How Australian E-Commerce Brands Can Win Back Lapsed Customers With Email

In most Australian e-commerce brands, there is a segment of the database that is neither actively purchasing nor formally unsubscribed. These are lapsed customers — people who bought once or twice, never formally opted out, but haven’t engaged with the brand in 90 days or more.

This segment is valuable, and most brands are doing nothing with it.

A properly built win-back email sequence can recover 8–15% of lapsed customers — people who would otherwise quietly churn out of the customer base permanently. For a brand with 2,000 lapsed customers and an AOV of AU$110, a 10% reactivation rate is AU$22,000 in recovered revenue from a single flow.

Win-back email also has a compliance dimension that’s specific to Australia. The Spam Act 2003 governs how you can contact lapsed customers, what constitutes valid consent for a re-engagement email, and when you need to seek new consent before continuing to market to a subscriber. This guide covers both the strategic and compliance dimensions.

Defining “Lapsed” for Your Brand

“Lapsed” is not a universal definition — it depends on your brand’s typical purchase cycle.

For a supplement brand where most customers repurchase every 30–45 days, “lapsed” might be defined as no purchase in 90 days.

For a fashion brand where customers buy seasonally (2–3 times per year), “lapsed” might be 180 days without a purchase.

For a homewares brand where the natural repurchase cycle is 12–18 months, a customer who hasn’t bought in 9 months is not necessarily lapsed.

How to calculate your brand’s lapsed threshold:

1. Pull your customer data by time-since-last-purchase
2. Look at the distribution: at what point does the repurchase probability drop below 20%?
3. Set your win-back trigger 20–30 days before that drop-off point

In Klaviyo, this can be configured using predictive analytics — the platform will estimate each customer’s next predicted order date and can trigger win-back flows when that date passes without a purchase.

Spam Act Compliance for Win-Back Campaigns

Before discussing the sequence itself, the compliance context for win-back campaigns in Australia is important.

Under the Spam Act 2003, you may only send commercial electronic messages to subscribers who have either:

• Express consent: They signed up to receive marketing emails from your brand
• Inferred consent: There is a recent business relationship (e.g., a recent purchase)

For lapsed customers, the consent question matters:

Customers with express consent: If a subscriber explicitly signed up to your marketing list (via a pop-up, checkout opt-in, or lead magnet), their express consent remains valid as long as they haven’t unsubscribed. You can contact them with a win-back sequence even if they haven’t purchased in 12+ months.

Customers with inferred consent only (never explicitly subscribed): These are customers who purchased from you and were added to your marketing list on the basis of inferred consent from the business relationship — without ever explicitly opting in to marketing emails. Inferred consent has practical limits. Most compliance advisors suggest treating inferred consent as valid for approximately two years from the last purchase or interaction. After that, marketing to these customers without seeking re-consent may breach the Act.

Practical application:

• Customers who explicitly subscribed: Send the full win-back sequence
• Customers with inferred consent, last purchased 6–18 months ago: Win-back sequence with a re-consent option in the final email
• Customers with inferred consent, last purchased more than 18–24 months ago: Single re-consent email only — do not send a full win-back sequence before seeking re-consent

The Win-Back Email Sequence

A complete win-back sequence has 4–5 emails over 30–45 days:

Email 1: The Warm Re-Entry (Day 0)

Subject line approach: Personal, human, non-alarming

• “We’ve been thinking about you, [First Name]”
• “It’s been a while — here’s what you’ve missed”
• “We miss you, [First Name]”

Content: Don’t lead with a discount. Lead with warmth and brand story. Acknowledge the gap with lightness — not “you haven’t bought from us in a while” but “we’ve been busy over here and wanted to share what’s new.”

Show new products or collections that have launched since their last purchase. Remind them why they chose your brand in the first place. Include a soft call to action — not “buy now,” but “see what’s new.”

This email does two things: it warms up lapsed contacts before you make a commercial ask, and it identifies who is still genuinely interested (opens and clicks) versus who has permanently moved on.

Email 2: New Arrivals / Bestsellers (Day 10)

Subject line approach: FOMO and social proof

• “What Australians are loving right now”
• “Our 10 bestsellers you might have missed”
• “New from us — [product category]”

Content: Feature your strongest new products or your all-time bestsellers. Include reviews, ratings, and social proof. This email is for subscribers who opened Email 1 but didn’t click — they showed interest but haven’t committed to a return purchase.

Consider personalising by purchase history. If they previously bought from a specific category, feature new arrivals in that category. In Klaviyo, this personalisation is straightforward using conditional content blocks driven by purchase history data.

Email 3: The Win-Back Offer (Day 25)

Subject line approach: Clear value, specific offer

• “Welcome back, [First Name]: here’s 15% off”
• “We’d love to have you back. Here’s an offer.”
• “Our best offer for returning customers”

Content: This is the commercial ask. Offer a genuine incentive — a percentage discount, free shipping, a gift with purchase, or early access to a sale. Make the offer specific and time-limited.

Keep the email focused on a single CTA. Don’t include navigation menus, multiple product categories, or secondary messages. The win-back offer email should be the clearest, most direct email in the sequence.

