs. the baseline audience
• 27% adoption rate across eligible segmented campaigns

For Clove, the value is not simply reaching more people. It is reaching more of the right people while keeping campaigns intentional.

‍Identity AI turns more behavior into timely triggered messages

Identity AI helps Clove recognize more high-intent shoppers and activate customer behavior that might otherwise go unmessaged.

In SMS abandon journeys, Identity AI drove a 16% revenue lift compared to non-AI abandon flows, with 25% more incremental abandoners identified and messaged. Product View journeys saw especially strong performance, driving a 23% revenue lift.

In email abandon journeys, Identity AI drove a 12% revenue lift compared to non-AI abandon flows, with 18% more incremental abandoners identified and messaged.

That recognition matters. The more accurately Clove can identify shoppers who are browsing, viewing products, or returning with intent, the more opportunities the brand has to send messages that feel timely, relevant, and useful.

Identity AI also supported Clove’s welcome journeys, driving an 8% revenue lift for SMS and a 7% revenue lift for email through AI-augmented welcome sends.

Send Time AI matches timing to each customer

Clove uses Send Time AI when campaign timing has room to flex. For fixed product drops, the team still sends at a specific time so messages align with the live shopping experience. But when timing does not need to be locked, Send Time AI helps Clove test a smarter approach to campaign timing.

Across SMS and email, 81% of Send Time AI tests showed a winning result on CTR or UI CVR.

“Send Time AI just logically makes sense. A one-size-fits-all approach is not really the same thing as understanding the right time for each individual person.”
- Nick Sanetra, Director of Marketing, Clove

By using AI Pro across audience expansion, identity, and send-time optimization, Clove can improve more than one piece of the lifecycle program at a time. The brand can reach more high-intent customers, recognize more onsite behavior, and time messages around individual engagement patterns.

Growing Clove’s owned audience with AI Grow

Clove brings a test-and-learn mindset to subscriber acquisition.

The brand has consistently tested signup units, experimenting with incentive, creative, format, and user experience. AI Grow added another layer to that strategy by personalizing signup experiences for each shopper.

For Clove, AI Grow helped answer a practical question: could a more personalized signup experience grow the list without creating unnecessary friction for shoppers?

Clove’s latest AI Grow test showed the impact, driving a 19% incremental lift in both SMS and email subscribers, a 48% increase in welcome UI revenue across SMS + Email, and a 45% increase in welcome UI conversions across SMS + Email.

The test also reached statistical significance for subscriber lift.

Just as importantly, AI Grow helped Clove grow its owned audience without relying on heavy pop-up exposure. In the latest AI Grow cohort, 83% of full-screen impressions were limited to one or fewer impressions.

“Based on the stats, AI Grow isn’t hurting conversion rate. It’s helping the signup rate, and since we flipped it back on, the signup unit has been on the rise again.”
- Nick Sanetra, Director of Marketing, Clove

The results showed stronger subscriber growth, stronger welcome conversion outcomes, and a better-performing entry point into the customer lifecycle.

Keeping messages selective, intentional, and high-performing

“At the highest level, it is really: who does it make the most sense to send this message to? We want to balance the cost and opportunity cost of sending a message with its expected impact.”
- Nick Sanetra, Director of Marketing, Clove

That question guides Clove’s SMS strategy. Because SMS subscribers are especially valuable, the brand is careful about both the types of messages it sends and the audiences those messages reach.

SMS is typically reserved for clear action moments: new products, launches, promotions, savings, and other timely buying opportunities. The team is more selective with softer brand storytelling or educational content on SMS because those messages do not always match what subscribers expect from the channel.

Segmentation also helps Clove support its growing retail presence. When a retail store opens in a specific city, Clove can send email and SMS campaigns to subscribers within a relevant radius, giving the location an extra push with a local audience.

The same logic applies to niche or low-inventory products. Rather than sending every message to the full list, Clove can tailor outreach to customers who have shown interest in a specific product type or category.

That selective approach has helped Clove’s SMS program drive strong performance across both journeys and campaigns.

SMS journeys have been a standout, driving a 97x overall ROI, while. Clove signup flow performed especially well, driving a 218x ROI.

Campaigns also performed well at scale, driving a 16x overall ROI and 13x ROI on 0-day click attribution.

Making triggered journeys a major performance driver

Triggered journeys are one of Clove’s strongest use cases for Attentive.

That journey-first mindset started with the brand’s email migration, when Clove tested Attentive against Klaviyo and found stronger performance across the tested flows. Since then, journeys have remained a core driver of lifecycle performance.

Clove now uses triggered journeys to respond to high-intent customer behavior, while campaigns create broader moments around product and promotional strategy. Together, the two motions give Clove a balanced email program that drives performance.

Clove has also adopted AI Journeys, using customer behavior to determine the next best message, timing, and path for each shopper. The result is a triggered messaging strategy that can move beyond fixed rules and adapt based on how customers engage.

Connecting loyalty, reviews, and post-purchase touchpoints

Clove’s Attentive program also connects with key partners across loyalty, reviews, and returns.

Through Yotpo, Clove supports rewards-related SMS signup and loyalty journeys. The program has been a consistent performer for reviews and loyalty, helping connect owned-channel growth with customer retention.

Clove also uses Loop-related journeys, including return expiring and exchange out of stock messages. These operational journeys help make post-purchase communication more seamless, giving customers timely updates when they need them most.

Together, these integrations help Clove use Attentive as more than a campaign channel. They help connect acquisition, loyalty, lifecycle messaging, and post-purchase touchpoints in one customer experience.

A culture of testing, backed by the right partner

Clove’s growth strategy is rooted in testing.

The brand has experimented across signup units, incentives, creative, segmentation, AI-powered audience expansion, Send Time AI, AI Grow, AI Journeys, integrations, and emerging channels like RCS.

That willingness to test has helped Clove keep improving without losing control of the customer experience. Each new capability gives the team another way to learn what works, refine the strategy, and apply those insights across the lifecycle.

Clove’s approach also reflects a broader belief about marketing technology: new tools are only valuable when they solve a real customer or business need. With Attentive, Clove can test emerging capabilities in a way that feels practical, supported, and tied to measurable outcomes.

For Clove, Attentive’s value comes from both the platform and the team behind it.

“The white-glove service was really what sold us when we were evaluating SMS platforms. The service has been unmatched, but there is also really good product behind it. The white-glove service is the icing on the cake.”
- Nick Sanetra, Director of Marketing, Clove

Turning every message into a more intentional customer moment

Clove’s lifecycle marketing strategy reflects the same care behind its brand. The team knows its customers are busy, discerning, and often on their feet through long, demanding shifts. Every message has to earn its place.

With Attentive, Clove can grow its owned audience, recognize more high-intent shoppers, coordinate SMS and email, and use AI to improve the moments that matter most.

As Clove continues expanding its product assortment, retail footprint, and customer community, Attentive gives the brand a platform built for the way it already works: deliberate, data-minded, and always testing for a smarter way to connect.