Alen Capelja.

The Monday newsletter

DTC strategy, marketing, analytics and AI, from the data up.

Alen Capelja

Fifteen-plus years running growth for DTC brands: strategy, Klaviyo and lifecycle marketing, analytics that match the store, and AI that does the routine work. Every Monday I write up one thing I learned doing the work.

9 assignments. Read one first, then decide.

Your email address

Free. One assignment every Monday: a real question, the numbers behind it, and one thing to do on Monday. Unsubscribe anytime.

Latest: moved a large California retailer's 9 million profiles to Klaviyo in the middle of peak Q4. Zero revenue-impacting incidents. See the case →

This week's assignment

Alen Capelja.Yewgo · Every Monday

Latest · Deliverability · December 21, 2026 · 5 min read

Your authentication is fine. Your audience isn't.

An apparel brand's Gmail spam rate kept crossing 0.1% while SPF, DKIM and DMARC all passed. The spikes came from who got the campaigns and how often.

Read the assignment →

The question

“When Gmail flags your email and every authentication check passes, what is it reacting to?”


The assignment

Pull 30 days of Gmail spam rate from Postmaster Tools next to your daily send volume. Then find the Feedback-ID header in a recent campaign and count last month's campaign recipients by mailbox provider.

“Alen has been a fantastic partner to us at Klaviyo… he really is a true power user of the platform… I always make a point to loop him in early because his feedback is genuinely invaluable.”

Gilbert Hsu, Klaviyo

How an assignment works

Each one opens with the question a founder asked, shows the numbers from one account, and ends with the assignment: one thing to do on Monday that takes an afternoon.

Start here

A few places to start.

The rest are being written now and land in the Library as they ship.

Selected work

Every account arrived with a measurement problem. Fixing it came first.

Every case here was orchestrated by me: the strategy, the measurement, the analytics and the lifecycle systems. Channel execution was the agency team's where it was agency work, and the brand's own where it was Yewgo work; each case says which.

Large California retailer · Apparel & lifestyle retail

9 million profiles. Peak Q4. Zero margin for error.

Moving a national retailer's entire email program from Cordial to Klaviyo in the middle of their biggest season.

9M

profiles migrated during peak Q4

45 days

from 0 to ~9M emails a day

0

revenue-impacting incidents, deliverability held through warmup

30 days

to rebuild every core lifecycle flow

Read the case →

Brands I've worked with

TillysCutter & BuckHewlett-PackardDippin' DotsRedkenElmhurst 1925Loop EarplugsCalifornia Olive RanchOutdoor ResearchLazarus NaturalsSuperATVHess Toy TruckRubio MonocoatBeatBoxTillysCutter & BuckHewlett-PackardDippin' DotsRedkenElmhurst 1925Loop EarplugsCalifornia Olive RanchOutdoor ResearchLazarus NaturalsSuperATVHess Toy TruckRubio MonocoatBeatBox

Now building · Yewgo

AI for DTC that runs every week.

Every account I worked on had the same two problems: dashboards that were confidently wrong, and work that only happened when a person remembered to do it. Yewgo is the answer to both: AI that pulls the data, does the analysis, runs the routine work, and checks itself against the source of truth before anyone sees a number.

Analytics

Revenue models reconciled to the store's own orders within about 1%, cohort and LTV models, forecasts with a measured error, and the audits that catch what dashboards hide..

Automations

Monthly executive reports, weekly agendas, data pulls and performance packs that assemble themselves on a schedule.

Operating system for agencies

AI agent teams per channel (analytics, lifecycle, paid, SEO) behind a two-tier QA gate, plus a monthly SEO cycle that produced the client report, team workbook and technical queue for five brands..

Integrations

Klaviyo, GA4, Shopify, BigCommerce and the ad platforms wired into one reporting layer, so paid, email and on-site behaviour tell one story instead of three..

±1%

Revenue models that reconcile to the commerce platform before they forecast anything.

12%

of orders double-counted in one GA4 setup. The audits catch what dashboards hide.

5 brands

ran on one automated monthly SEO cycle: report, workbook, technical queue, dev escalations.

2-tier QA

Agent teams for analytics, lifecycle, paid and SEO, behind a truth-gate that gets stricter every pass.

In their words

What people say after working with me.

Alen has been a fantastic partner to us at Klaviyo… he really is a true power user of the platform… I always make a point to loop him in early because his feedback is genuinely invaluable.
Gilbert HsuProduct Manager, Marketing AI, KlaviyoKlaviyo partner
It's been great working with Alen as one of our early beta partners for Klaviyo Service. I always appreciate his thoughtful feedback and customer first perspective. He deeply understands what brands need.
Grant DekenHead of Product, Klaviyo Service, KlaviyoKlaviyo partner
He is highly accessible, responsive, and dependable… Alen's strong knowledge and versatility are major assets, and his contributions reflect a deep commitment to delivering quality work.
Michael AngiolettiLarge California retailerClient
Alen is one of the most intelligent and data-minded people I've ever had the privilege of working with. He has a unique ability to take the smallest amount of data and tell it's story in a digestible and understandable way. This type of skill set helped put our clients at ease because they understood the information we were putting in front of them, which enabled them to make educated decisions for their business or project.
Alex CarrollSenior Account Manager, Groove CommerceSame team
Alen is an incredible partner who combines deep expertise in Klaviyo with an insightful understanding of client needs, making every collaboration a pleasure. He is exceptionally thoughtful, able to articulate critical trends and patterns he's observed over his years of working with the platform.
Gina PotenzaPartner Strategy, KlaviyoKlaviyo partner
Alen is a rare breed. His knowledge and skillset within the ecommerce space is unmatched… He brings a truly unique strategic approach to everything he works on.
Bill LorimerDirector of Delivery, Groove CommerceManaged Alen directly

A little more about me

Alen Capelja

A working-class family: one of my parents ran the retail side of a chain of stores, and I had the computer. I learned the languages, then information systems, which in practice meant analysing real systems and why people resist changing them. Everything since is retail, technology and how people behave, brought to one problem, DTC. B.S. in Information Systems Management.

  • Yewgo · Founder · 2026 – now
  • Groove Commerce LLC · Senior CRM & Lifecycle Manager · Dec 2024 – Sep 2026
  • dellik · Founder and CEO · Jun 2020 – Mar 2026
  • The Email Marketers · Director of Strategy & Operations · Jun – Nov 2024
  • SmartBug Media · Subject-Matter Expert · SDM · Jan 2018 – Jul 2024
The longer version →

See you on Monday.

Or work with me →

Yewgo is one assignment a week. No pitch, no roundup, one thing I learned that you can use.

© 2026 Alen Capelja · alencapelja@yewgo.co