How Origin Increased Lifecycle Revenue and Reduced Operational Workload with Monocle

About

Origin USA is an American apparel and footwear brand headquartered in Farmington, Maine, that makes everything from jiu-jitsu gis and training gear to boots, jeans, and everyday apparel, all 100% American-made. Founded by Pete Roberts and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, Origin operates its own factories and exhausts all efforts to source every component domestically, embodying their "Built By Freedom®" mission to restore American manufacturing communities. With a cult following among military personnel, law enforcement, athletes, and everyday Americans, Origin has built its reputation on high-performance, durable goods that connect patriotism with craftsmanship.

The Challenge

Origin runs a lean operation and is always exploring how they can implement technology to both increase operational efficiency and unlock growth.

With Monocle, Origin saw an opportunity to achieve two goals:

1. Protect their premium positioning 

"We are a premium brand," explains Adam L'Heureux, E-Commerce Manager at Origin. "There's some entry-level products, but on the whole, it's a premium product and we don't want to default to heavier discounting as we grow."

2. Reduce operational workload and enhance lifecycle performance 

Before Monocle, Origin had foundational email flows such as winback and engagement flows that they were building manually.

The team was open to exploring AI solutions that would raise their level of sophistication but had seen mixed results before. "AI has become that cutting-edge thing where anyone can tack AI onto any company. A lot of ideas sound great, but there's not necessarily any guarantee that in practice those things work," he explains. "It's very hit or miss."

The Solution

Origin partnered with Monocle to test AI-powered decisions across the customer lifecycle.

Use Case 1: AI-Optimized Offers (Welcome & Abandonment)

Origin started by using Monocle's AI Journeys to decide on incentive strategy per customer for both their welcome and abandonment flows. The AI analyzed each visitor's behavior and intent signals to determine whether a discount was needed, and if so, how much.

“What Monocle has allowed us to do is find a really good balance where we can provide optimal discounts to people who need a little more and others who don't need as much. It's on a case-by-case basis, which is super helpful because cost apprehension is a big part of the new customer experience for us.”

Use Case 2: AI Orchestrated Winback & Activation

On the retention side, Origin first tested using Monocle's AI for timing decisions across two winback cohorts, identifying the optimal moment to re-engage lapsed customers.

After seeing strong results, they expanded to let the AI control everything: timing, message selection, cadence, and frequency for both winback and activation flows (customers who subscribed but hadn't purchased).

"This was the first time we were trying an optimization like this," L'Heureux notes. "We went from very basic flows to technology that’s really powerful."

The Results

Monocle delivered across every use case Origin tested.

Welcome Capture Performance

By having Monocle’s AI analyze site visitors, including anonymous ones, Origin was able to see clear lift on the welcome capture.

• 15% increase in revenue per user
• 7% increase in conversion rate
• 5.5% increase in total orders

Abandonment Performance

Origin applied the same tactic to their abandonment flow, enabling Monocle to decide on the right incentive per consumer.

• 27% increase in revenue per user
• 30% increase in conversion rate

The efficiency gain was particularly dramatic:

“Our browse abandonment flows, for example, between the different triggers and flows for different product types and customer types, I've probably spent multiple weeks of work time building them,” says L'Heureux.

To be able to just tag 20-30 email templates and let AI Journeys go to work, that's a 40-80 hour reduction in workload to get a flow live that does just as well or better.

Winback Performance (AI Timing)

As an initial test, Origin enabled Monocle’s AI to decide on the optimal time to re-engage lapsed customers based on thousands of data points per consumer. With Monocle deciding on timing alone, Origin saw strong lift:

Long-Term cohort:

• 17X revenue uplift
• 9X conversion rate
• 3X click-through rate

Winback Performance (Full Orchestration)

When Origin expanded to full AI journey orchestration, results improved even further:

• 47% increase in revenue per user (compared to timing alone)

• 3X revenue per user (compared to timing alone)

Implementation Experience

For a team that had tested multiple AI solutions with mixed results, the Monocle experience stood out.

"With Monocle, it exceeded our expectations," L'Heureux says.

We would have been keen to continue just based on results alone, but having the Monocle team speak with us about the results, be transparent about how things are working, and what we can do moving forward - that personal connection has made it feel like more of a partnership rather than just a product we're purchasing.

What's Next

Origin is focused on expanding AI Journeys across more of their lifecycle marketing program.

"I'm really excited to keep diving into the AI Journey capabilities because there are so many ways for us to keep adding there," says L'Heureux.

The team's confidence in Monocle extends beyond current use cases. "Anytime I hear of a new Monocle product, we're really excited to see how it could work for our business."

The Bottom Line

For premium brands looking to balance conversion optimization with brand positioning as well as enhance lifecycle marketing performance without more operational workload, Origin's results with Monocle demonstrate what's possible.