Fairplace is an online toy store based in Kortrijk, founded by Christophe. He focuses on selling quality toys, bikes and trampolines for children. Sales run through the webshop and through Bol.com, which allows customers in Belgium and the Netherlands to order easily.
Fairplace was already running ads and social media, but email barely did anything. Earlier campaigns through Mailchimp barely worked. Many emails never reached customers and ended up in spam folders instead. As a result, newsletters brought little response and repeat communication stalled.
After looking into it, the issue wasn’t the content, but the setup itself. The existing email system was hurting deliverability. Christophe needed something more reliable, and it had to connect properly with the webshop.
The goal was to get email working again as a usable channel. Emails had to land in inboxes, not spam. Customer lists needed to be segmented properly, and basic automation had to run without technical friction. The setup had to be easy enough to manage alongside daily webshop operations.
Together with Christophe, we first clarified what email should actually do for Fairplace: when customers should hear from the brand, what kind of messages made sense, and how much manual work was realistic.
We looked at a few tools and checked which ones actually got emails delivered and were easy to work with. Once the platform was chosen, the webshop connection was set up and mailing lists were cleaned and segmented.
New customers received a welcome email, and returning customers got follow-up messages. New content was written to better match how customers already interacted with the store.
After the first emails went out, we looked at how people reacted and adjusted things where needed.
What are the outcomes of this project?
The deliverability issues were resolved. Emails started reaching inboxes again. Open and click rates improved, and customers began responding to promotions instead of ignoring them. Christophe could send newsletters and campaigns without worrying about technical problems. Email became a usable channel again, instead of a frustrating one.
People say that email marketing is dead. In this project, it was clear that if you use email correctly, it can bring in many new customers and keep existing ones coming back.