In the modern digital era, internet access is just as important a utility as electricity and water— it’s difficult to imagine a life without it. IPRoyal, a leading global proxy service provider, understands this at its core with a mission to enable free internet access worldwide.

IPRoyal is committed to delivering privacy, speed, and efficiency with its premium solutions. Proxies, similar to VPNs, alter a user’s IP address, supporting various activities, such as SEO research, market research, data scraping, and travel fare aggregation. IPRoyal’s business model includes options to pay monthly per IP or per traffic in gigabytes.

The customer journey at IPRoyal involves a two-step process: first, users register for an account online, and then they can make a purchase. The marketing team’s primary goals are to increase both new and repeat purchases and to attract enterprise clients—a sector that they’re currently targeting with dedicated communications. And the platform they rely on to send those communications is Iterable.

IPRoyal Swaps Its Internal Email System for Iterable

Prior to adopting Iterable, IPRoyal was not able to correctly track conversion rates, as only a small percentage of its users completed a purchase after registering. Email marketing would be a core part of overcoming this challenge, but the team relied on an internal system that required developer intervention for each campaign, making the process cumbersome and inefficient.

Additionally, the system could only track basic email metrics—like open rates and click-through rates—providing little insight into the customer journey beyond those simple user interactions. The team knew which users received and opened their emails but couldn’t analyze whether those users actually took action or made a purchase.

IPRoyal needed a platform that could not only provide the best value at the most cost-efficient price but also deliver marketer-friendly automation and analytics across email and other channels. After the team’s evaluation, the winning selection was Iterable.

“Before Iterable, we didn’t have a proper email marketing tool to create segmentation and send personalized journeys. With our internal system, we needed the help of developers to send emails to customers, which was a manual process that didn’t even track outcomes properly. Now that we have optimized this channel through Iterable, we know so much more about our customers.” ~ Arnas Pelaitis, Retention & Analytics Manager at IPRoyal

Automating the Customer Journey to Maximize Conversions

To tackle its low purchase rates, IPRoyal implemented two strategic cross-channel messaging journeys using Iterable:

1. Post-Registration, Pre-Purchase Journey: The first journey focused on converting registered users into first-time buyers through a series of emails designed to convert into purchases.

After a user makes a purchase, they receive a personalized welcome email from IPRoyal, which offers valuable resources to help them make the most of their mobile proxy.

2. Post-Purchase Onboarding Journey: The second journey aimed to build customer loyalty and drive repeat purchases, while also attracting new business by introducing a benefits referral program. The journey included email and web push reminders alerting users of their plan’s expiration date, as well as abandoned cart emails to encourage a second purchase. And, because IPRoyal offers five different proxy plans, each email is personalized based on which plan a user has purchased.

According to Arnas Pelaitis, Retention & Analytics Manager at IPRoyal, the results were staggering. He reports that by creating these messaging journeys with the help of Iterable, the percentage of people who registered and then made a purchase has increased by a whopping 75%. 

And, most importantly, the team can directly see what percentage of revenue is coming from email marketing, as they had no way of tracking those metrics with their previous internal system.

“One factor that sets Iterable apart is the great documentation it provides. Whether it’s figuring out how to use handlebars or adding a new channel, I can easily find everything I need in Iterable’s user handbook.” ~ Arnas Pelaitis, Retention & Analytics Manager at IPRoyal

Going the Distance with A/B Testing

The journeys themselves are only the start of IPRoyal’s new marketing strategy. Iterable has also enabled the team to enhance its use of experimentation with robust A/B testing.

In one experiment, IPRoyal tested the effectiveness of various subject lines against a control pre-purchase email in its onboarding journey. The team discovered that a variation that used the word “discount” but didn’t reveal the exact percentage-off amount was the clear winner.

By using Iterable’s A/B testing capabilities to conduct their experiments, the team is now consistently seeing open rates of 20% or more with their pre-purchase emails.

“Now, A/B testing isn’t just a term we’re aware of but an actual practice we implement routinely, thanks to Iterable,” said Pelaitis.

What’s Next for IPRoyal

Looking ahead, IPRoyal plans to expand its marketing efforts to cover the entire customer lifecycle, including strategies to reactivate users with expired plans. The team also intends to integrate additional, Iterable-supported channels, such as In-Browser Messaging for more targeted promotional outreach.

By optimizing their email marketing strategy and setting themselves up for success with other communication channels, the IPRoyal team is well-positioned to continue its trajectory of gaining even deeper insights into their customer journey and achieving substantial growth.