The Octane AI team worked with Skinny Mixes to implement a state-of-the-art conversational automation strategy into their Shopify Plus store.
- Skinny Mixes is now making $100,000 to $280,000 in additional revenue every month.
- 90% of the increase in revenue is directly attributed to simple Facebook Messenger automations set up by Octane AI.
As you might expect, this is a massive increase for them and they are extremely excited.
The best part? The strategy that Skinny Mixes followed is 100% replicable for any Shopify store that gets traffic from Facebook and Instagram.
If you've heard of Messenger automation and you were unsure of it, or you've tried it in the past without success, I have one message for you: Messenger is a gold mine for Shopify businesses. If you aren't generating revenue with it right now, it's because you aren't following the right strategy.
This article, and this case study, are going give you everything you need to fix that.
“What is Octane AI?”
We are an ecommerce marketing platform used by online businesses including GoPro, MANSCAPED, Proactiv, and Warner Music Group. Co-founded in 2016 by three cofounders who have all been on Forbes 30 under 30 for separate reasons. Our team has done everything from pioneering live video in Silicon Valley; to creating one of the world's most popular social networks; to running digital management for rappers like Lil Wayne; to writing a bestselling book on how to capture people's attention. For the full story, scroll to the end…
Brands we work with are able to increase online revenue by 10% to 30%, and for some businesses this really means millions more in sales every year.
Revenue increases become realized within 1 to 2 weeks of set up.
“It has been truly inspiring working with the Octane AI team and we’re excited for our future with them.”
Alex Tenney, Digital Marketing Specialist at Skinny Mixes
So, what is Skinny Mixes? Why is Messenger so valuable for Shopify brands? What problem was Skinny Mixes running into? How did they make over $280,000 in one month with Messenger and SMS? How can you replicate their success with your business?
I'm going to answer all of these questions right now.
Let's do this.
Case Study Download: Want to see screen shots of exactly what Skinny Mixes implemented onto their site and their real graphs and results?
p.s. Are you making $25k/month on Shopify and you want the Octane AI team to set this up for you quickly and efficiently? We'll set everything up for no charge until it's profitable.
What Is Skinny Mixes?
You know how when you go to a Starbucks, a restaurant, or your favorite bar, and they can make you anything from a hazelnut coffee to a strawberry margarita? Well, Skinny Mixes sells syrups that allow you to be a barista or bartender right from home, and the best part is that everything is zero-calorie.
“We all wanted a drink with few calories and less sugar. So, I figured if my friends wanted it, and I wanted it, then women everywhere must want something like Skinny Mixes,” – Jordan Engelhardt, Founder of Skinny Mixes
After a year and a half of recipe tweaking, Skinny Mixes launched in 2009 with their best-selling Skinny Margarita Mix. Today they are growing quickly online (with Shopify Plus, Klaviyo, and Octane AI) and via their retail partners like Bed Bath & Beyond.
But, like most online brands, a large percentage of people coming to the Skinny Mixes website were leaving without completing a purchase (most brands only convert 1% to 3% of site visitors).
This is where Octane AI's conversational automation strategy had a huge impact.
Why Facebook Messenger Is Such a Valuable Channel For Shopify Brands
There are a lot of reasons why Facebook Messenger is valuable for Shopify brands, but I'm going to break it down as efficiently as I can.
How Facebook Messenger automation works at a high level:
A customer can give your brand permission to message them on Facebook. This can happen when they go to your Facebook page and message you, if they click an Octane AI powered button on your website, or even if they leave a comment on one of your posts.
The same way you automate emails, you can now automate interactive messages on Facebook. Once a customer has given you permission to message them on Facebook, you can use Octane AI to automatically trigger messages that are personalized to that specific customer's journey.
Types of messages you can automatically send over Facebook:
- Cart abandonment
- Browse abandonment
- Welcome series
- Replenishment
- Order confirmation
- Delivery confirmation
- Custom
Benefits of Facebook Messenger automation over email:
- Facebook messages vibrate your customer's phone with a push notification.
- Messages are free to send.
- Messages are interactive. Customers can push buttons to send messages back or complete purchases, and this data can be saved and used for retargeting on Messenger, email, SMS, and ads.
Additional superpowers of Facebook Messenger automation:
- A customer can send you their phone number by pushing one button! When they do this it goes into a list on Octane AI that you can use to send SMS announcements to.
- A customer can send you their email address by pushing one button. You can use Octane AI's Klaviyo integration to instantly send this email address, and all available data, to Klaviyo. You can literally segment email automations based on what customers message you.
- You can create click to Messenger ads on Facebook where you get the ability to send follow up messages to anyone who clicks your ad!
With billions of people messaging through Facebook every month, tapping into Messenger is an easy way to quickly increase revenue.
Turns out Messenger automation was exactly what Skinny Mixes needed to solve a problem them were having. Let me show you what was happening.
The Problem Skinny Mixes Was Running Into
Skinny Mixes didn't so much have problems — they were already doing very well — but they had leaky parts of their funnel that, if addressed correctly, could be (and were!) turned into huge profit drivers for their business.
Here are the problems (opportunities!) that Skinny Mixes was dealing with:
- Most site visitors didn't submit their email address or give any contact information. This meant that Skinny Mixes wasn't able to follow up with any direct communication to customers who didn't convert, but instead had to rely on chasing them around the internet with retargeting ads.
- Most site visitors who did submit their email weren't opening the emails sent to them. Again, this isn't specific to Skinny Mixes — if you compared their email open rates to yours, they might be doing even better than you. This is about email in general — it's just not the channel that most people spend their time and that naturally means that emails get opened a lot less than they did 5 or 10 years ago. You can have the best abandoned cart email series ever but if the emails aren't being opened, it's never going to bring that customer back.
