Working with retention agency YOCTO, a leading collagen brand embedded Zaymo’s one-tap upgrade block into its pre-renewal emails — moving subscribers up the bundle ladder without leaving the inbox and generating more than £700,000 in additional annual upgrade revenue.
This high-growth health and wellness brand runs one of the strongest acquisition funnels in European supplements, with almost all of its revenue flowing through a single hero product sold in a range of bundle sizes. That focus is a genuine strength. It also concentrates the opportunity: when nearly all revenue runs through one product line, the biggest lever isn’t adding more SKUs — it’s getting more of the right customers onto the right bundle.
Initial Problem
When YOCTO mapped the subscriber lifecycle, one gap stood out immediately. After a customer subscribed and moved through onboarding, the messaging simply stopped. From that point until renewal, the only email they received was the billing reminder.
From a pure over-emailing standpoint, that restraint was defensible. But it left a large amount of value untouched — and the brand had no practical way to act on it. Upgrading a subscriber to a larger bundle was clunky enough that it couldn’t be turned into a repeatable, at-scale campaign:
- Upgrades meant leaving the email. Moving a subscriber onto a larger bundle routed them through the subscription portal, adding friction to what should have been a one-tap decision.
- The upgrade process wasn’t built for campaigns. Without a clean, in-email way to present and accept an upgrade, there was no reliable mechanism to build a systematic pre-renewal upgrade flow around.
- The highest-intent window was going unused. The days before renewal are when upgrade intent is highest, yet the brand had no way to make a relevant offer land in the moment.
There was also a deeper hesitation, one shared by a lot of subscription brands: adding emails in the pre-renewal window can feel like handing subscribers a reason to cancel, driving up churn at the worst possible moment. That fear is a big part of why the window stays silent at so many brands. The one-tap upgrade changed the calculation — instead of another message to tune out, the pre-renewal email carried something genuinely worth acting on, which is exactly what makes it safe to show up before renewal rather than avoid it.
Zaymo’s Solution
Rather than introducing new products into that quiet window, YOCTO made a deliberate choice: double down on what customers already loved. With the hero product driving the overwhelming majority of sales, the highest-confidence move wasn’t cross-selling something new — it was helping subscribers buy more of the thing they’d already committed to, on the bundle that served them best.
- One-tap bundle upgrades, inside the email. Instead of routing customers to the subscription portal, Zaymo let subscribers move to a larger bundle in a single tap — without ever leaving the email. The upgrade friction that had blocked a real campaign was gone.
- Moving subscribers up the bundle ladder. Subscribers on the 1-unit plan were guided to the 3-unit bundle, and 3-unit subscribers to the 6-unit bundle — always toward the version of their own subscription the data already linked to stronger retention.
- Timed for maximum relevance. Dedicated upgrade flows fired seven days before renewal, limited to the first and second renewals — the window where upgrade intent is highest and the routine is still forming.
Crucially, the offer wasn’t framed as “spend more.” The larger bundle came with a lower cost per unit and better results from longer, more consistent use — positioned as the version of the product most likely to work for them.
Setup
YOCTO built dedicated pre-renewal upgrade flows, deliberately scoped to the moments where the upgrade was most relevant:
- Trigger. Seven days before renewal, when the next charge is top of mind and there’s still time to act.
- Scope. The first and second renewals only — the window where upgrade intent is highest.
- Targeting. The two smallest bundles, where the upgrade headroom was greatest: 1-unit subscribers guided to 3, and 3-unit subscribers guided to 6.
The figures below reflect the performance YOCTO observed once the in-email upgrade flows were live.
Results
- £700K+ in additional annual upgrade revenue, from upgraded orders alone — before counting any downstream orders or long-term lifetime-value gains
- 1 → 3 · 3 → 6 subscribers systematically moved up the bundle ladder, in the direction the data linked to stronger retention
Takeaways
The brand’s £700,000+ in upgrade revenue came from a lever that’s easy to overlook. When nearly all of your revenue runs through one product, the growth isn’t in adding more SKUs — it’s in getting more of the right customers onto the right bundle. The data usually already shows which subscribers are worth moving up. The hard part is acting on it.
The broader lesson for subscription brands: a great upgrade idea is only as good as how easily a subscriber can say yes. As long as upgrading meant leaving the email, it stayed a one-off offer rather than a repeatable campaign. Removing that friction — putting a one-tap upgrade inside the highest-intent email in the lifecycle — is what turned a quiet pre-renewal window into an engine.