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  4. Win Backs
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How to set up a Win Backs: Through Recharge

Relevant to: Shopify Checkout Integration Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Leverage Recharge's Win Back to re-engage churned customers with targeted emails, offering personalized incentives to encourage reactivation. See Getting started with Win Backs: Through Recharge to learn more about this feature.

This guide explains the setup process and factors to consider when using a drip campaign.

Platform:

  • Shopify Checkout Integration
  • Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Step 1 - Create the flow

Build your drip campaign in your Recharge merchant portal:

  1. Click Churn tools in your merchant portal and select Win Backs from the dropdown.
  2. Click Create from template and choose Win Backs: Through Recharge.
  3. Click Get started to create the flow.
  4. Click Manage settings to add the following to your Win Back flow:
    • Flow title: Add a name to the flow.
    • Flow description: Add a description for internal purposes.
    • Flow duration: Add a start or end date as to how long the flow is active for, or configure the flow to start immediately upon activation, and run until you choose to disable it.
    • Limit the total number of offers that can be claimed: Limit the total number of offers a customer can claim.
    • Limit how many times each customer can claim your offer: Set a limit as to how many times a customer can claim the available offer.

Step 2 - Review the existing flow

To help you get started, Recharge provides a prebuilt drip flow you can activate immediately. This campaign has multiple stages and triggers for customers who have deactivated all of their subscriptions.

Review each stage of the campaign to ensure it matches your business needs.

Offer one

The initial campaign, where customers receive a notification 30 days after cancelling all of their subscriptions. Review the following nodes and make adjustments as needed:

Notification

Update the sender name, email, and subject line, and use HTML to change the content of the email. Recharge supports multiple language translations for drip campaign notifications sent from Recharge.

Win Back emails are marketing emails. To comply with anti-spam laws, Recharge includes a default unsubscribe link in every Win Back notification. You can’t remove this link, but you can customize the messaging by using the {{unsubscribe_url}} variable within an anchor (<a>) tag.

To ensure the unsubscribe link remains functional, the {{unsubscribe_url}} variable must be placed inside the href attribute of an anchor tag, like this:

<p>Don't want to receive these emails? <a href="{{unsubscribe_url}}" id="izd1h">Unsubscribe here</a></p>

Landing page

Configure the offer and landing page that customers see when they click the link to reactivate in your notification:

  • Select whether customers can subscribe to a product that you choose, or if their previous subscription should be reactivated
  • Optional - Select a collection of products to display to customers that they can add to their order
  • Optional - Add an incentive (either a free gift, a discount code, or a percentage discount) to encourage the customer to reactivate
  • Confirm when to start processing orders for the campaign
  • Customize the landing page experience:
    • Update the offer banner text to encourage customers to subscribe again. Use the {customer}, {discount}, and {planDiscount} variables to personalize the offer banner
    • Update the cart that customers see when they go to confirm the offer
    • Update the Account link where customers can log in to their customer portal
  • Optional - Click Credits, then toggle the turn on credit application setting on to allow customers to apply credits when reactivating their subscription. This section only appears if the customer has an available balance.
    • Use {available_balance}, {days_until_expiration}, and {credit_expiration_date} variables in the Heading and Body textto show expiration details and create urgency.

Subscription frequency selection

Customers can update the delivery frequency when reactivating a subscription or adding products on the landing page.

  • Reactivated subscriptions: The customer’s previous subscription frequency is selected by default, but customers can choose a different available subscription plan.
  • Products added from the carousel: Customers can select a subscription frequency if the product has multiple available plans.

Subscription frequency is pre-selected based on the customer’s previous settings, but it is not locked.

Wait for action

Set a time limit for customers to claim their offer. If the customer doesn’t complete the action within this time limit, they’ll continue along in the flow.

If the customer reactivates their subscription in offer one, the flow ends. If the customer does not complete the action within the specified time frame, they’re sent to offer 2 of the drip campaign.

Note: When using the Send test option while editing or previewing emails in Win Back drip campaigns, Recharge does not populate variables, as it does for regular notification test emails. This option lets you view the email's styling, layout, and overall appearance without testing Win Back links or other variables.

Customer reactivated node

This node ends the campaign after a customer has already reactivated their subscription on their own. It does not automatically reactivate a customer's subscription. 

Offer two

Offer two of the flow occurs if the customer does not reactivate their subscription within the timeframe specified in offer one. You can customize the second offer of the drip campaign to use different messaging in the notification or offer different incentives. Offer two consists of the same nodes in offer one.

Offer three

Offer three of the flow occurs if the customer does not reactivate their subscription within the timeframe specified in offer two. You can customize the final offer of the drip campaign to use different messaging in the notification, or offer different incentives. Offer three consists of the notification and landing page nodes.