What Skinny Mixes needed to do was increase the percentage of new site visitors who went on to give contact information. If they could achieve this — even slightly — it would result in a huge increase in revenue.
This is exactly what we helped them do. We took conversational automation techniques that we've used to generate millions of dollars and we applied it to the Skinny Mixes website.
The Conversational Automation Strategy We Used to Increase Skinny Mixes Monthly Revenue by $100k to $280k
Skinny Mixes' Facebook Messenger and SMS integrations fell into three buckets: Opt-ins, automated messages, and campaigns. Using the Octane AI platform and the strategies in the Skinny Mixes case study, we had very positive results.
Improving Opt-Ins by 2X
Here's the thing: when someone lands on your online store and you ask for an email address, that actually takes a lot of work for the customer to type out.
- They have to review the offer and think if they want to give you their email address.
- They have to click into the text field.
- They have to type their email address out.
- They have to hit submit.
“Matt, what are you talking about? There are only four steps here!? This only takes a few seconds?!“
I know — I hear you — but every time you ask the customer to do something, no matter how small, you give them another opportunity to get distracted and change their mind. When you collect email there are four times the customer can drop off and fail to connect with you.
So how do we solve this? How can we reduce the number of decision points a customer has to deal with in order to connect with Skinny Mixes?
This is where Facebook Messenger comes in.
“Really game changer for our business and so great to work with.”
Brittany Gymrek, Marketing Director at Skinny Mixes
Like most brands, Skinny Mixes got the majority of their new traffic from Facebook and Instagram. They knew without a doubt that their customers were actively logged into Facebook.
So what did we do? We used the Octane AI platform to implement a one-click subscribe button for Skinny Mixes customers to connect on Facebook Messenger.
Customers who click this button are able to receive automated follow up messages from Skinny Mixes (similar to email but with higher open and click through rates).
We made sure that these one-click prompts were shown in key parts of the customer journey such as:
- When the customer first lands on the store
- When they are adding to cart
- When they are browsing
- When they are completing an order
- When they look like they are about to leave without completing an order
It performed extremely well and Skinny Mixes started connecting with more customers than ever before.
Now that we had increased the number of customers Skinny Mixes could message on Facebook, next up was making sure customers were receiving follow-up messages that were short, sweet, and converted to sales.
Sending Facebook Messages That Recover 16% Of All Abandoned Carts
After someone opts-in to a brand on Messenger, they’re eligible to receive browse and cart abandonment messages on Facebook directly from Skinny Mixes.
This is how Skinny Mixes recovers lost sales so effectively.
Those who clicked the one-click opt-in for Messenger and went on to abandon their cart received a direct message on Facebook from Skinny Mixes with the items in their cart and a customized message encouraging them to complete the purchase (in some cases offering a discount as an incentive).
This allowed Skinny Mixes to convert 16% of all abandoned carts to a purchase.
Skinny Mixes is now running multiple automated Messenger flows with high open rates that generate insane lifts in their abandonment rates – see them all here.
Direct Message Campaigns Via Facebook and SMS With 2,409% ROI
Skinny Mixes sends one SMS message and one Sponsored Facebook Message per month. These messages are usually focused on a new product launch or sale and they are a really impactful when used.
Here's an example of one message sent through Facebook Messenger…
Not only could a potential customer reply to the message, but Skinny Mixes can collect data on who clicked the call to action, who purchased, and retarget even further to those who haven't yet converted.
How To Replicate Skinny Mixes' Success With Your Own Business
The Octane AI platform makes it very easy to set up the right Facebook Messenger and SMS automations for your Shopify store.
Want to set everything up yourself?
- Install Octane AI without a line of code, customize the copy for your opt-ins and follow up messages, and watch the revenue go up in the dashboard.
- Download the full 250+ page Octane AI playbook and do exactly what it says.
- Download the full Skinny Mixes strategy document to see exact screen shots of everything we helped them implement with Octane AI.
Do you already make $25k/month on Shopify? Want the Octane AI team to set everything up for you quickly and efficiently?
We have a team of experts who can make sure Octane AI is implemented perfectly, and for a limited time you pay nothing until this is an ROI-positive channel for you. If you're interested in this, book a demo here.
Octane AI is the Conversational Automation Platform for Shopify Stores
Octane AI is used by 1,000+ fast growing Shopify & Shopify Plus businesses. This includes brands like MANSCAPED, Ella + Mila, Polysleep, and more. Each brand has a unique voice on Messenger that allows them to build stronger relationships, collect more data, and recover lost sales through direct messaging channels.
You can install Octane AI directly on your Shopify store from the Shopify app directory. There is no coding, everything can be customized from the dashboard, and everything is tracked so you can measure and optimize (we even have A/B testing!).
Brands using Octane AI on average see:
- 7.5% average increase in overall online revenue
- 80-95% open rates
- 7x increase in click-through rates
- 2x increase ROAS
- 1 out of 9 abandoned cart messages convert into a sale
Some more info about us:
- We are a completely remote team, working from all across the world to improve the marketing automation tools available to Shopify brands.
- We are backed by the same investors who backed Hubspot, Gusto, Outdoor Voices, Airbnb, Snapchat, Stripe, BigCommerce, Demandware, Drift, and more.
- You can set everything up yourself or leverage our team of experts who can do it for you.
We are looking forward to working together. If you'd like to get a personal walkthrough of our platform, book a demo here.
The 250+ Page Playbook on Facebook Messenger & SMS Marketing for Ecommerce
Fast-growing DTC brands implementing this playbook have connected with 18x more customers, doubled their 7-day ROAS, recovered 5x more abandoned cart revenue & increased AOV 25%.
This article originally appeared in the OctaneAI blog and has been published here with permission.
