Win back emails go to customers who bought from you once and then stopped. This article covers when to send them, what to say, and when to stop emailing somebody for good. Deciding who counts as lapsed is harder than writing the message, so that is where it starts.
Nothing here needs a new tool. It needs a rule about who has gone quiet, three short messages, and the nerve to stop. For the wider picture, our guide to what email marketing is sets out the other jobs a list should be doing while this one runs.
What win back emails are for
Win back emails have one job. They ask a lapsed customer whether they still want to hear from you.
A repeat order is the happy answer. Silence is also an answer, and it is worth almost as much, because it tells you who to stop paying to email.
Every list fills up quietly with people who drifted away. They bought once, opened a few things, then went still. A monthly report rarely shows that clearly, so the drift continues until somebody goes looking for it.
Why a lapsed customer is easier to reach than a stranger
You already paid to find these people once. That cost sits in the past whether you write to them or not.
They also know what your product is like, how your delivery works, and whether your team answers the phone. A stranger needs all of that explained first. So the same message does more work when it lands with somebody who has already bought.
That advantage fades, though. The longer somebody goes without hearing from you, the closer they get to being a stranger again.
When a customer counts as lapsed
Lapsed is not a fixed number of days. It depends on how often somebody would buy if nothing had changed.
A coffee roaster might expect an order every few weeks. A furniture shop might wait years between them. Treating both the same gives you one campaign that nags and another that arrives long after the customer has forgotten you.
So find your own normal gap between orders, then set the lapse point a little past it. If regulars return within six weeks, somebody at ten weeks is drifting. Somebody at eight months has gone, and a cheerful reminder will read as strange.
This needs email segmentation rather than one big list. You have to pick these people by what they did, not by the month they signed up.
| What you sell | Sign that somebody has lapsed | What usually works |
|---|---|---|
| Something people reorder | Once two normal gaps pass with no order | A short reminder, because forgetting is the first thing to rule out |
| A service on a cycle | When the next due date slips by | A note about the date itself, rather than an offer |
| Occasional larger purchases | If a year of silence follows the first order | News about the thing they already own |
| Subscribers who never bought | While opens fade to nothing over months | One honest question, then removal |
The three win back emails worth sending
Two or three messages do the work. More than that turns a polite question into pestering.
First, the plain reminder
Assume the innocent explanation, because it costs you nothing if you are wrong. People get busy, move house, or simply forget.
Say that you noticed it had been a while, show what they bought last time, and make ordering again easy. No offer yet.
Second, the reason to return
Now give them something that changed since they left. New stock, longer opening hours, a problem you fixed, a better delivery option.
This is where an offer belongs, if you use one at all. It arrives after the plain ask has failed, which keeps your discount away from people who would have ordered anyway.
Third, the goodbye
Tell them plainly that you will stop emailing unless they say otherwise. Give one button to stay.
Anyone who clicks it has told you they still want to hear from you. The ones who ignore it have told you something useful too, without lifting a finger.
What win back emails should say
Write like a person who noticed, rather than a system that fired a rule.
Name the thing they bought. Mention how long it has been, in ordinary words instead of a precise count of days. Keep the whole message short enough to read on a phone at a bus stop.
Subject lines carry more weight here than usual, because these readers stopped opening you a while ago. Our piece on subject lines that earn the open goes further, and the short version is to be specific and quiet rather than loud.
Skip the guilt. "We miss you" is fine once. "Did we do something wrong?" invites an answer nobody wants to write, and it makes the unsubscribe link look like the kind option.
Whether to put an offer in it
An offer is the obvious lever and the easiest one to overuse.
The risk is not the margin on a single order. It is teaching loyal customers that going quiet earns a discount, which is a habit that outlasts the campaign.
A worked example with round numbers chosen for easy arithmetic, not a benchmark. Say a hundred lapsed customers receive the sequence and four of them order again. If the offer takes a fifth off, the discount costs you a fifth of what those four orders are worth. Whether that trade is worth making depends on how many of the four buy again, which is a number only your own records hold.
So run the sequence without an offer first. Then add one for the people who ignored it, and only where the sums still work once the discount comes off.
What you need before you can send win back emails
All of this rests on one piece of information: the date of somebody's last order. If your email tool does not hold that date, the sequence cannot pick the right people.
The awkward case is when the orders sit somewhere else. A shop platform, a booking system or a till holds them, while the email tool knows only an address and a signup date.
There are three ways out, and they are not equally good.
- Connect the two systems, so the last order date updates itself. Best, if a connector exists for the pair you own.
- Export the orders once and load the date onto each contact. Workable, until it goes stale, which starts the day you do it.
- Fall back on opens and clicks. Weakest of the three, since it measures interest in your emails rather than buying.
Start with whichever you can finish this month. A rough last order date beats a perfect one you never get round to wiring up.
When to let go
Letting go is the easiest part to skip, and it is where the quiet saving sits.
