Creating the Customer Winback Flow - The PickaPocket Project

This email automation specifically targets customers who are at a high risk of churn, by taking into account the purchase lifecycle of your business.

This varies significantly from business-to-business depending on the niche, of course...

In this episode of the PickaPocket project, we set up a Customer Winback Flow for the men’s fashion brand to rope customers back into the buying lifecycle who are in danger of disengaging with the brand.

The beauty of this flow, like any email automation, is that it’s automated and stops us having to go back out to paid media sources to re-engage these customers, driving advertising costs down in the long-term.

The customer winback flow also alleviates the need to create labour-intensive email campaigns as it fires out timely offers automatically to a subset of customers who need them.

The Customer Winback Flow Set-up

For PickaPocket, we leverage a discount ladder in their customer winback flow. Here’s how it looks like in Klaviyo:

The first two emails leverage a 10% discount opportunity to tempt customers back.

After those two, we take a break over a week and then offer a last-ditch attempt (15% - maximum margin allows) to rope the customer back in.

It’s important to use time-sensitivity on these offers using Klaviyo’s dynamic Shopify coupons. You don’t want static codes that are open to abuse, and you want your customers to take your offers seriously so they don’t become conditioned to having offers threw on them constantly.

Occasionally, we leverage flow-branching on the latter two emails with many clients to offer a stronger incentive to customers with a higher historical purchase value to reward them for their loyalty.

You can also use order frequency (i.e. offer a higher discount to customers who have purchased multiple times VS once) to funnel them into different parts of this flow.

Email 1: We Miss you

Sent 90 days after purchase

This email needs to be simple and direct with a clear CTA. More complex designs follow later in the flow to entice people to browse certain categories if they need more persuading.

Email 2: Your 10% discount expires today!

Sent 1 day later

A similar follow on from Email 1, only presenting some best-selling categories from the store to try to generate more click-throughs.

As always, following through on your offers is imperative so make sure a dynamic coupon is used in the email.

Email 3: Here’s our best discount - for 48 hours only

Sent 8 days later

This is our best discount and final offer, so we’re focusing on some of the store’s best-selling items to try and drive some urgency through.

Coincidentally, this email has the highest CTR and order rate so far in the flow, showing that if your first offer isn’t successful, sometimes you need to go back to drive revenue.

Email 4: 24 hours until your discount expires

Sent 1 day later (at 8 am)

We’ve varied things up with this one with a personal touch from the founder of PickaPocket (Anthony).

The goal is to inject a bit of humour, personalise the message, and try to win people around with a more humanistic approach.

Conclusion

Here are the best practices for an effective customer winback flow:

• Offer a smaller discount first
• Offer your best discount if there’s been no uptake on the first discount only at a later stage
• Use dynamic coupons so the offers are taken more seriously with time-sensitivity
• Present your best selling categories and products
• Use a personalised copywriting approach from the CEO/somebody representing the company in the final email to try and bring some personalisation and a more humanistic element to the email flow

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FAQ

What's a good discount structure for a customer winback flow?

‍A discount ladder rather than one flat offer. In this flow, the first two emails offer a 10% discount to tempt the customer back. If that doesn't convert, there's a week's gap before a final, stronger 15% offer (the maximum margin allows). Using dynamic, time-sensitive coupons rather than static codes matters too, since static codes get shared and abused, and customers can start expecting a discount every time if the offers feel too easy to get.

How many emails should a customer winback flow have, and when should they send?

‍Four works well: the first goes out 90 days after the customer's last purchase with a simple, direct "we miss you" message and no heavy design. The second follows a day later with the 10% discount reminder. The third, 8 days after that, is the best and final offer (in this case 15%) alongside best-selling products to drive urgency - it's often the best-performing email in the sequence. The fourth, a day after that, takes a different approach entirely (see below).

Does a personal email from the founder help win back churned customers?

‍It's worth including as the final email in the sequence. Rather than another discount push, a message written in the founder's own voice - with some humour and a more human tone - gives the flow a different angle to close on after three more conventional offer-led emails, and adds a personalised touch that a templated discount email can't.

Related Reads Curated For You

If you enjoyed this blog, we're pretty sure you'd enjoy the other parts in this series:

1. Creating the Abandoned Cart Flow - The PickaPocket Project
2. Creating the Browse Abandonment Flow - The Pickapocket Project
3. Creating the Post-Purchase Flow - The PickaPocket Project
4. Creating the Post-Purchase Repeat Buyers Flow - The Pickapocket Project
5. Creating The Welcome Email Flow - The PickaPocket Project