You spent time (and money) acquiring each and every one of your customers.
If they stop engaging, should you take that as a cue to give up on them?
Not necessarily—and there’s no better way to persist than with a win-back email.
Whether someone stopped buying because they’ve defected to a competitor or they had a bad experience with your brand, it’s worth diagnosing and troubleshooting the problem—especially when 67% of consumers think brands favor new customers over keeping existing customers.
Win-back emails can help you suss out what caused a customer to lapse and address some of these concerns head-on. And they work: Research shows that 45% of subscribers who receive a win-back email will open future emails from your brand.
But we also understand that win-back emails can be intimidating—it’s hard to develop a creative way to say “we miss you” when you’re picturing an unengaged subscriber on the other end.
Here, we’ll teach you how to be strategic with your win-back email marketing strategy, with some examples and advanced tactics to guide you.
What is a win-back email?
A win-back email is an email you send to existing but inactive subscribers—people on your email list who previously visited your website, clicked on an email, or made a purchase, but haven’t bought from your store or opened your emails in a long time. The goal is to motivate them to interact with your business again.
Because win-back emails are for customers who exhibit certain behaviour (or lack thereof), you can set them up in your marketing platform to send automatically according to criteria you select ahead of time.
When you should send a win-back email
You can generally consider a subscriber or customer inactive after 3-6 months of inactivity, but your timeframe may differ depending on your products and sales cycle.
For example, if you sell mattresses, you wouldn’t mark someone inactive after a year of no purchases since your product is designed to hold up for a few years. On the other hand, if you sell coffee, you may consider someone inactive within that 3-6 month period.
“Find the timeframe where 75-85% of all customers would repurchase, and tee up your win-back messaging around this time,” suggests Jacob Sappington, head of email at Homestead Studio.
Find the timeframe where 75-85% of all customers would repurchase, and tee up your win-back messaging around this time.
Important note: Your marketing platform should allow you to customise your win-back window based on what makes sense for your product and sales cycle. People who haven’t purchased in 6 months? A year? BFCM-only shoppers from 3 years ago?
When you create a win-back flow in Klaviyo, you can be confident that your all-time data is always accessible—at no extra cost to you.
5 win-back email examples that work
Here are a few win-back email examples to help you better understand the strategies you can use to entice subscribers to come back to your brand.
1. Our Place puts the ball in the customer’s court
Subject line: “This is the last email you’ll see”
Email content: Kitchen essentials brand Our Place flips the narrative of their email so it feels like goodbye, but the recipient also has the option to formally opt out.
First, though, the email also includes a link to opt back in—and sweetens the deal with a 20% discount.
Email CTA: In keeping with the personal letter approach, the two calls to action (CTAs) in this email are subtly linked in the text itself, rather than pulled out as buttons.
The anchor text isn’t typical for a CTA, either—the first says, simply, “click here,” requiring the recipient to actually read the letter to understand what they’re clicking on. The second is an unsubscribe link, emphasising that the brand wants to give the customer full agency over their decision.
2. Surreal keeps it light and fun
Subject line: “You've got Surreally good taste 👌”
Email content: Cereal brand Surreal taps into urgency with a playful, slightly tongue-in-cheek reminder email that nudges subscribers to come back and buy. The message leans on scarcity (“these are moving fast”) while inviting readers to “dive back in,” reinforcing both speed and indulgence in a light, on-brand way.
Email CTA: Staying true to its punchy tone, the email uses a single, highly visible button CTA (“Dive back in”) that feels immersive and on-brand. Rather than overloading the reader with options, it focuses attention on one clear action, using contrast and placement to leave no doubt about what the brand wants readers to do next.
3. Paul Smith keeps it elegant and simple
Subject line: "We've not seen you for a while…"
Email content: Paul Smith takes an elegant approach to re-engagement, opening with the understated "We've not seen you for a while…". It’s a line that feels very much like a considered note from an old acquaintance. The tone is warm but not pushy, which feels entirely on-brand for a label built on personality and craft. A 10% discount via the code HELLO10 is offered as an incentive.
Email CTA: A single, clean "Continue Shopping" button keeps the experience uncluttered and distraction-free.
4. Printfresh focuses on exclusivity for customers
Subject line: “Let’s get reacquainted”
Email content: Sleepwear brand Printfresh leads with a 15% off discount in their win-back email, followed by a colourful product shot of various pyjama tops and bottoms folded up neatly on a gift-wrapping table. The visual makes it easy for the reader to re-familiarise themself with the brand’s products without clicking through to the website.
