Customer Winback Strategy: 6 Proven Strategies That Work

Customer relationships evolve over time. While some shoppers stay loyal to your store, others eventually drift away as their needs, preferences, or buying habits change. Having a solid customer winback strategy can help you rekindle interest and bring these customers back to your store. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through what a customer winback strategy is, share why it’s important for long-term growth, and list actionable strategies you can use today. Let’s get right into it!  

What Is A Customer Winback Strategy?

A customer winback strategy is a marketing approach that aims to re-engage customers who have previously purchased from your store but haven’t returned in a while. The goal is to rekindle their relationship with your brand and encourage them to make another purchase. This is typically done through personalized, timely messaging and targeted incentives, such as exclusive discounts, store credits, or retargeting ads. 

Why Is A Customer Winback Strategy Important?

Winning back past customers is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your business. 

According to industry insights, acquiring new customers can cost 5-7 times more than retaining existing ones. On top of that, existing customers are also 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more on your business compared to new customers. All of this makes customer winback a worthwhile endeavor for long-term growth. 

With a strong customer winback strategy, you can:

• Increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Winback efforts can help bring back one-time buyers and turn them into repeat customers. Over time, this can boost your customer lifetime value (CLV) and revenue per customer. 
• Strengthen brand loyalty: Thoughtful, personalized customer winback campaigns show customers that you value their relationship with your brand, not just their last purchase. When customers are recognized and appreciated, they’re more likely to reconnect and stay engaged with your brand.
• Gain important insights on why customers leave: Winback campaigns typically include feedback requests, giving you valuable insights about pricing concerns, product gaps, or shopping experience issues. 
• Grow your business with less marketing spend: Since you’re talking to customers who already know your brand, winback campaigns require less budget and effort compared to customer acquisition. 

6 Customer Winback Strategies To Bring Customers Back

Now that we all understand the value of a good customer winback strategy, let’s explore specific ways to put it into action. Below, we walk you through proven ways to re-engage inactive customers and bring them back to your store. 

1. Send personalized email winback campaigns

Email is one of the most effective channels for re-engaging customers, especially when it’s personalized and well-timed. According to industry research, sending out winback emails can increase the likelihood of selling to current customers by 60-70%. This makes them one of the winback strategies when it comes to ROI. 

Winback emails can remind past customers why they loved your store, reintroduce your latest products, and give them a compelling reason to come back. Here are some tips to make your winback email more effective: 

• Mention the customer by name to make the message feel personal
• Reference their past order or browsing history to show relevance
• Offer a meaningful incentive, such as a discount, free shipping, or store credit
• Create urgency with a limited-time offer or expiration date

Spotify’s winback email is a great example of a simple and personalized approach. The email highlights the benefits the customer might be missing out on (ad-free music and uninterrupted listening), framing the message around the experience the user once enjoyed. 

2. Offer an exclusive winback discount

Sometimes, all it takes is the right offer to bring a customer back. Unlike sitewide discounts, winback offers are personalized and exclusive: they target inactive customers with an incentive just for them. This creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency, and gives them a compelling reason to re-engage now, rather than later. 

Here are some offer ideas to try: 

• “We miss you” 15% off coupon
• Free shipping on your next order
• $15 off if you purchase within 3 days 

To encourage action, your offer should feel exclusive, limited-time, and personalized. Take this winback email from Etsy, for example. The email reminds the customer that items in their cart are now discounted, shows the product they were interested in, and includes a time-sensitive offer to encourage them to check out.

If you’re running a WooCommerce store, you can use Advanced Coupons to create hyper-tailored winback discounts. With this powerful tool, you can set cart conditions to target shoppers based on their order history, user role, cart condition, total spend, and more. 

💡  POWER TIP: You can also use Advanced Coupons to create URL coupons that automatically apply the discount to the customer’s cart—perfect for winback email campaigns! 

