# Josh Tay

Josh Tay works in DTC retention marketing, helping brands improve email and SMS programs while training the teams that run them. Tay's work emphasizes testing whether retention programs create incremental profit, rather than relying on channel-level best practices alone.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/josh-tay/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-tay
- LinkedIn followers: 7,074
- Topics: ecommerce, email-marketing, dtc-ecommerce, retention-marketing
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-09-23

## Summary

Josh Tay is most useful for training retention teams and testing whether email and SMS programs create incremental profit.

- Best for: A DTC retention agency seeking training or advisory work for junior staff and client systems.
- Not for: A brand seeking sponsored posts, newsletter takeovers, or reach-led promotions with engagement guarantees.
- Check first: Confirm if they offer sponsored placements and ask for past workshop attendance details.

### Takeaways

- Retention systems should work even when a junior team member runs them.
- Common retention best practices deserve skepticism until tested.
- Retention should be judged by incrementality and profit, not channel reporting.

## Main ideas

- **Retention systems should work even when a junior team member runs them**: Josh Tay says the systems they build are designed to have minimal downside for clients, even when a junior team member executes them. This player-coach method keeps them hands-on while training agency teams, client teams, and other agencies' teams. They argue that retention capability should be repeatable and teachable, not dependent on one senior operator.
- **Common retention best practices deserve skepticism until tested**: Josh Tay argues that widely circulated email and retention best practices are often wrong or untested. They learned through trial and error, debunked many best practices over time, and want people to have an environment to fail forward rather than copy people they call parrots. The later Lifetimely post criticizes recommendations made without sufficient data or within only one channel.
- **Retention should be judged by incrementality and profit, not channel reporting**: Josh Tay argues for incrementality tests on email and SMS, cohesion between retention and growth teams, and measurement that separates real retention gains from reporting artifacts. The later post adds holdouts, RFM, long-window leading indicators, and a balance between revenue now and revenue later, and between bankable profit and squeezing the customer file for cash.
- **A retention team needs hands-on execution and design, not just strategy**: A hiring post shows which roles Josh Tay considers necessary for retention work: Klaviyo technicians with third-party app skills, ecommerce email marketing specialists, and email designers. The minimum experience levels and portfolio request point to execution depth as a priority, not just high-level retention advice.

## Work to read

- [Agency career and retention-team incubator](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-tay_ive-been-in-various-sizes-of-agencies-0-activity-7505999205342068738-xB5A)
- [Lifetimely profit agent and analytics-led retention](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-tay_working-on-big-things-together-with-the-lifetimely-activity-7508548619201986560-XiYU)
- [Hiring for Klaviyo, email marketing, and design roles](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-tay_looking-to-bring-on-2-candidates-for-each-activity-7500942257768828928-FAuB)

## Brand relationships

- **Path Digital Solutions** (employment)
- **No Limit Email** (employment)
- **Common Thread Collective** (employment)
- **Lifetimely by AMP** (disclosed_partnership)

## Partnerships

Josh Tay's posts describe commercial work in client services and team training, not creator placements. They write about building retention systems for clients, training in-house and agency teams, and being a “player-coach” who stays hands-on while leading. A brand seeking a sponsored post, newsletter placement or similar promotion would be proposing an offer their posts don't show them making. Their posts point to work that looks more like an engagement or collaboration than a placement. In one, they describe partnering with someone to build a “retention marketing incubator” that gives people experience and guidance in retention marketing—a training venture rather than a media buy. In another, they describe working “together with the Lifetimely by AMP team” on a product called Profit agent, focused on retention metrics, the incrementality of loyalty and membership programs, and playbook execution. Neither post states terms, compensation, exclusivity or how to initiate an arrangement. For buyers, retention systems and workshops look like the clearest entry point; raise the possibility directly. Ask Tay about current terms, availability and disclosure requirements before building them into a plan.

## Alternatives

- Nathan Perdriau: Choose Nathan Perdriau when the agency wants a ready-made retention teaching framework that starts above email and SMS. The masterclass description covers lifetime gross profit, CAC targets, first-to-second-order conversion, Klaviyo flow structure, RFM segmentation and paid media’s role in acquisition quality. That suits a workshop on retention economics better than Josh Tay’s material if the goal is a broad curriculum rather than an incubator for junior agency operators. The prediction scorecard offers a useful way to review past forecasts against what actually happened, supporting a session on forecasting and incrementality.
- Muhammad Ahmad: Choose Muhammad Ahmad when the need is focused on ecommerce email strategy and the agency wants its junior team to stop copying flows between brands. The posts offer a concrete diagnostic list: strategy, welcome flow, segmentation, discount fatigue, data review, post-purchase flow, testing and zero-party data. A second post explains why the same email approach can fail in the same niche because audience psychology, LTV goals, journey length and positioning differ. That makes a strong workshop or checklist for email-specific account planning. This is a better choice than Josh Tay if the agency’s immediate gap is email craft and segmentation, not cross-channel retention measurement or an operator incubator.
- Arik Ahluwalia: Choose Arik Ahluwalia when the agency’s bottleneck is running the business rather than designing retention tests. The agency playbook post covers niche focus, building systems before they are needed, rejecting bad-fit clients, charging for strategy, tracking client lifetime value, recurring revenue, margins and satisfaction, and hiring before it feels comfortable. The tools post adds a practical daily stack: Klaviyo for repeat revenue, Figma, Notion, HeyGen and Slack. For a training workshop, this material suits a session on agency operations, client selection and tool discipline. It is a better choice than Josh Tay if the agency already knows retention mechanics and needs help scaling delivery and team structure.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/