A re-engagement campaign is a short series of emails sent to subscribers who have stopped interacting, designed to win back their interest or confirm that they no longer want to hear from you. It is often called a win-back campaign; when its main purpose is to reconfirm consent, it is called a re-permission campaign.
How a re-engagement campaign works
First you define “inactive”. Because opens are unreliable, I usually base it on no clicks, purchases or website visits over a set period. The right period depends on your buying cycle: a café’s loyalty list and an accountancy firm’s quarterly newsletter will not use the same window. That is a judgement for each business, not a standard figure.
Contacts who cross that line enter an automated sequence, usually two to four emails over a few weeks:
- A friendly check-in that reminds them what they signed up for and shows your most useful recent content or products.
- A reason to come back, such as a practical guide, a new range or, where it suits the business, an offer.
- A clear choice: stay subscribed with one click, update preferences, or leave.
Anyone who clicks returns to your normal sends. Anyone who does not is removed from marketing under your sunset policy.
Why it matters
Inactive subscribers cost you in two ways. They drag down the engagement signals mailbox providers use to decide between inbox and spam, and some abandoned addresses are eventually turned into spam traps. They also inflate platform costs, which usually rise with list size. A regular re-engagement process protects email deliverability for the readers who do care.
In the UK there is a consent dimension too. ICO guidance says consent does not last indefinitely; how long it stays valid depends on the context and what people expected. A re-permission campaign asks lapsed subscribers to actively confirm they still want your emails, which refreshes your record. Timing is critical: you can only send it while the existing consent is still valid. Emailing people who never consented, or who opted out, to ask whether they now want marketing is itself direct marketing. In 2017 the ICO fined Honda and Flybe for campaigns of exactly that kind.
Common mistakes
- Waiting years before acting, by which time most contacts have forgotten you and complaints rise.
- Judging activity by opens, which counts Apple Mail users as active whether they read anything or not.
- Sending a “please confirm” email to people who had already unsubscribed or never opted in.
- Offering a large discount to every lapsed contact, which teaches people that going quiet earns a better deal.
- Running the campaign but never removing the people who ignored it.
How to act on it
Pull a segment of contacts with no clicks or purchases over the period that fits your business, and look at its size. If it is a large share of your list, start with the most recently active part of it and work backwards, sending in smaller batches so the change in volume does not alarm mailbox providers.
Write a short sequence with a genuine reason to stay and an easy way to leave, and set it to run automatically for anyone who crosses your inactivity line in future. Remove non-responders, keep a suppression list entry for anyone who opted out, and note the date of each reconfirmation. If you want help designing the sequence and the rules behind it, that is part of my digital marketing strategy and consulting work.