Hey {{First Name}}, Anthony here from the Retention Report, and we need to talk about a retention metric larger brands obsess over that most teams never look at.”
It’s not open rate.
It’s not LTV.
It’s not even repeat purchase rate.
And it’s one of the biggest sources of confusion around what retention actually looks like over time.
It’s this: First to Second Purchase Rate
🔁 First to Second Purchase Rate
In plain English:
How many one-time buyers come back and buy again in a given period?
Why this metric matters so much
Turning a first-time buyer into a repeat buyer is the biggest LTV unlock most brands have.
Once someone places a second order, a few important things happen:
Trust is established
Friction drops
The likelihood of future purchases jumps dramatically
They’ve crossed the hardest line there is in e-commerce.
From there, retention becomes much easier.
Screenshot from a CPG client we’ve been working with for over 3 years
Above is a screenshot with the First to Second Purchase Rate over different time windows for customers who placed their first order.
A few things you notice
Most repeat purchases happen within the first 90 days
There is still slight lift between 90 to 365 days
Only 39.31% of first-time customers made a second purchase, meaning just over 60% of customers churn after just one purchase, even after a full year (Which tracks with the common notion that 70% one-time customers will never buy again)
Why this beats most retention metrics
First to Second Purchase Rate is powerful because it’s:
Immediate
You don’t need to wait 6–12 months to see movement.Actionable
It’s directly influenced by post-purchase, replenishment, cross-sell, and winback flows.Clearly owned by lifecycle marketing
Unlike long-term LTV, this isn’t muddied by pricing changes, product expansion, or CX shifts.
If this number is weak, it’s usually a sign that:
Post-purchase flows aren’t doing enough
Timing is off
Offers don’t align with how customers actually repurchase
That’s all fixable.
How most brands try to track this (and why it’s painful)
You can track First → Second Purchase Rate manually.
Usually that looks like:
Pulling cohorts
Exporting orders
Building custom dashboards
Spending 20–30+ hours trying to make the data usable
It works… but it’s fragile, slow, and rarely maintained.
The easier way (without building a monster dashboard)
We typically recommend one of three platforms depending on what you want visibility into:
Hiro Analytics
Best if you want deep Klaviyo + retention analytics, especially around flows and lifecycle timing.StoreHero
Best for tracking email + retention metrics alongside financials like contribution margin.Triple Whale
Best if you want strong retention tracking with accurate attribution across channels.
All three surface First → Second Purchase Rate cleanly without you reinventing the wheel.
Honorable mention: 30-Day & 90-Day Attributed Revenue (Compared to 30-Day & 90-Day Total Revenue )
If First to Second Purchase Rate tells you who came back,
30-day and 90-day attributed revenue tell you whether email actually drove the money.
Together, these metrics answer two critical questions:
Are customers sticking?
Is lifecycle marketing responsible for it?
That combo is where real clarity lives.
If you want to track this metric for your own store without building a dashboard PLUS an exclusive partner offer, reply to this email.
And if you want tactical ways to actually increase First to Second Purchase Rate with email/SMS (winback logic, reorder timing, cross-sell structure), I’m happy to cover that next.
– Anthony
P.S. If you know a 7-8 figure DTC brand looking for an email agency, reply back to this email for more details on our referral program, and you could make up to $3,000.