Seatfrog board · Wednesday 23 September 2026
Marketing update
Sheran Gale, Head of Growth Marketing
Where we started, and what changed
March 2026, when I joined, limited CRM maturity in people, process and technology meant untargeted communications
Today, predictive communications move customers through the funnel, on a capability we built in-house
December, the full lifecycle engine is live and personalised; from Q1 2027 our AI decides each message in real time
How the journeys were built
60 moments where we can win or keep a customer, mapped here rather than bought from an agency
The Booking.com version below was built by an agency.
One journey in depth · churn prevention, live from 22 September
One in four active buyers goes quiet every month, 40,276 in August, and the slip went unnoticed for 49 days
Nothing at allDays 1 to 49
For the first 49 days of a slip nothing watches the customer and nothing is sent.
The slip is invisible to us while it is still cheap to fix
The same push to everyoneDay 50, on a calendar
A calendar timer, not a signal: it fires whether they slipped or not
The same email to everyoneDay 50, the same day
The same to everyone, and the weekly seasonal email lands the same week
Catching that slip is sized at about £156k net a year at benchmark rates; the first measured read comes in November.
One journey in depth · churn prevention, live from 22 September
Quiet is 11 days for a commuter and 14 weeks for a leisure traveller; the model knows which
His rhythm
Ben upgrades London Euston to Leeds most weeks
Then the trips stop
Day 11, past 1.5x his own median gap
The model fires
The journey opens the next morning
Hey Ben! I’ve been keeping a lookout on your line. Check this out… London Euston to Leeds from £24. Yes, that’s for First Class. And you only pay if you win.
Place a bidHe buysthe journey ends instantly
He stays quietsilence to day 60, then win-back
The hero is a three-second motion loop generated with Runway; the route and the price are his own. 20% of the journey is held back, and the first measured read comes in November.
What ships next · turning losing bidders into returning bidders, November
14,800 customers a month bid for an upgrade and lose; 81% never bid again*
The pushesIn the auction
Three fixed pushes, built into the app before Braze, the same words whatever they bid
The lost screenAt the close
One closed screen, the same for everyone: a buy-now price, and no reason to bid again
The recovery email30 minutes after
One message, whoever lost and however they lost
The campaignOn a schedule
Sent to everyone on a calendar, unrelated to the loss
Losing reads as a dead end: 81% of customers do not bid again after one loss*, and the one recovery email reached about 20 of the 14,800 who lose an auction each month, because its entry rule let almost nobody in.
Losing bidders into returning bidders, from November · a straight account of the close and one reason to bid again, from their own history
What ships when
Eight of the ten journeys are live by December; £43k of the £64k they drive lands inside the quarter
Upgrades only; incremental over a 20% holdout; nothing measured yet.
The marketing funnel
We paid for none of our sign-ups, and nothing of ours reaches the people deciding whether to try us
What customers already post about us, unpaid
Appendix
