A re-engagement campaign can reduce your Klaviyo bill, improve inbox placement, and bring dormant subscribers back to life.
Inactive subscribers pull down open rates and make inbox providers view your emails as lower quality. Over time, this lowers your deliverability score. Once that score drops, even your best customers are less likely to see your emails.
Many eCommerce brands continue emailing their full list without realizing up to 40% of it is no longer engaging. These subscribers receive emails, don’t open them, and signal to inbox providers that your emails aren’t worth prioritizing.
This costs money. It also limits performance.
A re-engagement campaign is a short email and SMS sequence sent to inactive subscribers. These are people who haven’t opened an email in the last 60 – 90 days.
The goal is simple: get them to open one message. That one open reclassifies them as active, which removes them from exclusion segments and brings them back into regular campaigns.
This approach also prevents inbox providers from penalizing you for low engagement. If someone does not re-engage after several attempts, they should be removed from your list.
A re-engagement campaign is measured by open rate. This metric is the fastest way to improve your sender reputation.
Sales can come later. The priority here is whether subscribers are still responsive to your brand.
If someone opens a single email, they’re warm again. If they don’t respond to a full sequence, it’s time to clean your list.
Some subscribers will naturally churn. Others may just need a reminder that your brand still exists.
To revive engagement, take advantage of two basic psychological concepts:
Plain formatting also helps deliverability. Fewer images reduce the chance of landing in promotions or getting clipped.
A technology brand using Klaviyo had over 250,000 subscribers. More than 100,000 had not opened an email in over 90 days despite regular sending.
Shawfire Media created a re-engagement campaign using 7 emails and 4 SMS messages. Messages were short, used plain formatting, and included personalized subject lines.
52,000 subscribers re-engaged. The remaining 48,000 were removed from the list. This reduced their monthly email cost by over $600 and improved overall open rates by 24%
Create a segment of subscribers who haven’t opened in the past 60 – 90 days. Adjust this based on how often you send campaigns.
Exclude high-value customers or recent purchasers who might still be engaged.
Send 5–10 total touchpoints across email and SMS over a 1-2 week period. Space them out to avoid overwhelming the subscriber, but stay consistent enough to stay visible. A typical sequence could look like this:
Each message should be easy to skim, low on design, and focused on re-engagement – not sales. The goal is to trigger an open and reclassify them as active.
Use minimal HTML. Stick to short copy, a clear CTA, and no more than one image. Consider plain text for at least one of the emails.
If someone opens a single message, they will be automatically removed from your “unengaged” exclusion segment and added back to your main list.
If no activity occurs after the sequence, clean your list. Suppressing inactive subscribers reduces costs and improves performance.
Focus on long-term list health over vanity metrics.
Purging your list too quickly can cost more than it saves.
Let’s say you have 10,000 inactive subscribers. They’re costing around $150 per month to keep on your email platform. On paper, it seems like an obvious cut.
But if just 10% re-engage during a seasonal or high-performing campaign, the resulting profit could easily exceed that monthly cost. These contacts may not open every message, but they might still convert when the timing or offer is right.
Give your re-engagement campaigns time to work. Let people surprise you.
Balance short-term cost savings with long-term earning potential.
Shawfire Media builds custom re-engagement campaigns for fast-moving eCommerce brands.
We handle segmentation, messaging, and cleanup—so your list performs at its best. [Contact us here.]
