The Winback Email Flow: Start From Their Date, Not Day 90

A winback email flow brings back a customer who stopped buying. Start it 14 days after their own reorder date, not a fixed 90 days for everyone. Send 4 emails over 28 days. Save the discount for email 3.

When should you send a winback email?

Every source agrees on one thing. It depends on your buying cycle. Then they each pick a different number.

Source When the winback starts Emails Klaviyo help center "A little longer than your business's average buying cycle" 3 Glaze Digital 30, 60 or 90 days since the last order 2 to 3 Mailmodo No orders in the last 180 days Not stated Attribuly Right after the typical reorder point 3 Klaviyo community "A fixed 45 days won't work for everyone" Not stated

Klaviyo puts it well. A store that sells couches has a much longer buying cycle than one that sells shampoo. Then it tells you to pick one delay for the whole store.

That is the mistake. Your store is not one buying cycle. A customer who bought a 30 day supply is late on day 44. A customer who bought a 90 day supply is not late until day 104. One delay for both means one of them hears from you at the wrong time.

So start the clock from each customer's own reorder date. That is the day they should have bought again. Wait 14 more days. If they still have not ordered, they have lapsed. A lapsed customer is someone who missed the date they would normally buy. That is when the winback starts.

How do you find each customer's reorder date?

You have 3 ways. Use the first one that fits.

1. The product runs out. If you sell something that gets used up, you already know the date. Your replenishment email flow works it out:

Run-out date = delivery date + (units bought x days per unit)

That is the reorder date. The replenishment flow sends its last email 7 days after it. The winback starts 14 days after it. The 2 flows never overlap. If the replenishment flow did not bring them back, the winback picks up a week later. In Klaviyo, copy the branches from your replenishment flow. Set each delay to that branch's run-out date plus 14 days.

2. Klaviyo predicts it. Klaviyo has a field called expected date of next order. It is a guess at when each customer will buy again. A Klaviyo community member put it plainly: a fixed 45 days won't work for everyone, so use this date instead. Build your winback segment on it, 14 days past the date, in place of a fixed day count.

You need to qualify first. Klaviyo's predictions need at least 500 customers who have ordered. You also need 180 days of order history, orders in the last 30 days, and some customers with 3 or more orders.

There is a catch. For a customer with 1 order, Klaviyo says it uses data across all of your customers. So for a one-time buyer, the "prediction" is your store average with a nicer name. It is still a fair starting point. Know what it is.

3. You work it out from your orders. Under 500 customers? Use Klaviyo's own method from its help center.

1. Build a segment of customers with 2 or more orders in the last 2 years.
2. Export it as a CSV.
3. Find the column called Average Time Between Orders.
4. Take the average of that column.

That number is your reorder date, counted from the last order. Add 14 days. That is your delay.

If your products sell on different cycles, do this once per main product. A trigger split on the product in the last order gives each one its own delay.

How many emails should a winback email flow have?

1. Klaviyo says 3. The fourth one sells nothing, and that is why it earns its spot.

Field Value Trigger Placed Order, with a delay to the reorder date plus 14 days Filter Placed Order zero times since starting this flow Emails 4 Timing Reorder date + 14, + 21, + 35 and + 42 days Exit condition Placed order One job Find out if they are coming back

The filter is the line that matters. Klaviyo checks it before every send. Someone who orders after email 1 never sees email 2. Their new order also starts a fresh run of the flow, with a fresh clock.

Email 1, reorder date + 14 days. We noticed. "It's been a while since your last order." Name the product. One button to reorder it. No discount. Keep it short and calm. This is a tap on the shoulder.

Email 2, 7 days later. What's new. Show what changed since they last bought. A new product, a new flavor, a fix to something people asked for. Give them a reason to come back that is not habit.

Email 3, 14 days later. Come back offer. Now the incentive. A discount or free shipping. Make it clear and make it end. Use a unique code so it does not spread.

Email 4, 7 days later. Final check-in. Ask if everything is okay. Add one link to a short survey. No product, no offer. If they click, send them to the survey. If they do not, the flow ends. No fifth email.

Most guides stop at 3 emails, so they never ask. This is the only email that tells you why. Read the answers every month. If the same reason keeps coming up, fix that first.

Should a winback email have a discount?

Yes, in email 3. Not in email 1.

Klaviyo's own course suggests a small discount, like 10%, in the first message for orders of $100 or less. Here is the problem with that. Email 1 goes to everyone who passed the date. Some of them were going to buy this week anyway. A discount in email 1 pays them to do what they were about to do.

By email 3, the easy ones have ordered and left the flow. The filter took care of that. The people still in it have ignored 2 emails. They are the ones a discount might move. You pay for the discount only where it does some work.

The same logic says keep the offer small at first. Free shipping is the smaller offer. Start there. If your margins allow more, test a bigger offer on email 3 alone.

What about customers who lapsed before you built it?

A Placed Order flow only counts forward. Say your delay is 75 days. On the day you turn the flow on, a customer who last ordered 200 days ago is not in it. A Klaviyo user ran into this exact problem on the community forum.

Do not try to force them in. Send them a one-time campaign. The best answer on one Klaviyo forum thread says a campaign is the right tool for customers who lapsed long ago.

1. Build a segment of customers who ordered in a past window and have not ordered since.
2. Send one email to that segment. Use email 3's offer, since they have been gone a long time.
3. Make sure the segment updates right before you send, so recent buyers drop out.

After that, the flow handles everyone new.

Where this sits in the system

The winback is the last flow in the buying cycle. It only works if the flows before it did their jobs.

The post-purchase flow gets the first product used. The replenishment flow asks for the reorder on time. The cross-sell email flow adds a second product. Each one gives the customer a reason to come back on their own.

The winback is for the ones who did not. If it fires for most of your customers, look earlier in the system. One of those flows is not doing its job.

For the full build order, start at the ecommerce customer retention hub.

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This is 1 flow of 12.

12 flows, 37 emails, one job: repeat purchases. Every trigger, every send delay, every exit condition, written out so you can build them this month.