The problem Churned customers send no signals, so a journey that waits for behaviour waits forever.
Why it happens No current reason to think of Seatfrog at all, plus stale or negative priors from the lapse period. The blocker is absence from mind, not objection.
The behaviour we are driving A prospect who has never transacted places a first bid. A past customer adds a trip or bids on a real occasion trip. Everyone else rests until the next calendar wave.
The job to be done “Reach me when there's a trip I'd actually take: commuter September, New Year, my anniversary. Between waves, leave me alone.”
Q4 marketing model, Business Case tab, exported 29 Sep 2026: volumes checked by Analytics 8 Sep 2026; organic and target rates measured against holdout and confirmed by Analytics; a buyer's month valued at £30 an upgrade, 1.29 upgrades in a first-purchase month and 1.67 after; net is gross at the 23% take rate.
| Model row | Worked volume a month | Rate | Value per active month | Gross a year | Net a year | Q4, driven | Q4, in quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leisure seasonal plus commuter September and New Year, plus selective high-LTV RECOVER | 12,732 The number counts the churned buyers eligible for the month's seasonal wave. Ivi confirmed 9 Sep it is a monthly figure (comment on this cell). | 1.44% vs 0.74% organic | £30 an active month (one upgrade) × 1.6 months × 12 a year | £41,068 | £9,446 | £1,579 | £1,279 |
| Never-transacted churned: the largest, lowest-yield pool, but contactable; persona unknown for most RECOVER | 22,491 The number counts the churned never-transacted users eligible for the month's seasonal wave. Ivi confirmed 9 Sep it is a monthly figure (comment on this cell). | 0.4% vs 0.2% organic | £30 an active month (one upgrade) × 1.6 months × 12 a year | £20,728 | £4,767 | £1,202 | £1,132 |
Q4 2026: £2,780 net on the driven basis (Oct £405, Nov £1,168, Dec £1,207); £2,411 landing inside the quarter. Driven: months active credited to Q4, pro rata by days live from the launch, the basis the Q4 V2MOM carries. In quarter: only the months that fall in October to December (Tony, 10 Sep 2026: the forecast Marketing submits). Net is gross at the 23% take rate. Launch 1 November 2026.
Still to confirm Rates measured 8 Sep (item 6); confirm the eligible counts per seasonal wave (Analytics). Consent overstates the never-transacted reach about 1.8x (item 17). Two segments, below; runs the full quarter from 1 Oct
Ladders to Reactivation (Recover): reactivation rate 1.1%. Metric moved Reactivation %. Evidence B, benchmark.
The planned case, a 30% lift in conversion, as presented to the board on 23 Sep 2026 (the Sizing tab behind the model's Business Case tab): volumes checked by Analytics (Ivi, 8 Sep 2026); organic and target rates measured against holdout and confirmed by Analytics; a buyer's month valued at £30 an upgrade, 1.29 upgrades in a first-purchase month and 1.67 in later months (the 20 Sep change; the earlier £172k counted one upgrade a month); net is gross at the 23% take rate (agreed 8 Sep 2026). Source: Q4 2026 Marketing Model, Business Case (output) and Sizing tabs, exported 2026-09-29 (the live model). Every figure is incremental of the customers who would have returned anyway: worked volume × (target rate − organic rate) × months active × times a year × value per active month.
Each engineering-row chip is coloured by the ask: APP AND JOURNEY OWNED COMPUTED TRAIT · ANALYTICS EXISTS · PIPE TO BRAZE READY · NOTHING TO BRIEF
| The moment | Phase 1, ships now | Phase 2, waits on engineering | Who builds it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The seasonal trigger | email, braze push The seasonal calendar replaces the weekly drip: one wave per moment (back to work for commuters in September and again at New Year, half term, the… | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · new model |
on the map: 11 · The rest between waves The rest between waves | The per-customer rest becomes real: two touches spent means silence until the next wave or their anniversary, whichever the cycle’s exclusion rule picks. | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze build |
| The sunset send | email The unengaged tail stops being waved at: one honest last email (if you ever fancy First Class for less, here is where we are), then silence… | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · decision needed |
| Waves stand down for live episodes | The headline governance change: waves stand down for any customer inside a live journey episode. Engineering rows D4 | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · computed trait |
on the map: 10 · The return, and the opt-in capture The return, and the opt-in capture | braze in-app message A returning lapsed or churned customer with no channel is offered £5 off their next upgrade for turning on offers, after a settled dwell on Home. | Nothing waits | App engineering · logic change, new eventBraze · Braze buildDesign · copy and creative |
| The one-year anniversary | email, braze push The anniversary is owned by Journey 6: one celebration to every customer on their upgrade anniversary, copy forked by state. | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · logic change |
| Power users and organic returners | The wave never lands on the customers most likely to come back anyway: the measured harm is the rule’s evidence. | Nothing waits | Analytics |
| An active trip or live auction | The wave defers to the moment: a seasonal offer on a travel day reads as noise at best. | Nothing waits | Braze · computed trait |
The words are on the journey map above. A D number opens that row of the Engineering brief; the engineering board uses the same numbers. Live sends not named here continue unchanged.
| The question | Owner |
|---|---|
| Rule on the drop-1 guardrail read: 0.71 percent unsubscribed in four days against a 0.28 percent benchmark. Does drop 2 send as designed, send changed, or hold? | Blocks launch Sheran, at Gate 1 |
| The York holdout read: incremental transactions against the 5.0 percent no-contact holdout, at one, two and four weeks. | Blocks launch Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| Build the shared episode flag and the wave-freeze exclusion: the engine’s first governance build, already a launch gate on the save journey. | Blocks launch Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| Tier-level sizing per wave freeze: Cooling and Cold marketable counts confirmed, and the frequency band into the sync. | Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| The sunset semantics: one last email then removal from every marketing audience, shared with the win-back journey’s deep-tail rule. | Legal |
| Confirm where every button lands: sign the register 'Where every tap lands' on this matrix against the deep-link availability list, one pass for the journey (Sheran, 6 Sep 2026, ruling J5-12). | Product |
| # | The ask | Hand back | Start here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The York holdout read: incremental transactions against the 5.0 percent no-contact holdout and the 0.84 percent organic baseline, at one, two and four weeks. | The read, and the scale-or-stop recommendation. | The measurement position on the Campaign brief. |
| 2 | Tier sizing per wave freeze: the lifecycle band, the zero-bids fence, and marketable counts per tier (Cooling 20.9k and Cold 16.9k are the working figures). | Per-tier volumes per freeze. | The wave row on the Decisioning matrix. |
| 3 | The exclusion flags into wave segments: power user, organic return, and the episode flag’s data side. | The flags readable at the freeze. | The Engineering brief’s governance band. |
| 4 | Per-route comparison figures, nightly, on the standing pattern: the real-number rule for every wave claim. | The traits live, coverage stated. | The traits band on the Engineering brief. |
| 5 | The sync extensions (phase 2): frequency band, anniversary date, business against leisure. | The extended payload. | The plumbing band on the Engineering brief. |
Opens are machine-inflated: clicks are the honest engagement read everywhere in this journey.