Win-Back Sequences That Recovered 23% of Lapsed Buyers
An e-commerce business had a growing segment of lapsed buyers and no active re-engagement programme. We designed, built, and launched a Klaviyo win-back system in 8 weeks, and recovered nearly a quarter of customers they'd written off.
The problem
What the team was dealing with
The business had 18 months of customer data in Shopify but hadn't built a single automated win-back flow. Their email list was growing but engagement was dropping as more subscribers fell into dormancy. The founder knew revenue was being left on the table, they just didn't know how much.
- Industry
- E-commerce / Retail
- Type of work
- Retention Sprint
- Tools involved
- Klaviyo, Shopify, Google Sheets, Hotjar
Results
~4% → 23%
18% → 41%
14% → 31%
Negligible → 19% of total
The approach
How the work was approached
Define what "lapsed" actually means
We pulled 18 months of Shopify data and built a customer segmentation model based on purchase recency, frequency, and order value. This revealed four distinct lapsed segments with different win-back potential. Rather than blasting the whole list with one campaign, we designed separate sequences for each cohort, with different timing, offers, and messaging.
Build with the end in mind
We mapped every email in the sequence before writing a single subject line. Three-touch sequences for mid-value lapsed customers; five-touch with escalating incentives for high-value customers. Each email had a single goal: move the reader one step closer to a purchase. Copy was tested with 3–5 subject line variants per send.
Launch, measure, iterate
We launched all four sequences in week 4 and ran weekly optimisation cycles. Underperforming subject lines were swapped within 48 hours. Sending times were adjusted based on open-rate data. By week 8, the sequences were stable and producing predictable revenue, becoming the business's highest-ROI email channel.
“We'd been meaning to do this for 18 months. Faith had it designed, approved, and live within 3 weeks, and the recovery rate from lapsed customers genuinely surprised us.”
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