How a Super Bowl campaign turned email into a social engagement engine — Stripo.email

If you’ve ever felt that your email campaigns lose steam the moment a subscriber closes the message, you’re not alone. For many brands, engagement ends at the inbox, leaving clicks and conversions as the only accurate measures of success. But what if emails could be more by acting as starting points of a bigger conversation?

In this case study for Stripo’s series “Email marketer’s code”, Leandro Dias, an email marketer from Brazil specializing in DTC brands, shares how he turned a Super Bowl campaign for Bantastic Snack into a cross-channel experience. By blending email, Instagram, and a playful “secret pass” mechanic, Leandro transformed a simple promotion into a social engagement engine that boosted sales, followers, and community connections.

Meet the expert

Leandro Dias is an email marketer with nearly four years of hands-on experience in cross-channel sales execution for Shopify DTC brands. Over time, Leandro has become an expert at managing high-value segments, creating marketing schedules and content direction, and streamlining customer retention flows.

Leandro is certified in Klaviyo for Product and Deliverability, which allows him to stay on top of inbox performance, anti-spam compliance, and evolving data privacy regulations. His background includes work on both the client side and within marketing agencies, giving him a broad perspective on QA processes, client communication, and industry standards across different segments.

The challenge: Extending engagement beyond the inbox

We wanted to do something special for Bantastic Snack’s Super Bowl campaign. The event is one of the biggest snacking moments of the year, so it felt like the perfect occasion to reach people when snacks were already top of mind. Our goal was not just to push products during the big game, but to create a campaign that connected email with social media.

Usually, email campaigns end at the click. Subscribers either make a purchase or drop off — and that’s the end of it. I wanted to break this pattern for this campaign. The challenge was threefold:

• extend engagement beyond the inbox into a social, conversational channel;
• make the incentive feel playful instead of purely transactional;
• avoid the “post-email dead zone,” where attention disappears the moment the email is closed.

Integrated communication was our campaign’s key idea. We positioned email as the entry point and Instagram as the engagement arena. Our subscribers received a Super Bowl-themed email with a twist: a “secret pass” mechanic. By following a link to our Instagram page and using the pass, subscribers could unlock a 20% discount code delivered right into their DMs.

It turned the campaign into more than just an email — it became a bridge between channels, with email sparking the action and social media keeping the conversation going.

The solution: Building an email-to-Instagram funnel with gamification

When we started shaping the campaign, I knew that the solution had to be simple, visual, and fun. If we wanted people to leave their inbox and continue the experience on Instagram, then the email itself couldn’t be crowded with copy or buttons. So, we stripped the email down to one Super Bowl–inspired image. That was it. Our single call to action was clear: Use the secret pass to continue the journey on Instagram.

(Source: Email from Bantastic)

On the social side, we built a funnel that picked up where the email had left off. Anyone who clicked landed on our Instagram channel. By using the secret pass, clickers unlocked a 20% discount code delivered right into their DMs. This integration was powered through Gorgias, which allowed us to connect social messaging to automation.

The part of the campaign that I enjoyed most was turning the coupon into a game. Instead of simply handing out a discount, we had subscribers interact — whether through a comment or a message — to trigger the pass. That mechanic turned a standard promotion into a conversation, breaking the usual post-email silence and pulling people into a lively space in which engagement felt natural.

Of course, not everyone would be a perfect fit, so we applied smart segmentation. We focused on 90-day engaged profiles and mixed them in with all-time buyers. In this way, we reached both loyal customers and newer engagements without diluting relevance.

Integrated communication tied everything together:

• email acted as the entry point;
• Instagram was like the playground;
• Gorgias became the bridge that made the entire campaign seamless.

Results: Higher-order value and stronger impact beyond direct conversions

This campaign didn’t just work — it actually surpassed our usual benchmarks. The average order value came in higher than expected, so we knew that the sales side was solid. 

But what stood out most to me was how far the impact went beyond direct conversions:

1. Social engagement really took off. Comments, DMs, and follower growth showed that people weren’t just grabbing discounts — they were crossing over from email to Instagram and becoming part of the community.
2. We saw real strength in audience building. The profiles we nurtured through emails started fueling our Meta Ads audiences with much stronger quality signals. These lists had more depth and engagement than standard buyer-syncs from Klaviyo.
3. Customer Success integration was another win. Autoreplies through Gorgias handled code delivery smoothly and reinforced a feeling of connection. Subscribers could see that our “email people” and “social people” were actually from the same team, which gave the brand a more human, approachable vibe.

And finally, the campaign wasn’t about chasing huge numbers — it was about quality over quantity. We ended up with a smaller but much more valuable audience — one that was not only buying but also interacting, engaging, and staying connected across channels.

Lessons learned

Looking back at this campaign, I learned that email can be the spark that moves people into new spaces where engagement feels natural and fun. For Bantastic Snack, that space was Instagram. The real value of this campaign came from keeping interactions alive even after the emails were closed.

Here are three tips I’d like to share with other email marketers based on this experience:

1. Think of email as a trigger, not as the endpoint. Use email to guide subscribers into other channels — whether that’s social, community spaces, or even direct conversations. This will extend the life of your campaigns and open new engagement doors.
2. Keep it simple. Emails with a single bold image and one clear action outperformed emails with complex designs. Clarity often drives more interaction than a crowded email does.
3. Play with gamification and integration. Turning a discount into a reward system makes people want to participate, not just redeem. By tools like Customer Success or automation, you can scale that experience while keeping it personal.

Wrapping up

We thank Leandro Dias for sharing his insights and experiences with us in this email marketer’s code case study. His project shows that it’s important not to be afraid to strip things down and experiment with how email connects to other channels. The simpler the entry point and the more playful the journey, the stronger the results — in sales and in building a community around your brand.