Client story: „Heatso“
Heatso is a North America-based business operating in more than 160 countries. Their product range includes equipment designed for truck, camper, and van enthusiasts.
“Email marketing is essential to our e-commerce strategy, and we have divided our efforts into two tracks. One focuses on automation, while the other is dedicated to email campaigns delivered through newsletters and special promotions.
The NFQ team was wonderful—they are experts in email marketing and highly trustworthy. My team and I enjoyed working with them side by side to achieve the goals that matter most to us.”
Key Services Provided:
– Subscriber growth strategy and implementation, database maintenance
– Pre-purchase and post-purchase automated workflow strategy, execution, and monitoring
– Creation and execution of newsletters, SMS, and browser push notification communication plans
– Email marketing consulting on technical, strategic, and content-related matters
– Monthly performance review and strategy optimization
From Neglect to Growth: Rebuilding a Stagnant Channel After a Partnership Misstep
The Heatso team sought our expertise for a reason. With years of experience, we have built strong partnerships with agencies and specialists. This time, we were asked to restore and strengthen an email marketing channel that had been inactive for over six months due to unsuccessful experiences with freelancers.
In our field, a lack of technical expertise is a widespread issue, making audits like this one among our favorites. Although the previous freelancer had implemented various automation solutions, they had structured performance attribution in a way that was more beneficial to their own results rather than to the business itself.
For instance, in the abandoned cart automation, we found that the first email in the series was sent immediately, rather than after a delay of one or more hours. This meant that the email could have been triggered while the potential customer was still adding items to their cart—interrupting their shopping experience. While this approach made the email marketing platform’s sales figures look impressive, it was far from the best practice.
We do not follow such methods. One of our first steps was conducting an in-depth audit of the existing setup. As a result, we redesigned all pre-purchase and post-purchase automated workflows, created new ones, implemented A/B testing to validate hypotheses, and integrated additional SMS and browser push notification channels. We optimized everything from the ground up, without inflating our own performance metrics.
Due to the previous questionable sales attribution methods, reported email marketing sales initially dropped. However, in the long run, performance improved significantly. In nearly ten months, we successfully increased automated sales by 20% compared to the same period the previous year. Subscribers now generate 30-35% of all e-commerce orders, and their average cart value is $250 higher than that of other customers.
Given the complex nature of Heatso’s product catalog, we blend commercial strategies with educational content. Managing a large-scale project like this requires up to five specialists from our team, dedicating 30-55 hours nearly every month. This is the minimum baseline effort, and we see further opportunities to expand both our capacity and the hours invested.
We have heard similar stories from many clients who have struggled with unproductive freelancer partnerships. We still believe that freelancers can contribute to success, but we strongly advise businesses to ask the right questions, request recommendations, or—if they prefer to avoid the risks—consider working with a dedicated team rather than a single specialist.
Noteworthy Results and Insights:
– Heatso’s Holiday newsletter campaigns have sparked internal discussions within our team, as their engagement and click-through rates on actual holidays have been up to four times higher than the usual average. After running technical checks for spam bots to rule out artificial click inflation, we confirmed that the engagement was genuine.
– During Black Friday month, we doubled campaign sales compared to the same period the previous year—despite sending fewer newsletters. This was achieved through a combination of well-planned commercial strategies and six months of consistent audience engagement by both our team and the client.
– Heatso’s holiday newsletter campaigns have prompted in-depth internal discussions, as their engagement and click-through rates on actual holidays have been up to four times higher than the usual average. Following thorough technical assessments to rule out artificial click inflation caused by spam bots, we verified the authenticity of the engagement.