Retention.com platform help — ecommerce identity resolution that identifies anonymous website visitors and converts them to email/SMS contacts. Covers Grow (10x email list growth from identified visitors), Reclaim (abandonment flow recovery for events missed by Klaviyo/Elevar), retargeting activation across email/SMS/push/paid channels, tracking pixel setup, Shopify integration, compliance (CCPA, implicit consent model), and API (suppression uploads, webhooks). Use when most site visitors leave anonymous and you can't email them, Klaviyo is missing abandonment events, identified contacts are hitting spam, or you're not sure if Retention.com is worth it vs RB2B or Opensend. Do NOT use for B2B visitor identification (use /sales-rb2b), email marketing strategy (use /sales-email-marketing), or email list growth strategy across tools (use /sales-audience-growth).
Helps the user with Retention.com questions — from identity resolution setup and list growth through abandonment recovery, retargeting activation, deliverability management, and compliance.
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.
Ask the user:
What do you need help with?
What's your ecommerce platform?
What's your monthly website traffic?
If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end.
If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:
/sales-rb2b/sales-email-marketing/sales-audience-growth/sales-retargeting/sales-deliverability/sales-enrichOtherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge below.
Read references/platform-guide.md for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.
You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.
| Step | What to do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Install pixel | Add JavaScript snippet to all pages | Required for visitor identification |
| 2. Upload suppression list | Your existing email list + unsubscribes | Prevents re-identifying known contacts |
| 3. Connect ESP | Link Klaviyo/Mailchimp/etc. | Identified contacts flow directly to your email tool |
| 4. Set up Reclaim flows | Create abandonment sequences for identified visitors | This is where the immediate revenue comes from |
| 5. Configure Grow | Set up list growth campaigns | Longer-term value — builds your email list |
| 6. Monitor deliverability | Watch spam complaint rates closely for first 30 days | Identified contacts generate higher complaints than organic |
This is the #1 challenge with Retention.com. Identified contacts didn't opt in, so spam complaints are higher than organic lists.
Calculate whether Retention.com pays for itself:
Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.
Annual contracts with no free trial. You're committing $6,000-$30,000/year before seeing results. Push hard for a pilot period or ask about the a la carte option ($300/mo) to test one product first.
Match rates are likely lower than claimed. Retention.com claims ~35% identification, but independent reports show 16-25%. Budget and forecast using the conservative number.
Deliverability risk is real. Identified contacts generate 2-3x higher spam complaint rates than organic subscribers. One case study reported 0.18% — nearly double the 0.1% safe threshold for Google. Use a separate sending domain.
Grow contacts engage poorly. "Grow" contacts (general list building) have ~3% CTR vs ~12% for opted-in subscribers. Reclaim (abandonment) contacts perform much better — start there.
Implicit consent model is legally gray. CAN-SPAM allows unsolicited commercial email with opt-out, but consumer perception differs from legal permission. Expect some brand reputation risk.
Not usable for EU/UK traffic. GDPR requires explicit consent. Retention.com's identity resolution only works for US visitors and is only legally safe under US law.
API is extremely limited. 5 requests/day, primarily for suppression uploads. All real operations happen through integrations or the dashboard.
Same founder as RB2B. Adam Robinson runs both. If you're B2B, RB2B is the right product. Retention.com is specifically for B2C ecommerce/DTC.
Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.
/sales-rb2b — RB2B platform help (B2B person-level visitor identification — same founder)/sales-customersai — Customers.ai platform help (competitor — Shopify + Klaviyo identity resolution with Inboxer deliverability suite and Alfred AI intent scoring)/sales-audience-growth — Email list growth strategy across tools/sales-email-marketing — Email marketing strategy for opt-in subscribers/sales-retargeting — Retargeting and remarketing strategy across channels/sales-deliverability — Email deliverability (critical when using identified contacts)/sales-klaviyo — Klaviyo platform help (most common ESP pairing with Retention.com)/sales-omnisend — Omnisend platform help (alternative ESP for ecommerce)/sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install:
npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-doUser says: "I run a Shopify store doing 100K monthly visitors and want to try Retention.com for abandoned cart recovery" Skill does:
User says: "My co-founder uses RB2B for our SaaS — should I also use Retention.com for our ecommerce side project?" Skill does:
User says: "My Klaviyo deliverability tanked after I turned on Retention.com — spam complaints spiked to 0.25%" Skill does:
Symptom: Spam complaint rate jumped from 0.05% to 0.15%+ after adding Retention.com contacts to email flows Cause: Identified contacts didn't opt in to your emails. They're being matched from third-party data and have no relationship with your brand. Some will mark you as spam. Solution: (1) Use a separate sending subdomain to isolate reputation, (2) only email high-intent segments (cart abandoners, not all visitors), (3) implement a 2-send sunset policy for non-engagers, (4) consider pausing Grow and only using Reclaim until complaint rates stabilize under 0.1%.
Symptom: Retention.com is identifying 15-20% of visitors instead of the claimed 35% Cause: The 35% figure is a best-case scenario. Actual match rates depend on your audience demographics, traffic source mix, and geographic concentration (US-only). Mobile traffic and privacy-focused browsers reduce match rates. Solution: 15-25% is typical. Focus on maximizing value from identified contacts rather than chasing match rates. If you're below 15%, check that the pixel is installed on all pages (not just product pages) and that your traffic is predominantly US-based.
Symptom: Added thousands of contacts via Grow but email revenue didn't increase meaningfully Cause: Grow contacts are lower intent than Reclaim contacts. They visited your site but didn't start a checkout or add to cart. They also didn't opt in, so engagement rates are 3-4x lower than organic subscribers. Solution: Don't treat Grow contacts like your main list. Create separate flows with lower frequency (weekly vs daily), higher-value offers (deeper discounts), and faster sunsetting. If Grow contacts aren't generating positive ROI after 60 days, pause Grow and focus budget on Reclaim.