At Shoptalk in Las Vegas, Wunderkind’s Chief Revenue Officer Richard Jones sat down with Lauren Zarzour, Senior Director of eCommerce at Howler Brothers, to talk about a challenge every brand recognizes: engaging customers at every step of the journey, not just at the point of purchase. In a short conversation (video below), Lauren shared how she’s using Wunderkind and Klaviyo together to move from siloed email programs to integrated, intent-driven journeys that feel natural to the customer and manageable for her team.
For Lauren, the starting point is simple: you have to engage customers all the way through their relationship with your brand.
From the moment someone first discovers Howler Brothers, Lauren wants that experience to feel cohesive—whether they are signing up to learn more, browsing for the first time, or finally deciding to buy. Wunderkind powers a welcome journey that lets her present an offer or incentive “in a way that feels really natural,” while also creating room to build a longer-term relationship. The goal is to be there at the moments when a shopper is considering a purchase, needs a nudge, or just needs a reminder of why they love the brand in the first place.
That kind of journey only works if you can reach enough of your audience.
What Lauren values in Wunderkind is the identity graph, which delivers the ability to recognize and communicate with more people than just the explicit opt-in list. For a lifestyle brand like Howler Brothers, where discovery often starts with casual browsing and inspiration, being able to reach beyond the traditional subscriber base is “super powerful.” It allows her team to connect with high-intent shoppers who might not have raised their hands yet but are clearly showing interest.
Lauren has now brought Wunderkind into two different brands and the underlying problem has been the same each time.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in women’s jewelry or men’s apparel,” she noted. “You’re trying to reach the customer at the right moment, at the right time.” The basics of Marketing 101 still apply; what has changed is the volume of signals, the number of channels, and the expectations of the customer. Being able to act on intent in real time, in a way that feels consistent and on-brand, is what separates good programs from great ones.
Historically, many teams have managed transactional emails, welcome series, lifecycle flows, and marketing campaigns as separate tracks. That can lead to disjointed experiences for customers—and a lot of operational overhead for a lean team.
Lauren sees the evolution of Wunderkind as a way out of that pattern. The core capabilities she first adopted are still there, but now they are more tightly integrated with Klaviyo. Instead of “here are your transactional emails” and “here are your other flows” all living in isolation, she can think in terms of a series of journeys with different touchpoints and triggers. It’s less about managing individual sends and more about orchestrating a continuous conversation with the customer.
For teams with limited resources, that shift from siloed programs to connected journeys isn’t just a performance win; it’s a manageability win.
Richard highlighted how much the partnership has matured: Wunderkind is now part of the Klaviyo app marketplace, making it easier for brands like Howler Brothers to deploy and scale.
For Lauren, that means Klaviyo flows can run on top of Wunderkind identity, combining the best of both platforms. Klaviyo remains the home for campaign strategy, creative, and journey design. Wunderkind brings the identity and behavioral signals that ensure those flows actually reach the right people at the right time.
The result is a stack that feels additive, not disruptive: familiar ESP workflows, powered by a deeper understanding of who the customer is and what they are doing in the moment.
Taken together, Lauren’s experience points to a clear playbook:
For Howler Brothers, Wunderkind and Klaviyo are not separate projects; they are pieces of the same customer experience strategy.