Glossary
What is win-back campaign?
A win-back campaign is a message sent specifically to customers who have stopped visiting, with the aim of restarting the habit before it is fully broken.
Win-back messages work best when they are timed to the customer's own cycle rather than a calendar (six weeks after a salon appointment, three weeks after a yoga class) and when they arrive somewhere the customer will look. A notification on a wallet card is seen at a far higher rate than a promotional email, because it lands on the lock screen rather than in a filtered inbox.
What reactivation rate is realistic?
Ten to twenty per cent of contacted lapsed customers returning within a fortnight is a good result for a well-targeted list with a real offer. Materially above that usually means the lapse threshold is too tight and the campaign is counting customers who were returning anyway.
What should the message say?
Name the business immediately, reference the customer's actual progress, give one concrete and time-bounded reason to return, and keep it to two lines. This is a notification, not a newsletter.
"You're 7 stamps from a free one" outperforms "we miss you" reliably, because it restores a goal rather than expressing a sentiment.
Which channel is best?
A wallet push if the customer still holds the card, because it costs nothing and lands on the lock screen; SMS only as a fallback for customers who removed it. Email is the weakest option for a local business, and the open rates reflect that.
See also
- Lapsed customer: A lapsed customer is someone who used to visit regularly but has not returned within an expected window, commonly 45 days for a café (the Loonine default, adjustable from 1 to 365 days in the app), or two visit cycles for an appointment business.
- Push notification: A push notification is a short message delivered directly to a phone's lock screen; in wallet loyalty it is sent to the card itself rather than through a separate app.
- Churn: Churn is the rate at which customers stop returning, and in a local business it is usually silent: customers rarely announce they have left, they simply stop appearing.
- Redemption rate: Redemption rate is the share of earned rewards that customers claim, and a low rate is a warning rather than a saving: it usually means the threshold is too high or the reward is not wanted.
Further reading
How to win back customers who stopped coming
A practical playbook for identifying lapsed customers, choosing the right moment to reach them, and writing a message that brings them back.
How to design a loyalty card that customers open
What belongs on a wallet loyalty card, what to leave off, and why the back of the card matters more than the front for the questions customers ask.