Executive Brief for Commercial and Marketing Leaders

A heritage footwear brand (Client Partner) operating in the premium segment partnered with us to shift from campaign-based performance tracking to a full customer lifetime value (CLV) growth model. By restructuring raw transaction data into cohort, residual value, and RFM intelligence, our Client Partner unlocked clear visibility on revenue concentration, retention gaps, and long-term value creation, informing strategic decisions across acquisition, CRM, and investment allocation.

About Our Client Partner: A Premium Footwear Brand Scaling Through Data-Driven Growth

Our Client Partner is a premium European footwear brand rooted in craftsmanship, design innovation, and multigenerational entrepreneurial leadership. Known for combining traditional shoemaking expertise with contemporary aesthetics, the company has built a loyal customer base across Europe while maintaining strong brand equity in a competitive fashion landscape.

With a growing DTC footprint and expanding digital revenue streams, the leadership team recognized that sustainable growth would require sharper insight into customer economics, not just topline revenue. The ambition was to elevate customer data from reporting to a strategic decision-making asset.

The Growth Challenge: Balancing Customer Acquisition and Retention Profitability

The brand’s commercial performance showed resilience, including a peak revenue year of €7.5M and recent annual revenue close to that level. Orders remained strong, with nearly 26,000 annual transactions in recent years.

However, deeper analysis surfaced structural challenges:

· 62.5% of customers made only one purchase  

· The typical gap between first and second purchase was 258 days  

· A significant portion of the database was categorized as churned (>365 days inactive)  

· Roughly 45% of customers generated 80% of revenue, indicating moderate revenue concentration  

Acquisition remained strong, with an average new customer rate of approximately 48%, but the business was not consistently converting first-time buyers into repeat, high-value customers.

The core question for leadership became:

How do we protect acquisition momentum while structurally improving retention and long-term customer value?

Our Approach: Transforming Nine Years of Data into a CLV Growth Strategy

We transformed nine years of transaction data into a comprehensive CLV framework. The objective was not to produce dashboards, but to deliver commercially actionable intelligence.

1. Cohort-Based CLV Tracking

We analyzed 12-month and 24-month customer lifetime value by acquisition year.

· Median 12-month CLV remained relatively stable

· Earlier cohorts delivered stronger long-term value  

· Newer cohorts showed lower 24-month medians  

· Mean cohort lift from 12 to 24 months stood at 17.7%  

This provided management with a clear view of value acceleration beyond year one and highlighted the importance of structured second-year engagement strategies.

2. Residual CLV: Measuring True Repeat Value

Residual CLV isolated revenue generated after the first purchase.

· 62.5% of customers showed €0 residual value, confirming a structural one-time buyer issue  

· 7.8% of customers generated over €1,000 in repeat value  

· High-value customers derived the majority of their total value from repeat purchases  

For leadership, this reframed retention from a CRM initiative to a core profitability driver. Repeat behavior was not incremental upside; it defined long-term value creation.

3. Revenue Concentration & Customer Quality

Average revenue per customer stood at €553.

RFM segmentation identified “Champions” averaging €1,175 CLV and “Big Spenders” averaging €823.

At the same time, correlation between AOV and residual CLV was modest (0.145), indicating that frequency and retention mechanics were stronger growth levers than basket size optimization alone.

This insight redirected strategic focus from promotional AOV inflation toward lifecycle activation and structured loyalty investment.

4. Lifecycle Diagnostics

Lifecycle mapping revealed a large inactive segment (>365 days) and a repeat purchase interval exceeding eight months on average.

For a premium footwear brand with seasonal buying cycles, this identified a clear opportunity: compress the time to second purchase and proactively intervene before customers transition into churn status.

The CMO Action Agenda: Converting CLV Insight into Margin Expansion

The transformation from order-level reporting to CLV intelligence delivered three strategic shifts for our Client Partner’s executive team:

1. Redefine Acquisition KPIs Around Long-Term Value

New customers represented ~40% of revenue in recent years, but cohort analysis clarified which acquisition years delivered durable value. Media and channel investments can now be evaluated on long-term contribution, not first-order ROAS alone.

Proposed actions for CMO:

· Introduce cohort-based ROAS reporting into media governance.

· Evaluate channels on 12- and 24-month contribution, not first-order return.

· Shift investment toward sources delivering higher residual CLV.

This aligns performance marketing with enterprise value creation rather than short-term revenue targets.

2. Build a Structured Second-Purchase Strategy

With 17.7% average CLV acceleration from 12 to 24 months, improving second-year engagement directly enhances profitability. The leadership team can now quantify the financial upside of CRM, loyalty programs, and reactivation campaigns in board-ready terms. In more detail:

· Design a 90–180 day post-purchase activation journey.

· Deploy predictive triggers before customers transition into “At Risk” status.

· Align paid media retargeting with CRM lifecycle stages.

Compressing time to second purchase will have direct impact on margin and lifetime value.

3. Prioritize High-Value Segments with Executive Sponsorship

Revenue concentration is meaningful but not extreme, providing room to scale high-value segments without overexposure risk. Champions and Big Spenders can be strategically nurtured, while structured programs address the one-time buyer majority. To be more specific:

· Introduce tiered loyalty architecture for top-value customers.

· Provide early access to collections and limited editions.

· Create executive-level oversight on VIP retention metrics.

Protecting this segment safeguards predictable revenue streams.

Strategic Growth Priorities for Executive Leadership

Our Client Partner now operates with a forward-looking customer value framework rather than backward-looking revenue summaries.

The business has clarity on:

· Where value is created

· When value is lost

· Which segments justify disproportionate investment

· How retention translates into financial performance

For leadership teams navigating margin pressure, competitive acquisition markets, and evolving consumer behavior, this shift represents more than improved reporting. It establishes customer lifetime value as a central pillar of commercial governance.

And that is where sustainable, capital-efficient growth begins.

Executive Takeaway

For our Client Partner’s CMO, this analysis establishes three priorities:

1. Acquire customers who compound in value.

2. Engineer repeat behavior earlier in the lifecycle.

3. Protect and scale high-value segments with intent.

Customer lifetime value is no longer a reporting metric but a strategic operating system that connects marketing investment to long-term financial performance.

---

Need some help integrating CLV bidding in your paid media campaigns? Reach out to us.

Relevant insights

· Case study: Lands’ End Blends CLV With Google Smart Bidding

· Article: Aiming for high ROAS won’t help. Why?

· Video: How Can Predictive CLV Improve Bidding Strategies in Paid Search?

About Crealytics

Crealytics is an award-winning full-funnel digital marketing agency fueling the profitable growth of over 100 well-known B2C and B2B businesses, including ASOS, The Hut Group, Staples and Urban Outfitters. A global company with an inclusive team of 100+ international employees, we operate from our hubs in Berlin, New York, Chicago, London, and Mumbai.