Count your customers by orders

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We break down the real strategies, decisions, and plays that actually move the needle in your marketing, and here it for today.

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🔢 Before BFCM, count your customers by order number

Most BFCM plans segment by engagement: who opened, who clicked. Few start with a simpler question. How many times has each customer actually bought?

The answer changes what you send.

Step 1: Build the distribution

Export every customer with their lifetime order count and sort them into five buckets:

• 1 order
• 2 orders
• 3 orders
• 4 to 6 orders
• 7 or more

An illustrative store with 20,000 customers might look like this: 62% bought once, 17% twice, 10% three times, 7% four to six times and 4% seven or more.

That top 11% is often where a big share of revenue sits. Check yours by adding each bucket's total spend next to its headcount.

Step 2: Read the shape

A steep drop after one order means your problem is the second purchase. BFCM emails should push first-time buyers toward a reason to return.

A thick top tail means you have a loyal core worth treating differently. Ahead of BFCM, agency Enflow Digital found that 36% of a skincare client's customers had placed more than six orders. 

It sent customers with at least four orders a single plain-text, email-only offer through Omnisend, using its segmentation and AI connection to surface the pattern in minutes. That send reached 1,676 people and brought in nearly $18,000, more than the previous month's broad campaigns combined. You can see how they did it here.

Step 3: Give each bucket a different job

• 1 order: a reason to come back, such as a complementary product or a bundle that completes the first purchase.
• 2 to 3 orders: your bestsellers, with the standard BFCM offer.
• 4 or more: an offer that feels personal, kept off the website and sent from a person, with a gift or early access instead of the deepest discount.

Step 4: Check the top tier's health

For the 4-plus bucket, add recency. A seven-order customer who last bought 14 months ago needs a different message from one who ordered last month. Split the tier at 90 days since last order. That cutoff is my judgment.

Step 5: Measure revenue per recipient

Small, precise sends look modest on total revenue. Compare revenue per recipient across buckets instead. The top tier should win by a wide margin. If it doesn't, the offer missed.

Omnisend is used by more than 150,000 ecommerce brands, which report an average of $79 for every $1 spent, and migration is free within five business days. You can check Omnisend now.

Try this week: Export order counts and build the five buckets. The shape of that chart is your BFCM segmentation plan.

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Partnership with Insense

Your BFCM Creator Calendar is Already Mapped

Still sourcing creators when your Black Friday ads should be running? Every delay leaves less time to test what actually sells before your biggest spending weeks.

Insense’s free BFCM + Q5 Creator Marketing Playbook gives marketers a week-by-week plan from September through January, so every creator campaign starts with a clear deadline and purpose.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A week-by-week August-to-January calendar showing when to secure permissions, test content, scale winning creators, and move into Q5.
• A practical creator scorecard using conversions, engagement quality, and reliability, so November budgets back proven performers over follower counts.
• Q5 action plan covering licence extensions, January creative, and the recommended 10–15% budget reserve for the lower-cost post-holiday window.

You’ll also get benchmarks for creator-handle ads, modular UGC testing, live shopping, hook rates, and creative volume, helping your team set measurable targets before spending rises.

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