The Win-back Email Playbook: Templates and Tips to Re-engage Customers

A win-back email is an opportunity to recapture the once-lost interest of your customers. 

Maybe you had it all under control — customers loved your products, gave them ravishing reviews, and stayed loyal to your brand. Then one day, they vanished into thin air, leaving you wondering what you did wrong.

Many marketers face this scenario today, but it doesn’t have to stay that way forever. Win-back emails help you rekindle relationships with inactive subscribers and remind them why they fell in love with your brand in the first place.

This guide will be your one-stop shop for writing great win-back email campaigns. Browse the examples and templates to build your own.   

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What is a Win-back Email?

A win-back email is a strategically timed message sent to re-engage subscribers who have stopped interacting with your brand or purchasing products.

They are sometimes referred to as ‘Re-engagement’ or ‘Reactivation’ messages. Although they have different names, their only goal is to rekindle interest and get subscribers back to your business. 

If you think subscribers need more nurturing, you can send them a series of messages, known as a win-back email campaign.

The average email list can have up to 60% of inactive subscribers. This means for every 10,000 subscribers, only 4000 are truly engaged. That’s a lot of lost profit.

However, a proper and well-timed win-back email can potentially re-engage most of these subscribers.

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Key Aspects of a Great Win-back Email Campaign 

A good win-back email always consists of these critical components.

Email Aspect	What to Do
Segmentation and targeting	Target specific customer groups based on their past behavior (recent purchases, cart abandonment, inactivity)
Subject line	Craft a clear and concise subject line outlining the email content
Email content	Remind customers of past purchases, address potential concerns, and showcase new offers
Personalized touch	Address the recipient by name or reference their past interactions
Strong call-to-action (CTA)	Tell the customers what you want them to do next. For example, “Shop now,” “Download the guide,” etc
Value proposition	Offer an incentive to re-engage, such as discount or email coupons
Mobile-friendly design	Ensure your email displays well and is easy to read
A/B testing	Test different subject lines, content, offers, and email timing to determine what works with your audience

Whether you send a single win-back email or a series, ensure to include the critical elements for higher open rates. Tracking your open rates is a solid way to measure the effectiveness of your emails. 

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Should You Send One Win-back Email Or a Sequence?

24% of recipients of a win-back email campaign read the first message, and 45% read the subsequent messages.

This means you’d miss out on many people if you stick to one win-back email. if you’re confused about where to start, here’s a table that explains when to use a single win-back email vs. a sequence.

Scenario	When to send one win-back email	When to send a sequence
Customer inactivity	Maybe	Yes
Reason for inactivity	Inactive very recently (within a week)	Inactive for more than 3 months
Goal of the win-back email	Remind customers about their past activity	Re-engage and incentivize
Resources	Limited budget	Willingness to invest in a strategy
Engagement rates	Lower chances of success	Higher chances of success
Focus of messaging	Limited opportunity to tailor messages	More opportunities to personalize and customize emails
Overall recommendation	Consider one-off reminders	Is a more strategic and long-term approach

Ultimately, sending a single email or a series of win-back emails will depend on your marketing needs and budget. We recommend investing time in sending a series that increases the likelihood of higher open rates.

Let’s examine the different types of win-back emails you can add to your sequence to make them more appealing.

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Different Types of Win-back Emails You Can Send

Every inactive customer is different — grouping them all under a single category, such as “Inactive for the last 45 days,” wouldn’t do justice to your win-back campaigns. 

For example, an inactive customer might open one email in your series and immediately purchase. Whereas another customer can open every email you send them and not take any action. 

To understand them from a data point of view, you must rethink your marketing strategy and understand the different email types you have to send.

That’s what we see in the table below.

Type of Win-back Email	What to Include
Personalized offer	Include personalized discounts or offers based on the customer’s past behavior or browsing history
Reminder	Remind customers about the latest updates and time-sensitive offers and encourage action
Feedback request	Ask customers for feedback and request reasons for their disengagement
Exclusive content	Provide access to exclusive content product previews or insider tips to re-engage them
Reactivation incentive	Offer an incentive just to join you back in the business
Social proof	Showcase what the customers are missing when they are away
Product recommendations	If you have new product features or updates, recommend them to customers
Birthday or anniversary email	Send wishes from the date of their first purchase from your brand

We’ll review examples for each email type below. But first, let’s focus on the most important aspect of a win-back email campaign — the subject line.

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15 Best Winback Email Subject Lines 

The subject line is the first thing people notice, and it directly impacts your open rates. A straightforward and compelling subject line can increase the likelihood of higher engagement.

Here are 15 must-open subject line examples to use in your next win-back email.

Now, let’s take these subject line examples and create a proper win-back email for your lost B2B customers.

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Sample Email to Win Back Old Customers (B2B)

Give your old customers a strong reason to come back and make it easy for them to take the next action. This is true, especially for B2B audiences who might be busy or may have forgotten about their last interaction with you.

Here’s a sample email template you can use to continue the conversation.

Note: You can simply modify the template/sample to suit your B2C audiences too.

You can customize this template to suit your changing needs but remember to be transparent about offers or conditions upfront. 

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7 Compelling Win-back Email Examples

Let’s review how other companies have used win-back emails to attract lapsed customers. These examples are taken from different industries and backgrounds. 

1. The Reminder Win-back Email

Duolingo, a language learning application, employs a funny email strategy to remind customers to come back and learn. Refresher emails help remind customers why they joined in the first place.

