5 WooCommerce Win-Back Gift Strategies for Lost Customers

Every WooCommerce store has customers who buy once and then disappear. A win-back strategy helps you reconnect with these inactive customers and give them a reason to return before they forget your brand completely.

Discounts can work, but free gifts often feel more personal and can make a win-back offer more attractive. You can reward inactive customers with a surprise gift, a gift with their next order, or a limited-time bonus product based on their previous purchase behavior.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build a WooCommerce win-back strategy using GIFTiT – Free Gifts for WooCommerce. We’ll cover gift-based win-back ideas, customer conditions, timing, and how to create offers that encourage inactive customers to buy again.

This article focuses on winning back inactive customers. For a wider view of the rules and campaign formats available, explore this step-by-step guide.

What is a customer win back strategy?

Win back customers strategy known as re-engagement or reactive campaign is a marketing plan that focuses on returning lost customers and re-engaging them by offering rewards, incentives, or special promotions. When running a customer win back campaign, your goal is to entice them to return and take action on your shop again.

Win back campaigns can be used to attract different types of customers, for example:

• The first-time customers who haven’t placed a second order. 
• The potential customers who abandoned their carts.
• The customers who have already canceled their orders.
• The customers who left their orders without payment.

The most successful win back campaigns are conducted using promotional offers, Retargeting ads, product updates, and more. Continue reading to learn more about the strategies to win back lost customers.

The best strategies to win back lost customers

Running successful winback campaigns depends on your segment and your business needs. There are many creative strategies for winning back lost customers that correspond to a brilliant conversion rate.

Here are six strategies to test and learn with. Let’s explore them one by one.

1. Winning back lost customers with special offers and rewards

Offering promotional deals and discounts is a successful strategy to entice customers to return. Even though every business has different types of customers, the research revealed that 82.4% of online shoppers stick to a brand that offers consistent deals. So, if you run an effective giveaway campaign, you can win back churned customers.

Let’s explore some examples of such a giveaway idea for running successful win back campaigns:

Offer free item with purchase

For this win back strategy idea, you can reward your customers with a free gift product when they come back and place their orders again on your website. Giveaway with purchase is a tried and true win back campaign that can help you motivate customers to return and buy from your shop.

To let Woocommerce win back inactive customers with this strategy, you can use free gift-offering tools like the Free Gifts for WooCommerce plugin. The plugin has an intuitive interface with a lot of flexible options and conditions to help you create a customized win back offer based on your customer behavior.

The most useful strategies you can offer for winning back lost customers are:

• Simple 
• Buy x Get y
• Buy x Get x
• Subtotal Amount
• And more

Reward customers with discounts

Offering discounts is a traditional way to encourage customers to make repeated purchases. The chance to buy products at lower prices entices customers to take action and place their orders on your website.

For WooCommerce stores, this win back customer strategy could be done by creating WooCommerce coupons and sending the coupon codes to the customers by Email or informing them by push notification.

BOGO (Buy one, get one free)

BOGO deal is another win back offer, that encourages customers to buy one product and the same product for free. Top online stores use this promotional plan to retain their loyal customers and boost their sales.

To offer one getaway in your WooCommerce store, we recommend you use free gift for the WooCommerce plugin. The plugin allows you to quickly set the product and gift settings and add some conditions to limit the offer for customers who have already purchased from your shop.

2. Gather Feedback and improve your products to win back churned customers

Requesting feedback is one of the most effective win back customer strategies. To gather customer feedback, you need to follow three simple steps:

1. Send them Emails few days after purchase or ask them to fill in a form immediately after placing their orders. 
2. Once you receive their opinions, it’s time to take necessary actions about their concerns. Improving the purchasing process based on customer requirements and updating products according to their issues, will show them that you respect their feedback and that their satisfaction is very important for you.
3. To make your list of customers feel valued and return to your store or website, you need to send them a follow-up thank-you email to inform them about the new adjustments or improvements.

3. Use retargeting ads as one of the best win back marketing strategies 

Retargeting ads can play a crucial role in returning customers to your shop. You can send creative offers to the customers and encourage them to increase the level of activity in your shop. For example, advertising free shipping for customers who place their orders after a while is a great win back marketing strategy. 

If you want to use retargeting ads as an effective win back campaign strategy consider the points below:

Create an exclusive ad for each customer 

When the goal of your ads is to win back churned customers with lower levels of activity in your store, it is essential to let them know that the ad is tailored just for them. By focusing on products and articles that are closely related to your customer purchase history, you can offer an exclusive advertisement for returning customers. 

Highlight the advantages of your offer in the ad

The key feature of retargeting ads is to address the requirements of the lost customers. So, you need to use attractive copy and quality photos in your retargeting ad to highlight the advantages and key selling points of the offer. We recommend you take a precise look at the content of your ads and enhance it as much as possible.

Send ads directly to inactive customers 

If you want to run successful win back campaigns by using retargeting ads, it is very important to specify your targeted customers and inform them about the advertisement exclusively.

To do this task efficiently, you need to identify and segment inactive subscribers or customers based on their last activities. By reviewing your customer purchase history, preferences, and demographic information, you can send relevant offers to increase the chances of recapturing their interest.

Employing retargeting ads on your website or social media platforms

In addition to sending retargeting ads to the customers, you can display the ads on your website or social media platforms which in return can increase the chances of re-engagement.

