Win-back program
Writing to a customer who already left is the hardest job in lifecycle email. Most teams skip it. Mara doesn't.
The numbers don't favor you here. Most win-back attempts go ignored. But the ones that work pay for the whole program. Running it is cheap on Mara's side, so she runs it.
When it fires
On a schedule, not on an event. Mara picks up the lapsed-customer queue on a daily tick and sends to those past the cooldown window you set. Default cooldown is 30 days from cancellation; you can extend it.
The first send goes out at the cooldown boundary. Subsequent sends follow at 30-day intervals.
What's in it
Two or three emails over 60 to 90 days. The program is honest about the gap. Each send acknowledges they left and doesn't pretend nothing happened.
Send 1: "It's been a while." Mara recaps what's changed since they left: features they didn't see, bugs they hit that are now fixed, the things that might've been the reason. If an offer is attached to the journey, the email includes it.
Send 2: "What would have made the difference?" Direct question. Mara expects fewer opens here, but the ones that reply tend to convert.
Send 3 (only if you've added it): "Last call." Final attempt before the contact moves to a quiet list. No more win-back sends after this; they'd just be noise.
How she writes it
Full recipient context. The Copywriter loads the entire history: when they signed up, what plan they were on, what they used, when they cancelled, what they said if they replied to the churn-save send.
The Brand Analyst layer matters more here than usual. Win-back emails are easy to write badly. The wrong tone reads desperate or pushy or salesy. Mara's voice has to match yours exactly, because the customer's mental model of you was built before they left.
The repo signal matters too. "Here's what's changed since you cancelled" only lands if the changes are real and specific. Mara reads your shipped-features signal and names actual things.
What gets tested
The angle. Some lapsed customers respond to "here's what's new." Others respond to "what would bring you back?" Others want a discount. The bandit tests these per-segment, and the segments matter. A customer who cancelled at six months looks different from one who cancelled at six weeks.
What you control
Win-back is the program with the highest embarrassment risk if Mara writes the wrong thing. So the controls are tight by default.
- Approve every send before it goes out. Most teams stay on this setting permanently for win-back.
- Attach an offer, or don't. The offers package supports per-recipient discount codes that mint when the email sends.
- Pause for individual contacts, or for the whole journey.
Related programs
Win-back follows churn-save, which is the in-moment save. The programs share recipient-context loading but run on completely different timescales. Some teams run churn-save only and skip win-back; some run both. Mara handles either.
If a contact never actively cancelled but just went quiet, re-engagement is the right program, not win-back.