List hygiene

Win-back is half about reactivation, half about pruning the list. The dormant customers who don’t reactivate aren’t just unprofitable — they hurt deliverability for the customers who do.

Why deliverability

Email service providers measure engagement to decide whether your sends land in the inbox or the promotions tab. Dormant unengaged subscribers drag the open rate down, which signals to the ESP that the audience isn’t interested, which moves more of your sends out of the inbox.

What we recommend

After the 180-day sequence, automatically suppress non-responders from active marketing for 6 months. Re-attempt re-engagement at the 365-day mark with a single email. After that, remove from the list. Most brands resist this and most brands’ open rates would climb 5 to 10 points if they didn’t.