The natural dog-chew category is a dogfight. Margins are thin, competitors are many, and acquisition gets more expensive every quarter. In a market like that, you don't win by chasing one more first-time buyer — you win by keeping the customers you already earned and getting them to come back, again and again. That is exactly what an owned lifecycle program is for, and it is where Bully Sticks Direct's program does its best work.
Michael J. McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
The natural dog-chew category is a dogfight. Margins are thin, competitors are many, and acquisition gets more expensive every quarter. In a market like that, you don't win by chasing one more first-time buyer — you win by keeping the customers you already earned and getting them to come back, again and again. That is exactly what an owned lifecycle program is for, and it is where Bully Sticks Direct's program does its best work.
Michael J. McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
We built Bully Sticks Direct's owned program to fetch repeat revenue, not just first orders. The proof is in the flows: the Autoship flow opens at 64.2%, subscription-grade engagement that signals durable repeat purchase; recovery flows reopen abandoned carts at ~47% open rates and convert browsers back to buyers at ~5–6% placed-order rates; SMS earns click rates near 17–18%; and a Smile loyalty layer — already a top-performing program with a 28.0% redemption rate versus a ~13.7% category average — gives the whole thing a foundation worth building on.
We built Bully Sticks Direct's owned program to fetch repeat revenue, not just first orders. The proof is in the flows: the Autoship flow opens at 64.2%, subscription-grade engagement that signals durable repeat purchase; recovery flows reopen abandoned carts at ~47% open rates and convert browsers back to buyers at ~5–6% placed-order rates; SMS earns click rates near 17–18%; and a Smile loyalty layer — already a top-performing program with a 28.0% redemption rate versus a ~13.7% category average — gives the whole thing a foundation worth building on.
Winning a crowded, commodity-pressured market
The first challenge was the category itself. Natural dog chews are a fragmented, fiercely price-competitive space where it is easy to compete on discount and burn margin doing it. The only durable way to build profit in that environment is retention — turning a one-time treat buyer into a repeat, subscribing, point-earning regular. The whole program was framed around lifetime value, not first-order volume.
The second challenge was building repeat behavior on purpose. A dog owner who buys once and disappears is a loss in a thin-margin category. So the program leans hard on the flows that create a second, third, and tenth order — an Autoship subscription flow, post-purchase cross-sells matched to treat size, and a winback for lapsed buyers — rather than relying on manual one-off sends. The third challenge was giving loyal customers a reason to keep coming back. The Smile loyalty program became a foundational lever: it was already flagged a top-performing program, and it gave email, SMS, and the app a concrete, point-earning reason to re-engage. It is the bedrock the lifecycle program builds on, with its own dedicated success story. The fourth challenge was meeting customers on every surface. A modern pet brand lives in the inbox, on the phone, and in an app. Bully Sticks Direct runs Klaviyo email and SMS, a JMango mobile app on BigCommerce with app-exclusive promos and push notifications, and a loyalty layer that ties them together — so a loyal customer is never more than a tap from their next reorder.
Winning a crowded, commodity-pressured market
The first challenge was the category itself. Natural dog chews are a fragmented, fiercely price-competitive space where it is easy to compete on discount and burn margin doing it. The only durable way to build profit in that environment is retention — turning a one-time treat buyer into a repeat, subscribing, point-earning regular. The whole program was framed around lifetime value, not first-order volume.
The second challenge was building repeat behavior on purpose. A dog owner who buys once and disappears is a loss in a thin-margin category. So the program leans hard on the flows that create a second, third, and tenth order — an Autoship subscription flow, post-purchase cross-sells matched to treat size, and a winback for lapsed buyers — rather than relying on manual one-off sends. The third challenge was giving loyal customers a reason to keep coming back. The Smile loyalty program became a foundational lever: it was already flagged a top-performing program, and it gave email, SMS, and the app a concrete, point-earning reason to re-engage. It is the bedrock the lifecycle program builds on, with its own dedicated success story. The fourth challenge was meeting customers on every surface. A modern pet brand lives in the inbox, on the phone, and in an app. Bully Sticks Direct runs Klaviyo email and SMS, a JMango mobile app on BigCommerce with app-exclusive promos and push notifications, and a loyalty layer that ties them together — so a loyal customer is never more than a tap from their next reorder.
Automation built for the second order
A durable program in a commodity category earns its keep on reorders, and Bully Sticks Direct's flow library is built to fetch them. The standout is the Autoship flow, opening at 64.2% — subscription-grade engagement, far above typical email benchmarks, and the clearest possible signal that the program is built around repeat purchase rather than one-and-done buying. When your best-opened flow is the one that turns a customer into a subscriber, you are building exactly the kind of recurring revenue a crowded market rewards.
The recovery flows do the unglamorous, profitable work of saving sales that were about to walk. The Abandoned Transaction flow opens at 46.7% and converts at a 5.98% placed-order rate; the Abandoned Cart flow opens at 47.4% and converts at 5.23%; and the Welcome Series brings new customers in at scale, driving the highest order count of any flow in the program. Cross-sell flows tuned to treat size — small, medium, and large — keep the average order growing after that first purchase, with the Small Treat Lovers flow opening at 51.1%.
Automation built for the second order
A durable program in a commodity category earns its keep on reorders, and Bully Sticks Direct's flow library is built to fetch them. The standout is the Autoship flow, opening at 64.2% — subscription-grade engagement, far above typical email benchmarks, and the clearest possible signal that the program is built around repeat purchase rather than one-and-done buying. When your best-opened flow is the one that turns a customer into a subscriber, you are building exactly the kind of recurring revenue a crowded market rewards.
The recovery flows do the unglamorous, profitable work of saving sales that were about to walk. The Abandoned Transaction flow opens at 46.7% and converts at a 5.98% placed-order rate; the Abandoned Cart flow opens at 47.4% and converts at 5.23%; and the Welcome Series brings new customers in at scale, driving the highest order count of any flow in the program. Cross-sell flows tuned to treat size — small, medium, and large — keep the average order growing after that first purchase, with the Small Treat Lovers flow opening at 51.1%.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
