Case study: Aspiration's CRM platform

I ran CRM and lifecycle marketing at Aspiration from 2019 to 2021. The job was a platform migration, a rebuild of how we tracked campaign data, and a move to first-party analytics, all pointed at a customer base that cared where their money went.

Off Intercom, onto Iterable

We moved from Intercom to Iterable. Iterable gave us real control over template design and a cleaner read on clicks and conversions. Campaigns got more personal and faster to ship.

Over two years the team ran more than 1,500 campaigns and sent over 60 million emails. Open rates averaged 40.9%, with open-to-click at 2.1%. The work spanned channels: email, push notifications, SMS, and in-app modals.

The template system

In 2019 I designed and built a modular email template system on Iterable's Snippets. Reusable layouts and components meant a new campaign started from working parts instead of a blank file. It's still in use today.

Personalization

We brought in Send Time Optimization, Segment, and Movable Ink. Machine-learning models lifted open rates, click rates, and conversions by over 100%, and inbox placement reached 99.7%. Automations sent each recipient content matched to how engaged they already were.

The numbers

Lead conversion climbed 53%, adding over $15M in value. I built and led a 7-person CRM team and ran multi-channel production across email, push, SMS, and in-app. Dozens of A/B and multivariable tests raised conversions about 30% on average.

Picking the ESP/CRM took reviewing 20+ vendors and 70+ specs. Abandoned projects fell after I pulled twenty-plus stakeholders and project managers into one room to sort priorities, and completion rates and times improved by more than 50%. Data accuracy went up 20% by working as the liaison between data engineering and our vendors, building new events, traits, and personas to feed personalized content.

Iterable wrote up the work on their site.