Designs segmented win-back email sequences for dormant users - dormancy tiers, a three-beat sequence with a single proportional incentive, and a suppression rule - and measures success by re-activation, not opens. Use when someone says "our users went quiet", "design a win-back campaign", "how do I re-engage lapsed customers", "should we email people who haven't logged in for months", or lifecycle messaging has stopped landing with a lapsed segment. Do NOT use for recovering an unfinished checkout - use abandoned-cart-sequence instead. Do NOT use for diagnosing and fixing why active customers cancel - use churn-reduction instead. Do NOT use for building always-on onboarding or nurture flows - use email-drip-builder instead.
Click to play with sound.
---
name: Win-Back Campaign
description: Designs segmented win-back email sequences for dormant users - dormancy tiers, a three-beat sequence with a single proportional incentive, and a suppression rule - and measures success by re-activation, not opens. Use when someone says "our users went quiet", "design a win-back campaign", "how do I re-engage lapsed customers", "should we email people who haven't logged in for months", or lifecycle messaging has stopped landing with a lapsed segment. Do NOT use for recovering an unfinished checkout - use abandoned-cart-sequence instead. Do NOT use for diagnosing and fixing why active customers cancel - use churn-reduction instead. Do NOT use for building always-on onboarding or nurture flows - use email-drip-builder instead.
---
# Win-Back Campaign
A win-back campaign is a structured last attempt to re-engage users who have stopped responding - not a discount blast. Done correctly it surfaces the real reasons users left and converts a meaningful minority back into active customers; done lazily it burns deliverability, trains the list to expect discounts, and buries the churn signal the business needs. The two costly mistakes this skill prevents: treating all dormant users as one segment, and sending a "final email" that turns out not to be final.
## Operating procedure
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before writing anything. Label estimates as guesses.
1. Product usage cadence: daily-use app, monthly subscription, or B2B tool - this sets the dormancy definition.
2. The activity event that counts as "alive" (login, purchase, core action) and the re-activation event that counts as "won back."
3. Segment sizes at each inactivity depth, and rough LTV per segment (sets the incentive ceiling).
4. What has shipped since these users left (fuel for Beat 2).
5. Available incentives: discount, free month, feature unlock, consultation - and what finance will approve.
### Step 2: Define dormancy precisely
Dormancy means different things per product. Set a hard threshold: no login in 30 days for a daily-use app, no purchase in 90 days for a monthly subscription, no activity in 60 days for a B2B tool. The threshold determines segment size and message urgency. "Kind of inactive" is not a segment.
… load the full skill through Skill Me