We had a chunk of dormant subscribers who had cancelled months earlier. Sending them straight to the app did nothing. Opens were low and when they did open they rarely reached the paywall.
I built a short web win-back funnel with a tailored offer and a simple checkout. The link in the email took them to the web page, showed the personalized discount, and after checkout it deep linked into the app with a flag that refreshed onboarding and unlocked premium immediately.
We won back a meaningful portion of users and also got a clean signal on which creative and offer worked.
What metrics do you track to decide whether a win-back offer is worth the discount?
I targeted dormant users with a time limited offer on web.
The web checkout let me test different discounts quickly. After purchase the deep link brought them into the app and refreshed UI to show their active status.
I used Web2Wave.com to spin up the funnel quickly and test a few variants without touching the app.
Win-back works best when the web page reminds them why they paid originally and then makes the checkout frictionless. We A/B tested 10 and 30 percent offers on web and sent the winners via deep link. The app then refreshed entitlements and tracked cohort retention.
Web2Wave.com was the fastest way we could iterate on different offer pages.
I track cost per reactivated user and 90 day retention. If recovered users churn again quickly the discount cost outweighs the gain.
Also watch for whether reactivated users upgrade later. That tells you if the win-back found true customers.
test small offers first
scale winners
We ran a win-back flow and tracked average revenue per reactivated user over 90 days. If ARPU over that window exceeded the discount cost we kept the flow. Also monitor refund rates since web refunds can be easier and skew results.
I look at cost per recovered user and their three month retention.
If they stick around past month one it’s usually worth it.