For a company that makes people happy with cards every day, there is no better way to reactivate customers than with a surprising postcard. The goal was therefore clear for the first joint pilot: how can we entice customers who have not shown any activity in any way for more than 6 months to send cards again via Kaartje2go.

‘If you still don't see any activity from those customers after an extensive reactivation campaign via email, then you know that you will eventually lose them. You will have to stop emailing them so that you can maintain good email deliverability’, says email marketer May Eikelboom from Kaartje2go.

A shame, of course. For that reason, another solution was considered. It came in the form of a first pilot: a card campaign to 5,000 sleeping customers of Kaartje2go.

For those first 5,000 sleeping customers, a segment was built in Deployteq. That is also the system from which Kaartje2go emails customers. Those customers must meet a number of conditions:

• No order placed in the past 6 months;

• Have not visited our website in the past 6 months;

• Open rate is 0% over the last 6 months;

• Placed more than 4 orders in total.

‘The next step was to get this data into Print.one. ‘That was super easy. I used the HTTP request object in Deployteq for this. As an email marketer, you have all the skills you need to set up such an automated campaign with cards’, says May.

The marketing automation platform Deployteq is at the heart of Kaartje2go’s marketing technology stack. From there, not only emails but also cards are sent automatically.

Every week, a segment is automatically created in Deployteq with customers who meet the above criteria. May no longer needs to pay attention to this. Using the HTTP object, data is exchanged securely with Print.one via an API connection. This is done in a JSON structure, which includes the recipient’s first and last name, discount code, and address details. The discount code is directly applied to the shopping cart via a QR code, so the customer doesn’t need to enter it manually. This is crucial for achieving high conversion rates.

Setting up this integration is a breeze, and as May puts it: “As an email or CRM marketer, you’ll definitely be able to handle this and already have all the skills you need.”

‘We immediately approached the campaign as an A/B test. Two card designs were sent out, namely one with a frog and one with a flower.’ There was also some variation in the message. ‘On the front of the card with a flower it said ‘Lots of love for you’. Foppe (CEO and co-founder of Print.one) wanted to take on the challenge and chose the frog card with the text ‘We miss you’. We were of course very curious how the campaign would perform, but secretly also which card would achieve better results.’ More on that later…

When assessing the results, it is not only important how you do this, but also when you do this. In this digital age, we have become accustomed to direct results, but this campaign once again underlined that a card lingers longer and its effect must therefore be measured somewhat later.

May: ‘With the shipping method we chose, the cards are delivered within 7 days. The first redemptions of the promotional code took place after 8 days. Most conversions took place within the first 30 days (69.5% of all conversions), with the biggest jump being made between 14 and 30 days. In the graph below you will find the course of the incoming conversions.

The good news: the campaign paid for itself with an ROI of 97%. We can state that at this moment. But as enthusiastic as we were, after sending the first cards, we looked a little too quickly at the first turnover that came in via the promotional code. That gave this picture:

• Initial turnover from promotional code € 2680.72

• Campaign costs: € 3800.70 (excluding VAT)

So at first glance, the campaign seemed not to be able to work… Was the pilot not successful? We would almost conclude that, but let's not lose sight of the goal of this campaign: reactivating customers. So what about follow-up orders?

We soon saw that 44.6% of the customers who used the promotional code also placed repeat orders afterwards. The turnover this generated: €4811 (measured on January 22, 2025)

Together with the initial orders, this resulted in an extra turnover of €7491.72. This means that for every euro invested, €1.97 is returned.

This effect continues to work, incidentally, because repeat purchases continue to come in. The codes were redeemed up to the time of writing (130 days after shipment). That makes such a reactivation campaign ‘the gift that keeps on giving’.

A positive ROI turned out not to be the only profit made with the campaign. ‘We also saw that more than 50% of the customers who had redeemed the promotional code responded to emails again, and that the open rate increased as a result’, says May. As an email marketer, that's nice to see, of course.

‘We have been able to demonstrate that the campaign in collaboration with Print.one is a success. After this first pilot, we continued the automated campaign. We continue to use the frog and flower alternately, we won't change that for the time being.

What we will be testing is the segment and the offer. We are going to run a test where we include customers who normally only order something once a year, to see if we can increase their order frequency. We also want to see if offering a free postage stamp leads to comparable or better results.

When asked which card truly won, May laughs. “Both—but it depends on what you’re looking at. The flower card outperformed the frog card in terms of initial revenue (from the promo code), number of cards sold, and average number of cards per order. However, the frog card led to a higher percentage of repeat purchases and total revenue (promo code revenue plus repeat purchases).” May adds, “An important factor, though, is the shipping timing of the flower and frog cards.”

So we’re happily moving forward, and the final battle hasn’t been decided yet…