Win-back campaigns automatically reach out to subscribers who have cancelled, offering a personalized incentive to come back. When a customer cancels a subscription, Subi sends them a follow-up email after a delay you choose. The email includes a one-click reactivation link that takes them to a dedicated landing page where they can resubscribe with the offer applied — no login, no portal navigation, no payment-method hunting.
This article walks through creating your first campaign, the offer and timing options available, what your customers will see, and how to read the results.
When to use win-back
Win-back targets voluntary cancellations — subscribers who chose to cancel from the customer portal. It is the right feature to use when:
You want to recover revenue from cancelled customers who might come back with the right incentive.
You want a hands-off, repeatable workflow rather than emailing past subscribers manually.
You want to test which offers work best for different cancellation reasons (for example, a discount for "too expensive" cancellations and a free gift for "I have enough product").
Involuntary churn from failed payments is handled by a separate feature — see Payment recovery.
Find win-back in your Subi admin
From the Subi admin sidebar, click Retention. You'll see the Win-back campaigns card alongside Payment recovery, Cancellation flow, Auto product swap, and Loyalty program. Click Manage campaigns to open the win-back list.
Create a win-back campaign
From the Win-back campaigns list, click Create campaign in the top right. If you already have campaigns, they appear here filterable by All / Active / Inactive, with at-a-glance numbers for emails sent and reactivations recovered.
The campaign form has three sections. You'll fill them out top to bottom and click Save.
1. Campaign name
A short label only your team sees — something like "Price-sensitive customers" or "Lapsed annual subscribers". Customers never see this name; it just helps you tell campaigns apart on the list page.
2. Target cancellation reasons
Choose which cancellation reasons should trigger this campaign. Leave the dropdown on All cancellation reasons and the campaign matches every voluntary cancellation. Pick specific reasons to run different campaigns for different reasons — for example, one campaign with a 20% discount for "Too expensive" and a different campaign with a free gift for "Not using enough".
Note: cancellations made directly from the Shopify admin (rather than the customer portal) have no recorded reason. Campaigns with no reason filter still match those cancellations; campaigns that target specific reasons will not.
3. Offer emails
Each campaign has one or more email steps. The form shows each step as a row in the Offer emails table — Send after (delay), Subject, and Offer.
For each row you can configure:
Send after — days after the cancellation for step 1, or days after the previous step for follow-ups. The minimum for step 1 is 1 day so the win-back email doesn't collide with the transactional cancellation confirmation.
Subject and body — customize the email content. The editor supports merge tags so you can personalize the message (customer first name, the product they cancelled, the offer details, and the reactivation link). A live preview shows you exactly what the customer will receive.
Offer — pick one of three offer types:
Percentage discount — for example, 20% off for the next 3 cycles.
Fixed amount discount — for example, $5 off the first order.
Free gift — adds a specific product to the next order at no charge.
Use Add follow-up email to chain more steps. A common pattern: a 10% discount at day 7, then a 20% discount or a free gift at day 30 if the customer hasn't reactivated. You can mix offer types across steps — many merchants escalate.
When you're done, click Save. Active campaigns start matching new cancellations right away.
What your customers receive
When a customer cancels and a campaign matches, Subi schedules the email step according to the delay you configured. At the scheduled time, the customer receives the email with the offer details and a Resubscribe button.
Clicking the button takes them to a one-page reactivation landing page that shows the product they cancelled, the offer applied (for example, "15% off for the next 5 cycles"), the new price after the discount, and the offer expiration date. One more click and the subscription is reinstated. If Shopify has invalidated the original payment method (which happens when a customer cancels their last active subscription), the landing page asks for a new card before confirming.
Read the analytics
The campaign list shows headline numbers at a glance — Status, Offer, total emails Sent, and total Reactivations. Click into a campaign to see a richer Analytics page with open rate, click rate, recovered revenue, and a per-step breakdown showing which step is doing the heavy lifting.
Use these numbers to iterate. If step 1's discount isn't converting, try a different offer or a different delay. Once you've validated the format, add a second campaign for a different reason or a different offer.
Activate, pause, and delete campaigns
You can pause a campaign at any time — it stops matching new cancellations but won't interrupt emails already scheduled to customers from earlier matches. Reactivate the campaign to resume matching new cancellations.
Deleting a campaign removes it from your dashboard. Customers who have already received an email and clicked through to the landing page can still complete their reactivation.
Things to keep in mind
Minimum delay — the first email step must be at least 1 day after cancellation, so win-back doesn't collide with the standard cancellation confirmation email.
Original plan availability — if you've deleted the selling plan the customer originally subscribed to, the landing page asks them to pick an available plan instead.
Product availability — if the product is out of stock or unpublished, reactivation is blocked for that product. The customer sees a clear message.
One-time discount — the offer is single-use. A customer can't claim the same offer twice from the same email.
Next steps
Start with a single campaign targeting your most common cancellation reason. Use a modest discount (10-20%) in step 1, give it 30 days of data, and iterate from there. Once you've validated the format, add a second campaign for a different reason or a different offer.
If you have questions or need help designing your first campaign, reach out to [email protected] and we'll walk you through it.