Win Back Email Campaign Template
Four documents and four sheets that fire the winback on each customer's own reorder cadence, rather than on a fixed day 90.
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Trigger Schedule · one ratio, five calendar days
The same trigger, 208 days apart
| Band | Median gap | Customers | Fires day | vs 90 | Recovery then | Recovery day 90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 19d | 3,680 | 27 | -63 | 43.1% | 3.6% |
| B | 34d | 6,072 | 48 | -42 | 41.8% | 16.7% |
| C | 58d | 4,600 | 81 | -9 | 40.9% | 28.3% |
| D | 94d | 2,576 | 132 | +42 | 39.6% | 71.4% |
| E | 168d | 1,472 | 235 | +145 | 38.2% | 84.2% |
| Weighted | 18,400 | 78.8 | -11.2 | 41.24% | 30.04% |
One trigger at ratio 1.4. Recovery at it holds within 4.9 points across every band.
Why day 90 survives every review
The weighted mean personal trigger day is 78.8, close enough to 90 that the fixed rule looks defensible in any summary anybody writes. The range underneath it is day 27 to day 235. Almost nobody sits at the mean, and the rule fails in opposite directions at the two ends at once.
The unit, and why it is not a day
Lapse ratio is days since the last order over that customer's own median inter-purchase interval. Bands D and E reach ratio 0.96 and 0.54 on day 90, so they are not late at all. Their unprompted 90-day reorder rates are 71.4% and 84.2%.
What the fast band costs
Band A crosses ratio 1.4 on day 27 and is mailed on day 90, by which point it sits at ratio 4.74 and recovers at 3.6%. That is a fifth of the base contacted 63 days after the cheap message would still have worked.
Every recovery figure is a base rate for the population reaching that ratio, not the effect of a message. Only the holdout in Offer Test Log turns one into an effect.
Kestrel & Co sells dog food and treats, and its winback fires on day 90. Nobody there picked 90 either. It is the number in every published winback template, and it has never once been checked against the reorder gap these customers actually keep. Check it against 18,400 customers with two or more orders and the rule is 63 days too late for a fifth of the base. Another fifth are not late on day 90 by any reading of their own history.
The unit that works is a lapse ratio: days since the last order, divided by that customer's own median inter-purchase interval. Hold the calendar day fixed at 90 and recovery across the base spans 80.6 points, from 3.6% to 84.2%. Hold the ratio fixed instead and it spans 4.9 points across the same five bands. The calendar day is 16.4 times worse as a predictor of whether a winback has anything left to work with.
So one ratio of 1.4 resolves to five different calendar days, from day 27 to day 235, and its weighted mean is 78.8, which is exactly why a day-90 rule passes every review it is shown to. It reprices the offers too: a 20% code costs $5.28 per customer contacted at ratio 1.4 against $0.43 at ratio 4.75. Pair it with the lifecycle email programme pack, or take the files blank from the template library.
What's in the pack
Lapse Cohorts
Recovery indexed on the lapse ratio and then on the calendar day, side by side, which is the comparison that settles which one to trigger on.
Trigger Schedule
One ratio expressed as a calendar day per band, with the delta against your current fixed rule and the recovery rate at both points.
Offer Ladder
Six rungs keyed to the ratio, each carrying the cost per customer contacted that justifies whatever concession it is allowed to make.
Offer Test Log
Five tests with the expected events per arm worked out before launch, so a rung carrying ninety events a month never gets a small-effect test queued against it.
Lapse Threshold Method
How the personal interval is computed, why the median rather than the mean, and the five ways the table comes out wrong.
Offer Policy
The arithmetic that prices a concession against a base rate, and the rule that keeps a code out of any band still recovering on its own.
Winback Sequence
Six drafts, one per rung, each with a must-not line, which is the field that stops rung one turning into a discount.
Sunset and Suppression
Where the programme ends, argued from complaint headroom rather than from a tidy number, with the cost of each suppression stated.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Hand River the order history and let it compute the intervals, or download the four documents and four sheets and do the banding yourself.
- 2
Send an order history
A customer id and an order date. Two columns is genuinely enough to compute every median interval and every recovery curve in the pack.
- 3
Read the cohorts before the trigger
You get recovery indexed both ways, and a straight answer on what your current threshold is catching and what it is paying for.
- 4
Price the ladder against the base rate
Each rung gets the concession its recovery rate can justify, free shipping before any code, and a sunset point with a number behind it.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Download the Word documents and CSV sheets with no account, no card and no email gate. Edit with AI is the optional half: River computes each customer's interval, bands the base and prices the ladder. Every pack sits in the template library.
When should a winback email be sent?
At a fixed multiple of that customer's own reorder gap, not a fixed day. The worked example fires at ratio 1.4, which lands on day 27 for a customer who reorders every three weeks and day 235 for one who reorders twice a year. Both are the same trigger.
What is wrong with a 90-day trigger?
It is wrong in two directions at once, which is why it survives. Here it fires 63 days after the fastest fifth of the base has effectively gone, and 42 to 145 days before the slowest fifth is late at all. The weighted mean personal day is 78.8, so the rule looks fine in any summary.
How much discount should a winback offer?
Less than you think at the start, and only where the base rate is low. A 20% code costs $5.28 per customer contacted at ratio 1.4 and $0.43 at ratio 4.75. Free shipping is the first concession because it spends fulfilment rather than product margin.
What about customers with only one order?
They have no computable interval and are not in this model at all. Mailing them a winback is the single most common way the trigger gets misconfigured. They belong to a welcome sequence, which the welcome email sequence template times against your own conversion curve.
When should I stop mailing a lapsed customer?
When the sends cost more complaint headroom than the orders are worth. Recovery past ratio 6.0 is 1.10% here, and Google asks senders to keep the Postmaster Tools spam rate below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%. That ceiling is shared with every transactional message you send.
Does a long winback sequence raise compliance questions?
One that catches people out. The CAN-SPAM statute requires an opt-out mechanism to keep working for at least 30 days after the message carrying it, and requests honoured within ten business days. A ladder spanning 200 days needs links that still work.
Find out when your customers are actually late
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or open this exact pack in River and send it one order history.
Edit with AI