A win-back email goes to a customer who used to buy from you and has stopped. Done well, it is one of the highest-return emails a store can send, because these people already know and trusted your brand once. Done badly, it is a 20% coupon blasted to everyone who has not ordered in 90 days, which trains good customers to wait for discounts.
Step 1: decide what “lapsed” means for your store
There is no universal “90 days”. A coffee subscription customer who has not ordered in 60 days is probably gone. A furniture customer who has not ordered in 60 days is completely normal.
Find your store’s typical gap between a customer’s orders (the median reorder gap). A good rule of thumb:
- About 2x the typical gap: the customer is drifting. Time for a soft check-in.
- About 3x the typical gap: the customer is at real risk. Time for the full win-back.
Our guide on picking a churn window shows how to measure the gap, and the free churn window tool calculates it from your orders export.
Step 2: start with the people worth the most
Do not send the same email to everyone who lapsed. Sort lapsed customers by what they used to spend and how often they bought:
- Big spenders going quiet: frequent, high-value customers who stopped. Write to these personally, one by one if the list is short.
- At Risk: used to buy often. They get your best automated sequence.
- One-time buyers who never came back: a lighter touch. Many of them were never really your customer.
RFM segments give you these groups automatically.
Step 3: write emails that sound like a person
A three-email sequence over two to three weeks is plenty.
Email 1: the check-in (no discount)
Subject: Still loving your [product]?
Hi Sam, it has been a while since your last order, so I wanted to check in. How is the [product] working for you? If anything was not right, just reply to this email; it comes straight to me.
Since you last visited we have added [new thing]. Here is a quick look.
[Your name], founder
Email 2: the reason to come back
Subject: The thing our regulars reorder most
Hi Sam, customers who bought [their product] usually come back for [related product]. Here is why they like it, and a short guide to getting the most out of [their product].
Email 3: the offer (only if needed)
Subject: A small thank-you, if you want it
Hi Sam, we would love to have you back. Here is [free shipping / a gift with your next order / 10% off] for the next 7 days. If now is not the right time, no problem at all.
Notice that only the last email has an offer. Many customers come back after the first or second email, and they did not need a discount to do it.
Step 4: respect consent and your sender reputation
- Only email customers who agreed to receive marketing. In Shopify this is the customer’s email marketing consent.
- After the sequence, stop emailing customers who did not open or click. Repeatedly mailing people who ignore you lowers inbox placement for all your emails.
- Make unsubscribing easy. A customer who unsubscribes is better than one who marks you as spam.
Step 5: measure it properly
Opens are not a good measure of a win-back. Track:
- Win-back rate: of the customers who got the sequence, what share placed an order within 30 days?
- Revenue per recipient: total revenue from those orders divided by recipients.
- A holdout group: keep 10% of lapsed customers out of the sequence. If they come back at almost the same rate, your emails are not doing much.
Make it automatic
The hard part of win-back is not writing the email, it is knowing, every week, who just crossed the line from “drifting” to “at risk”. WinBack keeps that list for you, sorted by money at stake, and sends the groups to Klaviyo or Mailchimp so your sequence always goes to the right people. You can install WinBack from the Shopify App Store and try it free for 7 days.