3. Use store credits to incentivize returns

Store credits are a powerful tool for any customer winback strategy. They work like “virtual cash”, giving customers a set amount that they can spend on anything they want from your store. Most store owners we work with issue store credits as part of their loyalty rewards program or refund processes, but they’re also effective as winback incentives. 

Depending on how your store credit system is set up, you can use it to re-engage customers in strategic ways. For instance, you can: 

• Store credit expiry reminders 
• Offer bonus store credit to encourage customers to come back
• Reward inactive loyalty members with extra store credit to reactivate their account

Here’s a great example from the brand Beyond the Box. They use a credit system called “Badges” to encourage customers to return. In this email, they inform the customer about expiring points and suggest easy ways to earn more. 

💡 GOOD TO KNOW: Advanced Coupons lets you launch a full store credit system in your WooCommerce store for free. This feature lets you grant store credits to customers, who can use them during checkout. 

4. Ask for feedback and rebuild trust

In some instances, customers leave because they had unmet expectations or poor shopping experiences. Not all customers will proactively share why; they’ll just drift away quietly. By actively asking for feedback, you can gain these insights and show customers that you genuinely care about their experience. 

There are a few ways you can go about this. For instance, you can: 

• Send a short feedback email asking them about their experience
• Include a quick feedback survey in your winback sequence
• Use emojis or star ratings for lightweight, low-friction feedback
• Offer an incentive (like store credit or a discount) in exchange for their thoughts

Knowing is just the first step. Take time to analyze the data you’ve gathered and look for common themes and pain points. Depending on what you uncover, that may mean adjusting your return policy, improving support response times, or updating product information. This process helps build trust, letting shoppers know that their feedback matters. 

5. Try retargeting ads 

Retargeting ads are paid advertisements shown to customers who’ve already visited your website, made past purchases, or browsed your products. They’re one of the best tools for your customer winback strategy, as they help keep your brand top of mind even when customers have already left your site. 

For lapsed customers, these ads can help: 

• Remind them of products they’ve viewed in the past
• Introduce new arrivals that may interest them
• Highlight ongoing promos to encourage their order
• Highlight brand value with testimonials, reviews, or new milestones 

💡 POWER TIP: Most brands combine their retargeting efforts with winback emails, especially for customers who have abandoned their cart. 

6. Highlight what’s new 

Another effective way to reignite customer interest is by highlighting what’s new in your store. This is perfect if you’ve recently released new products, introduced new features, or made improvements since their last purchase. This newness sparks curiosity and gives them a new reason to check what your store has to offer.

Some of the most effective channels to use for these announcements are emails, push notifications, and retargeting ads. 

Take this example from StoreAgent, a WooCommerce AI plugin that helps store owners save time and cut support costs. The email leads with a warm greeting, then dives into what’s new (a simplified onboarding wizard), complete with visuals and a clear explanation of the benefit. This gives users a gentle nudge to re-engage and check out what’s new. 

You can use this same approach to highlight:

• New arrivals or product drops
• Recently added features or integrations
• Backend improvements like faster shipping, better packaging, or new payment options
• Loyalty program or store credit upgrades
• Brand milestones or big announcements

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrapping Up

Crafting a solid customer winback strategy is worth the effort. It allows you to reignite the interest of customers who have drifted away, which is important for the long-term growth of your business. In this guide, we walked you through some of the most effective ways to bring customers back. Here’s a quick recap of everything we’ve covered: 

• What a customer winback strategy is and why it matters
• The key benefits of having a strong winback plan
• Proven strategies to re-engage past customers, such as:
  • Sending personalized email campaigns
  • Offering exclusive winback discounts
  • Using store credits as incentives
  • Asking for feedback and rebuilding trust
  • Running retargeting ads
  • Highlighting what’s new in your store

Advanced Coupons makes it simple to implement many of these strategies in WooCommerce through features like smart coupon rules, store credit systems, loyalty rewards, and more. It’s a must-have promotional toolkit to support your winback efforts and build lasting customer relationships. 

We hope this guide helped out!