How Ekster Drove $363K in repeat purchase revenue with Dataships

Navigating international data compliance during hypergrowth

Since its inception, Ekster has been no stranger to success. However, solidifying partnerships with icons like Lou Malnati and Andrew Schultz and arriving features in several major news outlets launched the brand quickly into a period of hypergrowth.

Ekster Co-founder Oliver Momma sought to capitalize on this growth by maximizing customer opt-ins at the point of sale. Not only would this help build Ekster's first-party data reserves, but it would also set the stage for potent post-purchase and retention campaigns.

The only problem standing in his way? The looming threat of non-compliance.

Because Ekster is an international brand with customers across the globe, its team needed to navigate varying data privacy complexities to safely obtain user opt-in.

At the time, Shopify's marketing consent checkbox wasn't customizable by geolocation, meaning each opt-in couldn't be trusted as GDPR or CCPA-compliant.

Oliver didn't want his lean team to burden themselves by developing an in-house data privacy tool.

Instead, he needed a scalable compliance solution that would empower them to focus on driving customer retention. Shortly into his search, Oliver met the Dataships team at a conference in Amsterdam.

After a short 15-minute conversation, he knew the solution was a no-brainer.

"Shopify's standard opt-in checkbox wasn't customizable by geolocation, so we'd find ourselves out of compliance in many countries. As we scaled and retention became more of a focus, we knew we couldn't accept that."

Oliver Momma
Founder, Ekster

Turnkey compliance and supercharged opt-ins with Dataships

Dataships provided a turnkey and effortlessly compliant solution to Ekster's dilemma.

It replaced the brand's Shopify opt-in checkbox with a custom widget tailored to meet the consent criteria of every shopper's location.

This immediately put Oliver's compliance worries to rest so he and his team could focus their efforts on strengthening Ekster's post-purchase and retention campaigns.

"Dataships helps us capture consent from our customers without any hassle," Oliver explains. "As soon as you turn the solution on, you're compliant."

However, the benefits didn't stop at compliance.

Because Dataships applies the optimal consent strategy on a per-shopper basis, opt-in rates have skyrocketed by a staggering 34%.

In a marketing landscape where owned audiences and first-party data are paramount, Dataships ensures Ekster can battle rising CACs as it continues to scale.

But what truly won Oliver over was Dataships' proactiveness as a partner.

Whenever a Shopify update that affected his checkout flow dropped, the team would reach out to ensure he was aware of the changes and to clarify how to effectively navigate them to ensure opt-in rates remained strong.

"Dataships' turnkey solution fixes compliance and yields higher opt-in rates, which lead to higher revenue.

All of these benefits manifest in an incredibly short time span."

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"Working with Dataships boosted our email opt-in rate by 34%, which snowballed into major repeat customer value like a 120% increase in repeat purchase rate."

Oliver Momma
Founder, Ekster

Onboarding 38,000 new contacts while placing compliance on autopilot

Since working with Dataships, Oliver has learned that compliance and conversions go hand in hand. Optimizing Ekster's checkout flow has directly impacted customer retention.

They've seen results like:

‍$363K in repeat purchase revenue
38,000 net new contacts
4,088 repeat purchases
in a 16-month timeframe

Moving forward, Oliver is eager to expand and capitalize on his owned audiences with personalized email flows.

And as Ekster enters new markets, these compliant marketing strategies will only compound in value.