Lead acquisition is the expensive part of the funnel. Whether you spent $80 on a Meta ad to get a form fill or $300 on a Google Search click to get a booking, the cost is real and locked in the moment it happens. Whether that lead becomes a customer is mostly decided by what happens in the next 30 days. The operators who run a real lifecycle layer convert between 3x and 8x more of those leads into revenue.
The minimum viable lifecycle stack has four flows. A welcome sequence (between 4 and 7 emails over 14 days, designed to set the relationship and warm the lead). A nurture sequence (a weekly newsletter or content drop, ongoing). An abandonment sequence (cart abandonment, browse abandonment, form abandonment, triggered within 30 minutes). And a post-purchase sequence (onboarding, upsell, review request, referral ask).
SMS is the same four flows, dialled tighter. SMS gets opened at between 95% and 98% within 3 minutes of send (vs 25% to 35% for email within 24 hours). The right rule is to use SMS for the time-sensitive moments only. Welcome message after sign-up, abandonment reminder, order shipped, appointment reminder, exclusive offer with a 24-hour window. Stack SMS on email, don't replace it.
The numbers we see across Ignis ecommerce clients are typical. A working email + SMS layer adds between 25% and 45% of total revenue, depending on the offer and the AOV. A non-working layer (or no layer) leaves that 25% to 45% on the table indefinitely. Same traffic. Same product. Different layer.
If your business has a CRM with leads in it but no automated sequences sending to those leads, your highest-leverage move this quarter is wiring up the four flows above. Klaviyo for ecommerce, ActiveCampaign or HubSpot for B2B, plus an SMS layer (Postscript, Attentive, Twilio). The setup is between 2 and 4 weeks. The lift is permanent.