After the goodbye email, stop. Move those addresses to a suppression list rather than deleting them, so nothing accidentally adds them back next month.
A dead address costs you three times over. Check how your own tool prices its plans. If it charges by list size, that address is on the bill every month. It also sits in every report, quietly dragging down the rates you judge everything else by. Worst of all, you keep mailing it.
There is also a point where win back emails become the wrong tool entirely. Somebody who complained, asked you to stop, or never bought at all is not a candidate. Writing anyway is not persistence, it is noise.
Win back emails and getting into the inbox
Mailbox providers keep their filtering rules private, so treat any confident account of them with suspicion. What they can see is plain enough. They know whether people open your messages, ignore them, or mark them as spam.
So a list where hardly anyone opens gives a provider little reason to trust your next send. Win back emails pay for themselves here even when nobody buys, because they split the quiet but interested from the truly gone. The clear out that follows helps every campaign after it. Our guide to getting into the inbox at all covers the rest of that picture.
Send the sequence in batches rather than firing the whole dormant list in one evening. You cannot tell how a send has landed until it is over. A small batch that goes badly is easier to recover from than a large one.
Measuring win back emails honestly
The tempting number is revenue from the campaign. It flatters you, because some of those customers were coming back anyway.
Watch three things instead. How many lapsed customers returned, how many of those then returned a second time, and how many addresses you removed. That last one carries no revenue and still saves money every month.
If your list is large enough, hold a group back and send them nothing. Then compare what that group does with what the mailed group does. The gap between them, rather than the total, is what the campaign actually earned. A holdout needs enough people to tell a real difference from noise, so a small list rules it out.
Judge win back emails over a quarter rather than a week. Somebody who reads the second message and orders three weeks later still counts, while a report that closes after seven days misses them completely.
A setup you can build this week
Start by writing down your normal gap between orders. That single number decides everything downstream.
- Define lapsed for your business, using the gap you just wrote down.
- Build a segment that fills itself, so nobody maintains a list by hand.
- Draft three messages: the reminder, the reason to return, and the goodbye.
- Hold the offer back until the second one, if you use an offer at all.
- Move everyone who stays silent onto a suppression list, then leave them alone.
- Revisit the whole thing twice a year, because your normal gap changes.
The best win back emails are the ones you rarely need. So it is worth asking why people go quiet in the first place. A good post purchase sequence answers that question early, before any of this becomes necessary.
Frequently asked questions
What are win back emails?
Win back emails go to customers who bought before and then stopped. They ask, politely, whether somebody still wants to hear from you. A repeat order is the happy outcome, though silence is useful too, because it tells you which addresses to retire. They are not quite the same as a general re-engagement email, which usually goes to anybody who has stopped opening, including people who never bought anything.
How long should I wait before sending one?
Wait a little longer than your normal gap between orders. If most repeat customers return within six weeks, start at around ten. A furniture shop can reasonably wait a year, while a coffee roaster cannot. Work out your own rhythm first, because a fixed rule borrowed from another business will either nag people or arrive far too late to help.
How many win back emails should I send?
Two or three. The first assumes forgetting and simply reminds them what they bought. Next comes a reason to return, such as new stock or a problem you fixed. Finally, say that you will stop emailing unless they want to stay. Beyond three messages you are pestering people, and each extra one makes the unsubscribe link look more attractive than the offer.
Should a win back email include a discount?
Not in the first message. An offer sent straight away teaches loyal customers that going quiet earns money off, which is an expensive habit to create. Try a plain reminder first. Then add an offer for the people who ignored it, and only where the sums still work once the discount comes off your margin.
What should the subject line say?
Something specific and quiet. These readers stopped opening you a while ago, so a loud sales line reads as noise from a brand they half remember. Naming what they bought works better, as does a plain question about whether they still want your emails. Keep it short, because a narrow screen cuts the end off a long line, and the part that survives has to do the work.
When should I give up on somebody?
After the goodbye message, and not before. Move silent addresses onto a suppression list rather than deleting them, so nothing quietly adds them back next month. Win back emails have done their job at that point, even when nobody bought, because you now know who has gone. Mailing that group anyway costs money, and it hands mailbox providers a stream of messages nobody opens.
Do win back emails help deliverability?
Yes, and that is often the bigger prize. Nobody outside the big mailbox providers knows their exact rules. They can see whether people open what you send, though, and a list where hardly anyone does gives them little reason to trust the next message. Win back emails split the dormant group into readers who still care and readers who have gone, which lets you retire the second one. Send in batches rather than mailing the whole dormant list in one evening.
How do I measure win back emails?
Count returning customers, second orders from those customers, and addresses removed. Revenue alone flatters the campaign, since some of those people were coming back anyway. If your list is large enough, hold a group back and mail them nothing, then compare the two. Give win back emails a quarter before judging them, because somebody may read the second message and order weeks later.