4. Use loyalty programs to run win back marketing campaign

Customer loyalty programs known as rewards programs as well is one of the most useful strategies to win back lost customers. These programs typically are some types of discounts, free gifts, or other promotional plans to entice customers to repeat purchases.

Let’s look at the seven loyalty strategies win back lost customers successfully:

Points programs: Point systems reward customers based on the points given to them for completing specified actions. Loyal customers will engage more with your brand to earn more points and get rewards.  

Giveaways: As we mentioned before giveaway with purchase is a fairly recognizable reward format for loyal customers. It’s an easy way of building win back marketing campaign.

Tier-based programs: Tier-based programs offer rewards based on the level of spending. For example, the more products customers order from your site, the more rewards they can receive. A tier-based program can motivate your lapsed customers to return and reach the next level of spending. The best tool for creating tire-based programs like tired quantity offers in your online store is the free gifts for WooCommerce plugin.

Read more: WooCommerce Tiered Free Gifts: Reward Bigger Carts Quantity in 3 Steps

Mission-based programs: If your company is highly mission-driven, it makes sense to try a Mission-based program like “2 percent of your purchase to donate to the charity of your choice.” This loyalty program has the best results for businesses that cooperate with a nonprofit organization.

Subscription programs: A subscription or premium loyalty program, is where customers subscribe to your website, and receive rewards in return. You can run this customer win back campaign if you offer membership plans on your website.

5. Update products and services to win back lost customers

If the information you gathered from current customers reveals a negative experience with a particular product or service, the only solution for winning back lost customers is to make necessary improvements. 

The purpose of this win back strategy is to recognize the customer’s needs that were not adequately addressed, resolve the issues, and provide them with personalized updates about the feature they were seeking or the enhanced flavor of your product.

When customers demonstrate that their needs are a priority for your brand and you have taken steps to address their specific requests, they will come back and purchase again from your shop.

6. Send a personal email to win back churned customers

Sending personal emails that match the individual customer’s interests can have a positive effect on their engagement with your brand. To get the best result, you can send customized messages to convey that you value their presence. This exclusive message should contain a special offer based on the customer’s behavior or purchase history. You can put a time limit to the offer to create a sense of urgency, making the customers take action sooner and return to your shop for purchase once again. 

Why do customers leave your online store?

Creating successful win back campaigns is not possible if you can’t identify your lapsed customers and the reason why they’re inactive. There are various reasons for a customer to naturally leave purchasing from your online shop.

Here, you can find out some reasons: 

• The customer interests or circumstances are changed and you failed to update your website based on.
• Customers switched to a competitor with better offers.
• There is a usual break in customer purchases like seasonal offers.
• The types of products provided in your store have been changed.  
• Customers are not satisfied with new products on your website. 
• Customers have bad user experiences such as low speed of loading your webpages. 
• There are technical difficulties in the purchasing process. 
• You don’t have proper customer service.
• Your product is not matched with the customer requirements based on the time of year. 
• You don’t offer promotions to respect your loyal customers. 

How to prevent lapsed customers?

Reducing the number of churn customers is essential for online stores to maintain a healthy customer base. Although it is not possible to completely avoid lapsed customers, there are some tips and tricks you can use to minimize them. 

Let’s take a look at the most effective strategies to reduce the number of lost customers in your online shop:

• Ask your customers for feedback periodically.
• Pay attention to the feedback of inactive customers and resolve the problems to prevent further complaints.
• Don’t bombard your customers with offers and notifications.
• Update your products frequently to make sure they are based on your customer needs.
• Make sure about the quality of your products before offering to purchase.
• Ensure the purchasing process runs smoothly and satisfies your customers.
• Provide proactive customer support to address their concerns promptly.
• Use win back strategy and customer loyalty programs.
• Monitor customer satisfaction metrics for ongoing improvement.

Why winning back lost customers is important?

Running a win-back campaign has many benefits for your business and is considered a valuable strategy for boosting your sales and increasing your revenue. Winback marketing plays a significant role in improving customer lifetime and has a real impact on returning your lapsed customers.

As we mentioned earlier enticing your existing customers to come back and place orders once again is more cost-effective than attracting new customers. So, win back offer can save you time and money which is important for the success of your business.

Implementing robust strategies to win back lost customers can also make significant traffic to your website. By running win back marketing campaign and using advertising methods like sending exclusive emails containing special offers or promotions, you can not only attract lost customers but also entice them to buy more from your shop. The appealing offers may encourage them to introduce your shop to their families and friends which can lead a great number of new customers to your shop.

For all of these reasons, don’t miss the opportunity to win back your lapsed customers.

Conclusion

A WooCommerce win-back strategy is most effective when the offer feels relevant and timely. Instead of sending the same message to every inactive customer, segment your audience and match the gift to their previous behavior.

Free gifts can help reactivate customers because they add value without making your brand look like it only competes on discounts. They also give customers a more positive reason to return.

With GIFTiT – Free Gifts for WooCommerce, you can create win-back gift rules based on user role, purchase history, cart value, specific products, or campaign dates. This makes customer reactivation easier to manage and more targeted.

No single rule fits every campaign. To explore more flexible approaches, take a look at gift-based sales strategies.