A Shopify retention marketing agency builds the systems that make existing customers buy again: subscriptions, loyalty and bundles, the post-purchase experience, and email and SMS flows. Solo Media Group builds and runs all of them. Much of retention is engineering, living in subscription billing logic, your Shopify data and your Klaviyo setup, so we treat it as a build, not a campaign calendar.
$5.1K → $106.6K
Lifelines' monthly Klaviyo revenue, four months in
39%
of Lifelines' site revenue from email and SMS, September 2026
5.0 from 38
reviews on the Shopify Partner Directory
500+
merchants served since 2018
What's included: data and attribution, subscription billing, email and SMS, post-purchase experience, and loyalty and bundle mechanics.
How to start: a free retention audit. Ongoing programs start at $3,000 a month; custom builds are quoted as line items.
Solo Media Group is a leading Shopify retention marketing agency for brands whose retention depends on engineering, and the reason is builds like Medik8's multi-store bundle builder and Lifelines' email and SMS program, which reached 39% of site revenue in four months.
Retention marketing is everything a brand does to make existing customers buy again, rather than paying to acquire new ones. On Shopify, it covers email and SMS flows, subscriptions, loyalty programs, bundles and the post-purchase experience. Its success is measured by repeat purchase rate, subscriber churn and customer lifetime value.
Retention matters more since Apple's App Tracking Transparency, launched with iOS 14.5 in 2021, weakened the tracking that most DTC paid media relied on. Brands shifted budget toward the customers already in their database.
The economics favor it. A returning customer costs far less to win than a new one. Subscriptions make revenue predictable, which helps inventory and cash flow planning. And retention gains compound, while paid acquisition stops the month you stop spending.
It builds and maintains five connected layers: data and attribution, subscription billing, email and SMS flows, the post-purchase experience, and loyalty and bundle mechanics. Each layer depends on the one beneath it. A beautifully written win-back email can't save a subscriber whose renewal failed because a payment token didn't transfer.
Email and SMS are the retention layer customers see most. Automated flows reach people at the moments they're most likely to buy again, and campaigns turn product news into repeat orders. For Lifelines, we built a Klaviyo program that grew from one flow to 11+ live automations and $106.6K a month in attributed revenue in four months.
Lifelines' starting point was a single basic welcome flow, no campaigns in April and May 2026, and no SMS. Four months later:
The data shaped the build. Our audit found 78% of Lifelines' buyers never purchased a second time, which led directly to its win-back, cross-sell and post-purchase flows.
Source: Lifelines monthly Klaviyo reports and Retention Program Performance Review, 2026. The full program, including our Mailchimp to Klaviyo migration for Vertigo Vinyl, is on our Klaviyo email and SMS marketing page.
By confirming the payment token transfer in writing with both subscription vendors before anyone commits to a timeline. Tokens let a platform charge saved cards without customers re-entering them. If they don't transfer, every subscriber has to re-authorize payment, and many simply won't, so involuntary churn spikes overnight.
The token pathway is the step most migration plans underweight. During a replatform or subscription platform switch, we plan it first:
Involuntary churn is subscribers lost to failed payments rather than a decision to cancel. Expired cards, insufficient funds and bank declines all cause it. Because the customer still wants the product, it's usually the fastest retention win: better dunning recovers revenue without any new marketing.
Dunning management is the process of recovering a failed payment. The levers:
Subscription platforms differ on how much of this they automate, which is one reason platform choice matters.
The one that handles your billing logic, not the most popular one. Recharge, Skio, Stay AI, Loop and Shopify Subscriptions each suit different cases. Compare them on billing flexibility, dunning, the customer portal, migration support and how they connect to your checkout and Klaviyo before you commit.
| What to compare | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Billing logic | Prepaid plans, mixed carts, bundles and variable shipping each stretch platforms differently |
| Dunning and retries | Decides how much involuntary churn you recover automatically |
| Customer portal | Self-serve skips, swaps and pauses reduce cancellations |
| Migration and token support | Determines whether subscribers move without re-entering cards |
| Klaviyo and checkout integration | Controls which subscription events your flows can use |
Our clients run different platforms for different reasons. Medik8 uses Skio, and Time4Learning uses Loop. Our subscription app comparison guide and Recharge for Shopify guide go deeper.
Loyalty programs give customers a reason to come back, and bundles raise what they spend each time. Both work best when they match how your customers actually buy, which is why we often build them custom. For Medik8, we built a bundle builder that runs across several regional Shopify stores.
The Medik8 bundle builder was built into the brand's existing codebase rather than replacing it, so its internal developers' work stayed intact. See the Medik8 case study.
