10 Tips & Tricks to Winback Churned Subscribers

Reacquiring customers is all about delivering the right offer, at the right time, with a message that sticks.

You cannot effectively win back a customer if you don’t truly understand why or what made them cancel in the first place. Every user experience can be widely different, and if you’re not tuned in, you’ll be leaving money on the table.

After working with hundreds of eCommerce brands, we’ve cracked the code to winback – and it’s not as crazy as you might think. The secret? Personalization. Personalization is ultimately about putting the right offer in front of the right person, at the right time.

Here’s how you can do just that – 

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Delivering the Right Offer: 4 Personalization Strategies to Winback Churned Subscribers

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Tip #1: Segment Your Winback Flow(s) by Cancellation Reason

When determining when to hit a churned subscriber with a winback offer, you need to make sure you’re meaningfully segmenting by cancellation reason. Why? Because if a subscriber cancels due to “too much product”, and you shoot them a winback email in just 5 days, you’ll just cause more frustration.

For this cohort, any winback messaging should have an increased time delay and remind them of the benefits they are now missing out on. This strategy differs greatly from a churned subscriber who canceled due to price, who should instead receive a discount incentive in their winback flow.

Using a tool like RetentionEngine, you can pass a subscriber’s cancellation reason data directly from a cancellation survey to Klaviyo using a Subscription Canceled metric. From here, you can ensure each subscriber receives a personalized winback treatment.

RetentionEngine’s Exit Survey Analysis Provides a Detailed Look at Churn

Tip #2: Offer Personalized Winbacks Based on Purchase History

Using subscription SKU data passed between your Customer Portal and Klaviyo, you can deliver personalized offers on complementary products that a customer will likely be excited to purchase. For example, if a churned subscriber previously purchased shampoo from your brand, you can retarget them with an email winback campaign using Klaviyo Quick Actions to offer them a newly released conditioner rather than for a product in a totally different category.

Tip #3: Trigger a Winback Flow to Former Subscribers That Make a New One-Time-Purchase

If a former subscriber returns on their own for a new one-time-purchase, they’re clearly still interested in your brand – and depending on their initial cancellation reason, could potentially be swayed back into a subscription cadence.

With the enormous amount of data at your disposal and the perfect trigger for a subscription winback flow, retarget these ex-subscribers with a reminder of the benefits they could have received on their new order had they reactivated a subscription.

Tip #4: A/B Test Exclusive Offers Within Your Winback

Another option is to offer your former customers a sweet deal or exclusive product or benefit that makes reactivation a no-brainer. For example, you could offer an add-on product or gift that complements the customer’s original subscription or shows appreciation for their continued business.

Remember: Like all campaigns, if you plan to incorporate a discount or exclusive offer in your winback, you should A/B test the offer before mass deployment to identify what offer, if any, has the highest take rate. The last thing you want to do is produce an exclusive gift only to see the conversion rate flop over a simpler offer.

We recommend testing a percentage-off discount versus free gift, a dollar-off discount versus a gift, or a percentage-off discount versus a dollar amount.

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Messaging That Resonates: 6 Tips & Tricks to Crafting Winback Emails That Convert

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Now that you have strategy dialed in, it’s time to button everything up in an engaging email with messaging that’s too good to click away from. To do this, you’ll want to highlight the value of your product front-and-center and remind those churned subscribers why they loved it in the first place.

Tip #1: Test Messaging & Iterate Before Mass-Deployment

In the same way that you should A/B test the offer itself, we recommend testing your copy first to find out what messaging resonates, then iterate iterate iterate!

Some ideas: test FOMO messaging, exclusivity, highlighting subscription value props, and more. We love these examples from our friends at Beekeeper’s Naturals: 

Tip #2: Personalize Your Email & SMS Messages As Much as You Can

Alongside messaging that can create a sense of urgency, simply stated, customers love to feel seen. Simply referencing the products a customer was formerly subscribed to, how long they were subscribed for, and/or empathizing with their reason for canceling their subscription can have a massive impact on pulling them back in.

Tip #3: Include Opportunities to Engage & Provide Feedback

Including a callout asking your former customers how you can improve the overall subscription experience for themselves (or future customers) can go a long way. 

Unfortunately, you won’t always be able to land that winback – at least, not for everyone. But that doesn’t mean your efforts are a total loss. We recommend taking advantage of this final customer touchpoint to understand what your brand could have done better to retain this subscriber. This way, even if you lose one customer, you can leverage the insights they share to help you keep the next one.

This subscription reactivation email from A Pup Above combines humor and an emotional appeal with a reactivation discount to incentivize churned customers to re-subscribe. A Pup Above keeps it light while reinforcing the subscription value props they offer: savings, convenience, and flexibility. They also offer an opportunity to provide feedback and link out to social proof. Absolute 10/10!

Tip #4: Incorporate Social Proof into Your Messaging.

One of the best ways to bring customers back in is with first-hand experiences from customers like themselves. Incorporating UGC or customer testimonials in your winback flows can add that extra “oomph” to nudge these skeptical former subscribers back to re-purchase.

Our friends at Tenzo include customer reviews directly in their winback flow:

Tip #5: Lean Into Seasonal Customer Behaviors

Consider the periods of time each year in which people crave your product offerings most. For Health & Wellness brands, a winback nudge right around New Years is perfect for helping customers to get back on track with their goals. For food & beverage brands, the right time to launch a winback campaign might be to align with fall-favorite flavors, like a Pumpkin Spice SKU. 

Tip #6: Leverage Big Brand Announcements

If you have a new product drop coming, or a big brand announcement, that’s a great time to launch a winback flow. Send a campaign to former subscribers so they know what’s new, or highlight a big brand event or milestone to renew their interest.

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When’s the Right Time to Re-Engage? Leverage AI to Find the Perfect Time for Re-acquisition with Stay AI’s WinbackEngine

Optimizing the timing of your winback communication is crucial. If you reach out too early, customers may be reminded why they churned in the first place. Wait too long, and the harder it becomes to re-engage. Your timing needs to be juuuust right.

But no need to fear: our new WinbackEngine feature utilizes proprietary machine learning models to take the guesswork out of winback timing by learning the most probable time to send tailored re-acquisition emails to churned subscribers ✅

What does this mean? No more manual work on your end, and no more A/B testing on your own!

Now, you won’t have to guess at the perfect time to reach out to churned subscribers. You’ll be able to build winback flows with full confidence, knowing that our proprietary AI has determined the best time to re-engage your churned subscribers.

To learn more about winbackEngine, read more here.

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Looking to boost your subscription retention rate, or provide a top-tier subscriber experience? Stay AI’s out-of-the-box tools are designed to boost your subscription revenue, while delighting your VIP customers.