Email 4: Urgency Close (Day 35)

Subject line approach: Deadline urgency

• “Your offer expires in 48 hours, [First Name]”
• “Last chance to use your 15% off”
• “This is expiring. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

Content: Short, focused urgency email. Remind them of the offer, restate the expiry date, and include the CTA. This email is only sent to subscribers who received the offer email but haven’t purchased.

In Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign, this conditional logic — send only if no purchase since Email 3 — is standard flow configuration.

Email 5: Re-Consent / Graceful Exit (Day 45)

Subject line approach: Transparent, respectful

• “Should we stay in touch, [First Name]?”
• “Do you still want to hear from us?”
• “Your call — we’ll follow your lead”

Content: This email serves two purposes:

1. It’s a final, genuine attempt at reactivation for subscribers who haven’t engaged with any previous email
2. It’s the compliance-driven re-consent email for subscribers whose inferred consent may be approaching expiry

Be transparent and respectful: “We’ve noticed you haven’t engaged with our emails in a while. We don’t want to keep sending if it’s not relevant. Click below to confirm you still want to hear from us — or simply ignore this email and we’ll remove you from our list.”

Include two CTAs:

• “Yes, keep me on the list” (re-subscribes or confirms express consent)
• “No thanks, remove me” (unsubscribes)

Post-Email-5 action: Subscribers who don’t click either option are moved to a suppressed segment (not deleted — you need the record for your consent audit trail).

Segmentation for Win-Back Campaigns

Segment 1: Purchased once, no second purchase (90–180 days) These are single-purchase customers who may have loved the product but haven’t returned. The full 5-email sequence is appropriate. Lead with new arrivals and the original purchase category.

Segment 2: Repeat purchasers, now lapsed (90–180 days) These are your most valuable lapsed customers. They’ve demonstrated genuine brand affinity. Lead with the personal warmth of Email 1, then move to personalised product recommendations based on past purchase history. The win-back offer should be more generous than for one-time buyers — this is a customer worth investing in to recover.

Segment 3: High-value lapsed customers (top 20% by LTV) For your most valuable lapsed customers, consider a more personalised approach — a founder or CEO message, a special offer, or a personal phone call (for very high-LTV customers). Email alone should be supplemented with other re-engagement touchpoints for this segment.

Segment 4: Long-lapsed (180+ days, inferred consent only) Single re-consent email only. Do not send a full promotional sequence before seeking re-consent. Frame the email as a preference update: “We want to make sure we’re only sending emails you actually want.”

Send-Time Considerations for Win-Back Campaigns

Win-back campaigns are lower-urgency than promotional campaigns, which means send time matters less for the first email — but still matters for the high-stakes offer and urgency emails.

Recommended send times (AEST):

• Email 1 (warm re-entry): Tuesday–Thursday, 9:00am–11:00am AEST
• Email 3 (win-back offer): Tuesday–Wednesday, 9:00am–10:00am AEST
• Email 4 (urgency close): Tuesday, 9:00am AEST — you want maximum visibility for the deadline email

For brands with significant Perth audiences: account for the AWST time zone difference. Win-back emails scheduled for 9:00am AEDT land in Perth at 6:00am AWST. Use send-time optimisation or schedule separately for WA subscribers.

Measuring Win-Back Campaign Performance

The primary metric for win-back campaigns is reactivation rate — the percentage of lapsed customers in the win-back sequence who make a purchase.

Benchmarks:

• Strong reactivation rate: 10–15% of lapsed customers who enter the flow
• Average: 5–10%
• Weak: Below 5%

Secondary metrics:

• Re-engagement rate: Percentage who open any email in the sequence (signals future intention even if not immediate purchase)
• Re-consent rate (Email 5): Percentage who actively confirm opt-in — useful for understanding which lapsed segments retain brand affinity
• Suppression rate (non-responders to Email 5): Measures list cleaning value

Implementing Win-Back in Your ESP

Klaviyo: The standard choice for Australian Shopify brands. Build win-back as a flow triggered by the “Customer lapsed” or time-since-last-purchase condition. The predictive analytics feature makes dynamic trigger timing available. Conditional splits between segments are straightforward.

ActiveCampaign: Build as an automation triggered by CRM activity or tag assignment. Best for brands with complex customer journeys.

Omnisend: Win-back workflows are available natively. Good option for brands using SMS and email together in the win-back sequence.

Mailchimp: Customer journey builder supports win-back automation. Less sophisticated than Klaviyo for multi-path conditional logic.

Campaign Monitor: Journey Designer supports win-back, though conditional logic is less detailed than Klaviyo.

Ready to Build Your Win-Back Flow?

A win-back sequence is one of the fastest-payback automations an Australian e-commerce brand can build. It runs on a segment that already exists, requires no acquisition spend, and recovers customers who would otherwise be permanently lost.

Excelohunt builds and manages win-back flows for Australian e-commerce brands on Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Omnisend — with Spam Act-compliant consent handling built into every sequence.

Get your free email audit and win-back opportunity analysis →

We’ll show you exactly how many lapsed customers you have, the estimated recovery value, and the exact flow to build.