Case Study: CloudSponge (SaaS contact importer) achieves 20% grandfathered-account upgrades in one day with Intercom

How CloudSponge Upgraded 20% of Grandfathered Accounts in a Day

CloudSponge, a B2B SaaS provider of an embeddable contact importer used on 150,000 websites, faced a major product update that would only be available to customers on current pricing plans — but more than 90% of their users were on lower, grandfathered plans. The company needed a way to announce the change to everyone who had ever created an account (from long-time customers to expired trial users) without sending a one-size-fits-all email that would underperform.

Using Intercom, CloudSponge segmented users into four tailored groups (grandfathered customers, current customers, churned users, and past trialists), sent personalized messages and tracked opens to follow up with non-openers. The targeted campaign produced above-average open rates (32% for grandfathered customers, 42% for trial leads) and drove immediate revenue: 20% of grandfathered accounts upgraded the first day (now paying 2–4× more and representing about 18% of the customer base), giving a swift, measurable boost to the company’s bottom line.

CloudSponge

Jay Gibb

Chief Executive Officer