Greg Herburger

Building a smart ecommerce lifecycle system around customer behavior

At a multi-brand ecommerce business, I designed a structured lifecycle program across acquisition, purchase, retention, reactivation, and reporting.

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Industry
Multi-brand B2B ecommerce
Solutions
In-house work: lifecycle and CRM build
Focus
  • Segmentation
  • Automation
  • Integrations
  • Data Management
  • Reporting
Deliverables
  • Email Flows
  • Campaign Calendar
  • Reporting
  • Journey Map
  • Segmentation
  • Documentation
  • Template Design

My Role and Scope

In an in-house role, I designed the customer segments and automation logic, connected customer and ecommerce data to the ESP, built email templates and journeys, and organized campaign planning and performance reporting. The deliverables included a journey map, campaign calendar, reusable templates, and operating documentation.

The Starting Point

Email activity existed, but the customer journey was not managed as one system.

Customer records, ecommerce behavior, scheduled campaigns, and triggered messaging were not consistently organized around lifecycle stage. Batch campaigns carried most of the workload, segmentation was limited, and reporting did not clearly separate automated flows from scheduled sends.

Limited Segmentation

Product interest, purchase history, customer value, and inactivity were not consistently reflected in campaign eligibility.

Disconnected Journeys

Lead capture, cart recovery, post-purchase, cross-sell, and reactivation were managed as separate activities.

Incomplete Reporting

The team could see send-level performance, but not one lifecycle revenue view across flows and campaigns.

The System Built

A governed lifecycle model connected data capture, automation, campaigns, and reporting.

The work established clear audiences, lifecycle stages, trigger logic, campaign rules, suppression logic, ownership, QA, and measurement.

ESP Data Integration

Connected customer, product, order, and behavioral data to the ESP so segments and automations could use consistent inputs.

Segmentation

Defined prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, VIP, and lapsed audiences using customer and behavioral data.

Automation Flows

Built lead capture, welcome, browse recovery, cart recovery, post-purchase, cross-sell, replenishment, and winback journeys.

Email Templates

Built reusable email templates for campaigns and automated journeys with consistent structure, styling, and content modules.

Campaign Calendar

Coordinated product lines, audiences, promotions, lifecycle support, owners, and send dates.

Email Performance Dashboard

Created a shared view of campaign and flow performance across engagement, conversion, and attributed revenue metrics.

What I Delivered

I connected behavior-based journeys with reusable email templates, a shared campaign calendar, and reporting that separates automated flows from scheduled campaigns. The calendar preview above recreates the planning structure with representative data.

Behavior-Based Journeys

Welcome, browse and cart recovery, post-purchase, cross-sell, replenishment, and winback flows use customer and order signals.

Campaign Calendar and Templates

A shared calendar records audiences, promotions, owners, and send dates alongside reusable email templates.

Flow and Campaign Reporting

Separate views of automated journeys and scheduled sends support review of engagement, conversion, and attributed revenue.

The Impact

Lifecycle moved from a send calendar to an intentional, personalized, smart customer messaging system.

Each message ties to an audience, trigger, owner, suppression rule, and metric. Triggered journeys and scheduled campaigns work from the same customer model, and reporting separates flow performance from campaign performance.

Clear Customer States

Audience movement is based on behavior, purchase history, value, and inactivity.

Connected Execution

Automation, promotional sends, transactional messaging, and campaign planning operate from one model.

Visible Revenue Contribution

The team can compare flow revenue, campaign revenue, repeat purchase, and list growth in one view.

Defined Ownership

Triggers, exclusions, QA, launch status, and reporting responsibilities are documented.

Need lifecycle work that connects the journey, the calendar, and the reporting?

I can build the audiences, automation logic, campaign operations, and measurement around the tools already in place.

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Project type
Lifecycle and CRM
Systems
Ecommerce platform, ESP, CRM, analytics
Needed outcome
Connected customer journeys and revenue reporting