The email copy then goes on to explain that the discount offer is a “gift”—something they don’t hand out often—and references social proof in the form of a quote from Allure magazine that calls the brand’s pyjamas “almost too beautiful to wear to bed.”
Email CTA: The CTA in this email is centre-aligned, simple (“Shop new”), and impossible to miss—making it easy for customers who are ready to use that discount code to do so, right now.
5. LastObject reminds readers what they’ve missed
Email content: Danish reusables brand LastObject takes a gentle, friendly approach to re-engaging inactive subscribers by acknowledging the silence and then welcoming them back in. Instead of pushing a sale, the email focuses on value by sharing a few things the reader might have missed, from practical zero-waste tips to bigger-picture inspiration.
Email CTA: Rather than one big pushy button, the email leans on multiple “Read more” links woven into each content block. It feels easy and low-pressure, like you’re free to explore whatever catches your eye.
3 advanced win-back email strategies for re-engaging customers
The examples above are straightforward, but there’s a lot you can do to elevate your win-back strategy so it’s even more effective.
With purchase behaviour analysis, experimentation, and omnichannel marketing, you can increase your chances that lapsed customers will buy from your brand again.
1. Use RFM analysis to trigger a win-back flow
A standard win-back flow is triggered when a customer or subscriber hasn’t engaged with your brand within a certain period of time. But what if you could go beyond the basics and trigger your flow based on past purchase behaviour—or even predicted future behaviour?
This is what RFM analysis accomplishes. “RFM” stands for recency, frequency, and monetary analysis, which is the grouping of customers based on their purchase behaviour—how recently they made a purchase, how frequently they purchase, and how much they spend.
This data analysis tool helps brands reduce churn—and under that umbrella is the win-back marketing automation.
For example, you can use RFM analysis to create a “needs attention” segment, then send that segment different variations of a win-back campaign. To go even further, you can separate high-value customers from the rest, so you’re sending a discount only to those VIPs who spend the most with your brand.
But the deeper power of RFM analysis is that it lets you stay ahead of churn. With an “at risk” segment, you can send multi-step messaging when a customer is close to churning but hasn’t yet—ultimately reducing the need to come out guns blazing with a win-back campaign in the first place.
2. Experiment with more than one win-back email
One of the trickiest parts of a win-back automation is deciding how many emails to send.
You could just send one win-back email, but there’s a chance the recipient could miss it or decide not to open it, especially if they haven’t opened one of your emails in months.
That’s why many marketers experiment with an email sequence—two or more win-back emails, with time delays in between—to increase the odds the recipient will open, engage, and, hopefully, click through to make their next purchase.
Here are some tips for deciding how many emails to include:
- To get the most out of your win-back series without risking your sending reputation or deliverability, send 2-5 emails.
- Segment your win-back series. For example, you could send a single email to any inactive customers or subscribers, then trigger a second and possibly third email to those who still haven’t made a purchase after a certain amount of time.
- If you notice revenue per recipient starting to drop after the first win-back email, that’s a good indicator that you can pull back on the number of emails you’re sending.
Practice makes perfect, here. “A lot of brands already know they are leaving money on the table by not fully addressing the customer lifecycle, and they lack solutions for efficient repeat purchasing,” explains Andrew Rosensweig, strategist at Electric Eye. “Get data, learn, and iterate to improve the tailored messaging that will effectively cultivate repeat customers.”
3. Use an omnichannel approach for your win-back communications
We’ve been focusing on email as a primary win-back channel because it’s the easiest to execute, but we don’t want to leave the impression it’s your only option. The most effective win-back efforts are omnichannel, meaning that several channels work together to create a cohesive experience for the customer.
Think about how your audience actually likes to hear from you. If someone’s opted into SMS or WhatsApp, for example, they might be far more likely to act on a timely nudge there, especially if it’s framed as a “last chance” reminder or a quick heads-up about something they’ll miss.
A simple flow could look like this: start with an email to reintroduce the value, follow up with a short SMS or WhatsApp message to add a bit of urgency, and then, if they still need a push, use retargeting on social to bring everything back into view with a personalised offer.
Yes, layering channels can cost a little more. But when you consider that acquiring a new customer is usually more expensive than re-engaging an existing one, it’s often a smart investment and one that feels much more personal to the person on the receiving end.
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