AI customer segmentation for e-commerce

Re-Engagement Campaigns: The Last Email Before Suppression

A subscriber who has not opened in six months is not a customer. They are a tax on your sender reputation, and the re-engagement campaign is the last chance before you stop mailing them for good.

A re-engagement campaign is a short sequence, two emails at most, sent to subscribers approaching the sunset threshold. The first reminds them of the value, the second asks them to confirm they still want mail. Anyone who does not engage gets suppressed permanently. No exceptions.

The sequence is two emails, not five

A re-engagement campaign that runs five emails is not a re-engagement campaign. It is a spam campaign aimed at people who already stopped reading. Two emails at most: a first email that reminds the subscriber of the value, and a second that asks them to confirm they still want mail. Three is pushing it, and more than three drives complaint spikes. The subscriber who does not engage after two emails has made their decision, and the program should respect it.

The first email should be a reminder, not a discount. A discount trains the subscriber to wait for a discount, and the next re-engagement campaign will need a bigger one. The reminder should be about the value: the product, the content, the reason they signed up. The second email is the ask: do you still want this? A subscriber who answers yes is a subscriber who wants to stay. A subscriber who does not answer is a subscriber who has already left.

Related reading on this site: SegmentSage and Win-Back Flows: The 90-Day Silence Rule cover the neighbouring problems in more depth.

Segment by recency before you send

Subscribers inactive for 90 to 180 days get two emails. Subscribers inactive for 180 to 365 days get one email only, then suppression. Subscribers inactive for over a year should not be mailed at all, because mailing them is a complaint risk with no upside. The segmentation matters because the response rate falls with recency: a subscriber who has not engaged in three months is recoverable, a subscriber who has not engaged in a year is not.

WinBack Labs puts the probability of winning back a previous customer at 20 to 40 percent, and most programs see 5 to 15 percent of the inactive segment re-engage. The rest get sunsetted, which is the point: a smaller engaged list beats a large dead one. The campaign is not a failure because most subscribers do not come back. The campaign is a success because the ones who do come back are engaged, and the ones who do not are gone.

The suppression has to actually happen

The part most programs skip is the suppression itself. The campaign runs, the subscribers do not engage, and the program keeps mailing them anyway, because suppressing them feels like losing subscribers. It is not losing subscribers. It is losing dead weight, and the dead weight is costing the sender reputation. A list that keeps mailing inactive subscribers will see its complaint rate climb, its deliverability fall, and its engaged subscribers pay the price in the spam folder.

The suppression should be permanent, not a pause. A subscriber who was suppressed for inactivity and then re-added by an import is a subscriber who will complain, because they already told you they were done. The suppression list is a list of people who have made a decision, and the program should respect it. The sunset threshold is 180 days for most lists, 365 for the most generous. Pick one, write it down, and enforce it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a re-engagement campaign?

A brief sequence sent to inactive subscribers before they hit the sunset threshold. It is the last checkpoint before permanent suppression, not an alternative to sunsetting. The correct flow is: inactive, then win-back, then suppressed.

How many emails should a win-back sequence have?

Two at most. A first email that reminds the subscriber of the value, and a second that asks them to confirm they still want mail. Three is pushing it, and more than three drives complaint spikes.

When should I run a re-engagement campaign?

When subscribers approach the sunset threshold, usually 90 to 180 days without engagement. Subscribers inactive for 180 to 365 days get one email only, then suppression. Subscribers inactive for over a year should not be mailed at all.