They may have found your brand interesting enough to join your mailing list and soon got carried away with other things. Or perhaps they found something better. Either way, a reminder email gently nudges them to consider your brand again.

If you’ve introduced new products or features, customers likely love to know about how they can change their lives.

2. The Social Proof Email

Sometimes hearing good things about your brand isn’t enough for subscribers to completely trust you. In fact, 70% of people trust suggestions from strangers. 

Social proof tells past customers that your brand has evolved and people are successfully using your products to solve a particular challenge. Reviews, testimonials, and endorsements are a great way to instill belief and get customers to take action.

3. The Product Recommendation Email

Maybe inactive subscribers felt overwhelmed by a sea of product recommendations and chose to give it a break. Or perhaps they were confused about selecting an item. The chances are they needed narrowed options to make their lives easier.

A product recommendation email is your chance to do that. Study your inactive customers’ behavior and send relevant product recommendations. For example, you can upsell a charging case if they last purchased a charger.

Hardgraft uses visually appealing product images to tell customers about the new launch. Notice how the brand uses only images to convey the existing products without distracting users with links or text.

4. The Incentive Email

Who doesn’t love a good deal? Incentives allow inactive customers to rethink their decision to re-enter a relationship with you. But do this carefully — sometimes an incentive email could backfire if it’s irrelevant or boring.

Don’t just send discounts and email coupons; instead, solve a customer challenge by offering them a percentage off on the order. This way, they can be sure that your product will help them with their current problem, and they get to pay less than usual.

Ensure to mention the terms and conditions in the email. For example, Sometimes Always, a wine brand, gives its customers 15% off on orders above $100. They also include a time-sensitive offer to encourage recipients to purchase within the next 24 hours.

5. The Feedback Email

Instead of assuming why your customers went cold, why not reach out to them? Sending feedback emails can help you manage customer expectations and find solutions to common brand challenges.

Not all customers are alike; some may leave feedback immediately, while others may wait around to review your brand. Sending the second group of customers a genuine and legitimate feedback email can help you understand your brand performance and areas for improvement.

Keep feedback emails short and explicitly state the reason for seeking their feedback. Withing’s feedback email is straightforward, convincing recipients to take the survey.

6. The Last Chance Email

At times, you may notice no response from customers, even after using follow-up strategies. When you have exhausted all other options, the last chance email is your final option to get their attention before you let them go.

Send them emails to remind them about their subscription to your brand and provide opt-out options if they want to leave. Doing this creates fear of losing out on most customers and makes them take the desired action.

Readybag is direct with its unsubscribe email by giving users an option to stay back to hear more about the brand.

7. The Breakup Email

If you’ve done everything in your capacity and still don’t hear back, it’s time to say goodbye to expired subscribers. Having inactive subscribers on your list for too long increases the chances of spam complaints and lower email deliverability.

Plus, all the clutter in your email list is unnecessary. A good rule is to wait around for 90 days before removing them from your list. 

The above are examples of single win-back emails that may be a part of a win-back email sequence. 

To help you understand their distinction, we’ll go through how to create a win-back email campaign in detail.

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Inspiring Examples for a Win-back Email Campaign Sequence

You can create a logical sequence of win-back emails, giving customers a stronger reason to re-engage with your brand. 

Here’s a win-back email campaign example divided into a series of steps.

Email 1: Reconnection and Reminder

Your first email in the win-back email campaign must remind customers of the reasons they opted in to your email list. 

Send the reconnection email within the first 1-2 weeks of inactivity. This helps them see the value your brand offers.

South Dakota makes it effortless for users to take the next action. In this case, it’s voting for their favorite adventures. 

Email 2: Exclusive Offers

The second email in the sequence should help customers feel valued — include offers and exclusive rewards as a note of appreciation. The incentive could be an email coupon, free shipping, exclusive access to VIP content, or discounts. 

This email must instill fear of missing out (FOMO) in recipients and create urgency. 

Email 3: Customer Survey 

Once you’ve set the tone with the reconnection and rewards, you can ask recipients for their feedback. Keep this email short and explain how their opinions matter to your business.

These opinions can help you understand why customers churn and how to fix it in future email campaigns.

Email 4: Last Chance 

This email will tell customers that you will be unsubscribing them from your list if there’s no action. The last chance email is an important step that will help clean up your email list and retain only the most engaged customers.

Cuisinart uses fun images to let customers decide whether to stay or leave. They also have a customized option if they intend to stay. 

Email 5: Unsubscribe 

The last email will let the customers know they have been unsubscribed from the mailing list. Include a copy of the most important information at the start and give them a way to resubscribe should they change their minds.

Not every win-back email will resonate the same way with all your customers. Tailor your win-back email campaigns based on their reasons for leaving.

Below are additional tips to help you succeed with your win-back email campaigns.

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Additional Tactics to Win Back Customers

Customer retention is as important as attracting new ones. 

More importantly, use a dedicated automation system to schedule and send win-back emails at the right time. 

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Win-back Customers Through Campaign Refinery’s Powerful Automation System

There’s no one reason why customers become inactive. It could be because of reasons beyond your control, such as changes in customer preferences. But often, the reasons are something you can influence, such as email deliverability issues, sending too many emails, or using bad email marketing practices.

Campaign Refinery understands the importance of clean-sending practices to help clients achieve their desired results. It helps you recapture customers’ lost interest through powerful automation, segmentation, and built-in campaign templates.

Stop losing customers. 

Create powerful win-back emails with Campaign Refinery — Apply to become a client today!