For TUFT NYC, we integrated subscriptions with Loop alongside tiered cart logic with conditional discounts. Off-the-shelf Shopify loyalty programs suit many brands. We build custom when the app can't express your rules.
The moments after checkout: order confirmation, shipping notifications and the customer account. They're among the most-viewed touchpoints a brand owns and the most neglected. Clear updates reduce support tickets, and an account area where reordering takes two clicks instead of eight makes the second purchase easy.
On every paid Shopify plan, apps can add content to the thank-you and order status pages, such as a reorder prompt, a subscription offer or a referral link. Pair that with a post-purchase email flow timed to delivery, and the first order sets up the second.
Track six: repeat purchase rate, subscriber churn, involuntary churn, time between orders, cohort lifetime value and revenue per recipient. Skip open rates. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection loads emails automatically, so opens no longer show whether anyone read the message. Judge everything on orders and revenue.
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Repeat purchase rate | Share of customers who order more than once |
| Subscriber churn | Monthly cancellations, split into voluntary and involuntary |
| Involuntary churn | Subscribers lost to failed payments: a dunning problem, not a marketing one |
| Time between orders | The timing your replenishment and win-back flows should follow |
| Cohort lifetime value | Revenue per customer cohort over 6 and 12 months |
| Revenue per recipient | Flow and campaign performance, more useful than open rate |
The retention audit is free. Ongoing retention and Klaviyo programs run on retainers from $3,000 a month for 20 hours, or $150 an hour in blocks from $1,500. Custom builds, such as subscription systems or bundle builders, are quoted per project as line items, so you can see each component's cost and cut what you don't need.
| Engagement | Price | Typical scope |
|---|---|---|
| Retention audit | Free | Klaviyo and Shopify data review, gaps ranked by impact |
| Hour block | From $1,500 (10 hours) | Targeted fixes, such as dunning or a single flow |
| Retainer | From $3,000 per month (20 hours) | Ongoing email, SMS and retention work |
| Custom build or migration | Quoted per project | Subscription systems, bundle builders, platform migrations |
Full store builds start at $20,000. See Shopify Plus cost for platform fees.
Ask three things. Can they build, not just configure? How do they handle payment tokens in a subscription migration? And how do they decide what to build first? Good answers name engineers who will do the work, a written token plan, and an audit of your own customer data before any template.
Brands whose retention depends on more than an app: custom subscription logic, a subscription migration with active subscribers, bundles across several stores, or data that has to connect to other systems. If you need email and SMS flows and campaigns on their own, our Klaviyo email and SMS program is the better fit.
Solo Media Group is a Shopify Platinum Partner, the top of five tiers, rated 5.0 from 38 reviews on the Shopify Partner Directory and 4.9 from 48 on Clutch.
"Before working with them, we went through four or five different providers, and none came close to the level of service we've received from Johnathan, Michele, and their team."
ADEGEN, Shopify Partner Directory review
Related work: HUK Gear, Elm Biosciences, Medik8, Lifelines, Manukora, Wonder Paws and TUFT NYC.
Retention marketing is everything a brand does to make existing customers buy again, instead of paying to acquire new ones. On Shopify, that means email and SMS flows, subscriptions, loyalty programs, bundles and the post-purchase experience, all measured by repeat purchase rate and customer lifetime value.
Email is one channel within retention. A retention program also covers subscriptions, loyalty, post-purchase experience and churn reduction, much of which is development work rather than campaign work. Our Klaviyo email and SMS program covers the email and SMS layer on its own.
Automated flows reach customers at the moments they're most likely to buy again: after a first order, when a product is back in stock, or when they've gone quiet. For Lifelines, a full email and SMS program drove 39% of total site revenue in September 2026.
Lifetime value grows when customers order more often, spend more per order, or stay longer. Retention work moves all three: flows and replenishment shorten the time between orders, bundles and loyalty raise order value, and dunning keeps subscribers from churning on failed payments.
Flows start earning as soon as they launch: Lifelines' Klaviyo revenue rose from a $5.1K monthly baseline to $43.2K in the first month. Subscription and loyalty programs take a full purchase cycle, typically one to three months, before the data is meaningful.
Failed payments, and during a platform migration, payment tokens that don't transfer. Both are billing and engineering problems rather than marketing ones, which is why fixing them is often the fastest retention win available.
It depends on your billing logic, customer portal needs and dunning requirements. Recharge, Skio, Stay AI, Loop and Shopify Subscriptions each suit different cases. Our subscription app comparison guide sets out the trade-offs.
Not always. If you need standard flows and an off-the-shelf subscription app, a capable in-house marketer or our Klaviyo email and SMS program can cover it. A retention build makes sense when retention depends on custom development, a subscription migration with active subscribers, or systems Shopify doesn't natively connect to.
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