Footprint USA Cuts Campaign Analysis Time by 90% Ahead of BFCM with Privy's MCP

Overview

Online retailer and Bay Area favorite Footprint USA is the go-to for gear from brands like Arc'teryx and Hoka. Since taking over in 2020, owner Michael Hsu has turned the family-owned shop into a community hub for running events and brand launches, with Privy powering the email and SMS that keep customers coming back.

The Challenge

Footprint sends a steady mix of emails: new arrivals, brand launches, and recurring favorites like staff picks, customer favorites, and best sellers. Privy tracks how every one performs. The trick was turning all that data into strategy, fast, especially on weeks without a new product to promote and during BFCM planning, when every send counts.

The Solution

With Privy's MCP connecting their account to Claude, the team just asks questions in plain English and gets answers pulled straight from its own campaigns.

Finding the emails customers love

Michael started with Footprint's recurring email themes:

"Which email themes drive the most opens, clicks, and purchases: staff picks, customer favorites, or best sellers?"

Privy's MCP came back with open and click-to-purchase rates for each. Then he followed up:

"Based on what's performed best, recommend some email topics that are most likely to get our customers to click."

The result is a repeatable content strategy: Footprint always knows which themes to lean on and what to send next.

Knowing who to target

Knowing what to send is only half of it. To figure out who to send to, Michael asks:

"Which customer groups engage most with our staff picks and best-seller emails, and what new segments should we build around them?"

Privy's MCP pulls together far more data than the team would have had time to dig through on its own. "It helps us better target our customers and create more segments," he says.

Building BFCM on last year's winners

Footprint had a strong BFCM last year, and Michael's plan for this year is simple. "See what worked, what didn't work, and then amplify that," he says.

So he went straight to last year's results:

"Looking at last year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails, which ones drove the most purchases, and what did they have in common?"

Privy's MCP surfaced the top performers and what set them apart, pulled straight from Footprint's own data. Then he turned those insights into a plan:

"Based on what worked, what should we send this BFCM, and to which customer groups?"

Now the team is building this year's holiday plan on proven winners.

No generic list of BFCM best practices required. Footprint is starting with something better: its own customer data.

The Results

“An hours worth of data research takes us less than 5 minutes using Privy’s MCP”. – Michael Hsu, Owner, Footprint USA

Footprint now has data-backed email topics on demand and a BFCM plan built on proven winners. Heading into the biggest shopping season of the year, the team is spending less time digging through last year's numbers and more time deciding what to do with them.

For Footprint, BFCM prep now starts with a question, not a spreadsheet or a dashboard.

Your data already has the answers. Start asking. Start your 15-day free trial.

About Privy's MCP

Privy's MCP connects your Privy account to Claude and ChatGPT, so you can ask about your campaigns, flows, customers, and segments in plain English and get answers from your real data in seconds.

New to MCP? Read: What is an MCP and why does it matter for your BFCM prep?

FAQ

What is Privy's MCP?Privy's MCP (Model Context Protocol) connects your Privy email and SMS data to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT, so you can ask questions about your marketing in plain English.

Do I need technical skills to use it?No. Once it's connected, you just type questions like you would in any chat.

How can Privy's MCP help with BFCM planning?You can ask which of last year's BFCM emails performed best, which themes drive purchases, and which customer groups to target. Then you can build this year's strategy on your own results.