Optional - Add additional nodes to the existing canvas

While Recharge provides a prebuilt drip campaign, you can add additional nodes to the canvas or additional offers to the campaign.

In addition to the nodes mentioned in Step 2, you can add the following nodes through the Add a node menu at any point in the drip campaign:

  • A/B Test node: Use the A/B test node to test different incentives and landing pages and understand what resonates most with your customers.
  • Conditional branch node: Use this node to create multiple branches in the flow, where customers must meet specified conditions to proceed. For example, you could use the customer tags condition to create a unique experience for customers based on your Shopify customer tags.
  • Segment node: Use the segment node to add or remove customers to a specified segment when they reach a certain point in the flow.

Step 3 - Save and activate the flow

  1. Click Save in the top right corner to save the flow.
  2. To preview your landing page after saving changes, go to the Landing page node, click the vertical dot menu, and select Preview landing page. You can only test the landing page with customers who have inactive subscriptions.
  3. Click Activate when you’re ready to go live with the flow.
  4. Optional: By default, the system pre-selects the Yes, include customers who have already churned option. Keep this option selected to include churned customers in the flow. If unselected, the flow targets customers who churn after activation.
  5. Select Confirm: activate Flow to enable the flow.
Note: Customers already in a campaign before it is deactivated will still receive notifications from that campaign until it finishes. To prevent them from receiving emails from multiple campaigns, disable the 'Yes, include customers who have already churned' option when building the flow.

Expected outcome

After finalizing your campaign, you’ll be able to send customers a series of automated emails or messages over time that encourage them to reactivate their subscriptions.

Each message is "dripped" out at intervals you set, encouraging customers to reactivate at the right times.

Performance and activity

See Understanding Win Back performance and activity for a detailed breakdown of available analytics.

Considerations

Review the following when using Win Backs: Through Recharge:

Consideration

Notes
Landing page 
  • As a default setting, customers can access the landing page multiple times, but they are restricted to claiming the offer only once. This setting can be modified within the flow settings.
  • Customers cannot see the landing page until it is activated.
Customer portal
Payment method
  • If your store does not use frictionless payment methods, only inactive customers with a valid payment method and address saved in Recharge can view the landing page. 
  • If your store has this update enabled, customers with an invalid payment method can view the landing page and are prompted to add a credit card before reactivating the subscription.
  • If you use the Win Back landing page option and use Recharge’s pre-built Subscriber Win Back flow in Klaviyo, you can safely remove the Klaviyo flow filter that excludes customers with the cancellation reasons “Max Number of Charge Attempts Reached” and “Failed Payment Flow Max Retries.” Since there's no need to filter out customers with invalid payment methods, these filters are unnecessary. This does not apply to drip campaigns.
Discount codes
  • Make sure to only use supported discount codes when configuring discounts to offer through Win Back campaigns. 
  • The Win Back landing page by default displays the discount incentive. If your discount code has specific conditions, such as a minimum purchase, the discount will display to customers, but will not apply unless the customer meets those conditions. Make sure your landing page clearly states these requirements.
  • See Why didn't my customer receive their Win Back discount? for additional troubleshooting information if your customers are not receiving their discounts.
Bundles
  • Customers can reactivate preset and customizable bundles through Win Backs, however, you cannot offer a customizable bundle as a free gift in a reactivation flow.
  • Customers are subscribed to the original bundle contents when they reactivate. You can bulk swap bundle selections if the original bundle contents are no longer available.
Expired subscriptions
  • Customers cannot reactive expired subscriptions through Win Backs, and they are not displayed on the landing page.
Multi-currency
  • Win Backs are not compatible with multi-currency.
Prepaid subscriptions
  • Win Backs are compatible with prepaid subscriptions.
  • Customers who cancel a prepaid subscription may still have $0 shipments remaining. Set a long enough delay before sending any Win Back email to ensure customers receive all remaining shipments first.
Dynamic pricing Win Backs is not compatible with Dynamic Pricing.
Win Back email link expiration

  • Win Back email links provide temporary access to the customer portal for security purposes.

    • Unopened emails: The link remains valid for up to one year after the email is sent.
    • Opened emails: Once a customer opens the email and accesses the link, their session expires after one hour.

  • After the one-hour session expires, the link no longer logs the customer in automatically. Customers can still access and redeem their Win Back offer by logging in to their customer portal.
Product inventory
  • Win Backs: Through Klaviyo do not account for product inventory. Customers can still reactivate out-of-stock products, and the order either fails or processes successfully depending on your order processing settings.
Free gift incentives
  • When you add a free gift incentive to a landing page and you use Product Subscription Plans, you must make sure to set the free gift to available as a one-time product, otherwise, the landing page displays an error.

Resources

Win backs

Getting started instructions

Landing pages

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