Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Sticky Be already had the hardest thing to earn, a community that loves the brand and says so out loud. Our job was to give that love somewhere to go: points for a review, recognition for a referral, a reason to come back and a way to be celebrated when they did. We built it to feel like the brand, uplifting and a little joyful, not like a generic points widget bolted onto a checkout.
Sticky Be already had the hardest thing to earn, a community that loves the brand and says so out loud. Our job was to give that love somewhere to go: points for a review, recognition for a referral, a reason to come back and a way to be celebrated when they did. We built it to feel like the brand, uplifting and a little joyful, not like a generic points widget bolted onto a checkout.
The Challenge
Sticky Be Socks is the rare brand with no affection problem. The product carries an affirmation, the founder story resonates, and the community is loyal and vocal. The challenge was never whether customers loved the brand. It was that the love had nowhere to compound.
Reviews were not being captured at scale. Plenty of customers were delighted. Far fewer were being prompted, at the right moment and with the right incentive, to leave a review that the next shopper could see. Loyalty had no structure. Repeat purchase behavior existed, but there was no points economy, no VIP recognition, and no reason for a second purchase to make a third more likely. The community was not being activated. A brand this loved should have referrals and social engagement built into the rewards economy. Those behaviors were happening informally, unrewarded and untracked. Nothing was connected. Reviews, points, and the customer's inbox were three separate surfaces rather than one connected system. The brief: build a reviews and rewards program that feels like the brand, captures the community's enthusiasm, and is wired into the brand's email so the right message reaches the right customer at the right moment.
The Challenge
Sticky Be Socks is the rare brand with no affection problem. The product carries an affirmation, the founder story resonates, and the community is loyal and vocal. The challenge was never whether customers loved the brand. It was that the love had nowhere to compound.
Reviews were not being captured at scale. Plenty of customers were delighted. Far fewer were being prompted, at the right moment and with the right incentive, to leave a review that the next shopper could see. Loyalty had no structure. Repeat purchase behavior existed, but there was no points economy, no VIP recognition, and no reason for a second purchase to make a third more likely. The community was not being activated. A brand this loved should have referrals and social engagement built into the rewards economy. Those behaviors were happening informally, unrewarded and untracked. Nothing was connected. Reviews, points, and the customer's inbox were three separate surfaces rather than one connected system. The brief: build a reviews and rewards program that feels like the brand, captures the community's enthusiasm, and is wired into the brand's email so the right message reaches the right customer at the right moment.
The System
We treated reviews and rewards as one connected program, not two widgets, and we built the lifecycle layer around it so nothing sat idle.
A reviews and rewards program. Points are earned across the full range of behaviors that matter to a community driven brand: a new account, a new order, a written review, a photo review, social follows on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest, a birthday, and a referral. Customers redeem points for rewards, and VIP tiers recognize the most loyal. Reviews flow back onto the storefront as social proof. Reviews as a first class earning action. A review is a customer telling you they want to be recognized for choosing you. We made reviews and photo reviews an explicit earn, so leaving feedback is rewarded rather than asked for as a favor. That feeds a public record of the love the brand already had. A referral and advocacy engine. The program rewards both the referrer and the referred friend, and rewards social follows and shares, turning the community's natural enthusiasm into a measurable acquisition and engagement channel. A bespoke lifecycle email layer, built to feel like the brand. This is the beautiful part. We built a custom loyalty email suite that wraps the program: an intro flow that welcomes people into rewards, an order flow that confirms points earned, points redeemed and points expiring flows that drive redemption, a birthday flow, and a full referral set plus social follow earn flows. These sit alongside the welcome and retention emails. Every message is designed in the brand's uplifting, affirmation forward voice, not a generic template. Connected, not bolted on. Reviews, rewards, and the customer's inbox are wired together so a review, a redemption, an expiring balance, or a referral can trigger the right message automatically. The program is one system, surfaced in the customer's inbox at the moment it matters.
The System
We treated reviews and rewards as one connected program, not two widgets, and we built the lifecycle layer around it so nothing sat idle.
A reviews and rewards program. Points are earned across the full range of behaviors that matter to a community driven brand: a new account, a new order, a written review, a photo review, social follows on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest, a birthday, and a referral. Customers redeem points for rewards, and VIP tiers recognize the most loyal. Reviews flow back onto the storefront as social proof. Reviews as a first class earning action. A review is a customer telling you they want to be recognized for choosing you. We made reviews and photo reviews an explicit earn, so leaving feedback is rewarded rather than asked for as a favor. That feeds a public record of the love the brand already had. A referral and advocacy engine. The program rewards both the referrer and the referred friend, and rewards social follows and shares, turning the community's natural enthusiasm into a measurable acquisition and engagement channel. A bespoke lifecycle email layer, built to feel like the brand. This is the beautiful part. We built a custom loyalty email suite that wraps the program: an intro flow that welcomes people into rewards, an order flow that confirms points earned, points redeemed and points expiring flows that drive redemption, a birthday flow, and a full referral set plus social follow earn flows. These sit alongside the welcome and retention emails. Every message is designed in the brand's uplifting, affirmation forward voice, not a generic template. Connected, not bolted on. Reviews, rewards, and the customer's inbox are wired together so a review, a redemption, an expiring balance, or a referral can trigger the right message automatically. The program is one system, surfaced in the customer's inbox at the moment it matters.
Latest projects
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.
Alicia Adams Alpaca: A Hundred-plus Colorways For Every Season, Every Channel, and Not A Single Studio Booked
Alicia Adams Alpaca crafts heirloom throws and home pieces earning its place in Architectural Digest, Vogue, and Veranda. Lifestyle photography is the industry's costliest bottleneck. So we built the room instead of renting it. Photorealistic scenes, art-directed like editorial photography. Every color, every season, at a fraction of the cost.
Alicia Adams Alpaca: A Hundred-plus Colorways For Every Season, Every Channel, and Not A Single Studio Booked
Alicia Adams Alpaca crafts heirloom throws and home pieces earning its place in Architectural Digest, Vogue, and Veranda. Lifestyle photography is the industry's costliest bottleneck. So we built the room instead of renting it. Photorealistic scenes, art-directed like editorial photography. Every color, every season, at a fraction of the cost.
Latest projects
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.
Alicia Adams Alpaca: A Hundred-plus Colorways For Every Season, Every Channel, and Not A Single Studio Booked
Alicia Adams Alpaca crafts heirloom throws and home pieces earning its place in Architectural Digest, Vogue, and Veranda. Lifestyle photography is the industry's costliest bottleneck. So we built the room instead of renting it. Photorealistic scenes, art-directed like editorial photography. Every color, every season, at a fraction of the cost.
