The situation

Nespresso built an SMS program designed for repeat capsule demand, occasional machine pushes, and peak moments like BFCM, while keeping the brand voice elevated and the experience relevant for subscribers.

“We want it to feel premium, but also attainable, something the consumer can enjoy daily. Even when it’s promotional, we keep the language elevated.”
- Collette Lee, Sr Manager, DTC Marketing, Nespresso

The challenge

As the program scaled, Nespresso focused on:

• Growing subscribers through a wide variety of sign-up experiences
• Keeping engagement strong across ongoing promotions and launches
• Maintaining a premium, consistent voice while still delivering clear value
• Using targeting and suppression to keep messages aligned to a consumables purchase cycle

The solution and strategy

1) Always-on list growth, supported by event and campaign activations

Nespresso anchored acquisition with an always-on onsite sign-up incentive, then extended that core offer into dedicated experiences tied to key moments. Over time, the team built one of the most varied list growth ecosystems across campaigns, events, and partner activations, including:

• Boutique sweepstakes and giveaways, including machine and coffee bundle prizes
• A marquee partnership with The Weeknd, including boutique ticket giveaway moments in tour markets
• Teaser and waitlist-style sign-ups ahead of partnership announcements, designed to capture early interest
• Quarterly virtual tasting events, creating a natural reason to opt in, and driving meaningful sign-up volume per event
• Paid social sign-up campaigns, including placements across Meta

This approach keeps acquisition consistent while giving the team flexible “moment-based” levers to pull throughout the year.

2) AI and targeting, built into how the team sends

For a repeat purchase category, relevance and timing matter. Nespresso uses AI-powered capabilities to keep messaging aligned to customer behavior and maintain a clean subscriber experience as volume scales.

Audience’s AI purchaser suppression tool helps ensure customers who recently bought are not receiving new promotions too soon, which is especially important when customers often purchase coffee in larger quantities. The team has found it is beneficial to start with a broad audience, then suppress recent purchasers, which mirrors how they approach channel strategy more broadly.

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“We’d rather have a base that is active, engaged, and converting.”
- Collette Lee, Sr Manager, DTC Marketing, Nespresso

3) Cultural moments that turn launches into list growth and demand drivers

Nespresso uses SMS to support high-attention brand moments with dedicated sign-up paths and timely messaging. For example, the Nespresso | Samra Origins by The Weeknd moment paired a focused sign-up experience with launch messaging that reflected the creative and product detail, including the Samra Origins logo in Amharic.

These moments work well in SMS because subscribers actively raise their hand for early access and updates, which creates a high-intent audience when the launch goes live.

4) A promotional strategy built for repeat capsule demand

Capsules remain the core focus, with machine moments layered in strategically. The SMS program is built to sustain repeat engagement across frequent promotions and product drops, without relying on one-off spikes.

A key example is 12 Days of Deals, which Nespresso runs every year as:

• Six promotions, each live for two days, totaling 12 days
  
• A simple, repeatable framework where the team teases that “more is coming,” encouraging subscribers to keep checking back to see what the next gift or offer will be

During high-velocity promotional periods, Nespresso keeps the program focused by excluding subscribers who have not engaged in the last 180 days.

5) Premium voice that still feels approachable

Nespresso maintains an intentional tone across SMS, even when messaging promotions. The team leans into elevated framing like “exclusive offer” and “limited time offer,” and avoids language that feels overly salesy or gimmicky. This consistency helps subscribers experience SMS as an extension of the brand, across both launches and promotional moments.

6) Smarter targeting and suppression that respects purchase timing

Because coffee is a consumable, timing matters. Nespresso uses purchaser-based suppression to help ensure customers are not prompted to buy again too soon after a purchase. This keeps messaging aligned to replenishment behavior and supports a cleaner subscriber experience.

The team also suppresses unengaged subscribers (180 days), which helps keep sends focused on an active audience.

“We send to as much of the audience as possible for launches. Customers want to be first to know, they gave us their email and phone number for a reason.”
- Collette Lee, Sr Manager, DTC Marketing, Nespresso

7) BFCM execution built for momentum, with a repeatable second touch

BFCM is Nespresso’s highest peak moment, and the team plans both promos and communications around the fact that customers anticipate hearing from the brand more often during that period.

A core framework is a bookend approach:

• Start with a broad campaign message
• Follow with a targeted message a couple days later to subscribers who engaged but did not purchase, filtering out purchasers for that second touch

This second touchpoint helps the team re-engage interested subscribers who may have been distracted after the first message, and it became a consistent approach across the BFCM promotional calendar.

Results

• +32% YoY growth in net SMS subscribers (Feb 2025 to Feb 2026)
• +191% growth in net SMS subscribers since Jan 2024
• 19% click rate
• 0.84% opt-out rate
• 34% 0-day click conversion rate
• 0-day click attributed value split across messaging types: 
  
  • 63% from campaigns‍
  • 37% from automated messages