sales-retention

What this skill does

# Retention.com Platform Help

Helps the user with Retention.com questions — from identity resolution setup and list growth through abandonment recovery, retargeting activation, deliverability management, and compliance.

## Step 1 — Gather context


If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. **What do you need help with?**
   - A) Setup — installing tracking pixel, connecting integrations
   - B) Grow — email/SMS list growth from identified visitors
   - C) Reclaim — abandonment flow recovery
   - D) Deliverability — managing spam complaints from identified contacts
   - E) Compliance — CCPA, consent model, suppression
   - F) Evaluating — comparing Retention.com vs alternatives
   - G) Something else — describe it

2. **What's your ecommerce platform?**
   - A) Shopify
   - B) WooCommerce
   - C) BigCommerce
   - D) Custom / headless
   - E) Not ecommerce (publisher/subscriber model)

3. **What's your monthly website traffic?**
   - A) Under 50K unique visitors
   - B) 50K-150K
   - C) 150K-300K
   - D) 300K+ (custom pricing territory)

**If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step.** Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end.

## Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:
- B2B visitor identification → `/sales-rb2b`
- Email marketing strategy → `/sales-email-marketing`
- Email list growth strategy across tools → `/sales-audience-growth`
- Retargeting strategy across channels → `/sales-retargeting`
- Email deliverability across platforms → `/sales-deliverability`
- Contact enrichment strategy → `/sales-enrich`

Otherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge below.

## Step 3 — Retention.com platform reference

**Read `references/platform-guide.md`** for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.

*You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.*

## Step 4 — Actionable guidance

### Setting up Retention.com

| Step | What to do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Install pixel | Add JavaScript snippet to all pages | Required for visitor identification |
| 2. Upload suppression list | Your existing email list + unsubscribes | Prevents re-identifying known contacts |
| 3. Connect ESP | Link Klaviyo/Mailchimp/etc. | Identified contacts flow directly to your email tool |
| 4. Set up Reclaim flows | Create abandonment sequences for identified visitors | This is where the immediate revenue comes from |
| 5. Configure Grow | Set up list growth campaigns | Longer-term value — builds your email list |
| 6. Monitor deliverability | Watch spam complaint rates closely for first 30 days | Identified contacts generate higher complaints than organic |

### Managing deliverability risk

This is the #1 challenge with Retention.com. Identified contacts didn't opt in, so spam complaints are higher than organic lists.

1. **Separate sending domain**: Use a subdomain (e.g., mail.yourbrand.com) for Retention.com contacts to protect your main domain reputation
2. **Warm up slowly**: Start with small batches (1,000-5,000/day) and ramp up over 2-4 weeks
3. **Segment aggressively**: Only email identified contacts who showed high intent (cart abandoners, repeat visitors, product page viewers)
4. **Monitor complaint rates**: Keep under 0.1% (Google threshold). Retention.com contacts often push 0.15-0.20% if not managed carefully
5. **Sunset non-engagers fast**: Remove contacts who don't open after 2-3 sends — much faster than your organic list cadence
6. **Use Reclaim first, Grow second**: Reclaim (abandonment) contacts are higher intent and engage better. Prove ROI there before scaling Grow.

### Evaluating ROI

Calculate whether Retention.com pays for itself:

1. **Monthly cost**: $500-$2,500/mo depending on traffic
2. **Expected identifications**: Monthly visitors × 15-25% realistic match rate
3. **Reclaim revenue**: Identified abandoners × abandonment flow conversion rate × AOV
4. **Grow revenue**: New list subscribers × email revenue per subscriber per month
5. **Subtract**: Deliverability cost (any reputation damage, dedicated IP, etc.)
6. **Benchmark**: Top case studies report 5-53x ROI, but median is likely 2-5x

## Gotchas

*Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.*

- **Annual contracts with no free trial.** You're committing $6,000-$30,000/year before seeing results. Push hard for a pilot period or ask about the a la carte option ($300/mo) to test one product first.
- **Match rates are likely lower than claimed.** Retention.com claims ~35% identification, but independent reports show 16-25%. Budget and forecast using the conservative number.
- **Deliverability risk is real.** Identified contacts generate 2-3x higher spam complaint rates than organic subscribers. One case study reported 0.18% — nearly double the 0.1% safe threshold for Google. Use a separate sending domain.
- **Grow contacts engage poorly.** "Grow" contacts (general list building) have ~3% CTR vs ~12% for opted-in subscribers. Reclaim (abandonment) contacts perform much better — start there.
- **Implicit consent model is legally gray.** CAN-SPAM allows unsolicited commercial email with opt-out, but consumer perception differs from legal permission. Expect some brand reputation risk.
- **Not usable for EU/UK traffic.** GDPR requires explicit consent. Retention.com's identity resolution only works for US visitors and is only legally safe under US law.
- **API is extremely limited.** 5 requests/day, primarily for suppression uploads. All real operations happen through integrations or the dashboard.
- **Same founder as RB2B.** Adam Robinson runs both. If you're B2B, RB2B is the right product. Retention.com is specifically for B2C ecommerce/DTC.

- **Self-improving**: If you discover something not covered here, append it to `references/learnings.md` with today's date.

## Related skills

- `/sales-rb2b` — RB2B platform help (B2B person-level visitor identification — same founder)
- `/sales-customersai` — Customers.ai platform help (competitor — Shopify + Klaviyo identity resolution with Inboxer deliverability suite and Alfred AI intent scoring)
- `/sales-audience-growth` — Email list growth strategy across tools
- `/sales-email-marketing` — Email marketing strategy for opt-in subscribers
- `/sales-retargeting` — Retargeting and remarketing strategy across channels
- `/sales-deliverability` — Email deliverability (critical when using identified contacts)
- `/sales-klaviyo` — Klaviyo platform help (most common ESP pairing with Retention.com)
- `/sales-omnisend` — Omnisend platform help (alternative ESP for ecommerce)
- `/sales-do` — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install:
  `npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do`

## Examples

### Example 1: Set up Retention.com for a Shopify DTC brand
**User says**: "I run a Shopify store doing 100K monthly visitors and want to try Retention.com for abandoned cart recovery"
**Skill does**:
1. Estimates realistic match rate (15-25K identified visitors/month at 15-25%)
2. Recommends starting with Reclaim (abandonment recovery) before Grow
3. Walks through pixel installation on Shopify and Klaviyo integration
4. Sets up deliverability protection: separate subdomain, slow warmup, aggressive segmentation
5. Calculates expected ROI based on their AOV and abandonment rate
**Result**: Retention.com configured with realistic expectations and deliverability safeguards

### Example 2: Compare Retention.com vs RB2B
**User says**: "My co-founder uses RB2B for our SaaS — should I also use Retention.com for our ecommerce side project?"
**Skill does**:
1. Clarifies that Retention.com (B2C/ecommerce) and