💡 TIP: Check out the rest of this course for more tips on proactive subscription cancellation management.

Key takeaways:

• Brands leveraging winback/reactivation campaigns recoup thousands of dollars in recurring revenue (over $9k and rising, to be exact).
• Personalize messaging based on cancel reasons to appeal to your customers. 
• Highlight the benefits of subscribing and your product value to re-engage former subscribers.
• 1-click actions drive a higher rate of conversion through a seamless experience. Using 1-click reactivate in a subscriber winback campaign can re-engage hundreds of disengaged subscribers.

Introduction

Subscribers canceling? Not to fear! Cancellations are a normal and expected behavior of any subscription program. 

Research reveals that eCommerce subscriptions have a historical cancellation rate of around 40% across all categories - with reasons spanning convenience, pricepoint, flexibility, and product satisfaction. But what can we do to improve this cancellation rate?

Optimizing your subscription program to prevent churn before and during the cancellation process is a key component of a healthy subscription program*, but post cancellation reactivation strategies are just as imperative.

Here’s how to re-engage former subscribers with a compelling reactivation/winback campaign to recoup recurring revenue (early adopters have won back over $9k within 3 months) and overall program health.

💡 TIP: Check out the rest of this course for more tips on proactive subscription cancellation management, and work with your Ordergroove CSM to implement other pre-cancel retention tactics for a healthier subscription program.

✨ In this module, we've specifically included tips to leverage our 1-click Klaviyo and Attentive integration functionalities, but you can run a winback campaign through any Email Service Provider (ESP). Work with your Ordergroove CSM to set up your reactivation campaign and start re-engaging subscribers today.

Who should you re-engage?

Your audience is anyone with a canceled, formerly active subscription. This pool can include consumers with customer-canceled subscriptions, support team canceled-subscriptions, and subscriptions that you’ve canceled through a dormant subscription cleanup. 

Be intentional with your customer targeting. If a customer canceled due to pricepoint, be sure to highlight subscriber-exclusive financial benefits like their recurring discount, free shipping, or even one-time add-on product discounts like in the example below from Firebelly Tea.

When should you engage them?

To ensure you’re engaging former subscribers when they are likely to be in need of your product, we recommend messaging them with this 1-click reactivate opportunity + 1 frequency period after their subscription cancellation date. Find your most commonly selected frequency period, and leverage this timeframe to intentionally time your messaging.
Klaviyo recommends a series of 3 emails in your reactivation flow to fully optimize engagement opportunities. Here’s their comprehensive guide to building the optimal reactivation messaging timeline.

📚 Example: If your most commonly selected frequency is a 30 day cadence, we recommend sending the first reactivation email 30 days post cancellation.

💡 TIP: For subscriptions canceled with the specific reason of overstock, we recommend engaging them + 2 frequency periods post their cancellation date to give them a reasonable period of time to run through the rest of their stock.

How to engage inactive subscribers successfully

Here are some general rules of thumb to guide your primary 1-click reactivation message. To hear directly from the email experts, view Klaviyo’s comprehensive reactivation messaging guide here.

Personalize Your Messaging.

Nearly 80% of customers expect a personalized shopping experience. Customer segmentation is key here - appeal to your customers by addressing them by their name, and acknowledge the reason they canceled. You should include a short acknowledgement of your customer’s inactive subscription, let them know of their missed value, and encourage them to reactivate their subscription with a personalized incentive.

📝 Try it now!
Create and target a segment of customers who canceled due to flavor fatigue (“switch to another product or flavor” is a common cancel reason). In addition to the 1-click reactivate CTA for their prior subscription item, offer them a carousel of similar variant products or link to a landing page of all subscription eligible products.

Have a Clear Call to Action.

Half the battle is getting your customers to open the email in the first place. Have a clear customer call to action that’s reflected in your email subject line. This should reflect your value proposition and the necessary customer action.

Make the Benefits of Subscribing clear.

Include a carousel or other visual of high level subscription benefits, and call out your main value proposition within your reactivate button itself.

Strategically Style your Email.

The largest component of your email should be the 1-Click Reactivate button; drawing your customer’s attention and enticing them to engage. Short form copy should be smaller and emphasize any customer benefits of subscription with bold or color-differentiated text. See below for more details on styling your email.

1-Click actions drive engagement

A recent Cornell study found that utilizing a 1-click checkout increased a customer’s total CLTV by around 28%. And not only were 1-click customers spending more per order; but 1-click purchasing actually increased the number of visits to the site, the length of each visit, and the expansion of purchases across categories. Fewer clicks mean higher conversion. The same applies to subscription reactivations. 

How to build a reactivation journey in Attentive

You're ready to begin re-engaging subscribers through a compelling reactivation journey!

Option 1: Build Your Own Journey

You can build your own Attentive journey and use these instructions to set up a 1-click reactivate action within the journey. Please reach out to your Ordergroove CSM for further guidance and questions!

Option 2: Customize a Template Journey

Your Ordergroove CSM can copy a basic template journey into your account for you to style accordingly to your brand. You can then use these instructions to set up a 1-click reactivate action within the flow. Please contact your CSM for further instructions.

Looking at the Numbers 📈

An enterprise Ordergroove beauty merchant using our 1-Click Reactivate functionality has seen the following results Year-to-Date amounting to thousands in recouped revenue:

And top adopters who've configured optimal winback campaigns can attribute 20% of total reactivations to 1-Click.

How to build a reactivation flow in Klaviyo

You’re ready to begin re-engaging subscribers through a compelling reactivation flow! 

Option 1: Build Your Own Flow

You can set this flow up yourself by following the instructions in this article to create a winback flow. You can then use these instructions to set up a 1-click reactivate action within the flow. Please reach out to your Ordergroove CSM for further guidance and questions!

Option 2: Customize a Template Flow

Your Ordergroove CSM can copy a basic template flow into your account for you to style accordingly to your brand. You can then use these instructions to set up a 1-click reactivate action within the flow. Please contact your CSM for further instructions.