Retention, priced like acquisition.

The first thing we do inside a lifecycle capability is re-cut your existing customer base by second-order value: what a customer is actually worth across their full relationship with you, not just their first transaction. That re-cut usually surfaces a segment worth protecting aggressively and a segment worth almost nothing — and it is common for the second segment to be the one your existing lifecycle programme spends the most effort on, because open rates and click rates reward attention, not value.

From there, sequences get built around three moments that determine most of a customer’s lifetime value: the first ninety days after conversion, the point at which usage or spend plateaus, and the window before a renewal or repurchase decision. Each moment gets its own sequence, its own success metric tied to margin, and its own exit criteria — a sequence that has not moved the number it was built to move within an agreed window gets retired, not iterated on indefinitely.