Somewhere in your WooCommerce orders list are people who bought from you once or twice, liked it enough to come back, and then quietly stopped. They haven’t complained. They just drifted. A win-back email series is how you reach out before they forget you completely.

Late October is a particularly good time to do this. The holiday season is about to start, and a customer who comes back now is far more likely to shop with you again in November and December than one you’re meeting for the first time.

What counts as a “lapsed” customer

There’s no universal definition. It depends on how often people normally buy from you. A store selling coffee beans might consider someone lapsed after 60 days without an order. A store selling furniture might wait a year or more.

The simplest way to find your own number:

1. Export your orders (see our guide to exporting WooCommerce orders if you haven’t done it before).
2. For customers with two or more orders, look at the typical gap between their purchases.
3. Pick a point well past that typical gap. That’s your “at risk” threshold.
4. Pick a later point, often double the first. That’s your “lapsed” threshold.

For example, if most repeat customers buy again within about 45 days, you might treat 90 days without an order as “at risk” and 180 days as “lapsed”. These are illustrative numbers; use your own data.

Why win-back emails are worth the effort

A lapsed customer already knows your store, has trusted you with their payment details once, and has received a product. Reaching them costs nothing more than an email. Compare that with paying for ads to reach strangers who’ve never heard of you.

Win-back campaigns also do something useful for your list: they reveal who is genuinely gone. People who don’t respond to a well-written win-back series are unlikely to respond to anything else, and removing or suppressing them can help your deliverability before the busiest sending period of the year.

Segment before you send

Not all lapsed customers are the same. Splitting them into a few groups lets you say the right thing to each one.

If your email tool can segment by order count, total spend and last order date, you can build all of these without manual work.

A four-email win-back series

Here’s a structure that works for most small stores. Adjust the timing to your own buying cycle.

Email 1: “We’ve missed you” (no discount)

Send this when a customer crosses your “at risk” threshold.

• Goal: Remind them you exist and show what’s changed.
• Content: New products, a popular item they haven’t tried, a short note from the owner.
• Subject line ideas: “It’s been a while”, “New since your last visit”, “Your favourites are back in stock”.

Leading without a discount matters. Some people simply forgot, and a reminder is all they need. You keep your margin on those orders.

Email 2: Useful content or social proof

About a week later.

• Goal: Rebuild interest.
• Content: Reviews from other customers, a how-to, or a “most loved this season” roundup.
• Tip: If they bought a specific category, show products from that category.

Email 3: The incentive

About a week after email 2, only to people who haven’t ordered yet.

• Goal: Give a concrete reason to come back now.
• Content: A time-limited offer. It doesn’t have to be a percentage off: free shipping, a gift with the next order or loyalty points can work just as well.
• Tip: Use a unique or customer-restricted code with an expiry date. Our guide to creating WooCommerce coupon codes shows how to set usage limits.

Email 4: The last check-in

About a week later, only to those who still haven’t engaged.

• Goal: Confirm whether they want to keep hearing from you.
• Content: A short, honest message: “We don’t want to clutter your inbox. Click here if you’d like to keep getting our emails.” Include a reminder that the offer ends soon.
• What happens next: People who don’t click or buy can be moved to a low-frequency segment or suppressed from regular campaigns.

A worked example: a pet supplies store

Say you run a WooCommerce store selling pet food and accessories. Looking at your orders, most repeat customers reorder food roughly every five to six weeks. You set:

• At risk: 60 days since last order
• Lapsed: 120 days since last order

Now, in late October, you pull everyone who crossed 60 days. You split them into:

• Food buyers (replenishment): Email 1 is “Running low?” with a one-click link back to the exact product they bought.
• Accessory-only buyers: Email 1 shows new toys and beds for the colder months.
• High spenders: Email 1 comes from the owner by name, with a note about early access to the Black Friday sale.

Email 3 for food buyers offers free shipping on their next order instead of a percentage discount, because shipping cost is often the reason people drift to a supermarket. For high spenders, email 3 offers early access plus a small gift.

You then track, for each segment: how many ordered, how much they spent, and how many unsubscribed. That tells you which message to keep for next time.

What to measure

Track these for the whole series, not just individual emails:

• Reactivation rate: the share of recipients who place an order within a set window (say 30 days after the first email).
• Revenue per recipient: total revenue from the series divided by the number of people who entered it.
• Discount cost: how much you gave away in email 3 and whether those customers ordered again afterwards.
• Unsubscribes and complaints: a spike means your tone or frequency is off.

Be careful with open rates. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection has inflated opens for several years now, so clicks and orders are more reliable signals.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Leading with a big discount. You train customers to lapse so they get a better deal.
• Using the same message for everyone. A customer who spent a lot deserves a different email from a one-time bargain buyer.
• Ignoring why they left. If a lot of lapsed customers had a late delivery or a return, a discount won’t fix that. Look at order notes and support tickets.
• Never stopping. If someone hasn’t opened or clicked anything in a long time, keep emailing them and you risk hurting your sender reputation. See our tips on keeping WooCommerce emails out of spam.
• Forgetting to exclude recent buyers. Make sure anyone who orders exits the series immediately.

Timing it with the holiday season

If you haven’t run a win-back campaign before, now is a good moment:

• Late October: Send the first two emails to lapsed customers. No discount yet.
• Early November: Send the incentive email, framed as early access to your Black Friday offers.
• After Cyber Monday: Check who came back, move them into your regular campaigns, and suppress those who didn’t respond before your December sends.

This way, returning customers are already warmed up before Black Friday, and your December emails go to a cleaner, more engaged list.

Make it automatic

The first time, you might run a win-back series manually from an export. After that, it should be an automation: every customer who crosses your “at risk” threshold enters the series, and anyone who orders drops out.

iConvert Email Marketer segments WooCommerce customers by purchase history automatically, so lapsed and at-risk groups stay up to date without spreadsheets. Most dedicated email platforms with a WooCommerce integration can do something similar; the key is that the segment updates by itself.

Bring them back before the rush

Lapsed customers are some of the easiest people to sell to, because they’ve already bought from you. Find your own lapse threshold, split customers into a few meaningful groups, lead with a reminder rather than a discount, and stop emailing people who clearly aren’t coming back. Set it up once, and it keeps working in the background all year.

If you’d like lapsed-customer segments that build themselves, take a look at iConvert Email Marketer.