How to Set Up a Reactivation Campaign That Works

Every email list has silent subscribers — people who signed up, engaged for a while, and then completely stopped opening your emails. Over time, these inactive users drag down your email performance metrics, waste your marketing spend, and distort your engagement data.

But you can always try a reactivation campaign that identifies, targets, and re-engages those users with messaging tailored to their behavior.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up a reactivation campaign that works.

What is a reactivation campaign?

A reactivation campaign, also called a re-engagement or win-back campaign, is an email designed to reconnect with inactive subscribers and make them active again.

These inactive users are those who haven’t opened, clicked, or responded to your emails over a certain period, typically 30, 60, or 90 days. Instead of letting them quietly churn or hurt your performance metrics, you proactively reach out to reignite their interest.

Why is this important?

Re-engaging these inactive users is important on multiple fronts. Here’s how these affect you:

• Better deliverability: Too many inactive users signal low engagement to inbox providers, hurting your sender reputation and deliverability.

• Higher ROI: Recovering even a fraction of inactive users helps maximize the value of your existing list and acquisition spend.

• Cleaner list, stronger data: Reactivation campaigns help you identify who’s worth keeping — and who’s dragging down your performance.

How to set up a reactivation campaign in Mailmodo

Setting up a reactivation campaign in Mailmodo is pretty straightforward. We take you through the steps one by one.

Step 1: Create a segment of inactive users

Start by filtering out subscribers who haven’t engaged recently. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Contacts tab in the Mailmodo dashboard and click on Create Segment.

2. You can choose to use Mailmodo AI or the segment builder to create your segment.

3. Ask Mailmodo AI to create a segment of contacts who have been inactive for 90 days or if you’re using the segment builder, choose the pre-built segment if inactive contacts.

4. Hit next, name the segment, and choose the dynamic segment option. It will keep your segment updated over time.

5. Click on Next - create a condition and then check the defined conditions. You can also make edits to these conditions if needed.

6. Once done, click on Create segment.

Your segment is created, and you can refer to the segment by the name you’ve given it.

Step 2: Create or choose a re-engagement template

You’ll also need an email that needs to be sent to these users to reactivate them, and Mailmodo has ready-made templates to help you move fast. Here’s how you can create an email template.

1. Go to the Templates tab from Mailmodo dashboard.

2. If you’re going to create a new email template from scratch, click on Create new template or click on Create with AI to generate a new template using AI.

3. You can also pick a pre-existing template and edit it in the editor.

4. In the editor, make the necessary changes to make the email template align with your brand or your liking.

5. Once done, you can save it to use for later.

Here, you will also write the email copy and add personalization parameters to make it resonate better with your audience.

Additionally, you can also add interactive widgets that will make your emails more interactive.

If you’ve planned on sending an entire email sequence as your reactivation campaign, you’ll need to make the subsequent emails to be sent too in a similar fashion.

Step 3: Send your reactivation campaign

Option A: Send a one-time bulk campaign

1. In the Mailmodo dashboard, find the Campaigns tab and click on Bulk campaigns under it.

2. Click on Create campaign button on the top right corner.

3. Select your re-engagement template you had created and hit next.

4. Fill up the necessary fields like Campaign name, subject line, etc. and hit Next.

5. Choose the inactive segment you created and click on Next.

6. Review the details of the campaign.

7. Once checked, click on the Send campaign button to either send the campaign instantly ot schedule the email to be sent later.

Option B: Automate the reactivation journey

This is the option for you if you want to send an entire email sequence as your reactivation campaign. Here’s how to set it up.

1. Go to the Journey tab and click on Create journey

2. Either choose from one of the pre-built journeys or you can choose to start from scratch.

3. In the trigger selection step, choose the trigger Contact enters/leaves a segment and then click on Configure trigger.

4. Next, choose the option contact enters a segment and form the dropdown, choose the segment you created, and hit next.

5. In the visual journey builder, drag and drop the send campaign block, connect it with the trigger, and set up the block by adding a subject line and choosing the email template you created to be sent.

6. Add delay blocks if you want to add delays, and subsequent Send campaign blocks to add follow-up emails.

7. Once done, click on Next.

8. Test the journey

9. Once tested, click on Publish now to activate the automated sequence.

Once you’ve set this up, ensure that you check the performance of your campaigns using the analytics dashboard.

Conclusion

Reactivation isn’t just about winning back a few lost users; it’s about protecting your sender reputation, improving your overall email ROI, and keeping your database healthy.

Whether you’re re-engaging ecommerce customers who haven’t purchased in months or SaaS users who’ve stopped opening product updates, Mailmodo gives you everything you need.

Ready to bring your silent subscribers back to life? Set up your reactivation campaign in Mailmodo today.