Lifecycle architecture
One core model
Core data model
1 contact = 1 record
Consolidated DEs
Engaged segments
Journeys
Pre-purchase
Post-purchase
Reactivation
Win-back
Inbox
Journey
SPF · DKIM · DMARC
Inbox
Clean events
Monitored
Documented
01 — The inherited CRM
A database with 400,000 contacts. Maybe 80,000 are still real. Open rates have been drifting down for two years and nobody’s sure why. Journeys are still running that nobody can edit because nobody knows what they trigger from. Three Data Extensions hold the same data with different field names. Deliverability is fine on Gmail, dying on Outlook, and unmeasured on the corporate inboxes that actually matter.
The dashboards show big numbers. Total subscribers up. Sends per month up. List growth up. The CFO is happy. The CMO is starting to ask why revenue per email isn’t moving.
This is what we get hired to fix.
02 — What we do
Most engagements start with one piece. Most expand to all five — because the pieces don’t work in isolation. Here’s the shape of the work.
01
Core data model
We rebuild the underlying data architecture. One contact equals one record. Data Extensions consolidated, field naming standardized, relationships mapped. Most of the deliverability and segmentation problems downstream trace back to this layer being a mess. Fix it once, every other layer gets easier.
02
Database hygiene
Active vs. inactive vs. dead contacts, properly classified. Engagement-based segmentation that reflects real behavior, not just “subscribed.” Dead weight removed from sending lists. The database shrinks. Open rates and inbox placement improve. Total subscribers goes down. The right metrics go up.
03
Journey architecture
Lifecycle journeys mapped to actual customer behavior — pre-purchase, post-purchase, reactivation, win-back. Triggered by clean events, not arbitrary date logic. Each journey owns its goal, its exit criteria, and its measurement. No more “we have 14 active journeys and we’re not sure what they do.”
04
Deliverability and infrastructure
Sender Authentication Package (SAP) configured properly. SPF, DKIM, DMARC aligned. IP and domain warm-up where needed. BIMI for the brands that warrant it. Inbox placement monitored across providers. The work that nobody finds sexy until the inbox numbers are back where they should be.
05
Operating handover
Docs, Loom walkthroughs, runbooks, and training that lets your team actually run the stack after we leave. Most SFMC engagements end with a handover doc nobody reads and a consultant who’s mysteriously still on retainer eight months later. We’d rather not be that consultant.
03 — How we work
Engagement length depends on the state of the instance. A from-scratch Marketing Cloud build runs six to ten weeks. A rebuild of an existing messy instance runs three to six months — most of that work is in the audit and the data model, not the journey config. Project, retainer, or hybrid for ongoing operation after that.
01
Audit
Two to three weeks. We map the existing instance — every Data Extension, every active journey, every automation, every sender profile. We run a deliverability check across providers. We pull the engagement data and tell you which segments are actually alive. You get a written diagnosis of what’s broken, what it’s costing, and what we’d fix first.
02
Core model
The longest phase, and the one that pays back the most. We rebuild the data layer — consolidated DEs, clean relationships, proper subscriber model. Most of what comes after gets easier or harder based on what happens here.
03
Activation
Journeys mapped, built, and launched. Templates designed. Deliverability infrastructure set up. UAT, go-live, hypercare. Weeks of work, but predictable once the model underneath is right.
04
Handover or managed service
Docs, Loom walkthroughs, and a working machine. Your team keeps running it after we leave. Or we stay on a managed-service retainer — campaigns, journey iterations, ongoing optimization. Most enterprise clients pick the second.
04 — Beyond SFMC
If you’re already on HubSpot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or another platform, we work in it. We’ve shipped on most of the major ones at some point in our careers. The depth varies by platform — we’re honest about which we run day-one and which we’ll need to spin up on, and we’ll tell you when something else is the better fit for what you actually need.
05 — Selected work
Premium B2C, multi-brand groups, hospitality, financial services. The common thread isn’t the industry — it’s the kind of Marketing Cloud instance that needs senior hands to fix or build right.
Other Marketing Cloud engagements include Candriam (financial services, NDA scope) and others under retainer.
06 — Hospitality
We have a productized SFMC offer for hospitality brands running on Thynk — three packages from clean platform setup to full lifecycle automation. Different page, different sales motion, same SFMC depth underneath.
07 — Related services