How to run a re-engagement email campaign

You will learn

Learn how to create and send a re-engagement campaign, which differs from a winback flow because it is a one-off email rather than a sequence of emails. A winback flow is triggered by the Placed Order event and sends when a certain amount of time has passed after the purchase. A re-engagement campaign, on the other hand, should only be a single email that is sent infrequently to those who are not going to receive a winback flow — once a year is a good rule of thumb. 

Run a re-engagement campaign

To run a re-engagement campaign, take the following steps: 

1. Create 2 segments: one for unengaged purchasers, and another for unengaged non-purchasers
2. Send a personalized email campaign to these subscribers featuring your latest releases and an easy way to update their preferences or unsubscribe
3. Suppress profiles that don't engage with your re-engagement campaign to preserve strong deliverability

Split your unengaged subscribers into 2 segments

First, you'll want to split your unengaged subscribers into segments: those who have made a purchase and those who have not made a purchase. This will allow you to easily determine which group is more valuable once you send your campaign.

Unengaged subscribers - purchased

This segment should contain people who:

• Haven't opened an email in the past 120 days
• Are on your newsletter list and were added more than 60 days ago
• Have had an email bounce less than 5 times over all time
• Are not suppressed
• Have placed an order at least once over all time

Unengaged subscribers - never purchased

Your second segment should have exactly the same conditions as the first, except they should have never placed an order:

• Haven't opened an email in the past 120 days
• Are on your newsletter list and were added more than 60 days ago
• Have had an email bounce less than 5 times over all time
• Are not suppressed
• Have placed an order 0 times over all time

Send the campaign

We recommend using plain text and being as personal as you can in the email by using the {{ first_name }} tag and a from address like "Marissa from Klaviyo." Include content about any new products that have been released since they've become inactive and consider offering a discount to entice them to buy.

Include prominent unsubscribe and manage preferences links, in case subscribers want to update their settings rather than unsubscribe completely. You may also want to consider segmenting your newsletter by sending frequency to avoid bombarding subscribers with emails and causing them to become inactive in the first place.

Sending strategies

When you're ready to send out your campaign(s), you may want to use the batch sending option. This will distribute deliveries over a longer span of time, which can be a safer option if you're sending to a large group of unengaged people.

Next steps

After you've sent the campaigns, monitor the results closely to see if this is something you would like to repeat annually. If you see an open rate above 10%, you can consider the campaign successful. It's possible that one segment will have a higher open rate than the other, in which case you may only want to email one segment for future re-engagement campaigns.

You may also want to suppress anyone who does not respond to these emails. You can do this by creating and exporting a segment of those who received either email but did not open them (see below). Once you've exported the segment, navigate to Audience > Profiles > Suppressed Profiles > Upload File to suppress these profiles from receiving future emails. 

Additional resources

Check out flows for re-engaging and sunsetting subscribers: 

• Guide to creating a winback flow
• Guide to creating a sunset flow