Win-back campaign
A win-back campaign is a series of messages, offers or ads aimed at past customers who have stopped buying, to bring them back for another order.
How it works
First you decide how long without an order makes a customer lapsed; the same window sets your churn rate. Klaviyo advises waiting a little longer than the average time between your customers’ orders. The customer then gets a short series, which Klaviyo suggests keeping to three emails, and leaves it once they order again.
Like other email flows, the series runs by itself once set up, as part of the emails after the first order. Ads can reach the same customers too.
Some lapsed customers would come back without any message. Only a holdout group, which gets nothing, shows how many orders the campaign added: its incrementality. A discount, meanwhile, is paid on every returning order, theirs included.
Formula
Win-back rate = lapsed customers who ordered after the message ÷ lapsed customers who received it
Added orders = (win-back rate − holdout return rate) × recipients
Example
Example store, not client data.
The tableware shop’s average order value is 600 and its margin 35%. It counts 1,300 customers as lapsed after six months without an order. Of these, 1,000 get three emails with 10% off and 300 get nothing. Within 30 days, 60 of the 1,000 order again (6%), as do 12 of the 300 (4%). Added orders = (6% − 4%) × 1,000 = 20. A discounted order keeps 540 − 390 = 150 of gross profit, so the 20 added orders bring 3,000. The discount on the other 40 orders costs 40 × 60 = 2,400.
Not to be confused with
- Abandoned cart email — goes to a shopper who left a cart without ordering. A win-back goes to a customer who ordered before and then stopped.
- Customer retention goal — a Google Ads setting that gives lapsed customers’ purchases extra value in Performance Max bidding. It can be the ad part of a win-back.
Right and wrong readings
- Wrong: “60 customers ordered after the emails, so the campaign brought 60 orders.” Right: the holdout came back at 4% without them, so 20 orders are the campaign’s.
- Wrong: “The discount only costs us on the orders it brings back.” Right: 10% off went to all 60 orders: the 40 that would have come anyway took 2,400 of the 3,000 the added orders earned.
Sources
- How to create a winback flow — Klaviyo Help Center: timing, three emails, exit on a new order. Checked 2 October 2026.
- Lifecycle goals — Google Ads API: the retention goal, Performance Max. Checked 2 October 2026.