Customer Analytics and an AI-Powered Reactivation CRM for a Pet Donation Platform

At a Glance

• Client: CUDDLY
• Engagement: ~10 months (Jul 2025 – May 2026)
• Function: Analytics infrastructure and ML-powered customer retention

Headline results: 2 critical data sources integrated · 10 labor hours per month saved on recurring reporting · 27% reactivation rate on lapsing and lapsed high-LTV customers via AI-driven outreach.

Background

CUDDLY is a digital fundraising platform that connects supporters with animal shelters, rescues, and foster organizations across the United States. Their platform powers pet-by-pet campaigns that have funded medical care, food, and shelter for tens of thousands of animals.

Beyond Data Consulting was engaged with two goals: audit and modernize the analytics infrastructure, and identify and execute on opportunities to optimize marketing and customer lifecycle performance.

The Challenge

CUDDLY's analytics function was facing three compounding problems:

• Fragmented data. Critical operational and marketing data (Shopify, Klaviyo) lived in disconnected systems, with no automated centralized view.
• Manual, time-intensive reporting. A small set of core business reports were maintained by hand in Excel, consuming significant labor every month and introducing the risk of human error.
• No systematic strategy for customer retention. High-value customers were lapsing without a structured mechanism for re-engagement, and there wasn't clarity on which interventions would generate the highest leverage.

Our Approach

The engagement followed three phases.

1. Analytics Infrastructure Overhaul

We started here because broken pipelines and manual reporting were blocking any deeper analytical work.

• Automated manual Excel reports, saving 10 hours per month on recurring reporting.
• Migrated two problematic and high-value ELT connections—Shopify and Klaviyo—from Stitch to Polytomic, and integrated them into dbt and reporting.
• Set up reverse ETL of customer-level metrics (Average Order Value, Days Since First Order) into Klaviyo, putting critical analytical data into the tool where marketing decisions were actually being made.

2. Overall Business Analysis and Opportunity Identification

With trustworthy data in place, we partnered with the CUDDLY business team to do a top-to-bottom analysis of unit economics, traffic sources, channel performance, and customer lifecycle. The analysis confirmed and deepened a hypothesis the CUDDLY team had already begun forming—that retention of returning high-value customers was the highest-leverage place to intervene—and we produced a shortlist of 3–5 candidate solutions to lift revenue.

3. Customer Retention Highlight: AI-Powered Customer Reactivation CRM

From that shortlist, we executed on several solutions over the following months. One such solution was an AI-powered CRM for re-engaging lapsing and lapsed high-LTV customers—defined as customers in the top 1% of CUDDLY's customer base by lifetime revenue (>$20k lifetime spend).

• Identified an initial cohort of ~12 lapsing and lapsed high-LTV customers.
• Architected a BigQuery → Claude → Gmail API pipeline, deployed on Google Cloud Run.
• Claude generates personalized draft emails using each customer's history; CUDDLY's customer-service team reviews and sends with a human in the loop.
• Over a 2-month pilot, 11 emails went out and 3 customers reactivated—a 27% reactivation rate, generating roughly $6,000 in reactivated revenue (approximately $1,000 per reactivated customer per month).

Results

• Integrated Data Infrastructure: 2 critical data sources (Klaviyo and Shopify) brought into a unified, dbt-modeled BigQuery warehouse via Polytomic, eliminating fragmentation across CUDDLY's analytics stack.
• Reporting Automation: 10 labor hours per month saved on recurring reporting by replacing manual Excel workflows with automated SQL/dbt/Looker pipelines.
• Marketing Enablement: Customer-level metrics now available directly inside Klaviyo, enabling segmented campaigns based on AOV, customer tenure, and other lifecycle signals.
• Strategic Clarity: A prioritized shortlist of revenue-lift opportunities, grounded in a unified view of CUDDLY's unit economics and customer lifecycle—and a proven execution playbook for the highest-impact one.
• High-LTV Customer Reactivation: A 27% reactivation rate on a pilot cohort of 11 emails sent to lapsing and lapsed high-LTV customers (top 1% of customer base by lifetime revenue, >$20k lifetime spend)—generating roughly $6,000 in reactivated revenue over a 2-month pilot (approximately $1,000 per reactivated customer per month).