Re-Engage Inactive Subscribers

When subscribed contacts stop interacting with your emails, it's a good idea to try to win them back with a re-engagement strategy. It's often less expensive to target a current contact than it is to find a new one. Winning the interest of inactive subscribers helps you make the most of your Mailchimp audience.

In this article, you'll learn how to target inactive subscribers to win back their interest.

Identify inactive subscribers

It’s normal to have some inactive subscribers who don’t engage with your emails much, but are still interested in your brand. Use Mailchimp's segment tools to identify your least engaged subscribers, then target them with relevant emails that can win their interest.

To get started, you'll create a segment based on email activity or contact rating to identify inactive subscribers in your audience. If you haven't done this yet, read Identify Inactive Subscribers for detailed instructions.

Choose your re-engagement tools

The best re-engagement strategy depends on your industry and your brand. No matter what industry you're in, a successful re-engagement email or landing page uses relevant content as an incentive for subscribers to interact with your brand again. For example, if you have an online store, you could offer exclusive coupons or discount codes.

Here are some of Mailchimp's re-engagement tools that can help you attract your segment of inactive subscribers.

• Automation
  Send a series of re-engagement emails to inactive subscribers over time. You can also set post-send actions to automatically unsubscribe people or move them to different groups after they finish your automated email series. For example, use post-send actions to unsubscribe contacts if they don't open your re-engagement series.

  Add Post-Sending Actions to Automation Emails

• Polls and surveys
  Ask subscribers to complete a poll or survey, and send them a free gift or promo code when they complete it. If you ask the right questions, poll results can tell you what your inactive subscribers are interested in, and you can use this information to target them with additional emails and calls-to-action.

  Read our article about how to Send a Simple Poll or Survey to Subscribers in an email, or add a poll to a landing page.

• Online competitions
  Use contests, giveaways, or raffles to generate interest in your emails. Check out some online giveaway tips from our blog.

• Coupons or promo codes
  Send inactive subscribers a special promo code or coupon, along with a message letting them know that it's been a while since they visited your site. Highlight a few things that have been updated since they last visited to draw them back.

  You can use Promo Code content blocks in emails and on a landing page.

• Product recommendations
  Connect your store to collect data on your contacts' purchase behavior. Mailchimp will then use the data to identify personalized product recommendations for each contact. Armed with this information, you can then send an enticing email that automatically suggests products they might love.

Learn more about how to add a Product Recommendation content block to your email or landing page.

Test your content

After you choose your re-engagement tools, you're ready to create your emails. We strongly recommend you use A/B testing emails or multivariate emails to test different versions of your content and determine the most effective re-engagement strategy for your audience. For example, you may want to see if your subscribers are more likely to engage with a promo code for 10% off their next order, or a code for free shipping.

View your results

The most successful re-engagement emails will typically re-engage about 10 percent of inactive subscribers. Depending on the size of your audience and your sales goals, re-engagement emails have the potential to make a big impact on your opens, clicks, and sales.

View results in the Reports section of your account to see if your email captured the interest of your inactive subscribers.

• Email reports
  For a broad overview of how well your re-engagement email performed, view the email report.

• Poll results
  If you used a poll in your email, view the poll results in your report and segment subscribers based on their responses.

• Return on investment
  If you use an e-commerce integration in your Mailchimp account, review your e-commerce data to determine your ROI.

• Inactive segment
  View how many subscribers in your inactive segment re-engaged. View your segment.

If your results are lower than you expect, try increasing the discount or promotion in your next re-engagement email.